So basically I'm gonna keep this email shorter than usual and send you lots of pictures from my Armenia trip. But before I do that here's my weekend for ya. Friday was kinda crazy. President Campero called and said that there was going to be an emergency transfer in the district. The Armenian missionary getting trained right now has been having some problems and so President saw best to move Elder Moss to Cold Mountain where the Armenian was and the Armenian to my district in Saltovka so that Elder Efoshkin (native from Moscow in my district) can finish training him. The Armenian only knows Armenian and Russian, no English, so it's been hard for other missionaries to train him. So my district's pretty interesting now haha. I've basically got natives from Moscow and Armenia, myself and Elder Lambert, and Sister Ward and Sister Turnbull who is getting trained. I'm still trying to figure out how to be a district leader as well haha. So this is just another curveball the mission has thrown me. But I know that all will be okay though. The Lord will help me figure out what the best thing is to do and how to better help my district. I'm a little bummed that Elder Moss was taken from me but I'll see him around. Our area here in Saltovka is just waiting to explode. We have 12 investigators. Seven of those are ones that Elder Lambert had and we just found five more yesterday in our area book that we don't know. So there's a lot of potential here. I hope that I can serve here for a while. It's a great area. One of these investigators is a brother from Nigeria. I don't think I've talked about this before but in Kharkov there are lots of brothers from Africa who come here for school and then fly back to Africa after they've been here a while or finished schooling. Many of them have joined the Church and most of them live in Saltovka and Alekseevka another area. So one of our investigators is from Nigeria and his name is Richie. He has met with missionaries for a while now and we met with him on Friday. He doesn't believe the Book of Mormon is true because he's gotten into some anti-Mormon stuff online, but he really wants us to teach him the fundamentals like faith and repentance and stuff. The gospel of Jesus Christ. But he doesn't want us to use the Book of Mormon at all. So our next lesson with him we're planning on only using the Bible and seeing if he'll give the Book of Mormon one more chance. I'll keep you posted on how that goes. Also Friday and Saturday there was an open house at the Saltovka Branch. Basically members stay inside and missionaries go on the streets inviting people to come in and see the Church. It really shouldn't be like this because it's not really our purpose but we helped them anyway. There were several people who came through though, which was good. On Saturday we all took shifts of being on the street and being in the Church if anyone came through. If people came through then we'd show them rooms in the building and have them meet members and stuff. But anyway, Elder Lambert and I were trying to talk to people on the street and we contacted a younger kid. His Russian sounded really funny but we kept talking to him and then he started talking English and asked if we knew English. It turns out he is an AMERICAN here as a missionary for his church, the Church of Christ. He has been here for 9 months and will be here for 9 more. He's from California and has grown up Christian. We asked him if he knew anything about the Church and surprisingly he didn't. But he said he had always wanted to read the Book of Mormon though and was interested to meet. We took him on a quick tour of our building and then got his number. Before leaving he said "I can't promise you'll convert me or anything but I'm willing to learn more about your church!" We're gonna meet with him this week and are way excited. It's a small world in Ukraine!
Also this weekend was Daylight Savings which was lame. I decided it's my most hated day of the whole year, especially because we found out at like 9:15 at night, then making it 10:15. But it's all good though. And the other thing that happened this weekend was that I got my triple combination in the mail! It's the new translation of all the scriptures in Russian and has been in the making for 5 years. The old Book of Mormon in Russian has many errors in it that are pretty embarrassing, starting from the cover. When translated it basically said "The Book of Mormon: New Opinions of Jesus Christ" haha and now it says "Another Testimony of Jesus Christ" so already its good. I didn't think I'd get my copy so quick because all of Europe East and Russia have ordered them, missionaries and members, but I got it and am super excited to start reading. In fact I already have started and it's awesome. This is going to help the work move along here. And now for a few comments from your emails. I'm glad Elder Lambert didn't burn our apartment down as well, that would've been bad. That's funny that Neal's comp did that. Our apartment now is SUPER nice. It is basically like living in America, only with a Soviet oven. I need to send you some pics of it, it's one of the nicer apartments in the mission. We have a couch and a good study table. (not all apartments have study tables, it's weird) and our bathroom is very nice. A lot nicer than Cold Mountain's. Give Jenny's parents a very big thank you from me. That is beyond generous! And I'll keep my eyes open for my package. Sounds like it's going to be great.
You guys are the best! I love you so very much. Tell everyone I love them and thanks for their support. Keep on keepin' on and I'll talk to you later!
с любовью,
старейшина каун
украинская донецкая миссия
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