A video clip of Mitch that found! Enjoy!

A Russian Shapka for Elder Paul

And before i forget, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to mom and delaney! how old are you anyway, like 50? and delaney is what now, 13?
happyiest of birthdays from russia. buy yourself a bag of jet puffed marshmallows from me.
love you bye
BIG NEWS Pday is now on monday so i will be writing you again in a few days. I made a necessary purchase today, i got a real russian shapka. also this morning i did 70 push-ups without stopping. If im not mistaken, those are the two requsites to being a man.
Twosday we went on a split and i was in my old area with elder hamp, my district leader. we had a wonderful time. in the meantime, elder white and the Elder Roberts met with Maxim and he has been praying and accepted to follow the WOW for some time to see how it works. Its nice to have a progressing investigator.
Sister Sorenson had a birthday yesterday and we had a mission conference. She is a wonderful woman and President Sorenson is just as kind and loving. I am so glad to have them as my Mission President for my whole mission.
In other news, i recieved you package with my jeans thank you much, and i got a package from the wonderful Sister Watterson! she is the nicest lady in the world, and she sure knows how to send a package. I got her i little something special today that i will hopefully send to her on monday. I love the Mike and Mitch play list, its fantastic! Tell her how much i love her and how grateful i am to her and her son who is my best friend.
I got some stuff for you too, i will try to send it next week.
The work i9s going on here, and allthough it is difficult, miracles do not cease. You guys are the greatest. I dont feel as inclined to write as much this week becouse i will write on monday, but enjoy these pictures for now. This is the hat i got, and the elder next to me is elder michael Roberts and he is a true saint. sorry the pictures blurry some random guy took it.
Love you all. Elder Paul

Another Week in Russia!

First of all, Happy Birthday Katrina! and second, thank you for the last package i got with the wart remover, it has proved to be a nasty business, but its about time i end it. As far as the family picture, i usually carry around a regular size but wallet size would be nice too.
My favorite thing about being a missionary is seeing people that you grow to love accept the Gospel and in doing so, change their lives. One great thing that happened this week is Maxim prayed for the first time. He is probably the most progressing investigator i have ever had and i love that guy. He has a great optimism and I can see him being a fantastic member. We met with him with the Walkers, a senior couple here, thay are wonderful, and talked about prayer and commitments. he came to general conference and enjoyed it. General Conference was fantastic! i took heaps of notes and keep referring back to them. I think my favorites were, the very first talk in the first session, Devn Cornish, and President Monsons in the saturday morning sessioon. yesterday we went on a split with the aps elder breedlove and elder Lex. I went with elder breedlove and we had a meeting with the stake president and his sister in law and her husband and the husband prayed for the first time, way awesome. Prayer, i would say, is a really really good thing.
so lots of birthdays coming up and i would send you all some gobstoppers as a gift, but they dont have those here, so pick yourselves up some gobstoppers, on me.
the weather is cooling and its getting hard to find new investigators, but so far this week we have found one. Im about to freak out on people nobody wants to change! we talked to some people on the split yesterday and they litterally said that because everyne is a sinner, we cant do anything about it, so in that case, its OKI to sin a little bit. Its OK TO SIN!! what the heck are they thinking?! it is so NOT okay to sin! geez wake up people!
I got a small package from elder sterling the other day that i really liked. at christmas tim last year i sent him a package and within was a russian daily planner. the other day he sent it back to me all filled out, it was pretty awesome. he also sent me a blank planner of the spanish language that i am responsible to use next transfer and send to him. i thought that was a good idea, it will cause me to be more responsibe for filling out my planner because i have to account to Sterling Gregory Adams the Elder.
Tonite at english club we are gonna talk about family and stuff we do with our families, so im excited about that. One thing i will tell them about is when me and Dad went to the amazon, thatd be cool;.
well i love you guys, and mom you're really good at picking out ties.
Love Elder Paul

Watch out Mama!

