Halloween fun in Russia

Hey everyone,

Well Happy Halloween! We have had a great Halloween season, even though they don't really celebrate it here. There is one poster that I know of in Kaluga advertising some sort of Halloween night at a night club, other than that, there isn't one witch, skeleton, or ghost anywhere in the city, plenty of spider webs, but that's a different story. Last night, Elder Bressler and I hosted a Halloween themed family night. We had lots of people come, namely almost everyone from our English club. It worked out really great because we had more people than I have ever seen at English club on Tuesday so we were able to invite them all to the Halloween party. We had two investigators and a couple of new people come. We had a spiritual thought then played some games. Our first game was kind of a dud. We had bought a bunch of doughnuts and tried to get them to play a game where you had to eat a doughnut hanging from a string without using your hands. They didn't understand and nobody wanted to play so Elder Bressler and I did a demonstration. I won of course and they all thought it was pretty funny and stuff but they still weren't willing to play. So we just moved on to the next game. We had bought a bunch of rolls of toilet paper (you can get rolls of toilet paper here for ten cents, but of course... you get what you pay for) and we had teams of two race to see who could mummify their partner the fastest, they liked that game a little more, but they had no technique. Elder Bressler and I creamed everyone. I ran around him in circles and he spun in circles the other way, the obvious path to victory. Anyway, we had made cookies, bought some candies and juice and just had a nice set up. After the mummy game we broke out three pumpkins that we had bough that morning and everyone worked together to carve them up. They did a good job for their first times ever doing it. Nobody cleaned out the inside anywhere near my specifications but what can you do, they just wanted to cut up the pumpkins without doing the necessary work. Speaking of whiche, remember that huge pumpkin I bought a few years ago? I know I took pictures, but I don't know where they ended up, if anyone could find them, they should send them to me. They should just be on our computer somewhere. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Things are just going pretty good here. We had 4 members take a trip to the temple last week, 2 of them for their first time. I feel like the city is feeling the blessings of it's faithful members efforts. We had a record amount of people at church on Sunday since I've been here, 22! It was mostly because there was a girl in our branch that lives in Moscow right now but comes back to Kaluga sometimes. She got her mission call and so she called all of the members and personally asked them to come and then she brought two friends. We have gotten some really great contacts lately, including a family of 3 and another family of 6! We haven't met with them yet, but we're trying. Also, we have started working with 3 new guys in the past little while. A 21 year old named Ivan, a 23 year old named Igor and a 27 year old named Gary from Armenia. We have had a couple lessons with Igor, and Ivan came to Sunday School last week and I think he really enjoyed it. We got Gary's contact on Saturday, met with him on Sunday, met him again Tuesday before English club and he came to the halloween party on Wednesday with a friend. Granted he did call me before the party and ask if he needed to bring any alcohol, he's a great guy. He's interested in learning and I hope will be acceptive of what we have to teach him. He understood everything in the first lesson and had great questions. If we could get these 3 guys baptized it would help out the branch so much.

Tatyana is doing good, still strong. She has lately become very protective of us, acting like we are her kids, always telling us to be careful and telling us that we need to carry around flashlights when we have to walk home in the dark. She's pretty cool.

We bought coats this morning. The lady originally asked for 3300 for the coats but said she would sell two to us for 5500. I eventually bargained her down to 4500 so we ended up paying 2250 each for our coats that were originally 3300. I felt pretty good about that, that's more than 30 dollars we got off. They're pretty nice coats, good fur collars and everything. Oh ya, I have heard that ecco shoes have some kind of guarantee on them. One elder had a pair blow out and sent pictures to his mom. She showed the pictures at the store she bought them and they gave her a new pair right on the spot. I don't know if you have any papers or anything left from my shoes, but it might be worth looking at. My other option would be to buy a pair of winter shoes so I could give my eccos a break for a few months then just start wearing them at the end of my mission again. Like I said, they still like fine, they just have cracks in the bottom that let water in. Let me know what you think.

