Missionary enthusiasum

Hey everyone,

I won't find out anything about transfers for a little while longer, so we'll see. There would be some upsides to staying another transfer here, and it would also be fun to go somewhere else. We'll see what happens. One of the upsides is the friend that Ludmilla has brought to church. His name is Alexander and he is a doctor and a medical school professor. He's probably in his 50's and is really really smart. He's one of those people who is almost too smart so it's kind of hard to understand him sometimes but I think he will get baptized sometime in the near future. Ludmilla told us about him and said that since she brought him to church, he has learned as much as he could possibly learn on his own about our church. He told her that he likes it all and wants it to be part of his life. Yesterday we had our first meeting with him and it was really good. Ludmilla is a champ and she will be an awesome asset to our branch here in Veronezh. She is already friends with all the members, she has a calling as a teacher for enrichment night, and is just loving everything about the church.

Well we had a pretty good week. Zone conference was awesome, we had President Powell, or Paul or however you spell it, I'm not sure. Anyway, he is in the area presidency over our mission but he will be released at the end of this month. This was his last appearance at a missionary meeting and he did such a good job. He talked about what to do when we extend a baptismal committment and people say no. He really inspired and motivated everyone to try some different things and work a bit harder. After conference was over, we went back to red square and took some pictures and just had some fun. There were about 10 of us or more, and it was a lot of fun. We actually ran into a mormon family from Utah on red square, it was pretty funny. The train rides were both pretty fun as usual. We got back Saturday morning, got all cleaned up and then went to a baptism. The sisters had a 17 year old girl get baptized. Her older brother who was just baptized back in October got to baptize her. After that, we had another picnic out in the woods. It was a lot of fun and every companionship had at least one investigator there. I picked up a bunch of bottles people had just thrown around and filled them up with water and set up a bowling alley in the woods. It was fun for a while then people ended up just grabbing the bottles and having a water fight, which was also fun.

I had Elder Guynn and Anderson from Lipitsk come to Veronezh Sunday night and we did splits here in our area on Monday. It was very successful and a lot of fun. Sunday night, we grabbed a chalk board out of the branch building and wrote some stuff on it about the Book of Mormon then all went out and stood on the streets and talked with people and tried to give out books. It is always so much easier to work hard and do a good job when you are having fun doing it. It was pretty successful and we have some ideas of how to improve it for next time. Maybe it will be something we do once a week or so. Tuesday was a pretty normal day and then on Wednesday we had planned a movie night. We showed the movie Testaments and invited members and told them all to invite friends. We had about 30 people show up, 15 of which were non members. Ludmilla brought two friends, Alexander and a 28 year old guy named Dima. Dima speaks English really well and said that for now he is just interested in English, but we'll see if we can't start working with him and show him the gospel. Anyway, the movie night was a big success too. We have some pretty creative people in our district and I think we are just realizing the key to working smart and hard at the same time. In a few days, we will all be going to Lipitsk to give them a little boost. We will spend a day there doing a lot of different finding activities. We will do street contacting, we will sing in the park, we want to get a sign and talk about the Book of Mormon like we did here, and whatever else we can think of to try to get them some good contacts and give them an energy boost. It should be lots of fun.

Last p-day, I bought myself a sweet Russia shirt, a ussr jumpsuit, and a cheap Russia soccer jersey. They are sweet and I got them all for pretty good deals at the market. Today we might just go and see some sights and take pictures and stuff. That's always fun. I have been having some problems with one of the sisters here in my zone. She is impossible to make happy and it really bothers me. She can be down right rude to me sometimes, even when I am just trying to be nice and help. It is starting to get a little frustrating but I'm just trying to always be the bigger person and continue to be nice. She's a native sister and she's just one of those people who has an attitude problem.

We didn't have to pay for his tooth with our own funds, although we could have afforded it with how cheap it was. He has had to go back to the dentist a couple times and he just got an x-ray and found out that he still has 3 more wisdom teeth that will need to come out someday. He doesn't want to do it right now, I wonder if he'll just wait until they cause problems or what. Poor guy. When we buy tickets, it's with straight cash, just like with all purchases here in Russia. I had over 40,000 rubles in my hands. It was pretty sweet, but a pain in the butt to get out of the atm. You can usually only take out about 5-7 thousand at a time, depending on the atm.

Well, that's about all that is going on here. I'm glad to hear everyone had a good 4th of July. Just like last year it was just like any other day for me. I can't wait until I can go to the Soda Springs parade again, I love the festivities in good ol' Soda. Anyway, thanks everyone for writing. Have fun in Boston Mom and Dad. Love you guys.

Elder Geddes