Making good brownies and washing bums clothes - Life's good : )

Armand is the first member in the entire country of Benine! i found this out and was so stoked that i had the incredible opportunity to teach him the first lesson along with elder nielson and then commit him to baptism. Hes the greatest! Also we found a new investigator this week and he is an evangalist...He believes alot of the same things we do with exception of course of the main big things and all. He is going to read and we will meet with him in a day or two! stoked.

I am getting significantly better at the language. My pronunciation is pretty darn good and I am undeerstanding more and more. The hard part is speaking and making it gramatically correct.

Oh we met an armenian family that is listed as members but they havent been to church in 8 years so we are going to reactivate them. It actually a miracle that we even met with them, remind me to tell you that story sometime. Apparently i make pretty good brownies. so i make a batch of 50 brownies every so often intendiing to give them to members when we do drop bys or meetings, but we always end up eating more than half of them ourselves! ha
So everything is just pluggin along over there huh, well thats just dandy.

iTS getting colder and Im all set for the cold months ahead... i think

anyways I have to get going now P-days are always Nuts!

oh i washed a bums clothes yesterday. His name is constantine and he is a bum and his clothes smelled like a two month old dead raccoon and they stunk up our bathroom and flat for quite some time. antways thats that. I love this work and I love it all! Every second i love it. I love you all too so dont you forget it

Love From The Motherland,

Elder Paul

And Even More Pitures!!!

New Companion, New Goals, More Pictures!

This week has been very eventful. New companion, New Mission Goals, and New Bible...There is a Lot going on here. First of all, let me describe Elder Rudd. You have a picture of him. He is a wizard at the Piano, has been on his mission for a year and a half. He, like Elder Nielson, wrestled in High School. He speaks Russian very well, and he is very nice. He also likes the apartment to be clean, so our living quarters might be a little nicer this transfer. We are excited about the work! a couple new goals this transfer:
1 baptism a transfer per companionship
SYL outside of the apartment
3 new investigators a week

...among others. Investigators are progressing, but we need more of them. Also this transfer we want to get out and visit every member in our area, because as we all know, the most effective way to do missionary work is through the members.

It is getting a little bit colder now and my coat is great. I also got Sister Watterson's Scarf in the mail the other day, so I’m stoked about that. It’s the perfect scarf and I love it. Tell Michael Watterson "Barev" for me.

If you can send some state quarters in the mail, along with the presidential dollar coins that would be awesome, especially new jersey...just put them in masking tape and they should make it here alright.

Armand got baptized and the next day Elder Nielson and i went on a split to participate in his confirmation, it was awesome! I love that guy! I sent a picture of him at the baptism.

I cant think of much else to say except if anyone wants to write me, you can email me at this email....mitchell.paul@myldsmail.net and leave your address and i will try and write you while i am on my mission. Thanks for all of your love and support and kind words of encouragement. I have nothing more to say than, dang this is hard work.

If you do not hear from me in another weeks time then I have most likely been incapacitated.

Greetings From the Windy City,

Moscow

It snowed for the first time, and transfers!

So we had culture night the other night, we went to a comedy play about...something,,,im not sure what it was about, but i understood a lot...I am at the point where people can say a sentence and i might understand most of the words in the sentence but i cant translate it in my head fast enough, so although i understand the words i hear, i still have no idea what they are sayng...but that will soon change. oh so this play was pretty funny. the actors smoked cigars and the smoke wafted into the audience, totally awesome. and there were a bunch of young groups of kids there out for a night at the play. i wish there were more live theatres in the US.

As you know already, we have transfrers thursday and i will be serving with Elder Rudd in the same place I am now. He is coming to me and Elder Nielson is going to Lobnya. Its sad to end this transfer, but i think it will make me learn a lot very fast, because i have to know everything about my area and all of our investigators and members now...crazy stuff!
We did a little remont (remodel?) and now i have a bed and so does Elder Nielson, too bad it was so late in the tranfer, no its all good.
Sounds like all is going well there, listen to some Passion Pit for me!

It snowed for the first time today!
WE, me elder neilson, Lex, and Miller went to the red square today and went through the cathedral and got some good pics that i will send next week cuz i forgot my cord today.
I'm loving my mission, Im loving the people and I am loving the Lord. We are reading the Blue Book as a mission and its so full of great stuff! I cant believe Juan is heading out and everyone is in the MTC right now, its nuts!

Love,
Elder Paul

A Pictures Worth a Thousand Words - so there are not too many words this week.

okay, so this week was way awesome, we have a new investigator named Uri who is so ready to be baptized, but he lives in the Ukraine so we are going to pass him after teaching him for a few weeks while he is here on some sort of vacation thing. Also this one goof ball guy named vitaly who we never thought would be a legit investigator shows up to a meeting saying how he was researching our church and he found out that we dont drink green tea and we explained it and in the end he prayed and thanked Heavenly Father for these new truths in his life...way good!

Tell Juan that he is going to be an excellent missionary, he just has to get the language down as soon as possible.

it appears as if we have some birthdays comin up?
how old is everyone turning again?
happy birthday to:
Katrina
Alex Breighner
Bryan Morrison
Juancho
Delaney
Zanna
I cant think of who else...
And of course my dear mother who birthed and raised me.

Also, IMPORTANT QUESTION! how many people die on the moscow metro each year?

ummm what else? transfers are coming up soon and something crazy is probably going to happen, i will know what is going to happen by next p day and then transfers is the day after that.

and i only have 5 min now, hope you enjoy the pictures and i hope i answered at least some of you ridiculous questions...im having the time of my life, and i love to love the people! The language is coming

Love yours truly,
Elder Paul


Elder Paul in Russia!!!


Yum...




Some photography by Elder Paul

Thank you to all of those who are supporting Mitchell on his mission!!! We truly appreciate the love and support that you have for our brother and son!

- The Paul Family