Strengthening a Testimony

Hey everyone,

I am sitting in a post office in Moscow. We got up early this morning and took a bus to moscow for the second part of our training. We will be staying the night here at the AP's apartment. I thought it was going to be a hotel but oh well, this will be fun too. I am going to just write this one letter because we don't have a lot of time.

This week has been good so far. I decided I'm not going to be complaining about Kaluga anymore. I will most likely be there for another 3 transfers, but who knows. I know me and my companion are going another transfer together though.

The week started out pretty bad though, I won't lie. Our shower has been broken this whole time and my companion and I have taken 2 showers in the last week and a half. We have to go to our landlady's house to shower and we have only been able to make it over there about ever three days! I'll have to take two showers tonight just to make up for it. Luckily it started cooling down right when our shower broke so we haven't been sweating quite as much. Luckily we got to take a shower on Sunday. When we got back from her apartment, I saw I had missed a call from the branch president, Dima. It was 9:30 and church started at 11. I called him back and he asked me to speak in church. Oh well, what can you do. Luckily I had a talk written in English for last zone conference. I just translated it a little bit and used it. I spoke for about 15 minutes and I feel like it wasn't too bad. It felt weird because there were only 2 other members that showed up other than Dima!! In all there were 5 people at church. I played the piano, blessed the sacrament and spoke. I couldn't believe that only 3 members showed up. Everyone is still getting in there last little vacations before school and everything starts up. The week got better after that. Sunday night we had a meeting with a Russian Orthodox priest. I'm not sure why, but I somehow always end up getting meetings with those guys. We found the place that he wanted us to meet at and it was a super old church, kind of more of a seminary thing. Anyway, he led us into a room with a table and about 10 people sitting around it. He said they had just finished a bible study class and that now they were going to ask us some questions. I had a prayer in my heart that I would be able to understand their questions and be able to respond well to them. For the next hour and a half I answered questions to the best of my ability. The priest was asking a lot of questions about Adam and Eve. Something I like about meeting with people like this is it gives me some ideas of things to study in my personal study. His main question was why was the fruit forbidden. Kind of a good question I guess. Why didn't God just send us here in a state that we would be able to make choices, whether good or bad. Why was the fruit a necessary part of the plan? I answered the questions as good as I could, explaining that we were given agency, and that choices were an important part of our learning process on the earth. It explains everything so clearly in 2 Nephi 2 we can't make choices unless there are choices offered. We can't make good choices unless it is possible to make bad choices. They of course didn't really accept my answers but it all makes sense to me. That's why the Book of Mormon is so important and crucial to our knowledge of the gospel. My talk that day in church was actually about agency. That is such an important thing for us to understand! And such a fun thing to study. It's my favorite topic to teach about as well. They asked a lot of things about life on earth and why it is necessary. They think it is a form of punishment to be here, but we know it is a blessing. They feel like God could have just taught us everything we needed to know and that if we still think it were necessary to come here to experience it for ourselves, we don't trust God. It all comes back to telling your kids not to touch the stove. Sure they understand that you don't want them to do it, but you also don't want them to eat too much sugar, or get their pants dirty every day. Until the child touches the stove and burns his hand, he won't understand why he's not allowed to touch it. Or in other words, we've all heard the analogy of trying to explain the taste of salt without using the word salt. The gospel makes sense. It is designed to be understood by all. It doesn't need to be debated or reasoned. It is simple and true. Anyway, the guy gave me a small book written by some Russian Priest. Cool souvenier.

