One Week Down

Here is Jess's first letter from Russia. It's a bit late so you are getting his second letter also today. As you will see as you read, he is a pretty excited young missionary. His e-mail comes in at around 2:00 in the morning and somehow I am able to hear it and wake immediatly so I can read it first thing. As you can see, he has a very excited mother also. We love his letters and hope you will enjoy them with us.

Hey everyone, How is everthing going in America? I can say that now because I am in Russia! It sounds like everything is going really well, I'm glad Britney made it back from her trip okay. I can't believe that about Caleb and Struan. That is really too bad. Oh and don't worry about my license, I found it, plus I found out it is pretty much useless anyway but I was glad to find it. I can't believe Mikelle is in school! That's pretty exciting. I guess I can receive emails from you all I just can't send them to whoever I want, so feel free to email me and I when I email you I will just have to do it through mom's account. We have to go to an internet cafe and we just pay for how much time we want. We got an hour and a half so it should be plenty for this week. Okay, so my first week in Russia. What an awesome week! After I got done talking to mom, we had interviews with President Woolley. He told us a little about our areas and companions and expressed his love for us. He really does love us already. In my interview he told me Elder Hiatt is the first counselor in the branch presidency as well as a zone leader. He asked me to be the branch clerk in our small branch here in Tula. Elder Hiatt says that we keep the branch afloat because right now there are only 3 worthy melchezidek priesthood holders and two of them are us, but I'll tell you about the branch later. After the interviews we got to go to the ap's apartment. It was so nice! They had tons of food, they had real milk but it still tasted a bit weird, and they even had a bedet if that's how you spell it. I didn't get a chance to use it though, I was just too tired. My whole district, plus two other elders who were going home in a few days, slept in the living room on these IKEA mattresses they had. I didn't sleep too great, even though I was completely exhausted. I had the misfortune of getting a bed in between Elder Guynn and Elder Grossman who both snore like crazy. I woke up at about 5:50 and knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep so I just layed there until 6:30 when I could get up. I ate a bowl of cereal called little pillows in english. They were way to sweet but I have figured out a good way to eat them thanks to the other elders. You add corn flakes and granola! It is so good. Granola here is awesome. Anyway, we all got up and got ready, it took a while for all 11 of us to shower and what not. Actually 12 because another elder showed up at about midnight for some reason, I never figured out because he didn't speak the best english. We were picked up by President Woolley and his driver Sasha. Sasha drives like a champ but it is really scary, I'm really glad we aren't allowed to drive. One of the ap's forgot something important at the apartment so he and the president took the presidents car and drove back and Sasha took the rest of us to Red Square. Sasha doesn't speak English but he is really nice. All of us were so excited when we got to see St. Basil's Cathedral. We took a bunch of pictures and everything but right as we got there, Elder Anderson found out his camera battery was dead so he didn't get any photos of Red Square haha, I felt bad but it was kinda funny. Another cool thing we got to see was similar to the changing of the guard and Arlington Cemetary. They have the same kind of monument there and have a similar ceremony when the guard changes, only with a bit more Russian flare. I got it on video. While we were watching that, Sasha was saving our spot in line to see Lenin! I never knew this but they preserved his body and have it on display. We walked in, without Sasha because he was holding our cameras and stuff since we aren't allowed to take them in, and we walked down some stairs into a really dark room. There were Russian guards about every 15 feet. Lenin was in the middle of the room in a glass case looking about as freaky as ever. We walked around and stopped to look and right as we stopped, a guard started yelling something to us in Russian so we assumed we weren't allowed to stop and we got out of there. We also saw the Kremlin, that was cool too. After that we were driven to the central office in Moscow where we would meet our new companions. I met Elder Hiatt, said goodbye to my district, grabbed my bags and left. We walked quite a ways to get to the metro. The metro was beautiful, it had high ceilings with mosaics and murals and everything. We took a short metro to the train station and waited for a train for a little while. While we were waiting Elder Hiatt bought me a yogurt drink and some chocolate and we talked to a woman at the store about our church. The train was finally there and I was really excited because I had never been on a train. One of the first things that happened was I got yelled at for having my suitcase on the bed above me instead of in the bin below me because it was too big to fit in there. She made us put it on this shelf clear at the top of the train and this bag was heavy! Other than that, the train really wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. It was so slow and the seats weren't very comfortable. I knew I should be studying or something but I was so tired, I couldn't stay awake. I slept almost all of the 3 hour ride. I was awake for part of it and finally got a chance to talk to Elder Hiatt a little bit. We only spoke Russian, since there were two Russian guys sitting accross from us and Elder Hiatt was really impressed with how much I was understaning and able to say. When we got near the stop, we grabbed my bags and stood in the doorway. I farted silently and when Elder Hiatt smelled it he said "Ah, Tula!" He explained how there was some sort of sewage plant thing right as you come in to Tula. I still haven't told him it was me, I probly will today. We walked what seemed forever to get to our apartment. Elder Hiatt bought me a Russian pastry that Tula is famous for making. It was pretty good, I had another one yesterday. We got to our apartment and I was a little nervous. One thing I have already realized is that here in Russia, no matter how nice the apartment is, the entry and stairwell is really sketchy. We open this big steel door and walk into a dark entry way and head for the elevator. The elevator is tiny and reeks of urine. It has