Nice skirts! I got the first package with the shoes and candy (which i am bringing to english club tonight!) and i wish i would have told you but i forgot, i actually bought shoes two weeks ago, ones with fur inside and they are like half boots, they were not very expensive, but good quality and should last, but now i have a nice shoe collection to choose from, so its all good. Mike Watterson is the greatest guy ever, thanks for relaying that message that he wrote. Its crazy how similar our missions are, so we know what each of us are experiencing to some extent. what i would give to serve with him on the mission! tell his mom that winter is coming, and she knows what that means!
So really funny story i need to tell you first. We met our neighbor the other day and he is from armenia. we decided to go by his place one night with some fresh brownies and hopefully share a lesson with him. he is currently doing a remont and we knocked on his door and he invited us in, he seemed drunk. the land lady was there and she was quite nice and they asked us to sit down at the table (which was covered with vodka and cigarettes) they offered us to drink and we declined but of course they dont take no for an answer. water sufficed. out of another room comes another lady. sort of heavy middleage woman. we get talking and she is really drunk. she was nuts. we immediately got on the topic of religion as they asked why we were here and what may or may not be considered an argument arised on the topic as to why The Virgin Mary is called the (Богородица) meaning literally the birther of God, when she gave birth to Jesus Christ and not God. We explained it several times in many different ways, but they didnt catch. We found out that the second lady was an FSB agent and i showed her my family pictures. she freaked out when she saw dad! she thinks he is the most beautiful man in the world, and she went on about how incredible he is. It was hilarious. So watch out Mom for the Russian women.
so the most delicious thing that i ate this week must have been the bacon burger i made for lunch the other day, boy did that hit the spot. Also, we had a really good meeting with maxim who is progressing. we talked about the law of chastity and of course we joked around in parts of the lesson but in the end he understood the importance and although he did not commit to follow it, he agreed that if God does actually exist, then he would understand why it is so important. He is now attending institute regularly. We met with Roman and set a new baptisimal date and i really hope that works out. Hopefully we will get lots of people to church, as it is General conf. this weekend. I am feeling great, i havent been sick my whole mission, so i consider that a great blessing. I finished the Book in Russian and Im starting again, catching up with the mission. I love the scriptures, they give me strength. I can do 60 push-ups now non-stop, me and elder White are having a bit of a competition, so that helps to do morning exercise.
I love you guys. I love my mission. Every day is a spiritual experience. Every day i grow and further towards my potential. Maybe you could send me an updated family picture of you all together sometime when you get a chance, that would be nice to have in small size...the one at park city was great!
Thanks for everything you do! Love you,
Elder Oaul

Freezing Legs but Otherwise Good!

Hey, this week went by really fast. We recently met with maxim and he is doing awesome! he is planning for baptism. he said 4 months sounds reasonable to him. He agreed to pray as well. I got a little gift (a tie) to Armand. he has surgery on his eye and was in the hospital on his birthday, way bummer. He told me how excited he was when he got a facebook messaqge from you. thanks for doin that. he told me that he had a lot of people send him happy birthdays but he only responded to a few, and was excited to respond to you. Those were some small miracles this week.
My study has been really consumed with finishing the BOM in russian so that i can start again with the mission, i am already a little behind, but the mission is reading together. Reading in russian (or any other language i would assume) is like reading an entirely different book. There are things that i read that i would normally not pay attention to if reading in english. Also i am focusing on strengthening my scripture memorization skills, as that is a weak point of mine. It mentions memorizing scriptures in my patriarichal blessing and im kicking myself for not getting on that earlier.
As to what i admire about my companion, i recently discovered that he is a master computer programmer, and have long since noticed that he is a good learner. he has a very extensive vocabulary in the russian language and is a great studier. I can and will learn a lot from him and probably already have. Bless his soul.
So i am now going back to the english club that i was first in over a year ago. Its crazy i have been in my last group for exactly a year, so its a little sad to leave it. i may have set the record in the mission for the longest time in one english group...obviosly not the kind of mission records that i am looking to break. Today i really want to talk about hypnotism, we will see how hip and savvy elder white is about that idea.
So this week we went and did some service, First we helped a family move ant then we went up to dolga prudnie and chopped wood. this seemed to be my first time chopping wood, but luckily elder hamp, a master wood cutter apparently, was able to show me the ropes and i was a chopping maniac in no time at all.
On the way out of the apartment today we cot some contacts of a few armenian guys. man i love armenians and i cant wait to go to armenia. Apparently the work is goin well over there. Its getting harder to get new investigators now that the weather is colder, no more chalk drawing...we will have to start snow sculpting soon. not that cold yet.
we went through the area book yesterday and set up a whole bunch of meetings with investigators that we didnt know about, i wish we had done that a transfer ago!
Not much time do i have, but thanks for everything, thansk for sending those pictures and as of right now i dont think i need anything...except jeans cuz mine were stolen. i need them for service and right now i only have shorts, if you could send me a normal pair of jeans it would be appreciated, if not, i can probly get by.
love you all, ELder Paul

