The best two years

From a scared 19 year old boy to a very capable missionary to a wonderful young man, we have watched the transformation from afar these last two years. No one ever said it would be easy but it certainly has been worth it. These last two years have given Jess the best foundation you can have in this life. A foundation built upon the rock of our Savior and tempered in the refiners fire. Experiences so rich they will be talked about for the remainder of his life and looked back on with fondness. Friendships to last a life time and memories to match. We have thanked our Heavenly Father everyday these last two years for the blessings of Jess' mission both on him and our family. We will forever treasure the chance we have had to experience it with him if only through his wonderful letters that will follow in the remaining pages of this book. Thanks Jess for allowing us a window to peak through into your life as a missionary, it has truely been "the best two years."

Returning with HONOR!

Hello everyone,

Alright, well this will most likely be the last email I write as a full time elder. Wow, I really never thought I would write those words. I always had a theory that other elders finish their missions, but you yourself never finish yours. I think that theory was wrong, but we'll see, I'm not done yet :) Time is only speeding up. I'm trying to get everything done that I need to before I have to leave this place, see everyone I want to, see everything that I want to, buy everything that I need (or don't need, you'll see when I get home) and most importantly, finish preparing Svetlana for her baptism this Saturday. She is so great.

I'll start off by telling about her, since she's most important right now. We have finished teaching her everything she needs to know before baptism. She has accepted everything without a problem and often times, before we even explain things, she just understands. More than once it has happened where we ask her a question, something like, "Svetlana, what is faith?" And she'll answer with these kinds of answers, "well, faith to me is like when you just know something, even though you can't see it, or hear it, but you know it is true." She always comes up with these Preach My Gospel answers which really makes missionaries happy. She has already had her interview, she passed with flying colors, and in a lesson we had with her on Sunday after church, she asked me to baptize her. I didn't know what to say. It will be a real honor for me to baptize her, help her get through the gates leading to eternal life. I do feel a little bad about how I will baptize her and then just leave a few days later. I feel like I've just put on her training wheels and I'm already taking them off. Of course she will still have great missionaries here helping her along the way, but it almost feels like I'm abandoning her. I hope she doesn't feel like that. She's so ready, I love this lady, she's just great. She has a great understanding of the gospel and will be such a great addition to our small branch here. I am so happy that I will get to spend a few minutes on Saturday in a baptismal font, participating in this life changing event with her. You'll all have to wait until I get home to see pictures of this baptism, but don't worry, that will only be a week :)

My companion is a little nervous actually, for what will happen when we leave. He is really good friends with pretty much everyone in my mtc group, and has spent his whole mission so far with us. When Elder Player and I leave, a greenie will come in my place and an Elder who has only been out a couple of transfers will come in place of Player. I'm not sure what the game plan is, but it will be a lot of pressure on Hasbiullin to be the leader, if not the babysitter, and keep things moving here. He has already been here now for 3 transfers and isn't sure if he can handle 2 more, but I know he'll be fine. He's a good missionary and will be a great trainer. It will be a big change for him, but it will help him grow even more.

I still can't say that I have fully accepted the fact that I'll be home soon. I don't think it will click until I get on that plane from Moscow to New York. These two years have gone by fast, really fast. Yet at the same time, it seems like I have been gone forever. I am a little nervous for all the changes that are coming, but I'm excited, and I think I'm ready. The mission has taught me a lot of things, and I think it has given me a good starting point for the rest of my life. The scary thing about the whole thing is that my whole life has been planned up until the mission. Everything just pointed to the mission and I never thought of what would happen after. Well I left on my mission, I knew I had two more years that I didn't really have to think too much about what would happen after the mission, and now I'm sitting in Astana, my last p-day on the mission thinking, well, it's about to begin. I know I'm going to have a lot of surprises, but I know that the mission has prepared me for anything that comes my way. I'm ready.

I'll never forget these two years, the good times, the bad times, the hard times, the really hard times, and all the blessings. Somehow having the energy to keep going, somehow having the answers when I need them, somehow learning more when I thought I couldn't learn any more. There are lots of things of course that I can't explain, but all I know is that I'll never forget my mission, and the people in Russia and Kazakhstan.

I can't wait to see everyone, that will be one of the greatest moments ever. Thank you all for all your prayers and support for me throughout the past two years. I couldn't have made it this far without it. I love you all and I'll see you next week!!

С любовью, Старейшина Геддес

P.S. I know this might not have been the most detailed email, but I mean come on, I'll have all the time in the world to tell you everything next week :) Oh ya, and Elder Hasbiullin and I were in a car wreck this week on a bus! We got rear ended by a different bus and it shattered out our back window. We didn't even feel anything really, just heard it. The best part is that the bus driver just kept on driving his route, ha, didn't even really stop for anything. It was cool.

One more post and done!

Jess needs some serious home cooking to put some meat on those bones!
It almost looks like it could be in Idaho somewhere doesn't it.

A fun p-day activity. They were able to take their 15 year old investigator along with them which I am sure he loved. Who wouldn't love spending the day with these great young adults!

Hey everyone,

Well, after this letter, I will write home one more time. I can't believe it, but it's true. It has been a long two years, but they have gone by fast at the same time. It seems like one big long dream. We had a good week, a couple of ups and downs but overall a great week.

First of all, last p-day we went bowling. I bowled a 141 the first game, not bad for not bowling for about 8 months. The problem is that by some kind of miracle, my companion bowled a 178, I still don't know how he did it. We bowled two more games and I won them both, so don't worry, I'm still the best :) It was a lot of fun. After that we had a lesson with Svetlana. When we got there, her 3 grandkids were there and her daughter in law was there as well, so we got to meet a few of her family members. She's not shy at all about us, which is really cool. She's doing great. She thought that black tea would be a really big challenge for her, so we fasted for her and have been praying for her. She told us at the lesson that she doesn't understand why, but she hasn't had a problem at all with the tea. We told her, we understand why, and encouraged her to keep it up. She is doing great and really has a strong desire to learn. She pretty much has been living the gospel the whole time, other than the word of wisdom with the black tea. Other than that, she herself had a lot of the same thoughts that we shared with her about the plan of salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and all of the commandments. She's great. She wasn't able to come to church on Sunday because she had to take her grandchildren back to their parents who live a couple hours from here. Even without her though, we had 14 people at church. We had a great fast and testimony meeting. We had 5of our investigators there, including Venera's son Alibek, and a new lady, Natal'ya. Two investigators stood and bore their testimonies, thanking the elders for helping them to learn more about the gospel, and all of the members also bore testimony. I even noticed that Natal'ya was crying a little bit while I was baring my testimony. That night, we decided to go to a Baptist service. We found a huge Baptist church so we decided to check it out. Honestly, it was really boring. Also, they had a hymn book in there with 2000 songs! Crazy.