Christmas, I really don't need a whole lot other than just tasty snacks. Maybe it would be nice to throw in some cool aid mixes or some drink mixes. Did you remember to put at least one good pen in there? I'm really struggling with my pens right now. Oh ya, I have been meaning to ask for this for the longest time, could you get a copy of my mission call letter and send it to me?

I haven't gotten sick and my stomach has been treating me great lately. I still have a ton of medicine, cold medicine, cough medicine, I have it all from last year so I don't think I need that.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great Halloween. Thanks for everything, the letters and support. I love you guys.

Elder Geddes

Long time no blog

Sorry I haven't posted Jess's last two blogs. The one on the 22nd was only a paragraph long and then the internet quit so he couldn't write anymore. I was pretty disappointed to say the least. He did,however, tell us about Tatyana's baptism. It went very well and she is doing great. Several branch members showed up and everyone bore their testimonies. Here is his last letter, just in time to post this weeks so you will get two in a row.

Hi everyone,

Sorry again Mom, that was just a terrible P-day. Me and Elder Erickson had to pick up the other two elders that morning and pretty much show them around for a couple days. We went to Kaluga on Saturday and on Sunday, President Woolley came to church in Kaluga. He gave a talk in Russian, so I didn't have to translate. After church, Elder Erickson and I got to ride to Moscow with President, and that's when the craziness started.

The ride to Moscow was great, it isn't every day that you get to just have a couple of hours to sit and chat with President Woolley, so I took advantage and was asking all sorts of questions about the business world. He has done a lot of things in his life, including buying a 2.3 billion dollar business to expand his own... wow. Anyway, it was just really nice to be able to just chat with him. We got to Moscow and he dropped me and Elder Erickson off at a metro station near the office which is at the very north west corner of Moscow. He took Elder Erickson's bags and we took off on the metro to pick up a sister who was coming from Tula. We had to go from the very north west to the very south east of the metro map and the city of Moscow for that matter. If you have a chance, you should take a look on the internet at the Moscow Metro, it's pretty incredible. Anyway, it took about an hour and twenty minutes to get there, but when we got there, we realized we had no idea where exactly to find her. We asked a few people where buses from Tula come and got a couple of different answers. Sister Kelly was being transfered so she had all her bags with her and she's only been in Russia for a few months. I just said a prayer that we would be able to find her as fast as possible because it's not good for her to be alone. After the prayer we just crossed a street and said maybe this way. We walked maybe 10 feet and saw Sister Kelly walking up the street with 3 suitcases. We were all pretty relieved. So we grabbed her bags and jumped right back on the metro and went all the way back up to the stop near the office. After a total of 3 hours on the metro we walked from the metro to a senior couple's apartment that is about 20 minutes from the metro to drop off Sister Kelly. We then walked 20 minutes back to the AP's apartment where luckily Sister Woolley had brought over some food for all the elders that would be stayinig there that night. There was a big visa trip so there were some elders who had to wait for their companions like I had to. I think there were about 8 or 10 of us there. The next morning I was going to wake up at 6:15 to go with one of the AP's and another couple of elders to help some more missionaries get where they needed to be on time. So one other elder and I walked back to the senior couple's apartment to pick up Sister Kelly again, and walked back to the AP's apartment. We got some breakfast and a shower and then got a call from the senior couple askin us to come back to help them with some bags, so once again we walked back there to get the bags. After that, we went to the office where I opened up my package and sized the inserts, they're way nice, thanks! I was pretty excited about the jam too. The rest of the day was pretty boring just sitting in the office. I like just hanging out with the other missionaries though so that's always fun. President took us to a mall for lunch and I got a big baked potato, it was pretty tasty. All the elders, including my new companion Elder Bressler, got back to the office at like 6 or so, quickly got their documents and we took off. Once again we needed to make the hour and twenty minute trip down to the south east corner of the map. We had to help Elder Erickson get to his train station which was on the way. This all would have been fine and easy except for the fact that Elder Bressler's biggest bag has two broken wheels! It is one of those suitcases that has four wheels on the bottom, and it just so happens that the wheels on the side with the handle are completely destroyed. His older brother took this suitcase on his mission to Russia a few years ago and now it's whith him. We were trying all sorts of ways to drag it with the wheel side, I walked it for about 10 minutes in a crouched over position like an old man, finally one other elder just threw it on his back and got it almost the rest of the way to the metro. Once in the metro it was my turn again and I was just dragging it on the melted pathetic pieces of plastic that were once his wheels. Anyway, we get on the metro, down to Erickson's train station and they took forever to get him a ticket. Once they finally got him on his train, we jumped back on the metro. Somehow we ended up getting on a wrong train that took us to this dead end, there is one track but there are two different trains that come and we didn't know that. So we get to the dead end, get on the train back, look at the signs and we are sure we are in the right place so we get back on a train and once again get to the dead end. This time we're all just about frustrated out of our minds with Bressler's big suitcase. We get back to the right place and figure out that there are two trains on that track and finally get on the right one. By this time it is about 9:00 or so, we knew that the last bus left at sometime around 10 to Tula. We ended up getting to the bus station around 10 and we couldn't find any buses that should have been there heading to Tula! We went over and me and my zone leader tried haggling with the taxis to take four guys and 3 suitcases to Tula. They wouldn't do it for less than 4000 rubles. We called the office elders and they said that's too much, so they told us to just come back to their apartment! With Bressler's beast of a bag! So that's what we did, got back on the metro for an hour and 20 minutes. When we got out the other side, we put my companion and Elder Brown's companion in a taxi with the beast bag and sent them to the apartment. We went to McDonalds and bought us all some dinner since nobody had eaten all day and walked to the AP's. We ended up getting there at around 12. The next morning we woke up early and were out the door by 7, back down to the other end to go to Tula. We had to go to Tula because we had a small zone meeting on Tuesday there. It was a nightmare. Now we can laugh but at the time, we all just wanted to throw our hands up in the air and give up. So we got to Tula, had a district meeting and then went to the bus station to take what hopefully is my last trip between Tula and Kaluga for a while. We pulled into Kaluga around 7 o'clock and as we were pulling in, a guy from our English club called and said "Are you guys coming or what?" We told him where we were and he jumped in his car and picked us up, along with the bags, which was a relief. We had English club and a short meeting with Tatyana then the guy took us home. We were so happy to get home!

