Moving Apartments, Again!

Hey Everyone,

How's it going? Sounds like things are going well. We have had kind of a stressful week. People have been giving us figs (standing us up) and we have been having problems with our apartment. First of all, last week we had zone conference here in Veronezh. It was really pretty good. The AP's came and I won't lie, I was happy to see Elder Traasdahl. It's sad that you seem to get along with people better after you are done being their companion. I'm sure it just comes from two guys being forced to spend 24 hours a day with each other. Anyway, they slept at our apartment and we stayed up way late just talking. It was nice for both me and my companion because the other ap is my comps trainer. The next day was zone conference. It was really long but really good. We also got to watch the general priesthood session after that. It was so good!! I can't wait to read the talks once we get the Liahona. That will be so fun. We got to watch both Sunday sessions and one of the Saturday sessions we missed on Sunday. I was really happy to see that two of our investigators showed up to it. Remember Costya, the 21 year old kid we have been teaching? He came to conference! It was pretty exciting. It was the first time he has ever come to a church meeting here. Anyway, the other investigator was the dance guy. He had a meeting with our branch president who, for some reason, scheduled another meeting with him for this Sunday. I'm not sure what the deal is with this guy, I'm still trying to figure out if he is just trying to get our building or what. Anyway, it was really nice.

The trouble started on Monday. At district meeting, our lovely zone leader told me that me and my comp need to meet our real estate agent guy the next day to look at an apartment. I had no idea what he was talking about because the apartment we were going to be moving into was fine. Elder Khusainov said, oh that one fell through, this is a different one. I was pretty upset. We had already told our landlady that we were going to be moving and now we had to go look at an apartment that wasn't in the area we wanted it, and could possibly be junky. So the next day we go look at the apartment and sure enough it is a piece of junk. So then we realize, we have two weeks until we need to be out of our apartment and we have no place to go. I called our landlady to ask if we could still live there and she just laughed and said someone else had just signed for it. Yesterday though, we decided to look a bit for ourselves. We put up some announcements that we were looking for an apartment and someone already called. Elder Khusainov is looking at an apartment for us tonight. Also, just on a whim I asked this one guy if he knew anyone who was trying to rent out an apartment. He said, hold on. He made a quick phone call and said, can you guys look at one tonight? We went and looked at a one room apartment in a really good area. It is tiny but both me and my companion felt like we would live there if we had to. It had everything we needed and was in way nice shape. Plus, the guy said we could wait until the end of the two weeks to decide and that we could live there for as long as we need to find a different place if that's what we want to do. It is a nice little safety net, keyword, little.

Anyway, so that was kind of stressful. Also, for some reason I have just been having nights where I just am tired of trying to schedule meetings and come up with things to do for the next day. The thing is, I just need to get used to it because it isn't that likely that I will have another companion who is older than me. We get 6 new elders at the end of this transfer. I have a chance of training and will probably find out what's going on with that next week. If I do get a chance to train, that means I will be in Veronezh for at least probably 2 more transfers. I've already been here almost 6 months, I almost feel like a new city would be a nice change. Not to mention, not a whole lot is going on in our area still. We are finding new people and working really hard but things just aren't happening very fast here.

We had such a sad meeting with an inactive guy. He just has gone off the deep end and doesn't believe that the book of mormon is true or that there is even a God. Some of the stuff he was saying was just sad. Meeting with people like him is probably my least favorite thing to do. My companion and I were talking not long ago about different missions and how people come home and say they just gained a testimony and that they saw so many miracles on their missions. We decided that if you get called to our mission, you had better already have a testimony. Mom, you have told me a few times that a lot of the stuff we do as missionaries is just as much for ourselves as it is for others. I agree. Meeting with some of these people, especially this guy we just met with, has made me realize what faith is. If you think about it, you might be able to reason your way out of some of the things we have faith in. This guy said that one day it just clicked that while the church is good and it helps people, it just isn't real. It is just there to provide comfort but it just isn't real. We tell ourselves so much that we believe in God and in Joseph Smith that one day our brain just accepts that. This guy has it all backwards. The ability to believe in God and in Joseph Smith and in Jesus Christ, while the whole world is telling you that it's not real, that's the challenge. It would be easy to throw your hands up and claim it's not real. I just feel bad for this guy. The man actually apologized to us if he had somehow shaken our faith. He acted like someone telling a small child that Santa Clause wasn't real. The kicker to the whole thing is that, while he thinks maybe he has shaken our faith, my testimony has grown in some ways because of it. Denis is living proof that no matter how far off the deep end we go, God still loves us and is aware of us. As we were arranging a spot to meet, we called him and he said, Hey guys, can you please bring me a loaf of bread? We said sure and we bought him a 50 cent loaf of bread. He himself admitted that it was strange that we called him since missionaries hadn't called him in years, but as soon as he had found himself in such bad money problems that he couldn't afford a 50 cent loaf of bread, the missionaries call him up. He said that he had drank one glass of tea the day before because he just doesn't have money for food. If Denis doesn't want to admit that God provided for him the only way he could that day, I just feel bad for him.

Well, I think I've gone on enough. It sounds like things are going well at home. I hope you and dad made it home okay mom. I'll send home some pictures today for you guys. Thanks for everything you do for me, for all of your love and support. I love you all. Talk to you soon.

Love, Elder Geddes