This week, the senior couple from Tula came to Kaluga for the day. Their names are the Moffetts and I feel like Elder Moffett changed my mission. He is probably the most knowledgeable guy in the gospel I've ever met. His scriptures have just about every verse marked up with notes all over the place. He is so good at teaching any topic using the scriptures. They took us out to lunch first and I was just talking with Elder Moffett. I had been kind of down on myself and had come to the conclusion that my time in Kaluga was just a testing period and the only reason I was there was for the Lord to see if I could handle it. I asked him if he thinks the Lord really needs 19 and 20 year old kids walking around Russia trying to get these people to hear the gospel or if it is just a kind of training or teaching opportunity for us. He testified to me that he knows the Lord needs us here, and specifically needs us in Kaluga. He shared a verse with me in the Doctrine and Covenents that has really changed my way of thinking. It is in section 117. The Lord is talking to someone, I can't remember his name right now, but what he says is that he remembers this man and wants him to know that his sacrifice is worth more to him than his increase! My sacrifice is important to the Lord. He is aware of me and my needs and desires. If I am able to keep myself worthy of the spirit, be obedient and work hard every day, it will make no difference if I baptize one more person or a hundred more people, I will be able to know that the results of my mission were the will of God. I really want to work hard. I really want to be obedient. I really want to be a tool in the hands of the Lord. Aside from that great experience, we went contacting with the Moffetts. They are so great! They were able to give out 5 Books of Mormon somehow! They don't speak much Russian but they have a desire to share the gospel.

Elder Frehner and I have gotten a lot of contacts this week and we have gotten one new investigator. Her name is Inna. We finally got a meeting with her and gave her a Book of Mormon and she agreed to begin reading and meet with us again. As I was explaining the book to her and explaining a little about the church, I felt inspired to be bold and be honest. I said, Inna, I will be 100 percent honest with you. We are missionaries called of God to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and baptize them in his name. Both my companion and I have the authority to baptize people and we want you to know that it is our intent to teach you the gospel and help you gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, and when you gain this testimony, we would like to baptize you in the name of Jesus Christ. I'm sure my companion was a little worried, but I wasn't. She didn't agree to be baptized or anything, and in fact she said, I'm already baptized, but I'd love to read this book and learn more. When I heard her answer, I wasn't worried at all. I don't know if she'll get baptized, but I know if she will follow the steps of the gospel and read the Book of Mormon with an intent to know the truth, she will find out and she will be baptized. It's all in the hands of the Lord. We will do all we can to help her progress towards baptism, but even if things don't work out, I understand my purpose here. I am not ashamed of the gospel and will continue to preach! I have been praying a lot lately for help in strengthening my testimony. I know that God answers prayers and that my testimony has already been strengthened. I love the gospel and hope to continue to learn more and more each and every day.

I will write more about this conference next week. It's going good so far, I translated for the Russian elders and sisters for the last half of today, I hope I don't have to do it again tomorrow, it's hard to get a lot out of the training when I am translating.

Anyway, I have about 3 more minutes left on this computer. Sorry I didn't write everyone, but I got your letters and enjoyed them all. I love you all and miss you but I wouldn't rather be any place else right now. I've still got a few more months to continue to progress and grow, change the things that I need to change and strengthen the things that need to be strengthened. Thanks for everything! Oh ya, I got my package mom, thanks! Love you!

Elder Geddes

Apartment troubles

Hello everyone,

Happy late birthday mom!! I promise I didn't forget, I was thinking about you on your birthday. I hope you like the gray thing. It is real hair, as far as I know. It's hair from a special kind of sheep or goat or something. Not sure. It sounds like you had a good time for your birthday. Next year I'll be there to celebrate it with you. Cool huh? What about the doll, was it in good shape? I hope so. I feel like I've gotten all the shelf souveniers I want. Now I want to get some sweet movies in Russian so I will have a way of keeping up my Russian after the mission. I feel like Disney will be my best bet.

Well we had another week full of problems with our apartment. I really hope I am out of Kaluga before December because I'm pretty sure our landlady will kick us out when the contract ends then. I'm pretty sure I told you guys that I broke the washing mashine my first or second day here, but if I forgot to tell you, I broke it. I didn't shut these small metal doors on it before I started it so the drum tried to spin but it couldn't so a small belt broke, not a big deal but our landlady wasn't too happy. Anyway, after that, I started noticing that our shower was always so dirty on the floor. Our drain is clogged somewhere so the water takes so long to dry that the dirt and stuff just sits and makes the floor nasty. We decided to try to take a look and see if we could find out how to unclog the thing so we scooted the shower out from the corner and messed around with it for a bit. Somehow in the process we bumped the main pipe that the water comes through. This thing was already duct taped in one spot and was just crappy anyway. There is a long piece of pipe that connects two joints that isn't sealed into the joints at all, it just sits in them. Anyway, we bumped that and knocked it loose so the next time we showered and used the washing machine it leaked water everywhere in the bathroom. We slowed down the leak but didn't stop it so today there will be a guy coming to fix it. Our landlady once again wasn't happy about it but I don't care. She thinks everything in this apartment is just the best stuff in the world but it's mostly just junk. She also isn't happy with the fact that the last elder just left and I just showed up. She thinks every time a new guy comes he will do stuff like break the washer and the shower, which might be the case actually, oh well.

