Baptism and Picnic

Our week was good. We are still struggling to find some investigators. That seems to be the common theme for my mission :)  Nevertheless, we had some pretty good things happen. Good youth night on Monday, great English Practice on Tuesday, a Baptism on Wednesday, a day with 3 lessons on Thursday and a full day of meetings and fun on Friday. Saturday was our picnic with the branch and Sunday was a good spiritual day. Monday, we had a fun youth night and had a ton of members and investigators come and it was a great way to help our soon to be baptized investigator meet more members. She is from Mongolia and doesn't speak a ton of Russian but you don't have to speak Russian to play "Ninja" or "Signs" (The games we played at youth night). One of our members from China actually thinks that she is kinda cute and since they both speak English and a bit of Russian and Chinese, they get along pretty well.  It is interesting watching them talk in a few different languages and make the conversation work :) It’s cool.

Tuesday was a good day and English practice went well. We had a whopping 17 people at practice! That is pretty great considering there are some cities in our mission that have 1 or no people showing up weekly. We are blessed in that respect. 

Wednesday was the baptism of the sister missionaries Mongolian investigator. She doesn't speak English or Russian very well - and the sisters don't speak Mongolian very well (i.e. not at all), so they asked a less active Mongolian member to help translate. Since I am the ZL I got the honor of doing the baptismal interview and it all went really well. A member from the Angarsk branch baptized her. He is 19 and planning on going on a mission soon so it was a great experience!

Baptism!

Thursday we had lots of lessons which made it a good day. Friday was the memorable one though. One of our most fun members bugged us a bit. He came and sat in on our lesson that we were having. We were talking about a talk from the April 2000 General Conference and it was going really well.   Anyways the other guy came in and started making trouble. He was trying to be funny but ended up saying some mean things and totally taking away from the spirit. He is a good guy but we had to rebuke him. Just kidding :)  But I got a bit serious on the lesson and I might have made him upset.   I just realize that I can't please everyone all the time, and I can't let him go on with an incorrect understanding. He is still a good guy and we love him, but I have to show more love now than before so he doesn't count us as his enemies.

Branch Picnic

I am actually wearing my big fluffy black leather coat today and I am nice and toasty :)  We got snow again yesterday and now we will not see the sidewalk again until May or June next year haha. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Another picture from the picnic

I don't have boots yet but today we are going with Elder Tracy to get some boots. Well... he is getting boots. I am buying some boots from another Elder here. Elder Perry bought some boots but he doesn't like them because he thinks they are too awkward looking. He isn't a fan. I think they look fine and they are SUPER warm, so I am buying them off him. Now all he has to do is buy some boots and then he will give me those. I still have a coat and scarf and long-johns so once I get some gloves I will be good to go!

Elder Gray got back safe and sound and we went to pick him up from the airport late that night. We ended up getting home at 1 am :)  Logistics here are just TOO MUCH FUN. 

I hope you have a good week and you look at your ponderize scripture a lot :)

I love you!

Elder Gardner