Greatest Austrian Packed Week of Missonary Work

Dear All,

This past week has been the greatest Austrian packed week of Missionary work in moscow. The past two days we got 7 really promising contacts. I think that finding people who are willing to meet is easier than i think...i think. basically you just have to make a person start talking with you and then you can just become best friends with them, joke around, LOVE them, and then they are going to trust you. just yesterday we were on a split with my boys Elders Woodruff and Foster and i went up to this guy with a liahona and apparently one of the other guys had already tried approaching him cuz he so said, but i talked to him anyways, found out that hes 33 years old has a car, a wife names masha, an 8 year old daughter, and he was born in smolensk which is like 300km north of moscow if i remember correctly. he has been smoking since he was 7 years old, one of his grandmothers is still living, and he hasnt set foot in the metro in 7 years cuz hes got a car. Nicest guy ever, and he seemed interested in the good news. Elder Lex and i have talked to a few other really nice potentials like this guy in just the past couple of days. Earlier this week we talked to a mother and her daughter who lived in america for 10 years, they gave me some caviar, cuz i said i loved it, which i do, and later that week we had caviar with butter on toast for breakfast when we were on a split with the APs. I ate a spoonful of caviar too. I rtecommend it.
however i do not recommend ostrich egg, because i am still paying the consequences for that one, and that was 2 weeks ago.
Pretty much transfers are coming up in a week and i still dont know who im going to be serving with, but boy am i loving serving with Elder Lex. Chances are pretty good that i will be serving with him again though, so im not too heart broken.
We had Zone Leader Conference with Elder Neuenschwander who is our current acting mission president due to President Sorenson's absence (he should return in a week) and at the conference we talked a lot about goal setting and why it is so important, especially daily goals. pretty interesting stuff, we will be talking about it a little more in our mission Conference on Friday, so Ill let you know more about thhat later.
We went to Bladimir's dacha-the same dacha I went to a year ago that i have pictures of with elder Nielson. I climed in the cherry tree and picked delicious cherrys. and we ate shashlik.
Love you all
Elder Paul

Back in Rechony Ward!

First few days i have been with elder lex and things are psycho, right when i came in, most of their progressing investigators disappeared or had to be passed. We have been speaking only in russian outside of the appartment(and a little german...just kidding)and I LOVE Austria and the Lex family. Austtria is litrally fairy tale land where everything is perfect. Im thinking of learning german sometime, cuz i guess everyone's all about it.
Also our apartment is kinda psycho. i am now living on voykovskaya and our apartment is really hot, but i love it!
We go running every morning to work out and i realize how out of shape you can get in a year. bust im dying!
Never before in my mission have i been able to speak the language with my comp 100% we are thinking, next week we are gonna go even in the flat. its like whatever.
working on memorizing scriptures. If i want to become a master teacher, which i do, then im gonna need to memorize a heap of scriptures. I challenge you all to do the same.
heres a couple pics.
THE ONE OF ME ELDEoopsR FOSTER and elder woodruff is us doing service helping with the old remont up in odintsova. I am back in Rechnoy ward now and its great Its cool cuz ialready know everyone and they know me.
If there is any advice that i have it is: "Work hard and things will happen"
also wendys is better here.
Love Elder Paul

Unexpected Transfer and Future Zone Leader!

Good Morning!

