Kazahkstan, time is flying by

Hey guys,

I'm glad to hear you made it home okay. I'm sure that was a fun trip for everyone. It sounds like everyone had a pretty nice Christmas. I also had a great time. It was really fun to talk to everyone, although I feel like we didn't get much said for some reason. 45 minutes goes by in the blink of an eye, that's for sure. I guess it's all in perspective though, if a year and a half can fly by so fast, then 45 minutes is literally nothing. I guess that's how God feels, he watches as our lives speed by in a flash as we try to prepare ourselves for eternity. Time is an interesting concept. Anyway, the next day I got to go to church and meet lots of the members. There are a lot of great people in our branch, I can't wait to get to know them all a little better. The branch had been doing a service project, making little Christmas goody bags for a blind center. We made somewhere around 1000 goody bags. After Sacrament meeting we loaded up a truck and went to deliver the treats. Apparently the blind people knew we were coming because they were all there standing around wating for their gift. I felt a little bad because it didn't seem like the people were very grateful. It almost seemed like they expected people to do this kind of thing for them and they were just there to grab the gift and leave. We had packed all the goody bags into bigger bags that weighed probably around 60-70 pounds. We had to carry the bags from the truck up a flight of stairs and into a small room where it seemed like every blind person in Almaty was standing. There was some kind of director lady there yelling at all the people to get out of our way because they weren't even letting us through pretty much. They come from a society where if you aren't first you might not get it, especially if you are handicapped in some way. So nobody wanted to give up their spots and instead blocked the road. There was just a narrow tunnel, like we were football players running onto the field. It was crazy. I was pretty dead by the last bag that I had to carry. We took the last bag up and the people started pushing and crowding to try to be first, but we had other things planned. In came one of the members with a keyboard and a bunch of hymn books and we made them all wait about 10 or so more minutes while we sang some carols. I didn't hear one thank you, or good job, but I hope we helped some people have a nice Christmas.

We have had some meetings this week and have had a lot of contacting. I really want to find someone new to work with seeing as most of our investigators have already been long time investigators. The thing with finding new people is you get a lot of figs. You set up meetings with 3 new people and only one of them shows up. It's never fun to get figged but it's what you have to do I guess to find new investigators. Almost all of the contacts we get are English contacts. We tell them that we can help with english and we try to do a 30 minute English lesson and then 30 minutes in Russian about the gospel. Some people don't really want to hear about the gospel but they want the english practice so they listen. That is how a lot of the baptisms happen here, people coming for english, hearing the gospel and accepting it.

Time is just going by so fast, it almost seems like I don't have time for p-days anymore. I never even know what to write about because all the days just blur together. I keep thinking time will slow down as I get settled in but everyday it seems like it is going faster than the last. Even a few days this week we had a few hours of just street contacting and it just fluew by! Here we are on new years eve and I can't even tell where this past year has gone. Tonight we will be at the moores house at 6. We have two movies to watch, one is called Forever Strong, it's a movie about a rugby team from Highland Utah. The other one we will watch, if we decide to is the best 2 years. We will be there until 12:30 when Elder Moore will drive us all home. Tomorrow we are not supposed to leave the apartment all day. I think Sister Woolley just worries a lot. Last year I didn't even hear as much as a firecracker if I remember right. We have instructions to plan out our week and deep clean the apartment. I have a feeling tomorrow will be a long day. I have developed a sever case of A.D.D. on my mission, and I don't like to just sit around. Especially I don't like to just sit around in a tiny apartment with absolutely nothing to do. It will be good to get the apartment nice and tidy though. And we can get the area book in order. I think it will be good, and maybe I'll even get a good nap in.