The downer of the week happened when we met with Gulnafis, the other lady who we want to baptize on the 18th. She I guess just decided to open up and get some things off her chest. She just unloaded for the first half hour of our meeting! She has had a really tough life, which explains why she's a little bit different. She's really shy and very nervous all the time. It's a long story, but I'll tell it in short. She was married the traditional Kazakh way, her parents made an agreement with the parents of some guy and they were married. She said that she never loved this guy and that he never loved her. They had 2 daughters and she said that she would have left the guy if it weren't for the kids. Eventually she did leave him for a while, about a month. While she was gone, this guy was sitting in his car one day and just got really sick. She came back but he ended up dying. She says that her relatives blamed her for the death, even claiming that she had probably poisened him somehow. She went into deep depression and her family, as happens far too often, put her into a psychiatric hospital. I have met a couple people who have been in these hospitals in Russia, they always come out about 5 times worse than they went in. These places are bad news. So naturally she came out for the worse. She says after the hospital, she was beginning to understand that her oldest daughter wanted to destroy Kazakhstan... okay... and that she is a really talanted girl so she probably could do it. in her words "I knew that I needed to kill her. Thank goodness I didn't do it... of course I tried, but it didn't happen" Elder Hasbiullin and I were just sitting there with our mouths open. We just kept listening and then finally at the end of the story we tried to teach our lesson. It didn't work that great, and to add to it, she started just saying how she really doesn't understand why we need to be baptized and stuff. She really doesn't quite understand repentance and some other things. We are still working with her, but I'm not so sure she'll be baptized on the 18th.

Anyway, in better news, on Tuesday we took our real p-day. Today we are just writing home and buying groceries then we will work. Tuesday, we, along with Elder Maxwell and Alibek, took a 3 hour train to a city called Borovoy. Supposedly the best nature in Kazakhstan. It was really pretty, but nothing we couldn't see in Idaho or Utah. There was a big lake, some mountains, some different trails and stuff to go on. We walked along a path that went along the lake. It was really pretty and really fun. A really nice relaxing day. We played cards in the train on the way up and back which was also fun. We played scum and a Russian game called Durak. I'll have to teach you that game, it's pretty fun. It was also good to spend an entire day with Alibek. I think he'll eventually get baptized, which will be really cool. While we were there waiting for our train home, the police came and did a check on our documents. They do that every once in a while. I have been stopped probably about 5 times since I've been in Kazakhstan. You just have to show your documents and they leave. I almost didn't even grab my passport that morning. I remember thinking, I probably won't need it, but I'll grab it anyway. Elder Hasbiullin just had a copy of his documents, the problem is that his copy has been in his bag for the past 3 months, so it is all dirty and ripped. The cops didn't like that, and started saying that he was a foreigner without documents. They actually took him and Elder Jensen away for a few minutes. Elder Jensen still doesn't have his registration or accredidation, technically he was illegal, ha. We were a little worried but we knew it would work out okay. We still don't know why, but they just let Elder Jensen go, even though he was clearly illegal. They also let Hasbiullin go, so everything worked out good.

Yesterday was the last time for me to handle English club. We take turns each week switching off between elders. It was a good English club, then after that we had our family night where we played musical chairs. I can't remember for sure, but I'm pretty sure I haven't lost a game of musical chairs since I was in like 3rd grade. Sure enough, I won last night as well. I even floored two girls, one of which was Sister Maxwell! I felt a little bad but hey, what can you do?

Anyway, things are going good. I'm trying to stay focused and work hard. It's really easy when you are on lessons to focus and teach the lessons, but on the streets sometimes it is tempting to think, I'm never even going to get to work with these people, and it is easy to be a little lazy. I really want to work hard my last couple weeks though, I know it will be worth it in the end. Of course I can say that I am way excited to go home and see everyone. I still can't really believe that it's coming, but somewhere in the back of my mind I can see that it is real and that in two weeks I will be with my family once again. That will be a sweet time for me, but as for now, I really need to dig down and find some strength to work hard these last weeks. It will all work out great. Thanks everyone for writing, next week I'll be able to write home for the last time. Have a great week, I love you guys.

Elder Geddes

Astana is growing in the Gospel in only 3 months time!!

Hey everyone,

Well June is here! I can't believe it, but I'm going home in a few weeks. We actually have bought our tickets to Moscow. We went a few days ago and bought them, we leave on Wednesday the 22nd at 6:30 in the morning, we will get to moscow at 8ish and have the whole day Wednesday and Thursday to be in Moscow with our group. Everyone should be getting there sometime during the day Wednesday, so it will be pretty awesome. Then I guess Friday morning we come home. Time is flying and I have less than 3 weeks in Astana. Lucky for me, we have three weeks worth of work to do, that's for sure.

I wanted to start of with a story that I forgot to tell last week. Elder Hasbiullin and I were going somewhere on a bus and there were two empty seats. I went and sat down, the seats happened to be in front of two young boys. I sat down and immediately one of the boys tapped my on the shoulder and said one word "sopli". I knew what the word meant, but I didn't know why he would say it so I thought I misheard him. I said, "what?" He repeated the word and I just said, "where" He pointed to my seat, and sure enough, I had sat in a nice pile of snot. I think the kid had sneezed in the seat before I had gotten in or something! He seemed pretty ashamed, and I was a little frustrated. I stood up but didn't know what to do, I had no napkins or anything. Everyone was kind of trying not to laugh around me (besides Elder Hasbiullin, he was laughing pretty hard) but it was obvious that everyone around me noticed the situation and thought it was a little funny. The conductor lady came around and I think she was trying to play off the situation because she just said "oh no, you kids know you aren't allowed to eat ice cream on the bus!" I was like, lady, this isn't ice cream! She actually kicked the kids off the bus, ha, and then she brought some napkins to clean off the seat. I asked if she had anymore napkins and she just looked at me and said, "Where?" Ha, she ended up bringing me some napkins, but it was a little awkward trying to wipe off the butt of my pants on the bus in front of everyone, not being able to see. Luckily we were headed to the senior couple's apartment so I was able to clean up in their bathroom. I was pretty annoyed, but at the same time, I had to laugh about it.

Anyway, we had a way good week this week. On Sunday, we had 16 people at church! That is without three people that were supposed to be there. Venera had something she had to do and missed her first meeting, our baptismal candidate had gotten sick the day before, and the baptismal candidate of the other elders had relatives come to town for a day. We had lots of investigators there, including Alibek, Venera's 15 year old son. We have had some lessons with Svetlana, our baptismal candidate, she is doing great. We had a lesson with her last p-day. She fried us up some potatoes and started making us some black tea. I was a little nervous because we hadn't talked about the word of wisdom with her yet. We were bold and we just said, no we don't drink black tea, explained briefly why, and she said "okay, it will be a hard 2 weeks, but oh well" and immediately poured us all glasses of milk instead. Cool huh? She's doing good about not drinking it. She agrees that it is harmful. She is addicted to it and admits it, but she is willing to give it up. She's great. We have another meeting with her tonight.

