Hey,
So I wouldn't say it was a bad week this week, but we didn't accomplish as much as we thought we would when planning and setting goals. Some of those who we thought may become investigators have dropped off. Like Gleb who is very reluctant to hear any kind of gospel message, and Zhenia who obviously likes us so doesn't want to tell us no, but both times we had meetings with him, he called at the last second and made up an excuse not to come. Then we had two terrible first meetings this week. One guy just brought his bible and whipped out every scripture to try to prove our church wrong, which Elder Drasso eloquently countered every time. Then he told us we were serving the devil and stuff. Then another guy who just wanted to talk about America and wouldn't let us talk about the gospel.
Mom; There are a couple things maybe for the next package. If you could send me a picture of when I was baptized for my photo album and if you can find one, maybe one that's funny or slightly embarrassing, from any time in my life that would kinda start a story or something that would be good. And for music I can't remember exactly what I told you to send, but if I said Social Network soundtrack, I'm thinking probably don't send that one.
So, we have had some really fun p-days. Last week we went to the senior couple's house and watched The Incredibles. Apparently in the mission you can watch 1 movie from the approved list every 3 months. And this afternoon we are going to the Novosibirsk Zoo! So that should be pretty cool.
Our investigator, Aleksei, said he would take me next week to get a jacket for the winter. I'm really excited, he's a really cool guy who was a pilot. He showed us a jacket that he has. It's got like an inch of wool lining the entire inside including the sleeves, and the outside looks really warm - I don't know what is made out of. Elder Drasso says it's probably the warmest coat he's seen. Apparently it's like a military jacket and Aleksei's friend is a wholesaler or something and he's going to take me there to get one, so I hope it works out, and he said it should be under 5000 rubles so I'm happy about that. I'll probably go to the rinok next week to try to get a hat and boots.
Aleksei has been serving us some awesome food that his wife makes - like a potato cabbage soup and some fish thing that were both very Russian and very good. All the food here is really good, and that's probably because its very fattening. Pretty much all the milk is 2.5%. I don't know if you can get less. Also, Russians put mayonnaise on everything and like a lot of it..
So we are moving on Wednesday, so hopefully that will all go smoothly and it will turn out to be a pretty nice place. It's in a different area of town, I hope it's close to the metro because that will cut down on a lot of travel time if it is.
Some answers to questions:
- I haven't got the package yet... hopefully soon
- You can get peanut butter at a couple specialty stores here apparently. Sister Gibbons had like 20 big things of Jiff stored up in closets that she found that were "best" if used by a couple years ago, so we have been using one of those, it still tastes good to me.
- Sorry, no pictures of the flower bed, I'm not good at taking my camera places
- I'll answer the Old Testament question the following email but it will be Daniel fo shizzle
-Elder Topham
So I wouldn't say it was a bad week this week, but we didn't accomplish as much as we thought we would when planning and setting goals. Some of those who we thought may become investigators have dropped off. Like Gleb who is very reluctant to hear any kind of gospel message, and Zhenia who obviously likes us so doesn't want to tell us no, but both times we had meetings with him, he called at the last second and made up an excuse not to come. Then we had two terrible first meetings this week. One guy just brought his bible and whipped out every scripture to try to prove our church wrong, which Elder Drasso eloquently countered every time. Then he told us we were serving the devil and stuff. Then another guy who just wanted to talk about America and wouldn't let us talk about the gospel.
Mom; There are a couple things maybe for the next package. If you could send me a picture of when I was baptized for my photo album and if you can find one, maybe one that's funny or slightly embarrassing, from any time in my life that would kinda start a story or something that would be good. And for music I can't remember exactly what I told you to send, but if I said Social Network soundtrack, I'm thinking probably don't send that one.
So, we have had some really fun p-days. Last week we went to the senior couple's house and watched The Incredibles. Apparently in the mission you can watch 1 movie from the approved list every 3 months. And this afternoon we are going to the Novosibirsk Zoo! So that should be pretty cool.
Our investigator, Aleksei, said he would take me next week to get a jacket for the winter. I'm really excited, he's a really cool guy who was a pilot. He showed us a jacket that he has. It's got like an inch of wool lining the entire inside including the sleeves, and the outside looks really warm - I don't know what is made out of. Elder Drasso says it's probably the warmest coat he's seen. Apparently it's like a military jacket and Aleksei's friend is a wholesaler or something and he's going to take me there to get one, so I hope it works out, and he said it should be under 5000 rubles so I'm happy about that. I'll probably go to the rinok next week to try to get a hat and boots.
Aleksei has been serving us some awesome food that his wife makes - like a potato cabbage soup and some fish thing that were both very Russian and very good. All the food here is really good, and that's probably because its very fattening. Pretty much all the milk is 2.5%. I don't know if you can get less. Also, Russians put mayonnaise on everything and like a lot of it..
So we are moving on Wednesday, so hopefully that will all go smoothly and it will turn out to be a pretty nice place. It's in a different area of town, I hope it's close to the metro because that will cut down on a lot of travel time if it is.
Some answers to questions:
- I haven't got the package yet... hopefully soon
- You can get peanut butter at a couple specialty stores here apparently. Sister Gibbons had like 20 big things of Jiff stored up in closets that she found that were "best" if used by a couple years ago, so we have been using one of those, it still tastes good to me.
- Sorry, no pictures of the flower bed, I'm not good at taking my camera places
- I'll answer the Old Testament question the following email but it will be Daniel fo shizzle
-Elder Topham