That's pretty much what has been happening this week. My companion is Elder Bressler from Rexburg. He's hillarious. I've been laughing pretty much since we got together. This is only his 3rd transfer so his Russian is still pretty rough, but I hope to help him out with that. He loves war history and told me about this really cool book he read about this LDS kid in WWII. I think it was called something like, a distant prayer or something. You should check it out sometime, it sounds really good.

The weather has been really rainy the past few days. I am just now understanding that the cracks in the bottoms of my shoes kind of are taking their toll. My feet are getting kind of wet, but I'm thinking that once the snow comes that will stop. Right now I'm just trucking through puddles and what not, I don't think the snow will bother me too much. I wouldn't get rid of these shoes because the damage isn't even visable, so it would be a shame. Elder Bressler hasn't bought a winter coat yet so we're going to check it out today, if we could buy some together, I think we could get them a lot cheaper.

I will be going to Ukrain sometime around the 3rd or so of next month. We won't be able to go to the temple because they have a goofy schedule there that we wouldn't make it to a session and be able to come back in one day. We get Liahonas here, and we got the temple edition, it was really cool. We have enough copies of them here, thanks though.

Oh ya, President Woolley got permission from the area presidency to give each companionship an ipod. He has had ipods in a few cities but has been struggling to get them approved for everyone. He finally did it though so we have an ipod again. We got a new movie on it, the Joseph Smith movie that the show at the visitors center! It's cool, I put it on my personal ipod as well.

Today we went to the space museum here in Kaluga. Tatyana wanted us to go with her. They have a planetarium and they showed about a 45 minute thing about space. It was pretty neat.

I think that's about everything, things are going pretty good, I'm happy and having fun. Elder Bressler and I will baptize someone this transfer we hope! Thanks for the letters and thanks for the package mom! I am taking it slow with the jerky and the hot chocolate is delicious! I can't believe we are already heading into the end of October, this month pretty much didn't exist for me, it's like a dream. Anyway, I love you guys, have a great week.

