No I haven't seen Conference yet...

Because it was on in the middle of the night, and so we're all fixin' to watch it next week. Although when we showed up for church yesterday they were playing it over a loudspeaker for some of the members who came early. It was in Russian and I was in a different room so I didn't catch anything. But next week we get to go to the Avrora branch building and watch it. They're gonna have it on the second floor in Russian and the first floor in English. Cooool. I'll pay close attention to the talks mommie mentioned. Elder Holland's always good.

So, hi everyone. How is life? The weather is GREAT I didn't even wear a hat today. And I've packed away my marshmallow coat, hopefully until next winter. It's nice and warm this time of year. I'm here in Bezimanski, my new area. Pretty awesome here. Hey, Sam didn't get my email? Maybe I just wrote late or something. I don't remember what happened last monday, to be honest.... That was back in Kazan 3 or 4 years ago. Anyways, it's good to hear from home, I'm glad everyone got to go to the priesthood session. That's reeeeeaal good memories for me. I always loved going with the boys and dad. I'm going to look forward to that next year. So what else is new? Oh I read about Jameson, that's crazy. He said he talked to McKay on the phone, so apparently they're serving in the same mission. That's really crazy. There's a ton of connections. One of the assistants to the President here is Elder... from Centerville (Scott). He's a year older and he went to Viewmont. He's in Bryson's ward so we talked about that a little bit. We went on splits yesterday (I just got back this morning), so I was with him all day. It was a lot of fun because we gots the same roots. I also learned a ton because he's probably the best missionary in this mission. I'll get back to that. Anyways, that's one thing I love about serving here in Samara already, I'm right at the center of the work it feels like. The office is right next door to our area so we got to do splits with the Assistants and all that. It's a HUGE contrast from Kazan, where we had no contact at all (besides telephone) except for once at the end of the cycle. Nuts.

What else is going on? Patrick quit Little Caesar's HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET FREE PIZZA. Nah I'm joking. Good to hear that you've got something really solid that you're going after, seems like you've got a future with this lacrosse thing... Oh send my sadness to the Chipping's, that would be really scary. I'm really glad to hear that they're alright. And that's news that Amie's pregnant, congrats! I'm starting to wonder how many new people there will be in the family when I get home... So far we've got Brad and Carrie's new baby and soon the Chipping's and Dave and Chelsee's too. My companion's mom had a baby while he on his mission, so he's going to meet his sister for the first time in about a month. CRAZY. By the way, yes. My new companion is called Elder Swainston. He's a really great guy from Orem Utah. He lived in Providence until 7th grade, so he probably knew Tyson. I said the names Tyson and Tanner and he said it's really familiar, so he's going to look up in the yearbook when he gets home. Small world, right?

So I'm getting used to things here waaaay faster than I did in Kazan. We go by foot everywhere, so I've already got a really good feel for the area. Also, I've got the phone because I'm senior companion (hyuk hyuk) so making calls to investigators and members has already gotten me acquainted with lots of people that live here. This area's great. It's nice and ghetto, just the way I like it. Elder Swainston calls it "the Red Light District." I had a good laugh about that one. Right now there are about 35-40 people that come to church in our branch, although we have a branch list with 270 people on it. Lots of inactives. But doing work with them has been really great. We've been reactivating AND finding. One of the recently re-activated members gave us a referral before we could even ask. That was pretty great. She really trusts the missionaries now and her son is getting ready to get the Priesthood. Other than that, we had lots of time stopping by addresses on the inactive list and contacting along the way. Even though lots of the addresses are wrong or the people have moved or whatnot, it still was really effective because we found a good amount of people along the way. Including ... He's a new guy we found on the street. We met him on the street, the next day we gave him a tour of the building, and the next day he came to church. He's got lots of promise. So I'm really loving it here. It's a nice cozy little ghetto town.

I'm short on time, but last night we had a cool experience. Elder ... and I made some really solid plans with lots of goals for our split, but we also put a lot of focus on being led by the Spirit during the exchange. We set a goal to pray before and after every activity to make sure it was what the Lord wanted us to do, even though we already had set plans. And so we were on our way to a member's house, and we needed a man there because it was a lady there alone. We called people but didn't get any helpers on the lesson, so we decided to stop by a member's house whose phone wasn't working so see if he could help. But we prayed first. Right after the prayer, I felt like we should skip going to ... house and go straight to ... But I didn't say anything because if ... wasn't there we'd have to meet with ... out on the street, and she's somewhere in her 60's. So that wouldn't have been fun as it was getting colder at night. But as we kept walking I couldn't get over it, so I told Elder ... and he went right with it without asking any questions. On the way there we met this girl at a bus stop. She stared at the tags for a while and then she said, Oh you're Mormons. I've studied about you guys already. So we started talking to her and it turns out that she learned a bit about Mormons and read the ENTIRE Book of Mormon. It was crazy. We can't even get sincere investigators to do that sometimes. It's so rare to find someone on the street who's already put forth that much effort to learn. So we switched numbers and I'll find out later from Elder ... what happens with her (we were in his area). Then we passed through a park and found a guy sitting on the bench waiting for his wife. We were able to sit and talk with him, and it turns out he's got a family of 4 kids which is crazy in Russia. We got to briefly share the message of the Restoration with him, and we got his number to meet again, too. As it turned out, we called a member who didn't answer his phone earlier and he was able to help us, and we had a really great meeting with Sister ... We even got to set up a lesson with one of her friends who she called on the phone while we were there. It was amazing because we had no idea how it was all going to work out, but as we followed the Spirit, it turned out to be the most effective night that it could've been. And it was because we did what the Lord had planned, and counseled with him.

So that was neat. Also, after everything was said and done I got to have a gooooood long chat with Elder ... about Centerville while we were laying in bed. We stayed up pretty late swapping names and stories. Other than that, though, I learned some things and made some goals that have already changed my attitude towards missionary work. I'm LOVING it here. I'm sorry, but I think I worry about here more than I worry about home.... I hope that doesn't offend anyone! But whenever I have time, I get to pray for you, and write to you once a week. Besides, without you, I wouldn't even be here. I LOVE the work and I LOVE my family. You are all awesome. Don't ever do anything that will distract you from coming out, brothers. This is the best experience of my life.

ILOVEYOUBYEEE

Alex