Leaving the 90 and 9 to serve the 1.....

Hey Fam!
  Thanks for your letters!  This was really great. So as you know, my mission president had to leave our mission for the time being, and is in Utah right now having a surgery for something.  I'm not sure If he will be back for my "exit interview" which is really sad actually to think about. BUT he has delegated the mission to his first counselor Pres. Podvodov.  Pres. Podvodov was a previous mission president in St. Petersburg and is AWESOME. He is from our mission and so it is really great to see a leader do so much great work in his own native country.  The people actually understand him completely.  Anyways, I learned a lesson from him that I hope to never forget in my life.  I feel as though the end of my mission has gotten harder and harder to be honest b/c the end that you never wanted to think about, that never "actually" exists, its finally coming and that adds more trial, at least for me anyways, to not think about the future. There are so many more thoughts that race through my mind other than " I hope brother so and so can help us on our lesson tonight".  The trick is when those thoughts come, thinking to my self..."there is a season for everything" and continuing on with the task at hand. Again, serving God "with all your heart, might, MIND, and strength" has never meant so much to me in my life than it has to me recently. But I would like to share an experience that I had with my "new" mission president just on Saturday and how it has made an effect on me.  I called him and said that I was having kinda a hard time with a few things and was wondering if he could just give me a few pieces of advice on how to help.  I was expecting a "sure, I'll call you back later and we can talk" or something like that, but no, the answer I received was "can you be at the church at 6 pm?" and I said, "OK for sure, I'll be there".  This man, by the way, speaks about 3 words in English and I have always thought him to be very intimidating...so it took a lot of courage to just call the man, especially when I don't know him personally all that well.  So, I'm not sure if any of you have been mission presidents before, but they are ALWAYS busy, and especially now that this man has all the responsibility of the mission on his shoulders as of a week or so ago.  Well, I saw the hand of God work through this man that night and it taught me such a powerful lesson.  I sat down with him and started to tell him my feelings about everything, my concerns, trials, thoughts etc....he pretty much was my therapist :)  it was awesome!  haha  Anyway, he related a story to me about how when he was a mission president, he had a missionary call him and say that they needed to meet together and that the missionary needed some sort of help.  He told me that THAT missionary right then had just become his priority. He made everything work out so that he could meet with that missionary and satisfy whatever need that needed to be met in the eyes of that particular missionary...and on that day I called him, I was that missionary. I felt so loved and watched over.  The interview itself was my favorite on my mission thus far. He helped my situation perfectly not to mention the lesson I learned about "leaving the 90 and 9" to care so lovingly for the "one".   He did what the Savior taught us to do and I felt the pure love of Christ flow from that man, even if it was in an intimidating Russian way haha.  But it had a huge impact on me that is hard to put into words, other than we are never alone.  When you do everything you can, the grace of God truly does come into our lives in ways that we might not expect, but its still comes. I'm not sure if what I just wrote even makes any sense to you, but to me, this experience gave, and continues to give, me motivation to continue on and try to share that love with others I meet.  I'm so grateful for all of my trials b/c even though they always come in the most inconvenient times, they help open my eyes to the works of God in my life. I know that when we humble ourselves in our trials and turn TO God and not away, He will show us the way for us to become "partakers of the divine nature" which I have come to realize is not the easiest thing to do, but I have also figured out that its only possible if we humble ourselves to the will God and trust in him that HIS way is better than my way.
  Anyways, as regards to missionary work we have 3 people with a baptismal date ( I think only 2 are going to follow through with though,we are going to have to push back the 3rd's date) and things here are moving. My comp and I are doing great and its SNOWING a TON right now which is NOT cool.  I'm doing great and loving the last little bit of this eternity changing experience.