Elder Geddes

Always an adventure

Hello,

Another fast week. Traveling back and forth makes it go fast. The good, and I guess bad part, is that when we are in either city, we pretty much just have time for meetings so we never have any down time, especially in Kaluga. We go from city to city, meeting to meeting. It's been fun but both of us are ready for transfers already. We got called last night about transfers by the way. I will be with an Elder Bressler. I met him once, the day he got to Russia was the day I was leaving Veronezh. This is going to be the beginning of his 3rd transfer. President and other missionaries only have good things to say about him so I am excited to serve with him. I gave him a call last night and he's excited to come to Kaluga and serve with me too. He says people still tell stories about me in Veronezh, so I'm not forgotten. Also last night I called the other elders in Veronezh to get a phone number. I talked with Elder Johanson and he said 3 people that day had asked how I was doing. It made me feel really good. I called him to get the phone number of Ludmilla. I asked President if I could call her and he said that would be a great idea. She immediately recognized my voice and was so happy to hear from me. She says she hasn't missed a Sunday since her baptism and is still planning on going to the temple in June! I was so happy to hear that she is still doing so well. She says she wants to go to the temple with me, I'm not sure that's possible if you guys can't come get me but I'm going to ask if there's any way to do that. Maybe I'll just have to hurry back to Russia after I get home from my mission for a week or two. I'm not sure but I'd really love to go to the temple with her.

Anyway, some other cool things happened this week. We had an open house in Kaluga on Saturday. We had about 5 or 6 people come and we got one good contact out of it. It was a 20 year old kid named Igor. He came to the open house and stayed for over an hour. Then the next day, he came to church. We talked with him for a while and he said that he's not interested in becoming a member right now but that he enjoyed the meeting and would continue to come listen on Sundays. Maybe through some time he will become more interested. Also, Sunday night, Tatyana had her baptismal interview. It was with Elder Moffat so I had to translate. She did awesome, and even bore a great testimony at the end. After she finished her testimony, she said, oh, I have one more testimony, she then told a story about how earlier that day (fast Sunday) she was walking home and found a delicious pastry laying on the sidewalk, untouched. She said she was really hungry from fasting and that the pastry was something delicious and that it was a miracle that she found it on the ground because if she had found it in the store, she wouldn't have been able to buy it because it was Sunday. So she picked it up and took it home to break the fast, ha. She said, That's a testimony too, right? I said, sure, whatever you say. She's pretty cool. Then, aftr the interview, she said "Elder Geddes, you have spent a lot of time and energy on me, I know you are only 20 and you might be using all your energy on my, but I would like to ask you to use your last bit of strength and give me the gift of the Holy Ghost after my baptism." I couldn't tell if she thought I was weak or what but I was pretty touched by her humble request. I said I would love to do that for her. Elder Erickson will be baptizing her. It will be a great experience for us both.

Well it is getting pretty chilly here. I have started wearing my scarf around. All of the coats are coming out on the market. Last week we went to look at them and it seemed like they have some sort of system worked out there on the market because there were about 500 foreigners all trying to sell me a coat. Word spreads fast when you want to buy something. I found some pretty awesome coats for about 2000 rubles, and I think I could get a little lower. That's a nice winter coat for around 60 dollars, I think that's not too bad of a deal. We'll see what I decide to do. There are just a million coats and hats calling my name! Oh, I thought of one more thing you could put in my Christmas package if you haven't already mailed it. I have ran out of good pens and am having the hardest time find good ones here that I like. If you could send me maybe 2 black zebra pens, that should last the rest of my mission.

Well it seems like that is all that has happened this past week. I'm not sure when I will get my new companion but I don't think it will be until around the 18th. Until then, I think we will be traveling back and forth still. I'm getting good at sleeping on the bus but I am still not a big fan. The roads here are awful. Anyway, thanks for everything, love you guys.