Anyway, last week was a bitter sweet week. For the most part a very unsuccessful week but we did some fun things. We got to go to a branch picnic in Tula that the senior couple invited our branch to. Elder Moffat is the branch president now in Tula and he likes to get the three small towns in our zone together whenever it's possible. We had 7 people from Kaluga show up. It was a lot of fun, we even set up a slip 'n slide, which the Russians had never heard of such a thing. They thought it was pretty interesting. We of course showed them how it works. It was just a long piece of plastic stuff that we just layed on the ground of the woods, so it wasn't exactly the smoothest thing in the world. Also, usually a slip 'n slide has a small pool at the end to stop you, but of course we couldn't get that arranged, so we just had dirt wood and rocks at the end of the tarp. I always managed to stop before the end but some people weren't so fortunate. Mostly the missionaries like it but a couple of the other people there tried it. They just didn't understand why we liked it so much. First of all they didn't know how to slide so a lot of them would try it and go about 5 feet and then just stop. We just had buckets of water that we would fill up in the nearby pond. The person would run and dive while someone else threw the water. It was pretty cool. Also, we played water balloon volleyball. It was really fun. They had brought about a million water balloons. It kind of just turned into a war of launching the balloons. It's always fun to play these games. Almost every time we do this kind of thing, someone makes a comment about how we are able to have so much fun without alcohol or anything like that. It helps the investigators see that we know how to have fun. The two people that were there that I am most excited about are named Ramon and Sveta. They are a young couple, not married yet but are planning on getting married. They have been coming to english club for a long time. They have met with the missionaries a few times and have already quit smoking. We have met with them only once so far since he works a lot but they like to meet with us. I want to work hard with them and see if they can get baptized. They have come to church twice, never since I've been here but we can help them with that. They're cool.

The day before the picnic, Elder Cecil, the zone leader, came and did splits here. He and I worked together. We weren't able to get one lesson set up for the next day, I hate it when that happens. It doesn't happen a lot but it does happen. Anyway, Elder Cecil is a transfer younger than I am and about 10 times more excited to go home. It's hard not to think about and talk about home when your companion talks about it a lot. I only served with him for one transfer but going on splits with him made me realize it would be pretty hard to serve with him for more than 1. He's one of my best friends on the mission but it's just hard to focus on missionary work when we're together.

I am going to use this letter to vent a little bit. Last night I had one of the toughest worst meetings ever. A few weeks back we got a guys number. We met with him and his friend once and gave them Books of Mormon. Last night we met with them again. They had just gone on the internet and found all sorts of stuff to "prove" that the Book of Mormon isn't true. First of all, I wasn't sure what to do, whether I should try to argue each point they made or what. Second of all, it is times like that that I HATE not understanding every word or being able to say everything the way I want to say it. I'm afraid they just feel like they proved something to me because I wasn't able to defend the book. The whole time I just kept thinking, there's nothing I need to worry about, the book defends itself and I don't need to be scared of them proving anything to me. I know that sometimes I don't have all the answers, especially when people try to use all sorts of historical facts and dates, but also I know I don't need to have the answers to every question. It says in Preach My Gospel that sooner or later everyone is backed up to a wall of faith. I could answer questions and prove things all day long, which is what I have been doing with this one lady we have met with a couple times, but sooner or later it will be her choice to excercise faith. The most disappointing thing about last night was that when it was all said and done, I tried to do the only thing I could and bear a simple testimony about the Book of Mormon. They cut me off half way through and didn't let me finish. They want me to go to their church with them this Sunday. I don't feel like meeting with them anymore. I told them that I was sad that they didn't read the book and instead just searched for things like that on the internet. They said, how else should we do it? We need to find out all we can about it so we know if it's a true book or not. They didn't do anything to my testimony of course, but I really need to continue to strengthen my testimony in the Prophet Joseph Smith. I woke up this morning and read the Joseph Smith History.

