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
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