Elder Geddes

ps

I just told Rob some things that I forgot to tell you guys. Russia is a place that you just have to love. Sure there are some problems but it is what it is. The other day in our stairwell one floor down from us we found a huge syringe on the ground. There is a serious drug and alcohol problem with the youth in Russia. It's really sad. We find syringes a lot on the streets but never in my own stairwell. My companion got arrested while on splits with the AP's for tracting. Everything was fine of course but he was pretty shaken up about it. They were tracting and an old woman called the cops. Elder Erickson and Elder Nutt, the AP he was with, tried to show that there was nothing illegal they were doing. The problem was that they were both from different cities so the cops couldn't figure out what they were up to. Registration is a huge deal here in Russia and if you mess it up, you will be deported. You are allowed to be in a city for three days without being registered. It was Elder Ericksons second day so we had to leave the next day. Anyway, the cops weren't believing them so they made them get in the car and took them to the station. They were there for a while until the cops figured out they had no reason to keep them any longer. I don't know when it will be my turn to do that, but hopefully someday :) It's getting pretty cold already, our heaters haven't filled up with hot water quite yet so it's pretty cold in the mornings. All in all, every day is an adventure of some sort. Something you could see only in Russia I think, last week we saw two extremely old women trip and fall on the sidewalk. They both fell dang hard. In America, I'm sure you would be calling an ambulence and stuff, but here, people around just picked up the women, they dusted their knees off and continued on their way. It was two different days and two different women but it goes to show you that old women here are tough as nails. When you talk about Russia, people say that bears walk around on the streets, what they mean is the old women. It's funny.

A Baptism soon

Hey everyone,

Well we had a pretty interesting and exciting week. First things first. We got back to Kaluga on either Friday or Saturday, I forgot, but we immediately went to a meeting with Tatyana, our investigator. We taught her the first half of the plan of salvation and then committed her to be baptized on the 9th of October. She has already been to church 4 times and we have almost finished teaching her all the lessons. It should be pretty smooth from here until the baptism, I don't seen any real problems so it will be great. The other thing that happed that was a little crazy was that on Sunday night, I got a call from the branch president in Kaluga saying that Anatoly Lyakh passed away. He was the first person baptized in Kaluga.