It's interesting the different experiences you have on a mission. Just changing cities and companions can show you a whole new world of knowledge you need to gain and a whole new set of skills and attributes you need to accuire. It's all for the best but sometimes it's just frustrating. I can say that I'm trying hard. I might not be finding a ton of success here but I'm trying.

Sorry this letter is all over the place. Oh ya, I am once again realizing how my hair is just disappearing! I feel like the mission has aged me about 30 years. You probably won't recognize me when I get home. I look like a 45 year old and I feel like a coat hanger when I put on my suit coat, ha, it's kind of funny, at least my companion seems to think so. When I get home, have a nice tall protien shake ready for me, along with a big beefy steak and maybe a membership to a gym or something, I'm going to need it. Other than that, I'm not sure what else has been going on. The weather has been cooling down a bit which is nice. It still gets hot in the middle of the day but it has been nice and cool in the mornings. I'll send some pictures home this week for you guys. Anyway, thanks for writing, I'll talk to you next week. Love you!

Elder Geddes

Fires in Russia

Hey everyone,

The fires are the big topic here as well. Everyone says it is just scary to watch the news. Here in Kaluga we have had a couple days where it has gotten smokey but nothing way serious. Enough that we didn't want to keep our windows open but it wasn't bad enough that we couldn't go outside. It's kind of crazy, it comes and goes pretty fast, like rain clouds the smoke will just roll in. When I was in Moscow for my visa trip, it was pretty bad. I'm glad you got to see it on the news because I couldn't really take a picture of it. It is peat that is the problem. They say it is deep under the ground or under the something in the forest, so they can't just dump water on it. Also that is why it is so smokey. Kaluga is doing fine, there are fires around but none way close. I hope it stops soon, I know it is doing a lot of damage and causing a lot of trouble.

Anyway, my visa trip was a nightmare as usual. Elder Johanson and I were the only ones going. We had to stay up until midnight the night before in order to get the tickets. We went to the airport the next day and waited until it was our turn to check in. After we got through security, Elder Johanson realized that our visas didn't start until the next day, meaning if we were to fly to Kiev, we would not be able to fly back into Russia until the next day. We had a choice of backing out and going to kiev the next day with the rest of our group or just chancing things and going to Kiev. We decided it would be a big waste of money if we just wasted our tickets so we decided to fly to Kiev. Our good idea was to change the tickets for some that were late enough that we would arrive back in Russia after midnight. If we could do that, then we would have time to go find the temple and take a look. So we got to Kiev and tried to change the tickets. We went through the whole process to get them changed because we thought the lady said it would cost 500 rubles to change the tickets. When we tried to pay her 500 rubles, she just laughed and said "I need 500 Euros" That's over 4000 rubles so we said, uh, we don't have that kind of money so we had her change them back. That meant that once again, I got my hopes up to see the temple and it didn't work out. Anyway, we still had a few hours until our plane left so we took a bus to a small town outside of Kiev. We just walked around and bought some fruit and bread and stuff at a store. We headed back to the airport and tried to check in to our flight. The lady couldn't find us in the system. She kept looking and found out that we somehow were on the late flight, the one we had tried to change to. Meaning that lady had not switched us back somehow. So we had another almost 2 hours in the airport. The worst part is that if we had known about that, we would have gone to find the temple!! It was pretty frustrating, but oh well. So we waited and got on the plane and were pleasantly surprised to see we had also been upgraded to business class! Finally, a perk. We got into Moscow at about 12:15. I went through passport control with no problems. Johanson on the other hand, was in the passport control for quite a while because he had some sort of problem with his visa. The person who made his visa put his birthday in wrong and the people at the airport didn't like that. They told him he would have to have a completly new visa made. They said they could do it in the airport but it would take a while. The bad part was that I was on the other side of passport control already so I just had to wait while he went and got a new visa made. Finally at 2:00 A.M. Johanson comes back with the airport people. We had the mission driver there waiting for us, I'm sure he was just really happy about the whole thing. He took us back and we ended up getting back to the a.p.'s apartment at about 3 o'clock. The next morning Elder Frehner and I got on a bus and headed back to Kaluga. I was pretty tired. Next visa trip will be better, I am almost sure we will get to go to the temple. I can't wait.