So heres the deal. A whole bunch of crazy stuff has just happened this past week. First we were english thinging and this lady came up to me and she asked me about english club and then she tells me that she got one of our books 8 years ago and before you know it we were helping her do her shopping and she invited us over to her house where we shared with her the first lesson and she was stoked out of her mind! she loved all of it and she is so excited about praying, especially for her son who is 19 and she wants him to stop smoking. her name is Karina and she is a 45 year old lady from armenia. wonderful, spiritually receptive lady. we are meeting with her today before english club. also, other news. We found out earlier this week that we would have a thi-panionship with elder woodruff, as he has been stuck with a mini missionary so far this transfer. his friend is serving where nana and papa live in new york, and they had his friend over to dinner a while ago. He is from the line of the 6th wife of President Wilford Woodruff. So thats been for the past few days. On sunday, however, i was informed that i needed to pack my bags. It turns out that elder lex's companion is going home mid transfer, so i will serve a half transfer with elder lex in rechnoy branch as zone leader before elder lex becomes AP next transfer in place of our beloved father, who is soon dying, even Elder Nielson. I will remain in rechnow and be zone leader with someone else next transfer, but i dont know whith whom, and that is the farthest into the future i am capable of viewing. Elder Woodruff whe is a transfer older than elder foster will be the district leader in my old area and they will tear up the place, im exciteds for them. I still need to pack my bags and i will be in my new area by friday afternoon. so thats the big news of this past week. we are preparing one of our investigators for baptism, and we are hoping that Karina will be good to go in a couple more...days. yesterday we had mission conference. I saw elder ablett for the first time in a while and hes doing awesome, training down in podolsk.
Its kinda crazy cuz the whole mission is now green. our baptisms have gone down and its a pretty slow time, but in a few weeks or so things should be exploding with all the greeness. Idont even know half the mission anymore, but i suppose i will get to know the north zone pretty well soon enough. in the north zone we have Zelenegrad, Rechnoy, and Arbatski. I will be in the packerds district again, so that should be fun.
I am really excited to serve with Elder Lex, he is a fantastic missionary. and we were both trained by pops so we have a lot of the same appartment and living habits that he passed on to us.
Tell everyone at the family reunion that its probably a good thing im not there cuz i would have showed everyone up on the timp hike. so all of your egos will be unharmed until next years retreat.
Im kinda bummed that I dont get to finish training elder foster, i was probably a lousy trainer anyway, but its like whatever. Im also bummed to leave my are, but its all good. I will probably be back in arbatsky soon enough.
yesterday i heard the juicy details of an LDS Russian Bachelors party. there is nothing better. just imagine Sauna+Male Massouse+shaved leg+50 bottles of Kvas+11 Priesthood holders=greatest thing in the world.

Love you all, Elder Paul

The Future is as Bright as your Faith

Sounds like alls well back at the old dom. this past week has been a lot of work and a whole lot of walking. we were with the AP's yesterday for a split. We stopped by a few old contacts and had a little success there, and then we bumped into this guy who lives on our station and was way nice and even sayd he would tell his friends about us, unfortunately we didnt get his number, but he got ours and i9f he doesnt call we will probably see us walking soon enough.
President is sick right now, so thats a way bummer.he will be better in a few weeks though
we dropped most of our investigators cuz they werent progressing at all and the rest for one reason or another disappeared, so we have a nice clean board to work with. the future is looking very bright, and it is really hot here, they say it isnt humid, but i'd say it probably is.
Today we got to do some good service. first we helped the bozhenovie move. he was the one who wrote the article in this past liahona(New Era??) about him on his mission in saint petersburg and the book of mormon that the kid found that they gave to some old man. yeah way great little couple, too bad they moved out of our area, but still in our ward in the AP's area. after that we grabbed some mak dak and went over to help our bishops wife with all their bags, they are on the train right now to the sea for a couple days.
I am really tired, but the work must go on.
by the way funny you mentioned romans 8, turns out thats now one of my favorite chapters. the last 5 verses are incredible to me.
happy forth of july huh? i celebrated by drinking a milkshake.
I have little time now, but basically the new testament is awesome. and be the bast member missionaries you can, cuz member missionary work can always get better.
Love you all,
Elder Paul

Pray for the work to move forward in Russia!

Dear all,
today was a nutso P-day we went rollerblading with the district. and went to the souvenir renik. in one of the pictures i am jumping a four step staircase.
So we had this one investigator katia who is 50 and works at a dome, helped her carry her groceries and gave her a book a couple weeks ago. we met with her and she is way interested. she called the other day saying the director of the place she works yelled at her for talking to foreigners and he swore at her and stuff. basixcallyy she sayes that she will call in two months when she leaves that work. promising? we a have a coulple other weak sauce investigators but the fact of the matter is we need to find a lot of new investigators this transfer for this area to get rolling. the mission is really focusing on new investigators right now and its way megga hard. it basically comes doun to raw contacting, cuz the refferal pool is not filling up any time soon. a lot of work here is planting seeds.
Ways we contact might be handing out liahonas (ensigns) around a fountain and sitting and talking with people, occasionally sharing lessons on the spot. proven to be somewhat effective. chalk drawing is apparently the bees knees and we are gonna be doing that friday with the district hopefully. getting rejected so many times a day cant be healthy, but who ever said the mission is healthy? not me. so heres the deal what the heck is a creative contacting idea that isnt way awkward and might be illegal/legal depending on where you are? i dont know, but we all know that the real way is the Spirit. I suppose i just answered my own question and called myself to repentance at the same time.
Im running low on time.
Love you guys,
Eldr Paul

Hope you all enjoy Elder Paul's grammar as much as we do! Thank you for all of your love and support for Elder Paul!

