Week 15

Hello all. How's it going? Things are all good here. I bought my coat and a hat last week so I'm staying warm. The weather thinks otherwise though because it's getting colder and colder each day. We get a text every night saying the weather and it's pretty scary to look at sometimes haha the last two days it was about 20-30 below celsius. We had to spend two one hour blocks standing outside trying to get contacts for English club and inviting people. Business isn't really good when it's super cold though because no one wants to stop and talk to you because they are freezing too.  Also on P- day I bought a little European purse/shoulder bag thing! I was super pumped! It's way good looking and it's more so acceptable here I was super excited. So Beed, be jealous :) so a couple nights ago we visited a less active family and the grandpa is just super, super funny. He is just this old man that I dont know, is just hilarious. He knows this poem in English and he told it to us like ten times because we kept asking to hear it and it's just the best to hear in his old man voice and Russian accent. "I am running on my skis, white and silver are the trees. I am warm, WARM as can be. Try and catch me! 1, 2, 3!" haha it's the best! His name is Vladimir. He is super nice and way awesome. and then the other day we were going to the branch building and I was talking to a guy named Dima on a tram and he kept speaking English back to me. So we had this Russian/English conversation and everyone on the tram started getting mad at him haha and telling him to stop, English is a garbage language, He is a disgrace to Russia, stop talking to the sect sellsmen haha it was interesting. He just kept laughing and still talked English. I wasn't really sure what to do haha because things were getting heated haha so it was kind of awkward. We ended up seeing him again the next day. It was funny. We still haven't found an apartment. We have a lady looking for us but all the ones she finds are outside the boundaries. So we can't get them. So we are still on the hunt. A couple of nights ago we set up a meeting with a member for the next day to just drop by and share a thought. Then this guy in our branch that has skizoprhenia calls us and says that the Holy Ghost spoke to him and told him he needed to do his home teaching and that I needed to be with this member that we had previously called five minutes before. haha it was crazy! So we said ya how about 7:30! And it was cool too because her son sat in on it and he isn't a member and he agreed to keep meeting with us. We went to meet up the second time but he was still at work. So that is still in the process. Church yesterday was pretty crazy haha we really only have one solid investigator and his name is Ivan. He isn't all that solid though but he came to church! There were a couple interesting other people that came too. There is a guy that always comes and he only speaks English to the members and it's not good English and hardly anyone else speaks it so people always get frustrated with him it's funny. And then there is an investigator that is from Armenia that just likes to talk. He has this picture of him with his shirt off and he shows it to everyone it's kind of weird but he is awesome. He talks about weird things though.  He goes pretty in depth when he jokes about killing someone, which is often oh and his name is G. The other elders in our district were teaching an investigator and they let him use their personal set of scriptures that had a way cool nice leather case on it to read a scripture and he thought it was his haha so he wouldn't give it back. But they called him later asking him to give it back but they didn't meet with him for quite a while because it never worked out. This weekend one of them is going to Kazakhstan so they went to Novo and the guy showed up at church with his book! So we took it and are holding on to it for him. So it was pretty crazy. We talked to (I) after and he didn't seem to freaked out. So I hope things still work out with him. S didnt end up showing up on Monday and he doesn't have a phone so we couldn't call. It was kind of  a let down so we prayed that he would come yesterday to church again but he didn't. We are just going to keep praying and hoping that he shows up on a Sunday again! Also, in church yesterday, I bore my testimony! It was super scary. I got up there and I couldn't even remember how to say brothers and sisters haha it was super scary. Then I just started talking and I don't even really remember what I said but my comp was like blown away! So that was a really cool experience. I just love how the gift of tongues works! Congrats on the city council by the way! That is way funny! Nice work! I didn't have any problems with the card but thank you for fixing that for me. I am glad that FHE was a big success. Good luck with finals!  For P- day we all email together at the library but then we do our own thing. We usually all go to the same store afterwards. I had borsht the very first day at the same restaurant as the pig jello. And about the pictures, it's hard! We can only take pictures in people's houses or on P- day. so it's hard to take pictures but I am trying. The city is way sweet, pretty big city. Just like a normal big city. The companion is way tight. We get along really pretty well. and ya! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I appreciate it. Talk to you all next week!
Love Elder Nielsen