On Tuesday of this week, two elders from Almaty came up to Astana for the day with our registration lady. They had to take care of some visa problems but it was pretty quick so we got to hang out with them the whole day. Not exactly the most effective day, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for them to come here so we took the liberty of showing them the town. That night, we had a meeting with a lady named Gulnafis. I don't think I've said anything about her, but she's been coming to church for the past month. She's probably close to 60, and at first I thought she was a little weird, but I think she's just shy. Anyway, she really likes the church and the things we teach her. We had been praying about her to know if we should invite her to be baptized on the 18th along with Svetlana. While we were doing our weekly planning, we talked about it and tried to make a list of all the reasons she should be baptized on the 18th and all the reasons she wouldn't be ready. We both agreed that there were much more reasons for her to be baptized than to wait. We decided we would talk about it with her on the lesson. So Tuesday night, we had a lesson, we taught the second half of the plan of salvation. She accepted everything and really liked what we had to say. At the end, talking about the Celestial Kingdom, we talked about what we need to do to make it there. We talked about baptism and she said she knew that she needed to be baptized. We invited her to be baptized on the 18th, and she accepted! After that, she, for the first time, offered the closing prayer on our lesson. It was a pretty spiritual lesson, everything just flowed and everything just felt right. To celebrate, we went into the other room with all the other elders that were there, after she left, and each took a drink of camel milk! You can buy it here in bottles, it's pretty disgusting, that's for sure. It's carbonated, has a hint of vinegar smell and each and every one of us gagged a bit when we tasted it, ha. It was pretty funny. Now that I've tried it, I never have to try it again. So now here in Astana, we have 4 baptismal dates planned for the 18th. The other elders have two, and we have two. We are sure that our two are going to work out, we hope the other elders investigators will be ready as well. That would be an epic day for us if we could get all 4 people baptized. President Woolley and his wife will be coming to Astana that morning, so that will be great. It's coming up quick, just two more weeks from this Saturday. What a great way to finish my mission. I'm really happy about the way things are going.

It sounds like things are going pretty good at home, although I only got a letter from Mom. I only have a couple of weeks left, don't go and forget about me now! Ha, you all have only two more times to write me after today, let's all endure to the end here and I promise you'll never have to write me an email again after the mission! I'm sure everyone is getting pretty busy with summer preparations. I'm glad Alex didn't break his arm. Why did that dog bite him? Is he going to be scared of dogs now? I hope not.

Wow, today is the 2nd of June. Two years ago today was one of the scariest days of my life! Now I'm on the other end, and I'm just as scared to go back to where I came from! I'll be able to leave the mission peacefully and with a good conscience though. But it will still probably be a bit scary. I'm really glad that I have learned so much out here. I wouldn't trade the last two years for anything. Thanks for all you have done for me over the last 2 years, all your support and advice. I love you all and am excited to see you all soon. Have a great week.

Love Elder Geddes

A baptism with more to come!!

The latest pictures from Kazakstan. The first baptism in Astona Kazakstan, her name is Vernera. They are still boys underneath that missionary attire. Zone conference in Almaty with Bro. and Sis. Switzer who is over the European missions.



Hey everyone,

Well I am finally a man! I can now legally break the commandments! Ha, I'm just kidding, but I am an adult now, crazy huh? 21 years old is a big deal, although it doesn't seem like much while I'm here. I don't even feel like I was ever 20, and now I'm already 21! Last year I had a really great birthday in Voronezh, this year has been good so far as well. Last night we had English club and we talked about birthdays, we sang a primary song, I played the piano, and the Maxwells gave me a box of Oreos, and one of our members gave me a cherry pie thing and some flowers. It was pretty nice. We had a sleepover at the other elders apartment where we shared my oreos and pie. This morning we made breakfast burritos, so it has been a great birthday so far. The weather is pretty terrible today, cold and rainy, but we are still going to have a good time.

Okay, so the baptism. Saturday morning comes along and everything went as smooth as could be! Everyone showed up who needed to, including one of our investigators named Svetlana. The water was colder than we thought it would be, and Venera is pretty scared of water. I'm glad Elder Hasbiullin baptized her, she really trusts him and he was able to calm her down enough to get the baptism done. She bore her testimony afterwards and it was just the testimony you would want to hear from a newly baptized person. She said she felt like she had wings, that she had flown somewhere, she said she couldn't really explain how she felt, but that she felt really light and happy. That's what I'm talking about! The next day, I had the chance to give her the gift of the Holy Ghost. I feel like I said the words I needed to say, I worried of course, it's always a bit stressful to do that in a different language, but I really feel like I was given the words to say. Svetlana was also present for that as well. She had tears in her eyes at the end of the blessing and told Venera she was jealous of her. The day before, after the baptism, Svetlana went up to Elder Hasbiullin and asked him what she needed to do to be baptized. He told her we could meet with her and prepare her for baptism. We were able to meet with her after church on Sunday and right off the bat she asked about baptism and what she would need to do to be baptized. Her next question was, how do I pay tithing. We have a meeting with her today, at 1:30. I don't love having meetings in the middle of my p-days, but when it is with an investigator preparing for baptism, I'll do it no problem. She's really busy with work during the week so we took whatever chance we could to meet with her. She will be baptized on June 18th, my last Saturday on a mission. I can't think of a better way to end my mission. The work is moving forward. From our humble beginnings of 9 people at the meeting, to the 14 that we had on Sunday, including our new convert, I can honestly say that the work is moving forward. The other elders set a baptismal date for the same weekend with one of their investigators. Things are just going great here. I guess throughout the whole mission things are just going awesome. We have record amounts of baptismal dates (22) investigators on the meeting, progressing investigators, new investigators, things are just cruising. President Woolley is really happy, and obviously we are all happy as well. It's really fun to be involved in this work and see the Lord's hand in our lives and in the lives of people all around.

I already bought myself a little birthday gift. I bought the Russian classic, Crime and Punishment by Fyoder Dostoyevski. I'm not sure if you have heard of it or not, but I guess it's supposed to be really good, and have a lot of symbolism of repentance and stuff. I bought it in Russian of course, it might be a challenge for me to read as it is written in classic Russian language, but I'm excited for the challenge. I have been planning my whole mission on buying two books to take home, a Russian classic, and the first Harry Potter in Russian. I know I'll be able to read that one no problem!

Anyway, time is flying and it is going as good as can be. I will write home 3 more times after today, because the day before I come home I probably won't write. I can't believe it, but it's coming to an end. I'm just so glad we have success and I have motivation to finish strong. I'm so glad to be here in Astana with Elder Hasbiullin. President Woolley will be here in Astana for our baptism on the 18th as well, which will be really awesome. Things just can't get any better. Thanks for all the support and prayers, and thanks for all the birthday wishes. I love you guys! Have a great week.