Today we went to a place called the Baraholka. It is just a huge huge market. They have everything there and it is stinking cheap. One elder bought a huge winter coat, bigger than mine for half the price I paid for mine. If I had known I would be coming here, I wouldn't have bought some things in Russia. I bought today a pair of sweet slippers with pointy toes. I think that is one habbit that might stick with me, I'm not sure. I wear sandles in the house, just like all natives here and in Russia. I can hardly stand to walk around the apartment without some kind of footwear. Anyway, it was so cold and I didn't have my hat or scarf so I just got the slippers and my companion bought a new scarf and we left. But I can tell that is a place I will want to spend some time looking through someday.

It would be so awesome to come back here with the family, whoever wants to ever go to Russia I would be glad to accompany them! That would be really neat. Anyway, I think thats everything. I hope everyone has a happy new year and set some good goals for the 2011. I'll be home in 2011, crazy huh? Anyway, thanks for the letters, I love you guys. Talk to you next year.

Elder Geddes

Day before our Christmas call

Well it's Christmas day and we got our much anticipated phone call from Jess. He wrote this letter the day before and wanted to save something to talk about on the phone so it isn't as newsy as usual. We had a wonderful conversation for about 45 min. and he sounds so happy. Each time we talk to him it gets a little harder to let him go but hearing how happy he is makes it a little less painful. He is in the strongest area of the mission and he says there are about 80 people who come to Church each week. They had two baptisms on Christmas day and a fun Christmas party. He got to go to the Hyatt for dinner with the senior couple and he was in heaven. It was a buffet and he said, lets just say I got my their money's worth. He is excited to take the helm as zone leader and keep up the success of the area. One more call and he comes home!

Hey everyone,

Well I am safe and sound here in Almaty. This week has been pretty crazy and I don't think it will calm down until after new years. I got here Monday night with the AP's. We did splits with them on Wednesday, yesterday we had zone conference, today is our Christmas party, tomorrow is the branch Christmas party and we have some other stuff going on as well. Things are going pretty good, and I'm way excited for today.

My last week in Kaluga was good. It was a little hard to keep focused but I luckily had a lot to do. I got a call on Monday night saying I needed to be in Moscow the next day because they got my visa for Kazakhstan and I needed to be there to pick it up. I stayed the night Tuesday night in Moscow because on Wednesday there was a zone leader training meeting and President Woolley asked me to be the zone leader here in Almaty. The training meeting was way cool. We talked about all the zones, what kinds of problems we are running into, what kinds of successes we are having, all that kind of stuff, then we had a Senior Elder give a presentation on planning and goal setting. Both he and President Woolley are way successful buisness men so it was just really interesting to sit in Presidents house among some way successful people and hear tips and pointers about not only missionary work but pretty much life in general. The next day was zone conference. It wasn't too bad, it was cool to see the missionaries again, especially since I'm not exactly sure if I'll see some of them again before the end. Some of them I might not see again ever for all I know. Elder Khasbiullin is pretty sure he'll come to America at least to visit, so I'll hopefully get to see him again in the future. Elder Bressler and I went back to kaluga and were there working on Friday and Saturday, went to church on Sunday and got back on the bus to Moscow. I had plane tickets for Monday morning along with the AP's. Sunday night at the AP's apartment I spent a lot of time unpacking and repacking my bags to try to make the 40 pound weight limit. Pretty much I'm here witht he absolute bare necessities. 5 shirts, some other clothes and my books and coats. And I'll probably ditch even more stuff when I leave this city. My other suitcase is sitting in moscow with all the things I couldn't take here. Lots of clothes, some souvenier things, stuff like that.

The flight was good, lots better than last time when I was alone. Also it was a day flight, not a night flight. We got to Almaty at around 6 o'clock here but we were stuck in traffic for a while. We got to the branch, met up with the other missionaries and did some other stuff. The next day we had 6 lessons, the most I've ever had in one day, it was cool. I'm still trying to figure my way around and what not and figure out who our investigators are and stuff. Since me and my companion were shotgunned so a couple of the good investigators went with the elder that moved over to a different area. It seems like our investigators are all pretty old and stuff so I really want to hit the streets and find some new ones.