Brother Lyakh has been inactive for quite a while and had even fallen back into a habit of smoking. I have met with him a few times since I have been here in Kaluga and he had some interesting points of view that all come back to the point of enduring to the end. He claimed that there is no need for him to come sit through church meetings because he has heard it all. He says Sunday school is for the people who don't know the gospel but since he has been in the church for over 10 years, he doesn't need to come anymore. He was a workoholic and was working 3 jobs at the time of his death. He was only 58 years old. I heard he had been complaining of pains in his left arm for a little while but never bothered to go to the doctor. I feel really bad about the whole situation because we kind of dropped the ball here. Dima called and told me he died and we all felt bad but we didn't do anything about it. I didn't know all the things that needed to be done by the church for the funeral. I called and told Elder Moffat the bad news the next day and he told me everything we needed to do for it, about the temple clothes and everything. He told me how serious and important it is, because he was an endowed member. By the time I got a hold of Dima and he got a hold of this mans wife (not a member) it was too late, they had him in the mortuary all dressed and ready to go for his funeral the next day. He died Sunday and was buried Tuesday morning. I was really scared because I had to call President Woolly to find out about temple clothing and where we could get it (before I found out it was too late) and he told me that it would be me and my companion that would have to dress him in the case that his wife agreed to it. We would have done it if we had to but I was almost relieved when I found out it was too late. Although I would rather have dressed him myself and known that he was buried properly than to have known we could have moved faster and now he's buried in just a suit. So we found out Monday night that the funeral would be the next day. The Moffats came down and we all went to the services. It was so interesting to see a Russian funeral. They have some interesting traditions. First, everyone meets in front of the deceased's apartment building. We all waited there for a while until a blue van pulled up. About 4 or 5 people got out, opened the back, where we saw the coffin. They got out two small stools and set them on the sidewalk, then took the lid off of his coffin and moved him out of the van and onto the stools. I say coffin because that's what it was, not a casket. It was shaped just like dracula's coffin, tapered down at the bottom. All it was was a plywood box with blue velvet covering. Anyway, we all came and surrounded the body and everyone layed an even number of flowers on the body. His wife and son stood near him the whole time and his wife was crying pretty hard. After about 20 minutes, one of the van guys came into the crowd and said, has everyone said goodbye? There was kind of a murmer of yes and so they picked up his coffin, put it in the van, put the lid on and we all went to the grave site. When we got there, they did the same thing, unloaded him, put his coffin on the stools and we all stood there for a little while. All of the sudden a Russian Orthodox priest drives up and gets out. He came up to the body, placed some certain bags of something in the coffin with Anatoly, placed a sort of ribbon on his forehead and then stood at his head and began to sing a prayer. He sung for about 20 minutes, swinging his insense ball around. When he finished, everyone had one last chance to pay their respects. Many people came and kissed Anatoly on the forhead, including Sister Moffat. After the last person finished, they covered him with a white cloth with the Orthodox symbol of the cross and the priest began to pray a bit more. He took out a little bag of sand and poured out in the shape of the Orthodox cross on the body. The van guys came back in with the lid and put it on. One guy drove 5 nails into it then they moved it over and put it in the ground. We all threw some dirt on it and then watched the workers fill in the hole. They placed a large wooden Orthodox cross at the head of the grave. The funny thing is, this priest had no idea who Anatoly was, didn't even know that he wasn't a member of the Russian Orthodox church. The only reason he was there was because he was paid to be there. It was interesting that after he finished blessing Anatoly, there were some other people in the crowd that had relitives in the cemetery. They gave the priest some money and he went over to their relative's grave and blessed it. It's all about money. Anyway, Elder Erickson and I, Dima, Elder and Sister Moffat, and a one more member of our branch stuck around until everyone left. We walked into the grave site and Dima blessed the site by the power of the priesthood. It was a sweet feeling. Without the bells and whistles of the 20 minute prayer and the smoking golden ball, we were able to dedicate his grave as the resting place of his body until the resurrection. The priesthood is cool! There is a very old couple in our branch, he is 91 and she is 85. I hope it doesn't happen while I'm here, but when they die, we will be ready to do things right. It was all a really interesting experience.

Elder Erickson is a good kid. He is very quiet and not very enthusiastic though. Every time we meet with people they say, are you sick? are you tired? You seem tired. It's kind of funny but I think it would be good for him to figure out how to come out of his shell a little. He's really easy to get a long with and we have a lot in common, so all in all, I like being with him. It will only be for another two weeks though then we will both have new companions.

I got a new journal from Elder Frehner, he bought like 4 or something in the mtc. I'm almost done with my first one (I'm a slacker sometimes) but the one he gave me will probably last me until I'm about 50 or 60 years old, it's pretty big. As for my clothes, yesterday Sister Moffat asked me if I was wearing a new shirt because it was so white and clean! It is a long sleeve shirt so it has been sitting in my suitcase all summer but for the most part, all my clothes are holding up like champs! I don't have one hole in my socks and only have a couple shirts that show my age in the mission. Also, about the vitamins, if you are talking about the ones I took with me on my mission, I left those in Tula last year... on accident. Elder Frehner also gave me a bottle of these cool fruit vitamins and vegetable vitamins. I have been taking them off and on and really like them. Maybe if I had been diligent in my vitamin taking my hair wouldn't have fallen out, oh well. I still have tons of medicines so I don't need anymore of that. We have preach my gospels and President Woolly wants so that every member had one, so we're already working on that, though it is a really good idea. It is getting chilly here, it really feels like fall. I like to call it leaf mania 2010! The grandmas here take care of business when it comes to the leaves. They sweep up every leaf they can and then pick up the rest one by one until not one leave is left on the ground. It's just starting since all the leaves are beginning to fall. I like this time of year. I will be buying one more coat before I go home. I have my fancy wool coat and I had that coat with the fur collar last year but it was a hand me down so I sold it to Elder Cecil. I wanted to buy a nice coat this year with a nice big fur collar that I can use at home for the next few years. Anyway, I think that's everything. Thanks for all the letters and support. I love you guys, have a good week.

Elder Geddes