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