oh man, it was good to talk to you guys. and whats with all this 'i hope it wasn't too long' business? what does that even mean? do you know how much worse i would be homesick were i not allowed a full phone call? man it was great to hear your voices.
so this was an...OK week. not quite as miraculous as the last one, i must admit. but it was good. we had a couple of lessons with the gypsies, but they are pretty flaky.
Monday night we had a meeting with most of them, did most of the third lesson, taught about faith and repentance. but vladik wasn't there, unfortunately. we set up with them again for the next day, they all said it would work, vladik said he would be there. when we got there Tuesday night, none of them were there, except this dude, who we think is vladik's dad. he has never really talked to us, but this time he was drunk so he just started fighting us about the book of Mormon. he made the argument that, Mormon isn't in the bible. we said, well yeah, we never said he was. to this he replied, Mormon isn't in the bible. after arguing for a while with a drunk Russian gypsy, we were about to leave, but then one of the girls that usually listens to lessons came in and wanted to talk. basically she told us her whole life story, which was a sad one, and we tried to help.
then we met with volodia, who is doing awesome. we had a good little lesson, he is still working on quitting smoking obviously. we were about to leave, and he said, every time you guys walk in the door, the spirit comes in too. and it just makes me want to pray. that was nice to hear. as we were exiting the building, this dude was standing in front of the door, really drunk. i was like, what do you want? and he pointed at the ground, there was some package, it looked like a burrito or something. he was like, you and your american friends did this. i said, no, we didn't. he kind of grabbed me, but he was drunk, so i just threw him off and we walked out.
Wednesday was a full day of contacting and tracting, which was cool, because for the first time on my mission, someone said, please, come in. it was this old babushka, and we had a quick lesson about the plan of salvation with her. it was short and sweet, but way cool as, as i already said, somebody let us in. tracting.
the next day we had a few lessons. the first, with Alexander. his mom is pretty much dying, so we gave her a blessing. giving blessings is hard. then we had my last lesson with pavel, a goodbye lesson, as he is in the creme for the week. it was good, but nothing too new. he is a good kid, I'm glad we became friends. afterwhich, brat bontsov came on a less active lesson with us to Andrea's. it was awesome, because they just chatted about old times, then we taught a little lesson. but Andrea came to church! for the first time in years. that was a real lesson to me: members are awesome.
Friday we had all our lessons drop on us, as it was raining. people are so controlled by the weather. and i received a TRANSFER CALL. they did them at night for some reason, so we expected them all day. and then, apparently the ap forgot to call my name, so we got a call even an hour after everybody else. but it came, I'm out. its been good, but I'm ready to be out of Donetsk. lets everybody pray i go to Kharkov, or lugansk!
ha, so Saturday we had a lesson with this one dude, and his mom came in at one point. she was crazy. I'm pretty sure she thinks she can talk to the dead, and has super powers. she said: you are supposed to feel a warm, calm feeling around me. we said, we feel normal. she started muttering under her breath something (either a blessing or a curse, I'm not sure). she had a string with a small pine cone attached, and started swinging it around, first towards my companion, then to me. i don't know how, but i kept from laughing. she rambled on about mother earth and other weird garbage. but it was funny at least. right after that was when you called and did your pre-call. haha.
unfortunately, no one came to church. volodia would have, but he got sick. so afterwards we went over and gave him a blessing. i made noren give it. it's good for him. then we ran home and noren got his call from home.
that's pretty much it. it has been rainy, but it is better today. nice and warm. we are having a shishkabob party with our district and the bontsovs in a few hours, I'm super excited. happy victory day, everybody!
happy mothers day yesterday, to all the mothers reading this.
oh and happy birthday Nicole on Tuesday! I'm proud you made it this far. good luck with life and all that. hope you like my present, if i remember right, it should be good.
once again, pray for my transfer. i could get owned.
thanks everybody! i love you guys. have an awesome week.
love, Derek
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