I'm not really sure what to say, I want to save as much as possible for the phone call, assuming everything works out. I hope I'll get to talk to everyone. It's only a 45 minute call this year, but that's okay. I'm excited to hear from you all and ask and answer some questions. I was hoping someone could write me back but I guess thats not happening. I guess I am planning on calling at around 9 oclock my time, I honestly don't know what time that will be in Idaho and especially in Iowa I have no idea. It's only a 45 minute call so I need you guys to make sure everything will work out so that we don't have to waste time trying to connect everybody else and all that stuff, maybe do a practice run with everyone? Ha, anyway, I'm excited. I love you guys, and I'll talk to you soon.

Elder Geddes

Merry Christmas from Kaluga

Hey everyone,

Still here in Kaluga, honestly not a whole lot has happened this week. We have been having a hard time getting contacts lately for some reason. We talked with almost 150 people this week and we got one contact! It's crazy. We had a couple days where we just had contacting and one appointment. It has gotten pretty cold so it's not so fun to be outside for hours on end talking to people who are also cold and don't want to stop to talk. We kept our spirits up though. We have been meeting with our investigators still, trying to get them to make some decisions. They are still kind of at a standstill right now. Yesterday they came to church and during Priesthood we had a pretty good chat with them and the branch president. After it was over, we left and our branch president stayed and had a chat with them for about 10 minutes. He told them that they need to make a choice and that they need to be working towards baptism. He didn't get any further than we have, they still just don't exactly have that desire. I have a feeling that if they continue to work with missionaries when I leave, they will be baptized but right now, they just aren't showing the desire.

This week has actually been a tough one for me. A combination of Christmas, waiting to go to Kazakhstan, inactive members, it all just kind of built up to this week. During Sacrament meeting (on which there were 9 people including me and my companion) I was just thinking a little about my few months I have had in Kaluga. It was kind of hard to see that I have been here for so long and we still have such low attendance. I sat next to Tatyana though, she is completely solid. She hasn't missed church since her baptism and has clearly seen how the Lord blesses us for keeping the commandments. It is just really hard to see these inactive members with cigarettes on the table, complaining about how hard life is and that kind of stuff. I just want to tell them to wake up and look around, they know the truth, they know exactly how they can get themselves out of these ruts but they won't do it. I have a little over a week left in Kaluga, I feel like visiting all these inactives and just calling them to repentance! I know their lives would all improve 10 fold if they would just remember the covenants they have made at one point and honor them. It's hard to feel sympathy for these people when they are outright breaking the commandments and then wondering why life just doesn't work out for them.

Anyway, enough of that, I am still having tons of fun, granted I am getting a little antsy to get this transfer done with. Not that I'm sick of Kaluga or Elder Bressler, but it is always just interesting to see new places and new things. Especially when the new place is a completely new country! I have been trying hard to stay focused on what is going on here in Kaluga, but the closer I get, the harder it is. I really want to work hard this last week though so that I don't leave Elder Bressler and his new companion with nothing to go on. It really will be a lot of fun though to get to Kazakhstan where there is a district and a senior couple. Being in a two man city is a good experience and I'm really glad I got to serve here, especially with Elder Bressler but I'm ready to get back to a district and a big branch.

I fell down for the first time this week, I tried jumping over a pile of snow and landed on the ice on the other side, I think I'm doing a lot better than last year though. Maybe I got some skills from last winter and I won't fall so many times. We will be going to Moscow this Thursday for zone conference, then I am assuming we will be going back next week either Monday or Tuesday, if all goes according to plan. I'm sure I'll know by next pday what the plan is.

I have missed the community concert too, I liked singing in it, the few times I did. We have been listening to Christmas music non stop while we cook lunch or dinner. President put a lot of music on the ipods we have and so we are hooked up with everything from the classics to some pretty modern Christmas music. Also, we have been listening to a 14 part lecture series on Jesus Christ that was given a while back at BYU. It has been so awesome. 14 different speakers just taking parts of the life of Jesus and talking about it for an hour. It has been really interesting. I love the Christmas season. We have so much to be thankful for and it is all thanks to the Saviour coming to the earth just for us. Hopefully everyone is remembering the reason we celebrate Christmas.

