Just about 6 weeks left!

Guttёntag from Chelyabinsk,

Did you know that “Chelyabinsk” is Australian for “beer”? It’s been a special week. We had one meeting this week as of yesterday after church and since it was on Monday and since I wrote on Tuesday you’ve already heard about it! It’s been kind of a busy with general authorities, I guess we’re always told about them coming in plenty of time, but it always seems like it’s out of the blue. It was District (Stake) Conference this week, and Companion and I spent most of the week renting hotel rooms, canceling hotel rooms, uncanceling hotel rooms, renting them again, and then one final re-cancel. We had Elder Wolfgang Paul of the Seventy and Elder Dmitri Marchenka a Russian (!) Area authority come. Because of Crazy stuff happening in Yekat President Allen (the normal greeter and escort of General Authorities) couldn’t come down till the next day the job fell (I’m sure reluctantly for him) to us. It was a fun and nice experience waiting for them in our little dinky airport, I’d met Paul before so he wasn’t hard to spot, because he’s a six foot five big friendly German man in a suit. But once we got him to the hotel, we had to go back and pick up the newly called Russian Seventy, a harder task as it would be not as obvious to pick out a Russian from a stack of Russians. But it was no problem at all, we just stood there smiling and the guy that smiled back and shook our hands we got in a taxi with and took him to the hotel. Never did get a name confirmation though, we could have just had our district taught by the mafia! Actually Elder Marchenko was one of the most impressive men I’ve ever met. He’s one of the first Russian seventies ever (possibly second even) and he’s a spiritual giant. My whole mission visiting leadership has needed to be translated to teach our leadership, meaning of course that they were not Russian and there is a slight culture gap and this man came in and got the job done. I’m just out right touched by the fact that there are now starting to be members in Russia who can rise to these far reaching callings and teach their brothers and sisters across the whole country. I’m grateful and always amazed to see the priesthood in action, especially in the cities I’ve served in.
Apparently Elder Companion’s parents got his flight information so I’m assuming you got mine ‘cause I don’t have them, which is a shame because I always thought I’d just tell you I was coming home a week later than I actually was and play a bunch of pranks on people and then show up to the airport at the appointed time and none would be the wiser. It’s two weeks till we get to see the Apostles and even have a special missionary meeting with them, and then five weeks after that to recover from their whippings and work better till the end.

Ye haw,

-Rob