Baptismal Dates

Hello everyone,

Well, I successfully made it back from my visa trip. I won't lie, I was a little nervous about the whole thing but after all was said and done, I felt pretty good about the fact that I was able to get where I needed to be when I needed to be there in one of the biggest greatest cities in the world. I hated the train ride up to Moscow though. It was so long and boring! When I got in my compartment, I was the last of the 4 to move in. The other three had been in there for who knows how long. There was a man, a woman, and a devushka who was probably about 23 or so. I wasn't too happy about having to share a room with her, the older people didn't bother me but she was wearing some sort of tights pants things and a small t-shirt. I tried to be nice and ask them all where they were from and they just looked up at me like I was some sort of creature and told me where they were from and not another word was spoken to me for the rest of the 13 hour trip. I was pretty bored so I just ended up falling asleep. I woke up around 6:30 or 7 and studied and read and stuff as long as I could and then tried to go back to sleep which just didn't happen for me. I slept pretty poorly and kept waking up to a younger girl sleeping about 2 feet away from me. It was weird. The good thing was that the train lady woke us up at 3:30 for some reason so we could be ready by 5. I was glad to get woken up so I could quit trying to force myself to sleep. Anyway, I honestly felt pretty cool getting off that train. I had packed as light as I could so I had my small jacket with a backpack and that's all. I headed to the metro and had to wait for about a half hour for it to open. I found my metro and made it to the stop I needed to be at. I asked one person which way to go and another person where the certain house was and I found the a.p.'s apartment without problem. My whole group met up there and we ate pretty much every thing in that apartment that qualified as breakfast food. I felt bad for the a.p.'s but oh well. Anyway, it was so much fun to be with my group again. They are all doing really well and we are all growing so much. We spoke Russian to each other mostly all day. We got taken to the airport by our mission driver and just waited for our plane to Kiev. In Kiev we had about an hour and a half, so we thought, so we just kind of walked around. I changed some money and bought a spoon that says kiev. Elder Guynn was so impressed with the money that he changed exactly the same amount of money as I did just so he could keep the bills. While we were there, we saw a couple that looked pretty american pointing at the different souvenirs so I asked them if they were from America. They were so happy to meet us. They had been in Ukraine for around 3 weeks getting approved to adopt a baby. They said it was pretty rough trying to be there that long without knowing the language or having any kind of real translators. They said they went to the store looking to by sugar and milk and came home with salt and yogurt. I can see how that could happen. Anyway, we helped them find out how much a few things were then said goodbye. When it was time to go check in, we all headed to the desk. When we handed the papers to the lady, all she said was, "oh, you'll have to get some different tickets" We had gotten the check in time and the take off time mixed up so we tried to check in about 5 or 10 minutes before take off. They found out how many of us there were and just like last time, made things happen for us and we got on the plane in time. It was a really big blessing. Usually people aren't too kind in airports but the last two times we have been extremely late, there has been one really nice worker who just decides to help us out. Pretty interesting huh. Oh ya, in the airport in moscow I got stopped by a cop. Two days before that, I had gone to this really neat army shop near my house and they have for sale all the different patches, pins, hats, belt buckles, everything you need if you are a cop or military. I bought a cop patch and had Sister Lowery sew it on my backpack. The cop stopped me and said, do you understand Russian? I said ya, and he said, take off your backpack. What is that? I told him it was a souvenir and he simply said, take it off. I took it off and he took it from me and walked away. Crazy huh. It was only 18 rubles so I'll buy another one and probably just wait until I'm home to sew it on. We got back to Moscow after a crazy landing in which we all thought we were dead. The Russians have this thing where they applaud when we land the plane. Some moron started clapping the second a wheel touched the ground and I'm convinced the captain must have turned around to see who was already clapping and we swerved all over the place! It was kind of funny. We got back to the office and got fed dinner. I made it back to the train station, found out which track my train was on and I found my room. I was the first one to move in, followed by one really nice guy. I had been up since 3:30 that morning so I was just so tired. It was around 11 o'clock and I just wanted to go to bed. The guy said the same thing, he told me he was going to go smoke then go to bed but when he got back from his smoke, I guess he felt like talking. I told him I was from America and that's about it, he just went on and on, somehow got onto the topic of the olympics and boxing and some party he went to in Germany. I was just fighting to stay awake when I felt a tap on my arm and the guy said, you can go to sleep now. Ha, I fell asleep while having a one on one conversation with a guy. I said, oh I'm sorry, it's just that I've been up since 3:30 this morning and he said, oh, I see, ya I just was going to tell you... and went on to tell me another 15 minutes worth of stuff about the olympics. Finally I got to go to sleep. I slept really good that night. I got back to Veronizh and headed straight to the branch building. I was so glad to be back. I missed sacrament meeting but I went to sunday school and priesthood after two days of not showering or shaving. It was pretty bad. Anyway, that is the visa trip story for this visa.

It just so happens I had some spiritual experiences this week. I'm really glad Dad served the mission he did though. I see myself learning those same lessons that he learned. I'm grateful for this challenge, I feel like it will make me really search out the spirit and spiritual experiences because I know they happen. Anyway, there are two Russian sisters serving in Lipitsk, the town about 2 hours from here. They were here in Veronezh and asked us for a blessing. I have done the annointing for probably around 15 blessings but I haven't ever done the actual blessing. I felt like this time, I would be picked to give the blessing. They had actually called the night before so I had all night to think about it. I knew for some reason it was going to be me that gave the blessing so I was trying to prepare some stuff in my mind, going over the grammar, making sure I knew how to seal the annointing and so forth. The next day, sure enough, Sister Gorkavenko asked me to give her the blessing. I laid my hands on her head and said her name and was just full of the spirit right then. I can finally say I have sort of had one of those experiences where I was just speaking. And I was speaking well. I'm sure I still made a few mistakes but I just felt good. I gave her a blessing of health and comfort and closed the prayer. It felt so good, I won't forget that day. Another great experience happened yesterday. We had a meeting with a 16 year old named Sergey. His mom is a strong member but he has lived with his dad for most of his life. He knows a little about the church but has just never joined. We have met with him once before, and we tried to meet another time and he supposedly took the wrong bus so he didn't make it. Yesterday, he showed up for his lesson and we taught a good lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ, faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. We challenged him to be baptized on the 27th of February and he agreed. Keep him in your prayers. He is a really good kid and he is ready but it will still be a miracle if we can baptize him on the 27th. He has smoked since he was 7 years old, thanks to a great older brother. He says he has been trying to quit anyway because he doesn't have the money to support the habit and he knows it is not healthy. He seemed pretty confident that it would be no problem to quit so let's hope he can. If he gets baptized, it will be because of the faith of his mother. She has never lost faith that if she does what she's supposed to, the Lord will bless her and her family. She's a really strong woman. We actually have another baptism planned for the 27th, a 23 year old girl named Ina. I don't think I told you about her because I wasn't sure what was going to happen. The sisters here both just got transfered, right after they set a baptismal date with Ina. President figured it would be best if we took her since we know her and it would be harder to all of the sudden have two brand new sisters teaching her. So, we are working with her and are planning to baptise her on the 27th as well. Keep these people in your prayers, baptism is a big step, especially when you are such a minority here.

It sounds like you guys have had a lot of fun lately, I'm sure it was a blast having so much family around. I can't believe Tanner is getting back, that's pretty crazy. It is still getting warmer here and I have gone back to my lighter jacket and don't even really have to wear gloves anymore. I hope this is the end of the winter and we aren't just having some warm days. Thanks for writing, tell everyone hello for me. I'm glad you are all doing so well. I love you guys.

Love, Elder Geddes