17 months!!!

Hey guys,

Well today I realized I have been on a mission for 17 months, crazy huh? I can't hardly believe it. Right now I am sitting in the office in Moscow. We got up this morning at 4 to catch our bus to Moscow at 5. I have a visa trip tomorrow morning so Elder Bressler and I would have had to come here tonight anyway and tomorrow instead of p-day would have been a visa trip. Friday we have zone conference here so I just got permission for us to come up here today and have p-day in Moscow. Surprisingly they gave us permission. Elder Bressler is a huge war buff so we decided to visit a huge World War II museum. This thing had 5 floors and it was full of really cool stuff from the war. There were a few movie screens that had some footage going from the war, it was so crazy, I don't think I'll ever quite comprehend war. I do think, however, that if I were to be born in a different time, I would want to be born at that time so I could fly planes in the war, I think that would be so awesome! Anyway, the museum was cool, we were with the office elders and a senior couple that just got here yesterday. It was a lot of fun. On the way back we stopped and got a Sharuma, or a Kabob as the Europeans call it. Its that rotating meet stuff that they make kind of burritos out of, bottom line, they're always good and we can only get them in Moscow. I'll probably head out with the AP's tonight and do something, I'm not sure yet. At the museum I bought some really cool propaganda posters that they used to have during the war here in Russia. They were less than a dollar which was the best part.

This past week actually wasn't the best. For some reason some weeks seem to work out perfect and other weeks, nothing seems to work out. We did get a new investigator, a lady who speaks really good english. Maybe she just like speaking English with us, who knows. She did come to church but she hasn't started reading the Book of Mormon. We got a contact of a family of 6, a mom a dad and 4 kids. We had a lesson set up with them and they didn't show up, so I called him and he said, I'll be there in a half an hour. So we waited and after about 45 minutes we called again and he didn't answer. I don't understand how people can tell you that they will do something and don't do it. That kind of thing happened alot this week, oh well, we'll try again this week.

Elder Bressler has been trying to speak Russian all week this week, he's been doing a good job. He speaks Russian until 9:00 and then we plan and then speak English with each other. It's hard to talk Russian because he's still pretty new and stuff and also because he's really funny and we have a lot to talk about all the time but it makes it fun after planning and stuff.

Some funny things happened the last couple days. First of all, we were tracting and we knocked on a door. The way the door opened, I couldn't see in, only Elder Bressler could see. The door swung open and the guy said, come on in! Elder Bressler just stood there and said "...uhh..." I peeked around the door and I'm not sure what this guy was doing, I think he had been in the bathroom when we knocked or something but his pants were not pulled up nearly enough. Elder Bressler saw more than me luckily but it was pretty funny, we just said, we'll come back later or something and then we left. Later, we went to a members house to visit. Her name is Ludmilla. She was baptized last year sometime and she's probably in her 60's and she's a little crazy. Anyway, she had us do some stuff for her, Elder Bressler was putting up a new shower curtain for her and she wanted me to open a bottle for her. She handed me the bottle and it was a bottle of Vodka. I said, Uh, Ludmilla, this is vodka, you can't drink this and I won't open it. She started shouting at me and telling me that she just adds it to some weird stuff and makes medicine out of it. I told her that she would be better off not taking the medicine if it was vodka. She was getting pretty upset with me because she already had some of the medicine made up but she was just running low on it and wanted to make more. I didn't know exactly what the medicine was so I told her I would call the branch president and ask him. He pretty much told me to do whatever I wanted because he wasn't too sure either. I called another lady in the branch and asked her advice, she said that the Lord probably understands that Ludmilla isn't all there in the head and would take care of her. I thought about it and just opened it for her. Probably not the best choice but she said if I didn't open it she would just break the top off the bottle. Kind of sad but at the same time it was pretty funny.

I tried to take some money off my card today and it denied it. I need you to put some of my own money on my card so I can buy some Christmas stuff for everyone. I won't spend too much, I bought some 3 dollar ties today, one for dad, Rob, and all the girls husbands. You'll be surprised what 3 dollars can get you in Russia when it comes to ties. They are probably better than any other ties you guys have. I bought two more for myself as well.

Anyway, I think that's about all I have. Tomorrow and Friday should be pretty fun, I'm excited to see all my buddies again. Zone conference will be great because the whole mission except for Kazakhstan will be there. I'm not sure how much longer I will be in Kaluga, my guess would be at least one more transfer after this one but who knows. Anyway, thanks for writing on such short notice. Love you guys, have a good week.

Elder Geddes

P.S. I really want to learn more about Russian history, especially from the start of communism through WWII and to the end of communism, so if you can find any good books about that kind of stuff, interesting ones though not just history books, that would be cool. It would be good for everyone to learn about it because it's a big part of history in the world. I hope you aren't just forgetting about all of my book requests, like things from Bruce R. McConkie and Joseph F. Smith, and stuff like that. I hope when I get home there is a nice stack of books for me to read! Ha, thanks for everything!