A Letter to the Boys at Scout Camp

This weeks e-mail is a message to the boys in our stake who will be attending scout camp. The stake president requested that the stake Young Men's president collect letters from missionaries currently serving to insire the younger boys in the stake to want to serve missions. Here is what Elder Paul had to say to them:

Dear scouts under the authority of President Ivie,

I am currently sitting in the middle of Moscow Russia in an internet club where a bunch of russian teenagers are playing computer games and cussing their heads off. How cool is that? I have made so many lifelong friends, both missionaries and russian people. I have grown spiritually in a way that I could never imagine. Right now more than any other time in my life I realize what is really most important to me, I have a clear idea of what I will do in my future, I am learning and speaking the coolest language in the world, but most of all, I know who Jesus Christ is and what he wants me to do. The blessings that come from serving a mission are more than you can ever imagine. My family is blessed, as well as my friends. Serving a mission is the greatest fun in the world. More fun than hanging out with friends back home, more fun than dumb girls, I would even go so far as to say that it is more fun than scout camp.
In the first are where I served in north Moscow in one of the biggest branches in Russia, I had the opportunity to get to know and to help activate a 23 year old kid named Vitaly. Coolest kid ever! We got him stoked about serving a mission and we got him back to church. Right now he has put in his papers and he is waiting for his mission call! The other week I saw his mom in the church building and she thanked me for helping her son come back to church and decide to serve a mission. That was one moment on my mission that I will never forget, a mother's thanks for helping her son do what the Lord called him to do-that is, save lives in the kingdom of our father. No greater joy will you receive than reuniting in heaven with those you helped towards Christ while you served on your mission.
Cherish the time you have now to prepare to go on your missions. If there is one thing I wish I could have done better, it would be to study more before my mission and prepare myself better through reading my scriptures daily, reading preach my gospel, and talking to my nonmember friends about the Doctrine of Christ.
It is my wish and my prayer that you will prepare yourselves, and be worthy to go on the greatest adventure of your life, and unite in the army of god for the salvation of souls. Have a nice camp.

Elder Paul

An Ode to the FIRST YEAR!

We had culture night last night and it was PHENOMENAL! it was the national dance show and boy was it good! nationalrussiashow.ru and you can get a glimpse. absolutely amazing you have no idea, and we met all of the cast afterwards up close and personal. super great show. also you might have to have dayne confirm this, but the new cool fraze for aussies to say if their parents ask them to do something or something, they say "too easy" obviosly the cool thing to say so maybe you can hook the US up with some dross lingo. who knows.
ALso this transfer i have come to a whole new realization of what missionary work is. I cant quite explain it, but i think because of this realization i will be a more effective missionary. we had speciallized training the other yesterday ands alls i was like is like "too easy" cuz it just clicked, ye know? i dunno, just way psycho stuff is comin up soon. tommory i will have been on my mission for a year so here is an ode to a year on my mission:

One year ago i WOULD be caught dead in an american baggy suit,
I WOULD be picky when i ate,
I would speak one language well,
I was all about driving cars,
i slept like a dog,
and my spiritual level was at a 5%

Today, I wouldnt e caught dead in a baggy american suit,
I WILL eat meat jello, kvas and cucumber/tomato salad-and LOVE it
I Speak two languages badly,
I can stand my ground on the metro,
i sleep like a BRICK,
and my spiritual level is between a 10and a 15%


As you can see, I have changed probably for the better, but other than those things, im the exact same ive decided. well not really. but whatever.

You guys are awesome, the importance of families is more than you can imagine. and not just families but eternal families.

I love you guys,

Elder Paul


It is crazy how fast time flies! Thank you to all of those who have supported Mitchell through the first HALF of his mission! One year of humor filled weekly e-mails down and one to go!