Church was a little disappointing on Sunday. Only 7 members showed up. One of which was a guy from Finland who was just visiting. After Sacrament meeting, a couple people went home even. So we had about 5 people in all for sunday school and combined priesthood and relief society. The speakers were the branch president and his councilor. I still haven't been made the 2nd councilor. I'm not sure if I will or what. Our branch president is doing as good as you could expect from a 21 year old kid, but that being said, he's still a 21 year old kid. He's a bit lazy and hard to deal with sometimes.

Monday night we had the chance to go to Tula! It was cool to see that city again. We had a zone meeting, which I didn't understand what the point was, but honestly, I just wanted a chance to go to Tula. We stayed the night Monday night, had our meeting Tuesday and then came back. It's only about 2 hours on a bus from here, so not too bad. It was really interesting to think that almost exactly a year ago, I saw Tula for the first time. Can you believe it? Next week, I will have been in Russia for an entire year! That's crazy.

Elder Frehner and I have been doing a lot of finding. We are talking to as many people as we can in between meetings. We get promising contacts but I just don't know what happens to them, they just most of the time don't pan out. We got a few more yesterday that I'm pretty excited about. Hopefully we can start meeting with some of them.

Last night Elder Harrison called me to ask about some stuff. It sounds like things are going great in Veronezh. I still miss that city. He told me that every time they meet with Ludmilla she always talks about me and is always asking how I'm doing and remembering things that remind her of me. She misses me, which is a good feeling.

There is a picnic in Tula on Saturday. When they have activities, they like to have us come and when we have activities, we invite the people from Tula. We are trying to get some of our investigators to come to it. It would be a lot of fun. If we can't get anyone to come of course we wouldn't go, but I would sure like to go. We'll see what happens.
Why didn't they have a carnival this year? Did you see some people from my class there? Caleb is getting married huh? That's interesting. How old is this girl? And Mary is starting college soon huh? Wow, everyone is just growing up. Oh and Torey is getting married? Tell her congratulations. Has anyone gotten back from their missions lately? Keep me updated. Anyway, that's about all I have for this week. Thanks for everything! Oh ya, I haven't gotten my debit card yet, but hopefully it will be there next time I'm in Moscow. Also, I know what you can send in the future if you send another package. If you can find a pair of size 42 inserts for my eccos that would be great. Elder Traasdahl's mom sent him some. My shoes are pretty much like new still exept for the insert in one of them is starting to fall apart. It's not even bad yet but I figure by the time you are ready to send another package I will be ready for some new inserts. I love my shoes! Anyway, I'll talk to you guys next week. Love you.

Elder Geddes

HOT!!!

Hello everyone,

I'm sitting in Moscow right now and apparently I woke up before all of you guys because I had no letters to read! That's the only reason I like p-day is to read all of your letters and find out what's happening. Hopefully by the time I finish this letter I will have a letter or two to read. That just means next week I will get twice the letters, right?

Anyway, it is still hot here. People are having a really hard time with the heat and this past week, all the forests have started on fire! Veronezh is completely surrounded by fires right now. They said that you couldn't even see the building across the street because of the smoke that had drifted in. Moscow is really really smokey as well. Kaluga was pretty smokey on Sunday, but it went away. People don't have air conditioning here, and they all had to close their windows because of the smoke in the air. Sleeping is about unbearable. We have a small fan in Kaluga that we sleep with but still, I wake up in the night and my pillow is soaked, my shirt is soaked, and I'm just dripping with sweat. Where is the -30 degree weather when you need it?