Elder Geddes

The first Stake in Russia created

Hey everyone,

I really enjoyed talking to everyone as well, as usual it went by too fast, but this time I know I only have a while longer and I'll be able to see you guys and talk in person. Sorry I didn't write yesterday, our ap's had problems with visas and weren't able to end up coming, they called us Tuesday night and told us so we didn't have a reason to do p-day on Wednesday. Since the phone call, not a whole lot of new things have happened. We had 3 investigators at church along with a member from Almaty who was in town for the weekend. We had a record 13 people at the meeting. I can't believe it, that's more than we had in Kaluga a lot of the time, although here we have 6 missionaries as a buffer. We have some new investigators and some new contacts to work with. Things are going pretty good.

The biggest news is something I just found out a few minutes ago when I read the email from President Woolley that he sends us each week. He said that on the 5th of June, Elder Nelson will be in Moscow to create the very first steak in Russia!! Can you believe it? There will be a steak in Russia, making it eligible for a temple someday! I just can't believe it. That will be such a blessing for the saints in Russia. I really think the work will go even faster and better once there is a steak and espescially someday when there is a temple. This is a huge step forward for the Russain people. It's a bummer that I won't be able to attend the conference, all the missionaries in Russia will be able to, but we are just too far away I'm sure. I would love to be present for that but just the fact that it's happening is good enough for me. I don't know too many details about it, but it is a miracle we all dreamed about when we were in the mtc and all throughout the mission.

Monday was Victory Day. It honestly wasn't as cool here as it would have been in Russia, but they still celebrate here. There wasn't really a parade, although there was some kind of ceremony in the morning. We had a good time with permission from President to attend some of the festivities. There was a concert after the ceremony where people sang old soviet war songs and did traditional Russian and Kazakh dances. There were still quite a few veterens that were present, although I'm sure with each year there are less and less. It wasn't the most effective work day as everyone was busy celebrating and didn't want to meet with us or really spend time talking with us.

Yesterday we had our first ever English club here in Astana. I think we had about 14 people show up. Venera is an English tutor if I didn't already tell you that, so she wanted us to start this club in order to give her students a chance to practice conversational English with us. It was pretty successful and fun, and right after that we had our weekly activity night where we have a spiritual thought, some games, and some refreshments. Some of the students stayed for the activity and everyone had a good time. All three of our members were there along with the Maxwells.

We will be flying to Almaty Sunday night at I think 10:30 at night. We will probably get to the elders apartment by around 1:00 in the morning. Zone conference will be on Monday where Elder Schweitzer, the area president, will be present. I have heard him speak before, he's awesome. President Woolley said that Elder Schweitzer wants to interview us missionaries after the conference. I think that will be a neat experience. This will be my last zone conference. Usually on a missionaries last zone conference, the missionary gives his testimony. I hope President Woolley keeps up the tradition, as there will be 3 of us there for the last time.

May is flying by faster than I can believe. Before I know it, it will be my last month on my mission. I'm feeling really good. I don't feel trunky, I don't feel like I'm counting down the seconds until I leave, I feel like I see what I can do, and I know what I need to do until the end. I'm glad everyone is doing well, I will definitely keep Aunt Vicki in my prayers and hope that everything goes well with her and with Aunt Sue. I'm sure everything will work out the way it needs to. I love you all, thanks for everything.

Elder Geddes

Growth in Kazakstan

Hey everyone,

Well we have had a really good week. As usual, after a hard week comes a really good week. Elder Hasbiullin and I have been realizing that the pieces are falling into place. Things are starting to happen for us here, we have investigators, meetings, things to do, people to focus on, food in the fridge and money in the wallet. We had 3 investigators come to church on Sunday! Can you believe it? Venera is doing great and we have committed her to live the word of wisdom and the law of tithing. She has agreed to both. She said it would be hard to give up green tea, but she will do it. We're so excited for her. Her baptism will be in a couple weeks, the 21st of May.

We met Venera the first day that we had permission to preach here in Astana. We talked to her on a bus stop and gave her a Book of Mormon. She was one of the first meetings we had with and investigator and it was an awesome first meeting. We were able to go through the whole restoration and ask her to be baptized when she received an answer. She agreed and it has been like clockwork ever since. She feels the spirit when we meet with her, she really enjoyed church the last couple of weeks, and she has become really good friends with Sister Maxwell, which is good as well.

The first lady that came to church is kind of an interesting, sad, and confusing story. She was invited by a member to the meeting that first Sunday, she really liked it, came to family night that week, cried during the spiritual thought about family, told us all that this is the place she wants to raise her daughter, surrounded by such good people and good influences, then she just disappeared. We got a hold of her after a while and found out that some of her friends had told her some stuff about us that was completely not true. She herself has no idea what religion she belongs to, but she felt like she knew enough about us to say that we aren't true Christians and that she doesn't want to belong to a sect. Just recently we went to her house, we weren't really able to get a lesson in, because she is kind of a confusing person. She's really nice, but for some reason she can't understand that we aren't just her 20 year old friends, but that we have something much more important to share. She is leaving for America in the beginning of June where she will be for an entire year. She is actually going to be looking for a husband there so that she can be there forever. I think she is just not very good at thinking things through in her head, and because of that she makes some really rash and not very smart decisions. I wish her the best of luck.

We have another couple of investigators that are doing well. We have been helping a 29 year old girl with English. Just recently we have made huge strides with her and have taught her the first half of the plan of salvation. She is Muslim, but she agrees with all the things we have told her so far and has even changed her mind about some things she thought earlier. I wouldn't say she's close to accepting baptism by any means, but just the fact that she is beginning to understand a little more about life here on earth is good progress for her.

Time is flying by, I can't believe it is already May, and that I will be calling home this Sunday. May is going to go by fast, maybe even too fast. We have a lot going for us this month, it will be a good month. I'm glad that we have things rolling here, it will make it easy for me to work to the end. Seeing the goals we have, and seeing how they are achievable will help me work all the way to the end.

I guess I should save some stuff for our phone call. I'm excited to call home, for the last time. By the way, I haven't gotten the mission news letter since I left Russia, I hope you have saved them so I can read through them when I get back. Anyway, things are going good. Thanks for the support and prayers. I love you guys. Talk to you on Sunday.

Elder Geddes

Much work to be done

A lifesized game of chess
Jess enjoying a spring day in Kazacahstan

Hey everyone,

Well I just got here after losing an intense match of big chess. There is a park not too far from our house that has a chess board place. There are big pieces and everything. Elder Hasbiullin and I played against the other companionship and ended up losing. It was pretty fun though. After this, Elder Player and I will be going to the market to start checking things off our list of stuff to buy before we have to leave. My companion hates going there so Elder Player and I will be leaving our companions together and we will go to the market.

