Dearest Family,
I don't know about you but this week has flown by far me. The first week of a transfer is also interesting because you spend a day with new companions and it feels like you have already been with them forever. Last trasnfer was a blast and I miss Elders Patterson and Plothow (I sent a picture of us from last sunday-- I'm not sure I've ever sent a picure of us together.) Elder Patterson is in Narva where he started his mission and Elder Plothow is living one stairwell over with a Estonian speaking misisonary that is from from the MTC-- so they are nearby and we see each other often which is good. .
But having said that, I'm again blessed to serve with stellar, very focused and fun companions. One of whom is a foreigner!! Whew-hoo! I've been reading about Sister Brett's companions and their crazy stories and testimonies and was a little envious, but now I've got a non-american companion myself! His name is Elder Koegler. And he's from Canada! That may not seem like a big deal, but it still counts. First, his pass-port is a different color (or colour in canadian), his ancestory is from Germany but he looks kinda french, and he does occasionally use the word eh? and other odd words/pronounciations-- to phone someone, a beg (or bag in American) and there's others but I just can't think of them. But I've decided that I love Canadians because Elder Koegler is the man. He's had quite the ride of a mission, being called to Vladivastok, Russia (furthest east mission) getting kicked out after 3 months because Russia would not renew his visa, he served 2 weeks in the Spain MTC, 3 weeks in Riga and now he's here! He's officially assigned to the Batlic Mission so they'll be sending his luggage here, which will be good because he's gone the past month and some with only the clothes on his back and a backpack with a few changes of socks, ties, etc... The amazing part is that he does not complain one bit and yesterday he said it's been cool to see the Lord's hand in where he has been serving and the specific reasons he's been places. It's his 4th transfer but I'm extremely impressed by his Russian (best accent i've heard from a non-native missionary) and missionary skills. It's a blessing to serve with him. The other key piece to our tripanionship is Elder Reid-- another awesome missionary that I've served around a ton in Vilnius and Riga and been on exchanges with a few times and am excited to serve with. He's had 3 latvian speaking companions so sometimes we SYL in Latvian-- but it never goes very far-- he definitely knows more than I do, but I can understand what he's saying. It's been very fun to speak Russian together on the streets and I can see that I'm learning more quickly than I have in a while. I love Russian and it's crazy how rich a language it is. I don't know how many words there are, but there must be a lot.
Sunday evening we were planning to go out to our area and teach a family but it didn't work out. So we had a free hour and a half and were trying to decided if it would be worth it to travel all the way out there, knock a few doors, and then have to come back right away. So we decided to stay in center and talk with people on the streets and it was the right call! We were able to talk to a few people who were really interested and got their phone numbers and scheduled a time to call them this week.
Losing Elder Plothow from our companionship also took away half of our investigators and less actives/ recent converts we've been working with, so we definitely did some more finding this week. The Lord has led us to some great and interested people including two Russian families that we found while knocking that we should be able to teach this week . We also have a lesson sceduled with two young solid members (one is a returned missionary) and their friend who's come to church a few times. Member referrals are the best!, hold on a sec i'm going to send this first half
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