graffiti on the walls that amazingly enough was washed off the other day. The graffiti is sometimes funny because Russians try to write things in English and if there is one thing they don't understand about the English language it is words like the, and is. Our elevator said "Linkin Park the best" Elder Hiatt said he saw one that said "Rap cool" Kinda funny. Anyway, our apartment is pretty nice. It's pretty small but I like it. We have a small kitchen, a small room with a toilet, a small room with a shower and a washing machine, a living room with a piano, which happens to be my desk until further notice, and a bedroom. It's pretty nice. All I have eaten since I have been here is stuff Elder Hiatt makes me. He is a good cook and we have eaten well. We eat lots of vegetables and lots of taco stuff or chicken on rice or in barley. It's all been really good. We taught a lesson to an awesome member of the branch and she fed us these delicious pastry things and a cup of berry flavored tea. Elder Hiatt is awesome. He has already taught me a lot and he makes me laugh so hard my stomach hurts. One of the greatest things he has taught me so far is that somedays we will be disappointed in the results we have, but we should never be disappointed in ourselves or in our efforts. It's true too. We walk I don't know how many miles a day and knock on tons of doors and sometimes people don't want to talk to us, sometimes they talk to us but don't want to learn more, sometimes they give us their info and we never get a hold of them or they say nevermind. We have found some awesome people who I think would really enjoy the message but we haven't been able to get back in contact with them. We have some investigators already, one that is really promising. I haven't met him because he has been in Paris. We are hoping he got married to his girlfriend in Paris. If so, we should be able to help him get baptised. This is what we do, we set up meetings with people at night, if they don't follow through or if we can't get anything set up, we go knock on doors or talk to people on the street. We don't have a ton of strong members to help us find so a lot of it is up to us. We go get into an apartment building and go all the way to the top and work our way down. It's pretty funny because most people when you knock on the door just yell "KTO TOM!" Who's there! We explain that we are doing a small survey about families and that we would like to talk to them. I can do it already. I can tell them who we are, why we are there and give the survey. At the end I ask them if they think it's possible to live after this life. That's usually where I hand it over to Elder Hiatt. It's pretty cool, I'm not sure why, but I am not one bit afraid to talk to anybody. Probably because I have Elder Hiatt to help me out but I have talked to a few people all by my self and had a small conversation with them. The sister missionaries we share Tula with just love me for some reason. One of them is a native who was actually in the mtc with me for a while. She tells me every time we do anything with them how great she thinks I'm doing. She says I speak almost without an accent and that she can't believe that even though I don't really know the language too well I will go up to anyone on the street and start talking to them. I love to hear that and even though I have SOOO far to go, it really helps build my confidence. Church was an interesting experience. I had to give a five minute talk, basically just bear my testimony and I shared a verse from the book of mormon. When I stood up, I could see everyone's face looking like "this oughta be good" After the meeting, lots of the members came and told me good job and that I'm already speaking well. Once again, I know I have an incredible amount to learn but that is always good to hear. After church, me and Elder Hiatt had to meet with our branch president. He is awesome. He is 25 and he's a returned missionary. He is a great force in the branch. I had to be trained on the finances, it isn't too hard but I felt bad because President Alfonin had to wait for me to try to understand and also to write in Russian. I'll get good at it though. I have a pretty tough time understanding. Some people are better than others but for the most part I am just trying to pick out words here and there. If they say short phrases I can usually figure it out but when they go off forever I completely lose it. Russians love to talk a lot so I am usually pretty lost. It will come though. A lot happened this week, this email is huge and I probably left out a ton. Some of the more interesting things that happened: My first morning, as we left the apartment, we saw a guy carrying a full grown man over his shoulders because he was too drunk to walk. I see a lot of people stagger from alcohol, it's pretty sad. It's such a so called tradition to drink here, if you are a guy that doesn't drink, people think you must be an alcoholic and you just can't handle alcohol. Another funny thing that has actually happened twice now, an angry old babushka tried to make us leave the stairway we were in. The first one was the worst. She was just screaming and waving her newspaper. Elder Hiatt explained we were here by the law and we didn't have to leave but she insisted. I didn't understand anything she said except for leave fast. Elder Hiatt said she was using some pretty foul language though. The next one that did that to us was pretty calm about it. She just kept saying, leave quickly, leave quickly, I'll call the cops haha. We aren't too scared of them. We hold English club every Saturday night. We are trying to get it going on Wednesday's too but nobody came last night. Elder Hiatt and I teach the advanced group where we simply hold a conversation with them. It was a lot of fun and it was a relief to understand what people are saying. Hmm, I'm sure there are other things I have forgotten but this is a really long email. Oh, the weather has been rainy and pretty chilly lately. We have been wearing just sweaters. One of the sweaters I brought is way too big so I have only been wearing one. Maybe that could be a good gift. As for music, we are allowed to listen to any motab, and any variation of the hymns. we have a cd player in our apartment and some pretty good music. Sorry this is so long, I hope you don't get too bored, they probably won't be this long every week, it's just this was a pretty big week for me. Everything is going great, I am loving the work. It's really hard and I am just tired every day but I just love it here. I'm glad it sound's like everything is going well at home. I'll talk to you next week. I love you all!
From Russia with Love,
Elder Jess W Geddes