Time is continuing to fly. For some reason, last week I thought today would never come, but the week, as usual, went by in a blur. The APs were here and we did splits on Friday. I was with Elder Nuckols, who was in the MTC with me. It was a good split. Nuckols doesn't have permission to preach in Kazakhstan so all he did was stop people and ask how they were doing and stuff, then would turn it over to me. All day was like that, I was pretty tired after that day, but it was fun and successful. On Sunday, Venera came to church! Her first time. She really enjoyed it. I spoke on the Atonement and feel like I did a pretty good job. After the meeting, we had a contact that wanted us to go to their church meeting. We ran over there and got there in time to hear the last half hour of the pastors sermon, which wasn't all that interesting. Their church is held in the basement of an apartment building, you have to go down some creepy stairs and down a long dark hallway to get there. They are a branch of Pentacostles as far as I understand. Things got really interesting when they started praying in tongues. There were about 12 people there and they were all standing, pointing their hands somewhere and just rattling off sounds. Our investigator was next to me just making noise. I can honestly say that the spirit was not in that room, not in the least. All I felt was confusion, emptiness, and a little nervous, ha. After they finished, the preacher sat down and some people left and some people stayed to talk to us some. They asked us some questions, of course about why we don't pray in tongues. I was able to testify about prayer, what it is and why we pray. I told them that prayer is a conversation with God, and that when I speak with God, I prefer reverence and calm, rather than noise and confusion. They kept saying things like, ya but when I pray in tongues, God is able to give me revelation and answers. We said that He can do the same exact thing when we pray in our language. It is really interesting how people are deceived. Prayer is powerful, Satan understands that. When he gets people to either not pray, pray to idles or icons, or pray in tongues, he is able to stop that person from having and using the power of true, pure, prayer to our Heavenly Father.

After that little adventure, we went back to the branch where we had a lesson scheduled with a new person. I think I told you guys about it, but a few weeks ago a girl called and said someone had given her our invitation and she wanted to know more. We hadn't been able to meet with her until this Sunday. We met her, showed her the branch and started our lesson. Her name is Olga, she is a 25 year old English teacher from South Kazakhstan. She has been here in Astana for a couple years or so and says she has been searching for the right church for her. We were able to teach the whole restoration. She was so interested and had a few good questions. She liked what we had to say and wanted to hear more. We gave her a Book of Mormon and asked her to pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We asked her if, when she receives her answer, she would be baptized. She said of course! We had an Easter dinner scheduled at the maxwells that night for the branch members. We invited her to the dinner and arranged to meet to show her how to get there. It turns out that she lives in the same apartment building as we do. She has seen us around a lot she said, but she never knew we were missionaries. I don't ever remember seeing her, but oh well. So when we met up to show her the way, she said she had already read a few chapters in the Book of Mormon. She was still really excited. The dinner was pretty successfull. Venera came and brought her 15 year old son along with her. It was a really good chance for us all to get to know each other better and have a good time. We watched the film, together forever, after the dinner and everyone enjoyed it. All in all a pretty good Easter, but Easter just isn't the same without coloring eggs, waking up to a basket full of chocolates and gumballs, and going to Grandma and Grandpa Geddes' house for the egg hunt. Holidays on the mission are just a bit different than at home, ha.

We met again with Olga yesterday. We started teaching the Plan of Salvation. There were some surprises for her there, some things that were just completely new for her. God has a physical body, premortal life, those kinds of things. We will have to take it a lot slower than we at first thought, that that is good also. We want her to understand and find answers, rather than just blindly accept what we say. We encouraged her to pray about all the principles that we taught. I'm sure she'll find her answers as she continues to pray and study the scriptures. She said she will be at church on Sunday, so that's good.

Things are going good, and I'm happy. Time is ticking, but I'm not scared, we have success right now, it will take me right to the end of my mission. I'm not going to lie, I for some reason have been getting tired of my companion every once in a while, but we always end the day friends, or start the day friends if we didn't end, ha. We are really good friends, but we've been together a long time, counting the first time we served together. I'm still sure that there's nobody else I'd rather serve with a this time in my mission. Good life lessons. I'm glad everyone is doing good back home, and that Meg and Mica and their kids were able to spend some time there. I hope everyone has a good week. Love you guys.

Elder Geddes

And so the miracles begin

Hey everyone,

We had a really great week, one of the best ever! It went by so fast because of all the good things that happened with us. On Saturday, we had district meeting at the Maxwell's house. The Moores had gotten there that morning so they were there with us. I got to give the spiritual thought, I used some awesome verses I have been studying lately from Alma 37 about the Liahona and about faith and diligence, if you get a chance, look it up, from v. 40-47. Compare it with 1 Nephi 16, it is really interesting and applicable to any stage of life. Anyway, after the meeting, we went out to dinner, just the elders and the Moores! We went to that place I told you about, the chinese looking place that has a restaurant on the 23rd floor. The floor rotates which is awesome, we got to see the whole city after about an hour. I got a steak, some fries, some Asparagus in cheese (can you believe it?) and Elder Hasbiullin and I split an order of Bish Bar Mak, the national dish of Kazakhstan. Horse meat and noodles (nothing special if you ask me). After the dinner, we had a meeting with a person we are helping with English. Sunday was a nice meeting. No investigators came, but it was nice to have the Moores there. They spoke, and after the meeting we all had an interview with Elder Moore since he is in the mission presidency. They had invited us to their hotel that night for dinner and to let us watch another session of conference. The other elders made lasagna which was pretty good actually. We only got to watch a couple of talks from the Saturday morning session, but it was really cool. The best thing was on Monday. We haven't been able to meet with Venera for quite a while, she was busy with work, then she got sick. Anyway we set up a meeting with her for monday and we went to her apartment for the lesson. We have taught her the restoration, the plan of salvation and so we wanted to teach her the gospel of Jesus Christ and try to set a baptismal date. We had planned out a really good lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We executed our plan and everything worked out great! By the time we got to the part about baptism, she had already asked, "how do I show my faith? How do you baptize people?" As we started to talk about baptism, she said "I already feel a desire to be baptized, I don't know why, but I feel a desire to be baptized, think about it guys." We told her, we have thought a lot about it and we want you to be baptized. Elder Hasbiullin extended the commitment and the first thing she said was, when. We told her we want her to be baptized the 21st of May and she said, what do I need to do? We assured her that we would be there every step of the way and that we would help her prepare for baptism. It was a great lesson and a great feeling. The spirit was strong, and she was able to recognize it. She said she had met with the Jehova's Witnesses for over 8 months and they wanted her to be baptized, but she never felt the desire. She now has that desire and has agreed to meet the challenge. She agreed to come to church this Sunday, and she also attended our activity last night at the branch. She has a 15 year old son and we can't wait for this family to start receiving the blessings of the restored gospel. We're very excited.