Weather's cooling down but the work is moving forth!

We bumped into armand the other day! he is doing a lot better and his birthday is coming up friday, so i bought him a tie today. I can remeber his birthday a year ago in my first transfer! time is not enough.
So we have a couple new investigators. Its getting harder and harder to remember them. We are really going to town in this area and I sure hope we see someone get baptised soon, cuz our last baptismal date fell through, but will be later now. Its slow work, but we are doing our best. the worth of souls is pretty great.
Yesterday we went on a split for the whole day out the Zelenegrad. This is north of moscow about an hour, where elder Nielson served for a while before i came. It was incredible out there. If i were to ever live in moscow, i would live somewhere like that. Its just a small peaceful town and most people are willing to talk. Its inderesting though because even though more people are willing to talk, the work is just the same. They are doing great up there. I was with elder Ayers from arizona, and he is the nicest greatest guy ive ever met, i would serve with him in a heartbeat!
Me and Elder White are stoked about the work, and it gets colder. It might not snow yet until next transfer though.
I know that a whole lot of stuff happened this week that i could write about, but its so hard to remember. I am really bad about keeping a journal, and i recently realized that and convinced myself to buy a decent journal that i might like writing in, so im starting again.
Also i have a wart on my finger, weird huh, so i might try and freeze her off.
I love you all, and you might get more out of me if you ask some questions. also, i bet writing a journal will help with this small memory loss problem.
This is the perfect work, and i love it.
you know,
Elder PAul

What Comes Around Goes Around

We had a remont done and we changed around all the furniture so you can actually live in the place now. We now have a real bed room that is separate frome the main study room. This past week and this current week we have been working really hard at balancing our statistics, as we teach we are still contacting everyday, and making better use of the members too. getting members involved in the missionary work is really the best solution, it just requires a bit of effort. This is a really good area right now. We have quite a few progressing investigators and we are always getting contacts. I have a feeling it might be a little harder when it gets colder, we willl see.
So yesterday i did something stupid. we were contacting and i saw a beautiful young family. we were walking in the rain and they didnt have an umbrella. so i offered them my umbrella and they took it. and thats really all that happened. I thought about talking to him more but i just didnt. it was dumb. But at least right after that we talked to a guy named alexandr who looked like a normal guy who has a family (in spain) and is interested in meeting. But the story isnt over. Today we had service in the morning we helped some old man move a refrigerator out of his apartmernt. there was a whole bunch of stuff there that he offered to give a way, and one thing was a nice umbrella, so i took it. what goes around comes around i suppose. I cant give enough stuff away cuz stuff keeps coming back to me. It was really funny cuz when we were walking with this guy to his apartment, he stopped a street sweeper kid and asked him if he needed a televison. the kid was like what? he of course agreed and then helped us with the refrigerator. he ended up giving this kid a washing mashine too and a whole bunch of other stuff. It was like Christmas for the kid.
Oh! I got a package frome aunt jill! thank you so much for the cowl aunt Jill, its probably the most fashinable thing i have to wear, and it will keep me warm in the winter. the perfect gift. and now i know what a cowl is.
I only have a few minutes left,but in short, you guys are awesome. The mission is awesome. everything is just awesome. we need to get excited about life and stop sitting in front of our 3-d gadgets burning our eyes out. media is of the devil from my point of view. I look forward to someday isolating myself from technology in a beautiful part of nature in a house that i made with a family that i made. With that I end, Love, Always, Elder Paul