So Caleb is married huh? That's crazy. Did they get married in the temple? How is he handling being an instant dad? Is he going to school? Hopefully dad gets that appointment that he wants, sounds pretty important. It's of course really sad to leave Soda, but like I said, I'm still going to give my homecoming talk in the Soda Springs 4th ward with Bishop Humble sitting right behind me. We might all have to sleep in tents in their yard, but that's fine with me! I really want to go straight to Soda if possible, see my name on the Arctic Circle board! I know it's a completely different town now, but there are some things that will never change.

Thanks for all the letters and support. Have a safe trip to Iowa Mom and Dad, and Grandpa and Grandma! That will be lots of fun. I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season! I love you all.

Elder Geddes

New and exciting experiences

Pictures of downtown Kazhakstan taken from Jess's apartment window early the first morning he got there.


Hey everyone,

Well my trip to Kazakhstan was a lot of fun, I can't wait to go back. So last Monday, I got taken to the airport. The driver walked me in and made sure I got my ticket and then left. Right after he left, I realized I had a bit of a problem. I had left my migration card in Kaluga! It's the small piece of paper that we get when we fly back into Russia after visa trips. It's pretty important as it is pretty much the only reason we go on visa trips. You need to present it as you go through passport control. They check your passport, visa, and migration card. I had given my passport to the office the week before so they could get my Kazakh visa and I had left my card on my desk in Kaluga. I didn't have a cell phone or anything so I got a little nervous. I decided to just keep my cool, say a little prayer, and remember all the things I had seen in all the Jason Bourne movies and James Bond and stuff like that when they had to get somewhere. I handed my passport to the lady, she opened it up and immediately asked me where my migration card was. I said I didn't have one. She just looked at me for a second and then grabbed one from someone else to show me what it was in case I didn't understand. I told her I knew what it was, but that I just didn't have one. I told her I had done a bunch of stuff with my passport in order to get a Kazakh visa and had lost the card somewhere in the process. She just sighed a little, looked at me like, well what do you want me to do? Then finally she just stamped my visa, handed it to me and let me go through. I said thank you very much and went on my way without looking back. I felt pretty cool, and said a little prayer of thanks, and headed on my way to the gate. I had to wait about 2 hours in the airport because our plane left about an hour late. I had a pretty good conversation with a woman from Almaty. She was telling me about how cool it was and stuff. Anyway, I got on the plane and we flew away. I fell asleep and woke up at about midnight when they came around to feed us. They were showing some hidden camera joke show on the screens and I couldn't help but laugh at some of them. I realized at that time that I have been on my mission for a long time as I ate the airplane food and thought to myself, wow, this is really good, I haven't had food this good in a long time! It was chicken and rice, a salad, a roll and a dessert, nothing wrong with that. Anyway, there is a three hour time difference in Almaty so we got there at about 6 o'clock Almaty time, or 3 o'clock moscow time. I was pretty tired but really excited to get there. I walked in and immediately knew that I wasn't in Russia anymore. All of the signs were written in Kazakh, not Russian. For the most part everyone speaks Russian there, but the national language is Kazakh and they want everyone to remember that. I got through passport control there no problem and as I got to the other side, a small woman about 45 years old or so came and asked if I was a missionary, I said yes and she said, good, come with me. First of all, I asked her name and couldn't understand it. The names are just crazy there. I've gotten used to all girls here being named Irina, Ludmilla, or something like that and all the guys being Ivan or Sergey. This lady's name is Noorzya, and that's one of the easier names I heard during my two day visit. She is a member who is in charge of getting missionaries and President to and from the airport. She's way nice and actually her daughter is on a mission right now and we were in the mtc together, so she recognized me from a picture her daughter had sent of our district. As she drove me to the apartment we went through a section of town where all the houses are seperate. They were pretty shabby to say the least. After a while, we started getting closer to the center where the branch