My companion and I woke up at about 4 o'clock yesterday morning and got on a bus to Moscow. We had zone conference yesterday which was really great. The church missionary department has recently made some changes in the Preach My Gospel program. They have come out with some additions and have instructed mission presidents to hold a 3 day training. Yesterday was the first training and in a few weeks we will all come to Moscow for the last two days. President says we will be staying in a hotel over night here, cool huh? The changes are all about how we teach as missionaries. They have decided that we need to change our focus a little bit as we teach. I feel like I got a lot of personal revelation about things I need to do better as a missionary and especially as a senior companion to someone who doesn't speak much Russian. I realize that as I have began to speak more and more Russian, sometimes my lessons turn into me trying to convince the people of the truths we have, just using my words and trying to use logic or trying to prove their points wrong. I realize that if I can't figure out how to let the spirit do the proving for me, the investigator will never understand what we are talking about. Anyway, I'll be trying a lot harder to let the spirit guide the lesson. My visa expires on Sunday so we had a visa trip scheduled for Friday. That would mean that I had to come to zone conference Wednesday morning, go home Wednesday night and return to Moscow Thursday night to catch our early flight Friday morning. Instead, my companion and I just stayed the night here last night and Elder Johanson, an elder from my mtc district who happens to serve in the office, and I will be going to Kiev today and the rest of my group will go tomorrow. At first, they told me that Elder Johanson and I would be going to the open house for the temple, I was so excited I couldn't hardly wait. Then we found out that it doesn't start for another couple of days. Then they said, well you guys can just go see the temple anyway, just tell them you're poor missionaries on a visa trip and maybe they will let you see at least part of the temple. Then the problem was that there were no tickets early enough. The planes were full until 2:30 this afternoon. I'm pretty bummed about the whole thing because now we probably won't even get to leave the airport, once again. Oh well, it will be fun anyway. We will get back late tonight so I will be staying another night in Moscow and taking an early bus home tomorrow morning, back to Kaluga. I swear, there is no such thing as a normal week on a mission.

This past week has been okay. I'm getting my bearings a little more each day in Kaluga. I'm not going to lie though, I miss Veronezh so much! I feel sad when I think that they are still continuing to have fun, hold sports nights, family nights, all that fun stuff, without me. I miss my friends a lot in Veronezh. I hope they didn't just forget about me there. Kaluga is still a big city, compared to Soda Springs, but there are still so many people we talk to every day who say, you've already talked to me about a hundred times! On Sunday, we started our meeting with 6 people there. By the end of the meeting a few more people had come and there ended up being a total of 15 people. We just lost two of our strongest members, one left to serve on her 4th mission, and the other moved back to Kazakhstan where she is originally from. That is a big hit for our small branch. I get really frustrated with inactives. They are full of promises that don't get kept. People have no problem saying, of course I'll be there on Sunday, then not showing up. We even went to a guy's country home to help him with his garden so he would have time on Sunday to come and he didn't show up. We cut a bunch of wood for him and we were both just sweating like crazy working hard for this guy. Also, I offended a different less active lady in the branch because I gave her a challenge to be ready to go to the temple in Kiev when it is dedicated. She didn't like that one bit. I guess it was our first meeting but still, it's unlikely she will be a big fan of mine.

I am having a hard time really getting to know my companion. He seems to care about 2 things, food and sleep. He doesn't talk much and I haven't really found what we have in common. He's nice and everything but I still don't know him very well. I don't know how long we'll be together, but it's always more fun and easy to serve with a friend, especially when you can push each other to be better.

We met a guy on the street and had a meeting with him the next day. He showed up with a friend and we talked for about an hour. They are both very Russian Orthodox but we had a good discussion. They invited us to attend their service with them on Sunday. They go to church at a monastery where Russian Orthodox priests and monks live. The times work out and we agreed to go. They told us that this is a place that you can really feel the spirit strongly... we'll see about that. I figure if we go to their church, they'll be willing to come to ours.

Well I'm not sure what else interesting happened this past week. Just a lot of walking and sweating. We had 3 lessons planned on Monday and all three fell through... that's the worst. A whole day of trying to find things to do to not waste time. I would say that walking the streets is almost a waste of time, but honestly we had nothing better to do. Needless to say, it was a long day. This will be a good week, I can just feel it. Mom and Emily were able to get their letters sent in time :) good job! Anyway, love you guys. Talk to you later.

Elder Geddes