Sveiki!

Glad everyone seems to be doing well, I'll answer questions first.
No, I haven't baptized anyone, we had zero investigators in the area when we started, so we have been working on finding people to teach.
The traditional Lithuanian food we ate last week was delicious, zeppelinai are balls of meat made into dumplings from potatoes, they are great, very filling, but fantastic.
Other than that we usually make American food, which is good, the stores have pretty much anything you would want in America. They have loads of juices here I had some Cactus juice this week which was quite tasty. I also ate a Snickers, since I had heard they were better in Lithuania, which is true. It was way good. I also had a Lion bar, which isn't Lithuanian, but European, quite good.
Investigators- we had a couple return appointments this week, one was really good, with Chandler, a man from India who has been living here for 4 years. He really recognized the importance of finding out if what we said was true, which is usually something not realized right off the bat. The other was not so good. He only came back to return the Book of Mormon and tell us that all religion is nonsense and that no one needs it. We talked for a fair bit with him trying to help him see the need for religion and how it can bless and help our lives, but in the end we just told him to pray about what we had said, to find out for himself if it is true, and then if he was interested to call us.
Preparation days we buy groceries, email, eat someplace as a district, probably Can Can Pizza today, some european pizza, and then do a little shopping if we have time. Oh, Elder Cooke (whose last trainee did occasionally call him Elder Cookie, so Ella you were right on the money) has been working on gaining weight, so eating a ridiculious(spelled somehow different than this) amount. Anyway he has gained like eight pounds in a week, but he doesn't fit this suit that he bought here anymore, so he sold it to me, for a little less than he bought it, which is roughly $55 in America, it fits me perfectly and it's European, so the pants are just incredible, I don't know if I can ever be satisfied wearing American style pants again.

I haven't been inside any Cathedrals, walk past a bunch everyday. Might go visit a few today, some are crazy awesome looking from the outside. No other site seeing really.

This week we did an exchange in Šauliai, so rode the train there, it's a smaller city than Vilnius, reminded me of Idaho Falls a bit actually, but Lithuanian. Was interesting to see a different city and be with other missionaries, just to see how different everyone is.

Had a crazy miracle this week, so I was teaching Skydmantas piano, some Hymn with sharps, and he said something bout sharps being weird or useless, so I said I could show him a song played with all sharps after the lesson, the song being Sweet Child O Mine by Guns 'N' Roses. Then he asked me to teach him how to play it, I said if you come to Church, I'll teach you. He said if I taught him, he would come to Church, so I wrote it down, showed him how to play it a couple more times and incredibly he was at Church on Sunday (Sekmadeini). He's been totally inactive for a long time, and the missionaries hve tried for like 18 weeks (3 transfers) to get him back to Church.

Some funny things that happened: a lady told us that we were wasting our time as missionaries, but should become priests and follow the living Christ. We were such kind, devoted, young men that we could be such good priests. We explained to her that we did in fact believe in and follow Christ, and that this was the best thing that we could be doing with our lives and that we knew that we were doing what Christ wanted us to do.

A man asked us if we were drunk, when we said we knew Christ was our savior and important to us.

When we contacted a man, he said he needed money, to which we responded we didn't have any, but we wanted to talk with him about Christ and faith, he then repeated that he needs money to do business, no money no business, then in broken English repeated that phrase, we said goodbye and walked off.

While harvesting, when we asked someone if he would be interested in talking to us, he responded with yes, thank you and then shut his door.

A lot of drunk kids yelled at us, generally swearing in Russian, which I didn't understand, Elder Cooke just said that it was very bad.

Contacting this week was hard from Thursday-Sunday because it was a holiday here, Jonis, I think- a pagan holiday given some Catholic Saint's name to make it allowable, but essentially all Lithuanians go camping in the woods and just drink for four days. But it was really like everyone was gone, we talked to some people but almost everyone in the city spoke no LIthuanian and were tourists from all over.

This week I've been thinking about the Atonement and why it includes all pains, sickness, temptation, and any problems we have, that aren't sins to require repentance. I haven't found a definite answer, I know that because he did he is able to comfort all of us equally, but that's more of an end result, not a reason why it happened. Also I thought of the atonement being an equalizer, bringing everyone to the same level, not matter what their problems are, with the Atonement, everyone is equaly capable of choosing right, it might be harder for some to reach that point, because of past decisions, but starting from birth, the Atonement enables all to be equal, evening out the world, there is no unfairness in that sense.

Oh, Alistair could you either email or mail some other little pieces of songs for the piano that I could teach Skydmantas? Ačiu labai.

Wish all of you the best I pray for you and appreciate your prayers for me.
Love,

Vyresnysis Conor Hilton

PS Here's where you can send mail to me in Vilnius:

Elder Conor Hilton
A/D 3438
LT-01011 Vilnius
Lithuania