Traveling through Russia

Hey everyone,

 

Wow, what a strange week I had!  Last week I wrote from Moscow.  One of the office elders there made the french toast by the way.  One of the toppings we had to put on was this kind of sweet and sour salsa.  It wasn't too bad.  Anyway, I stayed there until around five when one of the senior couple elders drove me and a native sister to the train station.  We were going to meet my companion there but they said if he didn't make it to just get on the train and go.  It took about 3 hours to get to the train station so we had less than an hour to find our train and everything.  The sister said she was going to go find out and had me watch the bags.  She was gone for about 20 minutes and I had no idea where she was.  So I was staning in the middle of a crowed train station with 4 suitcases and my train was leaving in just over a half an hour.  I usually don't get too stressed out but I was feeling it a little bit at this point.  Finally the sister comes back and we get a call saying my companion is there and waiting.  We go outside and find him by our train and got on with just over 15 minutes to spare.  It was a nice train, somehow the AP's messed up and bought us the nicest tickets.  Me and my companion had a small room with two small beds to ourselves.  I slept okay and woke up and we were almost to Veronezh.  The other elders in the city met us at the station and took us to our new house.  The problem is, the elders who we replaced had a situation with their landlord so they had been kicked out.  They needed to find a place pretty fast so the apartment we got stuck with is a one day find.  It is pretty junky.  We are searching for a nicer one that is closer to the branch.  I hope we find one soon!  Maybe they have these things in Austria but I had never heard of or seen one before.  It is basically a water heater but it is a small box on the wall of your shower.  It has two levers, one to open a valve and one to turn on the gas.  It has a small slot for you to put a match in to light it.  The water has to be running for it to work and so you have to light it every time you get in the shower.  You just have to be careful when adjusting the levers to not let too much gas out.  The fact that my left hand has no hair on it anymore should give you the idea that it isn't easy to get used to.  Also, sometimes the water is weird so there is no pressure at all.  That means you can only flush the toilet once every 45 minutes or so, so just hope both of us don't have to go to the bathroom at around the same time or the second guy doesn't get to flush.  Anyway, we want to get out.  So we arrived Friday morning, and the first thing you have to do when you move is get registered or you will be deported.  While trying to do this, we found out that my companion couldn't be registered because they hadn't done the right things for him when he came out of Belarus (his last area).  They told us we were not to leave the house, but we had to anyway.  They really don't want you to do missionary work if you aren't registered because it isn't unheard of to get the cops called on you.  Anyway, we didn't get a whole lot done for the whole weekend.  They figured out he would have to come with me and my group to Ukraine when we went to renew our visas.  So we got him a ticket with us and kind of had to bum around for a couple days.  Sunday was cool, we had church start at 1:00 and we got to meet a lot of the members of our branch.  It was so awesome to go to a priesthood meeting where the room was filled with guys all wearing jackets and ties!  The branch president is really awesome and a great president.  So church was good and we had to head to the train station right after to catch a not so desirable train to Moscow.  It left at around 5 and got to Moscow at 4:30.  We didn't get the Lux like we did from moscow here but it still wasn't bad.  It was a private room with 4 beds in it and there were three of us.  We just talked and had some fun until bedtime.  They came around and woke us up at 3:30 for some reason.  We got to the metro in Moscow at about 4:45 and had to wait until 5:30 until it opened.  Once it opened we went to the stop and met the rest of our group.  It was so crazy trying to get 9 of us on the same bus to the airport!  People go nuts when the bus gets there so we didn't make the first bus but the second bus pulled up and some crazy stuff happened.  I was near the front of the line, if you could call it a line.  When the bus pulled up I found myself being squeezed so tight by the people around me that I could niether move nor breathe.  All of a sudden I feel myself being lifted off the ground and moving toward the bus.  The next time my feet touched the ground was when they hit the first step of the bus.  I had the money to get tickets for our group but my companion was closer to the window.  I handed him my wallet and continued being forced to move.  The last I saw him, he was plastered against the ticket window with a 1000 ruble bill in hand.  It was so crazy!  The bus ride was way long and we knew for sure we would miss our flight to Ukraine.  We finally get to the airport and are running around like crazy.  Somehow, the people were so nice to us and rushed us through security and got us on the plane.  It's about an hour and twenty minute flight to Ukraine, and they still gave us sandwiches and drinks!  We had about 2 hours in the Ukraine airport so we went outside and got a dessert at a small cafe diner thing near the airport.  We got on a plane back to Russia and got more sandwiches.  Someone was brave enough to ask for another sandwich so almost all of us ended up having 3 sandwiches and 2 glasses of juice.  Once we got back to the office in Moscow, we ate some delicious food made by the same elder who made the french toast.  We headed back to the train station and this time got on the least desireable train ever.  There are no private rooms, just beds.  Picture about a hundred people all just sprawled out on the train beds, snoring, breathing, making other weird noises, it was so weird!  The only reason I was able to sleep at all was because I had been up since 3:30 the morning before.  I got woken up by my companion who told me to hurry and get ready because the train had stopped at what we thought was our stop.  I start grabbing all my stuff and just as I was tieing my shoes, the train took off.  We were both pretty scared but the conductor told us it was the next stop.  By the time we got home, I was so tired and nasty looking ha, I hadn't shaved in almost 3 days, or showered for that matter, and I get to come home to a nasty apartment that smells like urine and sleep on a really awful bed.  Missionary life is AWESOME!!  You never know what you'll find in the morning.