is and where the missionaries live, it's a pretty nice city. Lot's of big highrise buildings. We stopped and picked up Elder Khussainof who was my companion for the couple days I was there. We served in Veronezh for a pretty long time together so it was nice to see him again. We got to our apartment and I got all cleaned up and stuff. By the time I got ready the sun had come up and he said, look out the window. I looked and immediately felt a little more at home. The mountains surrounding the city look like something you would see in Utah and Idaho and Wyoming, it was so cool. I'll send you a picture. When the weather is nice, the missionaries spend p-day hiking and having picnics in the mountains. I hope I get to stay there until the end of my mission so I'll get a chance to do that. We studied and I fell asleep after about a half hour, I was pretty beat. We went to the branch to wait for a lesson to show up and in the meantime we were supposed to be doing language study, but I fell asleep again. The guy never showed up. I guess the people there are just really nice and so you ask them if you can have their number and they give it to you, then you ask to meet with them and they say, sure, but then they don't show up. Elder Khussainof said they just don't really have a sense of urgency and they don't really respect time there. There were some members that I met at the branch and even a couple non members. Sometimes people just go there to hang out I guess. It's in a really good part of town. Anyway, one thing we did, we had to go to this one place to fill out some documents in order to be volunteers for the upcoming Aisian Winter Olympics!! President thought it would be cool if we were able to be volunteers for it. I guess it's a pretty big deal. Athletes from all over Asia compete. They have been preparing Almaty for the past two years for the games. They start in February but the athletes will be there in January to start preparing. We will be kind of translators and doing odd jobs like putting numbers up on scoreboards and stuff. There is this big ski resort place a little ways outside of Almaty that we will be stationed at. It's going to be pretty cool. It's all the missionaries, some investigators and even some of the members will be helping out. I'm excited for that. The next day we had district meeting at the senior couples apartment. It is way nice, on the 13th floor of some new highrise building. They are the Moores and Elder Moore worked as a chemical engineer for Cheveron. I guess they are pretty well off and they like to spoil the missionaries. That's what I like to hear. It was so fun to be back in a district again after being in Kaluga for the past few months. It will be awesome to serve there. That first night I was there I was just way tired. At 9:00 we were doing some planning for the next day and I was just nodding off. Finally Elder Khussainof told me to just go to bed, so I got ready and started saying my prayers. Next thing I know, Elder Khussainof was waking me up and telling me to get in bed. I had fallen asleep pretty good on my knees. Not the first time it has happened of course, and probably not the last, but man was I tired. So the next day, I pretty much only had time to go to district meeting and teach one lesson before I had to leave at 4:30 to catch my 7 o'clock flight. The flight home was pretty rough because I didn't sleep much. I was really really bored and this time the food just wasn't quite as good as the first time. I got back to Moscow and it was around -24 outside. I got to stay that night in Moscow and the next morning Elder Bressler and I headed back to Kaluga. We have met with Bogdon a couple times and we just aren't quite sure what will happen with him. Our branch president ran into him on the street and said he was either drunk or on some kind of something, he just doesn't have a huge desire to keep the word of wisdom. We actually found Pasha as well. He still claims to have a desire to get baptized but we aren't sure if he has a desire to keep the commandments either. He came to church and stuff but I want to make sure he is ready if he gets baptized, I don't want to baptize him just to find out he left the church.

Anyway, that's pretty much an update of how the week went. I'm now officially over 18 months and I feel like I'm still just getting the hang of some things. Elder Bressler and I are having a great time together still. We are going to go grab some Christmas lights and stuff for the tree. Things are going pretty good. Thats cool that ecco is giving me some new shoes, good idea about keeping them there, that way I will have some way nice new shoes! I can get some cheap shoes in Kazakhstan, I'll let you know how cheap when I get there. Anyway, thanks for the letters and support. I love you guys, talk to you soon.

Elder Geddes