last weeks mail that wouldn't send
Man I love you guys. I love how fast you type too. Mom sent a long email and then said she'd been typing forever. Then Sam sent a longer email and said she'd been typing only an hour. And send pictures. HA I don't know how you do it but I love it. Man I LOVE hearing from both of you! I get to hear all of Sam's mission stories and Mom's insights and the news about the family and all that. I skimmed mom's email real fast and she said "Grandpa got tired in Hawaii. He helped build a brick wall and got PLUM TUCKERED out." That made me laugh so hard for some reason. I think it's because now that I'm seeing what Russian is like with all its weird sayings, I can just imagine a Russian who knows English (aka Elder Kuzmin) giving me a super confused look when I say "plum tuckered." Also, I get a kick out of little things. Here's an example. We got a referral from Anna (armenian new convert) of these two Armenian twins, and their names are Samvel and Mamvel. I can't say it with a straight face! Samvel and Mamvel. Hahaha even just typing it I cracked myself up. Man life is great. Anyways, I just spent a whole paragraph talking about lame stuff. But in short, I love hearing from you guys.
MOM thank you so much for sending off that cd. You're on the ball! Thank you so much also for adding little details about the kids when you write. I love hearing about the sports and school and little daily things. It's the little things! How's Mitchell Moss doing? I love that guy and I'm glad he's still visiting a lot. I want to go skiing when I get back, with him and Patrick (and hopefully Caleb and Seth, too). We got a ton of snow this past week and it was all powdery and perfect for skiing. Except there's no mountains in Russia, which is why "rollercoaster" in Spanish translates to "Russian Mountians." Nonsense!
I'm also glad to hear that Sam's got an awesome companion. That makes life so awesome when you've got a great companion! Especially being a trainer, that's got to make life easy. I hear about missionaries in our mission who trained their 2nd and 3rd cycles and it blows my mind. Training in the first place must be super scary.
So on to the spiritual stuff. This week was nuts. We had transfers again, and I was with Elder Yates/Derby from California and then with Elder Anderson from Norway. That was pretty fun, I always learn a ton from other missionaries. Also this week, we had Sergei and Katya (that young couple I wrote about last week) get baptized. At the beginning of the week, he was feeling like he wasn't ready because even though he wasn't smoking at all, he still had a desire to smoke. We had some miracle lessons with him and explained to him that once he got baptized he would get extra help from the Lord, especially once he got the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We were able to promise him that the Lord would help him change his desires as he continued to prepare for baptism, even though there was a ton of opposition. Man it was so dang cool. After we confirmed him yesterday, he just kinda sat in the chair and looked around. Then we talked to him later and he said "I couldn't get myself to stand up! I was trying so hard but my body wouldn't move!" And during Sunday School he pretty much started prophesying. Not really, but he gave a lot of input and quoted the Bible and stuff, and listening to him talk you could just tell he has a rock solid testimony. Katya is amazing, too. She's been a super good influence on him, because he's had a crazy hard life. He started smoking since he was 8, and he sat in jail for a while at one point. Katya kind of turned him around, and she played a huge part in preparing him for when he met the missionaries on the street for the first time. I want to send pictures of the baptism but I ain't got a ton of time, and I also didn't get very many good ones because Rada was taking the picture for me. By the way, pass a hello to Elder Smoot from Rada of Old City Togliatti. She had lots and lots of good stuff to say about Brady and she even asked if he was married already. Hyuk hyuk. (I said YES by the way, nothing to worry about.) At least tell Pres. and Sis. Smoot, they'd probably get a kick out of it. This next week, we're going to contact this guy who's the son of one of the Babushkas in our ward, Sister Reisa. Apparently when the Petrunins were over teaching Sister Reisa, her son liked what he was hearing and he came in and said "I'm already fed up with drinking. You've gotta help me quit somehow." The Petrunins said We'll send the missionaries over! So that will be amazing if we can make it this week. His work schedule is crazy (according to Sis. Reisa) and she lives about 5 km from our apartment (and we would have to walk both ways). But we'll get to him for sure. Anways, that'll be great.
and now my time is up for sure and I haven't even sent pictures ahhhhhhhhhhhh! love you all bye
Alex
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