We also had another miracle a few days ago. We were contacting and we were talking to a really nice lady on the bus stop. As we were talking to her, a man in a suit walked up to us and said, guys, I see that you are well dressed and happy guys, that you are talking about something serious. I don't have time right now but lets exchange numbers and meet. We got his number and he left. We also got the lady's number on the bustop by the way. Anyway, that night we called him and set up a meeting for the next day. He invited us to his office in some hotel. As we were heading to the office, we were worried that it was going to be one of those pyramid scheme meetings or something. As we got to his office, sure enough it was one of those businesses. We sat and waited for a minute for our contact to come in. He came in and we sat in a corner of the room. He immediately started introducing himself, saying that he has been thinking a lot about eternal questions lately. He said he didn't know why he wanted to talk to us, but he saw us on the street, saw that we were happy guys, well dressed, working hard. He said, "people are just attracted to enthusiastic happy people, but usually I don't introduce myself to them. I saw you guys and thought, why not?" We were able to talk to him for almost an hour and explain that it was probably the influence of the Holy Ghost that made him want to talk to us, and that we do have answers to the questions of the soul. The whole time we were there, he didn't say one word about his business, we are really excited about him as well. He has a wife who also worked there.

I'm not sure why, but the Lord has been answering our prayers really really fast lately. Sunday night we had sent a message to Venera, making sure our lesson was still set. We hadn't heard back from her, but as we were praying before bed, I asked that we would be able to meet with her. We closed the prayer and the phone rang, a text from her saying everything was good. The next day, for some reason they had shut off our lights and water, so we couldn't shower or do anything really. So we just got dressed and went out contacting first thing in the morning. We got back, still no water or electricity. We were getting worried that our food was going to go bad. We needed to leave for our lesson and we didn't know what to do with the food. We figured, oh well, it should be fine. Before we left the apartment, we said the prayer and I said, please let the lights and the water come back so that our food didn't go bad, and literally at that second the lights flipped on and we were able to leave knowing that our fridge was fine and that all our food would be okay. Small examples, but important ones. Just goes to show you that the Lord listens to even our smallest of desires and problems.

The AP's got here this morning. We already went and played 3 on 3 basketball for about an hour and a half. I wouldn't say I'm great by any means but I'm getting better and enjoying it more each time. We will be working with them tomorrow, so it will be pretty fun. We should be able to find at least one lesson for each companionship. I'm excited. The AP's right now are Elder Nuckols and Tanner. Elder Nuckols was in the MTC with me and Elder Tanner was in the group behind us. Elder Tanner and I served together for quite a while in Voronezh, so it's a really fun set of AP's.

When the Moores came up, they brought with them some mail that had made it's way to Almaty a while back. I got a letter from a member in Kaluga who just left for her mission a couple months ago. She lived in Moscow while I served in Kaluga, but her mom is in Kaluga so she came down a few times. She's really cool and really nice. She sent me a postcard and thanked me for my service in Kaluga and for my support of her and her family. She said "my mom always talks about you with a lot of respect, and you were a great example to me of a missionary." It was a short little note, but it made me so happy to know that people really do appreciate the work we do here. It brightened my day, that's for sure. It's so awesome when people take the time and effort to thank you for something, we should all probably make the effort to do that a little more often, we all probably know how it makes us feel when someone thanks us. It was a nice little surprise for me. Oh ya, by the way, last transfer, they closed down Kaluga. We just don't have enough missionaries. The good thing is that the office elders in Moscow are now traveling every weekend to Kaluga. They have Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday to meet with and support the members there. I guess there is even a couple of pretty promising investigators right now. I was sad that they closed it down, just because I have a convert there and I really grew to love the members. But at least the office elders have a chance to go there every week and support the branch. One of the office elders is Elder Erickson, he and I baptized Tatyana, so I'm sure that's a good thing for them.

We got things sorted out in the hospital with my companion. We had to go back about a million times and wait in about a hundred lines, but finally we got him some medication. I think I told you about it, he has this weird spot on his back that he is constantly itching, so I made him go to the doctor. Yesterday we got the medication and they said in about 10 days it should start going away. I hope so, I'm sick of him scratching himself! Ha, I swear, when you are with the same guy from the second you wake up to the second you go to sleep, things start to wear on you! But I really love Elder Hasbiullin, I'm glad we're together. We have a good time.

I will be speaking in church on Easter Sunday. I'm pretty excited. I'll be speaking on the 4 parts of the atonement. Usually we talk about the 3 parts, suffering in the garden, on the cross, and the resurrection. The fourth part I will include is the fact that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. Without that, there would be no atonement. There are several references in the scriptures when it talks about how Christ was tempted, but gave no heed to the temptations. The fact that he was able to live his life in perfect harmony with the Father, always being able to resist temptation, always serving and loving others, allowed him to give his life for us, and take it back. We know that Jesus Christ showed us the perfect example in all things, and that we are to follow that example. At the end of the sermon on the mount He commands us to be perfect even as He and His Father are perfect. Jesus Christ was able to withstand all temptations, technically, we can too. The fact is though, that we don't always withstand every temptation. The commandment still applies, be ye perfect, the only way we can progress toward that goal is by the atonement which provides the mercy needed to pay the demands of justice. We'll never understand the atonement perfectly, it's too complex and deep, but that just means that we can study it for our whole lives and always learn more! I love studying the gospel and learning, it's such a great blessing for us as missionaries and as members of the church.

Today, we are planning on going to see the sights, since the ap's are here. It should be a nice day, we'll get some good pictures, without the snow and stuff. This is a pretty cool city, some days I just still can't believe I'm here. I'm really glad I am here though. I have a little over 2 months left and we'll be working hard until the end. Thanks for all the letters and support, I love you guys!

It's hard opening a city

Hey guys,

Okay, right off the bat I'll start with the cool story for the week. So one day we decided to mix things up and go straight out in the morning and contact at like 8 o'clock. We went out and started to talk to people and noticed that there were tons of people at this one bus stop. We wondered what was going on so we asked and found out that the president would be making an appearance and a speech and so the city was bussing people there to watch. Sometime last week were the presidential elections. From what we heard, President Nazerbaev received 95% of the votes! Everyone loves him here, but wow, I don't know if I can believe that one. Usually they have elections every 7 years here, but this one was different. President Nazerbaev was elected president until the day he dies! He's pretty much king of Kazakhstan now. He's already been the president for 20 years and he will probably be around for another 20 or so. Anyway, we decided it would be a once in a life time thing so we ran home, grabbed our cameras and ran back to the bus stop. We got on one of the last busses and got a free trip to the location of the speech. There were lots and lots of people there and we didn't really know what was going on, but we ended up getting in a pretty good spot. We were pretty close to the aisle where President walked down the red carpet. My comp got it all on film because he's really tall. It was pretty cool. He gave his speech in Kazakh, then in Russian. The whole city was pretty much just partying the whole day. There were open air concerts and food all over the place. It was pretty cool. I've never even seen the president of the USA but I've seen the president of Kazakhstan. Cool huh?

