Cinnamon roll parties

Armenia, visa trip. Brrrr

Fantastic week this week! It started off really well, was interrupted by a visa trip, and then picked up where it left off!

I'll start off with what happened on Tuesday. Our investigator Tatianna has been very straightforward from the get go that she will not be baptized. On Tuesday we decided to speak to her about 2nd Nephi 31:13. It was such a great lesson. It was so cool to see the Spirit working on her. She started asking questions like, "Will God be mad at me for being baptized again?" and, "Is it scary to be baptized?” and “How exactly does the process go?" Her response went from “I will not be baptized” to “I am not ready yet” and then finally “I will pray tonight to know if I should be baptized!”

Mount Ararat. Can you see Noah's
ark? The cloud is covering most
of it.

We had another great lesson with a new investigator! Our less active that we have reactivated, Astop, invited his girlfriend Natalia to our lesson! She lives in Germany but has been here visiting her home. We taught her about the restoration. It all was going well until we got to asking God to know the truth. She had a problem with that part because she thought that it was rude to ask Him for even more than he had already given to her, and even then, if He is all knowing He would just give something to us if it was meant to be. We kind of lost control of the lesson and Astop started to argue with Natalia. It was so cool to see the Spirit work through me and Elder Reesor. We reminded Natalia of the first topic we discussed and how it is so important to remember that God is an almighty being, but one of the most important aspects of his divine character is that he is our Father. We then asked her to think about her father on Earth and think about what his response would be if she came to him for advice. We told her it is the same situation with our Heavenly Father. The Spirit hit her so strong and she went from arguing to completely agreeing with us! She said the closing prayer and asked a bunch of questions and then said that she would pray that night to know if the church is the right path for her!

Back to Mother Russia.

Seminary also went good this week. We had a lesson on Ether 12 and then tried making root beer, which didn't go so well! haha Unfortunately, neither of our seminary students showed up to church. We are hoping that this week we will be able to get the Lyosha boy to seminary! One cool thing about the youth here is our English group! Since I have been here we have gotten 14 new people to show up, where in the past it had only been one or two people. We have a lot of fun with them and they really appreciate what we do. Viktor is doing good! He has been way sick for two weeks but is now finally well! We are going to teach him about the priesthood this week and hopefully give him the priesthood this Sunday!

Saying goodbye to Elder Boyer,
one of our APs. A stud missionary
I served next to in Volgograd.

Church also went good! We had a couple randoms show up. One called himself, "The Lord Jesus Roman (his actual name) Christ. He is a very interesting man. He begged me for a Pearl of Great Price and explained that it was his Kife (slang word for drug, like it is the best stuff in the world) and he just loves the stuff. haha I ended up giving him one hoping that it would do him some good and stop making him so crazy. He is actually a pretty nice and good person, just a little crazy. Another person who came was a previous investigator who still doesn't want to talk about the Gospel, but was interested in our self-reliance program! So we will be doing that with him and a member from our branch on Wednesday!

Elder Reesor and I have been working really well together. We aren't perfect volunteers, but we are trying our best to get the work done here. He is making very good progress with the language and has lost thirty pounds since we have started serving together! All of that while being a focused and diligent volunteer. Really proud of the volunteer he is becoming and the volunteer that he is helping me become!

Getting creative with our dumb
oven that won't stay on.

Mom, about my Christmas presents that came early. I ate the Hershey’s Cookies and Cream!! haha Elder Reesor and I had a rough day a couple weeks ago and I had to open something. I got pretty close last night too, but resisted! Hopefully there will be stuff for me to open by Christmas! We will see.(; I will make sure to set up the Christmas decorations and find a tree! As for the FaceTime, I'm pretty sure it will be on Christmas Day, but that is a month-and-a-half away. We haven't been told yet. Mom, I guess President doesn't think about that as much as you do.(; I will tell him the moms in Utah are demanding answers.

I have a picture of you guys on my study desk and it is a good motivation to see my supporters and what I have to live up too! I was blessed with a great family. I am excited for you to meet Elder Shumway! He is a really good missionary and great at the language! I loved going on splits with him and seeing him from time to time!

Love Elder Weston 

Cinnamon roll party! Celebrating the branch president's
9 year anniversary of being baptized. haha That is a
thing in Russia they do in small branches.