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