 

The rest of the week has been filled with just trying to get used to the area.  It's a bit frustrating when neither of us know where we are.  I hope we figure things out fast because I really hate feeling like we are wasting time.  It's really cool being in a city with more than 2 elders.  We have another set of elders, a set of sisters, and a senior couple.  That's the best part, the senior couple has fed us already I think 4 times.  We will get to eat lunch there every week after our real district meeting and we will be having thanksgiving there.  For some reason Sister Woolley wanted us to have thanksgiving in our own cities this year.  I guess last year, President Collins shipped everyone to Moscow and had a mission thanksgiving.  Anyway, we are supposed to invite an investigator and make it a kind of pot luck thing.  It will be fun. 

 

My companion will take some getting used to.  He's very sarcastic and is having a hard time getting back into the swing of real missionary work since he has spent the last 3 months in Belarus.  I will hopefully be strong enough to bring him back, rather than adapt some of his habits.  I will be fine though and will still be able to learn a lot from him.  He speaks the language very well.  His name is Elder Traasdahl and he is from Arizona.  He goes home in April.  Neither one of us know how to cook very well so hopefully we will learn some stuff.  That would be a great thing you could send me in emails is easy recipes for stuff.  Keep an eye out for easy, tasty food and send me instructions. 

 

Have you gotten the memory card I sent you?  I really hope so.  Let me know, I sent it to the boise house.  I think that is just a bit too scary, I don't know if I'll ever do that again.  I think I will be able to email pictures from the internet place here so that will be nice.  I was getting haircuts from a place in Tula but they were weird because Russian men like to have everything short but their bangs so it just looked weird.  I gave myself a haircut with the equipment that Elder Traasdahl has and it looks really good.  I will probably just be doing that from now on.  Elder Hiatt gave me the scarf as a going away present.  I found out I won't be seeing him again before he leaves.  We are all going to be in Moscow on the 23rd I think so president didn't want to ship us all there 2 weeks before that for zone conference.  That means he'll have a main zone conference for the cities near moscow and for us loners in the far away cities, he will be coming to us.  I was a little sad I won't see Elder Hiatt again but it's okay, I'll just have to give him a call.  I will be able to grab my packages when we go up for the Christmas party so it will be perfect.  Last year, President Collins gave the missionaries a 3 day window to call home just so they could all find a good time that worked for everyone.  I'm not sure what the deal will be this year and I have no idea yet about what I am supposed to do about a calling card or whatever.  Elder Hiatt said his family found some sort of card and just called him.  I'll keep asking around and find out what works best.  You can ask around too and see if you can find some sort of international calling card.  I'll give you more details when I find out.

 

This has to be a record longest email, sorry!  But I am doing great and having a good time.  I'm still trying to figure out what it means to be a true missionary and I suppose that will be my goal for the rest of my mission.  Right now I'm not exactly feeling like I have been the most effective missionary but I'm doing what I can.  This is just one of the many challenges I will face and conquer.  I love you guys and I'm so glad you are all doing well at home so I don't have to worry too much (except about these little babies, they keep me a little worried)  Thanks for everything you do.  I love you all.

 

Elder Geddes