Well this week somehow went by really fast, as usual. I don't understand it. There are some days when I look at my watch and see that it is about 3 o'clock and I think, there is no way I'll be able to make it through another 6 hours of this. The next thing I know I am laying in bed thinking, how did I make it? I can definitely say that the Lord is strengthening us and helping us get through the days. Not that we are just here to endure our time, but even when we have a successful day and get good contacts, all day out on the streets talking to everyone you see takes its toll. I think all four of us have had a moment or two when we thought, that's it, I can't do it anymore. Mine was this week. We had a day with two lessons planned, one at 4 and one at 6. I was so happy, I thought, no problem, contact until 4 o'clock, take a break and teach a lesson, conctact for an hour, take a break and teach a lesson then finish off the day with an easy 2 hours of contacting. At about 4 o'clock we went to the branch to meet the guy, he didn't show up. We called and he didn't answer. I thought, oh well, it's not so bad, just two more hours and we'll get to teach a lesson. I was able to contact for the next two hours with a good attitude and desire. Then at 6 o'clock, we called the investigator to say that we were almost there and she said that she wouldn't be able to meet with us afterall. I just wanted to sit down right there and quit for the day. I didn't see how I could possibly go another 3 hours. It just didn't seem possible at all. I had actually that morning read in the Book of Mormon about the sons of Mosiah, how even they at times were discouraged. It says that the Lord strengthened them when their hearts were depressed and they wanted to turn back. I said a little prayer and just asked for some strength, to just make it to the end of the day. Off we went. We continued to talk to people and continued to work. That was one of those nights when I layed in bed and thought, how did I make it? Another miracle about the whole thing is that each morning at 6:30, I am able to wake up, and get out of bed without problem. I am so beat by the end of the day but the next morning I am able to jump up and do it again. This has been a trying month for me but I think I have grown, even in this month. I know I'll make it through this next two months and I'll be a better person for it. I really want to see some success here of course. I think it isn't out of the question to see some people get baptized before we leave, I really want to see some success. I know that most of what we are doing is planting seeds for the future, but it would still be neat to see some fruits.

The weather changed from winter to summer overnight almost. One day we were in scarves, hats, gloves, everything. The next we were just in our coats without hats and gloves, the next day we wore our suit coats and the next day we wore short sleeve shirts. We have played basketball at a nearby school a couple of times, last pday we played and this morning we already played. It was fun and some good exercise. It is actually getting hot here which is something I never thought I would say. Winter was long but it ended quick.

We have some cool things coming up. This weekend the Moores will be coming up here from Almaty. They are going to be taking us out to dinner on Saturday after our district meeting. The place we picked out is a 20 something story building with the restaraunt on the 23rd floor. The floor of the restaraunt rotates so that you can see the entire city. It's actually not that expensive so it will be really awesome. They will be with us at church on Sunday as well. Then the next weekend the ap's are supposedly coming up here too. We don't know which day exactly, but it will be a good change for a day or two. After that, the next thing will be Mothers day, calling home for the last time. Sometime in the middle of May, I think the 14 and 15 or so, we will be going down to Almaty for zone conference where Elder Schweitzer from the 70 will be there. After that it will be my 21st birthday, followed by my 2 year mark on a mission. Lots of cool things coming up.

It sounds like everyone is doing pretty good. I'm always happy to read about all the funny and cool things that happen at home. I hope everyone has a good week and lots of fun times. Love you guys.

Elder Geddes

Jess used the clippers on his hair and it was a little shorter than he expected but he still looks handsome!

Pictures of Kazachstan, it really is a beautiful, modern city.

Challenges and joys of missionary work

Hey everyone,

Before I forget, I wanted to tell you this cool thing that happened last week but I forgot to write about it last time. Elder Hasbiullin and I were contacting, in kind of a different part of town tha we hadn't been in before and we were talking to a lady on a bus stop. A bus pulled up and a bunch of people got on. The last lady to get on was wearing a big fur coat. As she was stepping on to the bus, some guy came up behind her and kind of grabbed her and reached in her pocket and grabbed her cell phone. I saw the whole thing, and then the guy started calmly walking away probably trying to blend in with the crowd. I didn't know what to do but I kind of stepped in front of him and just said, Hey! I think it scared him and he stopped and looked at me, just then the lady got off the bus and ran up and grabbed him and started yelling at him to give back the phone. There wasn't much he could do so he just gave her the phone. She called him some names and then got back on the bus. The guy walked away and was kind of just standing in the shadows. We finished our conversation pretty quick and the guy was yelling for me to come talk to him. Of course I wasn't going to go talk to him, so I just started walking away. Elder Hasbiullin seemed to be a bit more spooked than I was and was trying to get out pretty fast so he had already gotten about 10 or 15 feet away from me. As I was walking away, some guy grabbed my arm. I immediately just tried to rip my arm away but he held on. He said, that guy wants to talk to you. I just calmly said, I don't need to talk to that guy. And he kind of just looked at me and let me go. We got out pretty quick, jumped on a different bus and just left. I'm not sure if the second guy was like a partner or something to the bandit, or if he really just thought that guy wanted to talk to me and thought that I didn't hear him. I didn't want to stick around to find out of course, so we just got out. It was pretty cool, I kind of saved a lady from getting her cell phone stolen! The sad thing about it is that about 25 other people saw the whol thing and nobody said a word or did anything. I know if that would have happened in America, at least in Soda Springs, people would have stopped the thief. I don't like the fact that most people here have kind of a look out for number one attitude. That kind of attitude doesn't help anyone, and if an entire city or country has that attitude, you see that they don't progress very fast at all. Anyway, kind of a cool experience.

Last week we went to a really big aquarium for our p-day activity. It was pretty fun. Then we all went to eat at a mall, we had some KFC! My week went by really fast, although we had some tough days. We lost a few of our investigators and one of our members left town for a month. I as pretty frustrated at first about losing our investigators, but then I realized that they just weren't the ones we should be spending our time with. I know that God's hand is in this work so we don't have to worry when things like that happen. We still have Venera, although she was busy all this week. It is easy to forget that we have only been here for a month, and that it will be like this for a while longer. We didn't really know what we signed up for when we got asked to open up this city, but we should have been more prepared for how difficult it is. Remembering that we are still so new here, and that this is God's work, really helped me pick up my spirits and have a good rest of the week. It went by so fast, I feel like just yesterday we were here writing home.

