October 3, 2009

(This is out of order, mom asked me to change it so it would be in order, but it got too complicated with her being a contributor and me, so this is a couple weeks ago....Liz)

Hello everyone,

First of all, I am still in Tula and I found out last night that I will be here for one more transfer! I don't know if I explained it well last week but President hadn't exactly made up his mind. I was going to go to Veronizh on the 9th but we got the good news last night. Most likely at the end of this transfer I will be somewhere else though. I'll tell you more about that later though.

How is everyone doing? It sounds like things are going great there. It is getting really cold here but no snow yet. I was happy to hear that Soda beat Russia to the snow. Today I hope to get a Kepka, one of those hats they wear on the newsies. Pretty much the only people who wear them are old men and missionaries but I will be one of those missionaries that wears it. Also, I will be buying some sweaters today. I'm not ready to buy my real coat and that stuff, but I'm working my way there.

This last week was a really awesome week. Last P-Day, we went to яснан поляна (yasnaya polyana in case it doesn't come through) the place where Tolstoy was born. I think I told you that. But it was so beautiful! The leaves are changing, there were so many trees and a small lake on his property. It was awesome to be in a peaceful nature setting and just enjoy the fresh air. I even bought a small souvenier, a little wooden plate with a painting of the scenery. It's something I'll have hanging on my wall when I have a house. I was pretty excited about that. That pretty much took up our whole p-day. The rest of the week was just good. We met a few people who I think are elect and ready to hear the gospel. One night, a couple nights ago, Elder Hiatt and I were about to go into a building and knock on some doors. For some reason I really felt like I didn't want to work and I would rather just take a seat somewhere and do nothing. I thought for a minute about that and realized something good must be waiting in this building and Satan wants me to be lazy and not work. I told Elder Hiatt that and we began calling apartments trying to get in. Every apartment building has stairwells. Each stairwell has it's own door with something called a Dom-a-phone. We have to call apartments and ask permission to come in and speak with people. Anyway, after I told Elder Hiatt this, he called an apartment and a guy answered and asked what we wanted to do. When Elder Hiatt told him he said sure, come talk to me first. I thought this must be what was waiting here! We went and talked to the guy. He was way muslim and ended up just wanting to argue with us. Elder Hiatt was sort of letting himself get a bit frustrated. We talked to the guy for probably over a half an hour. Finally the subject changed, we were able to make friends with the guy, then we said goodbye. Elder Hiatt was a bit flustered and just wanted to leave the place. We do what we call power hours here where at least one hour a day is set aside for knocking doors. He said, lets just go, our power hour is almost over anyway. I was a bit frustrated as well at the fact that Elder Hiatt was letting anger be involved in a discussion about the gospel. I told him we should stay and knock on a few more doors and that the purpose of a power hour isn't to spend an hour knocking on doors but to try and find someone special. Also I kind of got after him for letting himself get mad while talking to the guy. I could tell he was just cussing me out in his mind, which he later admitted to doing, but we stayed. We went to a different floor and the first door we knocked on was a younger woman with a small family. She had met with missionaries about 10 years ago but she had since moved and had kids and just lost contact with us. She seemed happy to see us, gave us her information and we will be meeting with her soon. After that, Elder Hiatt couldn't stop talking about it. He said it was a miracle and that he just wanted to leave the place and do other stuff. We were both sort of re-energized by the experience and we can't wait to meet with her. Also, the next day we met a guy who had the same situation. He had met with missionaries before but lost contact. We lent him a Book of Mormon and will meet with him soon as well. Last night at our English club, we had a Vietnamese grad student come. He speaks pretty good English and he immediately began asking questions about our church. We technically aren't allowed to talk about church in English club so I told him I would talk to him after. Well after the class, I talked to him and asked if he would be interested in meeting with us. He said he would and that he wants to learn all about our church. He even asked when we meet if we would be able to bring him some sort of book or some sort of study material so he could get familiar with our church. I said "You want a book? I think we could arrange that." We will try to get him one in Vietnamese so he understands it better. His name is Thien and I feel really good about him. To make things even better, I'm not sure if I told you or not, but the sisters got taken out of Tula. One finished her mission and the other got transfered to Belarus. That means we get to take over their investigators! They have a few pretty solid ones that we are excited about.

So after all this success, I really really didn't want to leave Tula but I had kind of accepted the fact that I would be gone next week. Well at about 10:40 we got a phone call from the AP's. They told us we would be together for one more transfer! I couldn't believe it. We are both really excited that we will be together and about the work that will be done. We have a lot going for us right now and it is easy to see the hand of the Lord in all that we are doing.

That means that I will get your package in a nice, timely fashion. So don't worry about that. Just send it to the mission home. I am jealous that you all will be watching conference this weekend but don't worry, we get to watch it next week, IN ENGLISH!! I can't wait for that. We have been listening to talks from older conferences. We have one conference on tape and one on cd so we have gotten to listen to some good stuff.

I can't wait for you to come to Russia and see this place. It's great. You'll get to hear the language, which I've come to find out is a beautiful language... when spoken by natives. You'll love it.

Thanks for all of your prayers and faith. I'm not worried in the least. The Lord wants me to be here and will prepare a way for me to not only be here but to be able to be here with an eye single to his glory. I have been studying a lot about faith this past couple weeks. We show our faith by obedience and hard work. What better place to show both of those than here on a mission? There are so many opportunities to be blessed as a missionary. I am striving to strengthen my faith every day so that I won't have to be afraid or in doubt. In the bible dictionary under faith it says the the Lord has shown his characteristics such as love, knowledge, power, in their fullness so that the mind of man can accept him and not be afraid or doubt. He has shown us that he is capable of incredible things. He did that so that we can fully trust that he can do incredible things in our lives. I read the story about Christ sleeping on the ship and the disciples wondering "carest not that we perish?" I think we receive trials in our lives that sometimes are pretty difficult. Sometimes we don't think we can handle them and we just want the Lord to take them away. I think the hardest tests are tests of patience and faith. Of course we would want the Lord to heal us right away when we feel sick, but that sometimes isn't the case. We have to have faith as long as it takes. Our lives work on the Lords time. I know the disciples tried to hold out as long as they could before the woke Christ, it says the ship was full of water and in other accounts, covered in waves. I wonder if they had held out just a little longer, knowing that the Son of Man was asleep on that very ship, if things would have worked out. I'll hold out as long as it takes, knowing that the Son of Man is with me and that he won't let me drown. I know that the Lord is mindful of us. If we just look, we will find more blessings and more love given to us in our lives than we even realize.

Thanks again for everything, I am so blessed to have such a strong family helping me every step of the way here on my mission. I love you all.

Elder Geddes