Hey, we had a really good week this week, I feel like we really got out of a little dip in our area.
So mom do you know if its possible to order books in Russian on the Internet and if so how much are they. I was in the book store the other day I was was looking at some books and I definitely want to buy some and they are really cheap here, but they would be a pain to transfer. For example, I wanted to get Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Narnia, and some actually Russian books like Tolstoi and Pushkin.
We spent most of Wednesday and Thursday with the new missionaries, we just did the usual routine with them. My favorite part is always taking the new missionaries and the trainers out to lunch on Thursday. We went to a legit Russian restaurant. I got everyone the holadets to try of course. Then that night was pretty cool too. We went to a part member family's house and she fed us some legit Russian food too. It was this salad thing of cucumbers, boiled eggs, sausage, onions, other vegetables and she served it up in dishes in front of us, then put a little sour cream on it and then poured kvass over all of our bowls of this salad thing. Kvass is a drink made from fermented black bread, it's kinda like root beer, but not really. It's really strong and smells like beer.
Friday we threw a tea party for members and investigators. Very few members showed up but a ton of investigators and new people showed up so that was good.
Saturday I was on left bank with Elder Marcy. Our investigator Kerril lives over there so we met with him. He picked us up in his car and drove us down to a little reservoir where they built a dam on the river. It was really cool We basically had our meeting walking along the boardwalk of this lake with him. They actually even have a beach on this lake. I couldn't believe it, there is this little beach there and it looked like California, they even had little shacks there to buy smoothies and stuff, I couldn't believe it, I didn't think a place like that existed in Siberia.
We had a great day yesterday. Artyom came to church. That got us out of a little streak that we were having when people weren't coming to church. Then that night was awesome. We had just broken our fast and were heading out to a meeting that we weren't really sure was going to show up. On the way, a guy starts yelling at us from his car, he actually really wanted to talk to us. We gave him a thing with our number on it and he drove away because everyone behind him was honking at him. He called within five minutes and said he just wants to come unto Christ and he's willing to do anything, so we have a meeting with him tonight, we'll see how that goes. Then not only did the meeting show up, it went really well and he agreed to meet with us tonight too. Then Elder Blake and Carr met with us to give us an investigator who they found who lives in our area, and he was great and is looking strong. So basically our spirits are really high right now. Basically all last transfer we felt like we were just working and busy and things weren't really going anywhere, but now things have really picked up and we should be able to set some baptismal dates this week.
Looks like next visa trip my group will be going to Kiev. We probably won't be going to Kazy for a while. Pres is going without us late this month.
Well, I think that's pretty much it. We'll know which ones of these new investigators are really serious by next week. I've been plucking away at the piano a couple times when we are waiting for meetings to show up. I had Elder Terry show me where the notes are on the keyboard. Now I can read any song. I can play the right hand of "Sweet Hour of Prayer" smoothly. It's sweet and there's something relaxing about playing the piano, so I like it.
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| Elder Davis and me eating. |
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| Elder Anderson and me with Misha and his mom, Olga. |
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| Me with Elder Mckay. |
- Elder Topham
