Great Week!

Hey everyone!
Well this week was just so fantastic in so many ways. First of all we got to see conference. And that was just amazing. Getting conference here is kind of difficult sometimes so we had a few glitches. One of which was one of the sessions was dubbed in Russian. So we unplugged on of the audio inputs and it kind of fixed it but it kind of just sounded like a Russian was in the audience trying to yell over the prophet and apostles. I got so used to it that when we watch the next session i kept waiting for some other guy to start talking and he never did. But regardless! Conference was just amazing. I cant explain how much love i feel for the leaders of this church. THEY JUST GET IT. Everything they say is so full of truth and love. DONT TAKE IT FOR GRANTED!
Also, awesome this week. Valentinas hasn't smoked! He has started his road to baptism. I already know i will not be able to explain the love I have for this man but here are some amazing things about what is going on in this little area of Siauliai Lithuania. We started teaching him about temples and that has been on his mind every since. And then we brought up Patriarchal blessings. Not only does he want one but so does his entire family. Their family situation is a little confusing so I will start at the top. First is Larisa. She has two children Maxim (16) and Irena (30ish). Maxim lives with his mom in the other elders area. They are both members but are less active. Irena is the wife of Valentinas and she has a child from a different marriage, Vladislav (16) who is also a member. Valentinas almost got baptized a long time ago but for unknown reasons decided not to go through with it. They have gone through a TON of missionaries including myself 3 months ago when I was in this area with Elder Fitzgerald. But I feel I have come back for a reason. I and Elder Porter have a great friendship with Valentinas and we are doing ABSOLUTLY everything we can think of to help him to baptism. We bought him grape juice to help his cravings with smoking. We call him EVERY night and see how he is doing as well. Yesterday I changed his desktop wallpaper to the Stockholm Sweden temple to remind him why he is doing all this. So far he hasn't smoked but it is REALLY hard for him. Every night he has dreams about smoking and he wakes up in a cold sweat. Its hard but we know its possible. Its make or break. If he smokes he wont have enough time to be baptized before he leaves for Sweden for who knows how long(at least until next year). Pray for him, you can just say his name in English (Valentine). One of the most beautiful things I have seen is his family has been pulling for him so much. We saw Vladislav on the street and asked him how his dad was doing and he said. ZERO! We don’t let him! This is so amazing because of their money situation Valentinas was getting most of his cigarettes from Vladislav and Maxim. We gave them a talking to and got everybody on board to help him do this. In return for all this the family loves to try and teach me and Elder Porter Russian. We say some really silly things sometimes but we all have a good time. I really just hope I will always be speaking Lithuanian because two Lithuanian missionaries have already been made Russian speaking halfway through their missions and have left to Latvia. It will be interesting to see what happens because we will only be getting 2 new missionaries in December when 4 more go home. That will put us at 13 elders and 4 sisters in Lithuania. I’m not worried though I’m excited.
Well I need to end this novel. I love you all so much. I know this work is true and I know I am EXACTLY where I need to be right now.

su meile,
Vyresnysis Kukas