We had a little miracle a couple days ago. We had no lessons and were getting ready to contact all day long. We went out right after studies and contacted for about an hour and a half. We talked to a girl on the street and asked if she would be interested in practicing English. She said she wasn't but said she had a friend who worked in a nearby furniture store who would be interested. I'm sure she just said it to get us to leave and never thought that we would be persistent enough to actually go find the store and talk with the lady. She obviously doesn't know mormon missionaries! Side note, I realize that we are annoying as missionaries but it really sunk in a few nights ago when one of our contacts said that he would be out of town for about a month, also probably just to get us to forget about him and stop calling, but my companion without skipping a beat, opened his planner to exactly a month from that day and wrote himself a reminder to call that guy, ha, how is that for not giving up, ha. Anyway, of course we found the furniture store and walked in and started talking to the lady working there. She is about 29 years old and was just happy as can be that two people would come up to her and offer free English practice. She has just been studying on her own for about a year and has just wanted practice. We were able to talk with her for about 40 minutes, explain who we are and what we believe, and why we left all our life at home for two years to come here. She is Muslim, but had no problem listening and asking questions about our faith. We have another meeting set up with her for Saturday, so we will be able to start helping her with English and teach her the gospel. We'll see if she accepts. It was just a really nice little break from contacting and was just enough to get us through that long day. It was cool.

Yesterday was the warmest day so far this year. It was so nice. Today is supposed to be even better, we are going to go play basketball at a nearby school. I'm excited to get out and get some exercise, other than walking up and down flights of stairs. I'm so out of shape! Oh ya, and I cut off all my hair. There was a hair cutter here that was left over from the seniour couple and I got the chance to be the test driver. It only had two guards so I figured the bigger one should do the trick. Only after I finished did I realize that I could have actually extended the guard to make it four times longer than what I used. Oops. Oh well, I figure this will be the haircut I wear for the rest of my life anyway, might as well start getting used to it now. 2 years, lots of stress, bad diet, constantly being tired, a sure fire recipe for baldness :) I don't mind, I figure I have an unusually round head, obviously I was prepared from the foundations of this world to be bald. Who can complain about that? If you aren't with God, you are against him, I can't say I like the fact that my hair fell out but what can you do?

Church was really nice on Sunday, although it was just the four elders, the Maxwells and one member. The other two members were out of town and we couldn't get any investigators to come. We also got to watch three sessions of General Conference at the Maxwell's house. We saw Priesthood and the two Sunday sessions. Priesthood was awesome, and so were the other two. I can't wait to see or read the Saturday sessions and re read all the others. This was a very good conference from what I can tell. That's probably why the week went by so fast. I love conference. That's way cool that they will build a temple in Meridian. I wonder how long it will take?

So it turns out I have no idea when Easter is. I always thought it was the first Sunday in April, boy was I wrong. Also, I don't know when Mothers day is, I have a feeling it is the second Sunday in May since last year we called home on the 9th of May. If that's true, it's coming up quick. Only a month until I get to call home for the last time. Crazy. Then after Mothers day, a few weeks later will be my 21st birthday! It's like 19 and 20 didn't really exist. 21 is a big deal it seems like. Don't send me anything though. Take whatever money you would have used to send a package and either just get me something for when I get home or just put a few dollars on my card and we'll go get some lunch somewhere. It's not worth trying to get me a package. Every time the AP's or President come, they have lots of stuff to bring anyway so it's hard for them to bring extra things. It's not a big deal, holidays on the mission are just like any other day. Maybe you can make me a cake when I get home!

That's cool that dad got to go to a mission reunion. I hope my mission keeps up with those things, we have such a great group of people, I would really like to keep in touch with them. I bet that was interesting to see some of those people 34 years later. That's too bad that not everyone stays faithful after a mission. The good thing is that we know what to do to prevent it. Follow the counsil of the prophet and everything will go fine. By the way, how is Dillon doing on his mission? I forgot where he is, South America, or Mexico? Tell everyone from that side of the family hello for me.

Well this turned out to be a pretty long letter. Thanks for the letters and the support. I hope everyone has a great week. Love you guys!

Elder Geddes

Another successful week in Astana

Hey everyone,

It has been a pretty decent week, some good and some bad. We have been able to get some meetings with investigators and get some good contacts, but we are still trying to get all of our contacts turned into investigators. It's a bit tricky because we have lots of contacts, we call them, try to meet with them and everything, but if they can't meet, which is often the case, then what else can we do but go out and find more people? Then we get more contacts, have more numbers to call, have more meetings to try to get, but it's kind of a vicious cycle. We have around 100 contacts, which is enough you would think to get some investigators but most of the time we call and they say call back this day, or I'm leaving for a week, try again this time. We have 7 investigators though, people that we have taught and are going to continue teaching. Not all of them are progressing golden investigators of course but we'll sure give it a shot. We have Venera, I think I told you about her. We are meeting with her regularly and have now taught her the first two lessons. Yesterday we finished the plan of salvation and she said, I want to be in the celestial kingdom with my son. We said, next time we meet we will tell you exactly how you can do that. We'll see her on Monday I think. The problem is that she works on Sundays exactly at the time we meet. She said closer to the end of April she will have a schedule change and should be able to come. I hope so. She's pretty cool.

Some of the other lessons we had: Tuesday morning we had a meeting with a Pentecostal, the whole speaking in tongues people. It was interesting enough, he didn't exactly disagree with our doctrines but I'm not so sure he accepted. We'll probably meet with him a couple more times and see if we can get him reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. Right after that lesson, we had the biggest bible bash lesson I've had on my mission! We met a lady on the street, gave her a Book of Mormon and got her number. She said she was interested but that her husband would be even more interested. We had a lesson with her husband who is extremely Russian Orthodox. We met him at our branch building. He looks like he is head of some mafia crime circuit. He was just huge, pretty fat but just looked like the biggest bruiser ever. Anyway, we had a meeting and just argued. I hate to argue but sometimes you just can't listen to the things people say and not argue back. He was just saying the most stupid things like, "nobody knows who the Mormons are, nobody knows who Thomas Monson is, nobody knows who this little sect is." I just said, "you know, I will go home and tell people that we worked with Russian Orthodox people, and nobody will know what kind of church that is, and I know for sure that nobody knows who in the world Kirell is (the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church)" Anyway, lots of dumb things were said and we probably should have just ended the second we started, but we just couldn't hold back I guess. We probably won't be meeting with him again.

One night, we were contacting and I made a greenie mistake with my Russian. It was really actually pretty funny but I just haven't made that kind of mistake for a long time. We stopped a guy and talked with him about the church, he was pretty interested. I went to ask him for his number and mixed up two very similar words to exchange, and to hug! Obmenyatsa, and obnimatsa! So I said, well we don't want to keep you too long here in the cold, so how about we hug numbers, (something like that) he obviously was confused and repeated the word "to hug?" It was the word I said so it made sense in my mind, I said ya, and he got all uncomfortable and was like "guys, probably not right now, you understand, I mean, strangers, kind of a weird situation" By this point it clicked in my companions mind that he had said to hug instead of to exchange and he said "Oh! No, he meant, exchange numbers!" We all had a good laugh and we got the guys number. I was brought back to my greenie days, that's for sure.

We had a good little family home evening with our two members and me and my companion. The other elders didn't come because one of them had gotten kind of sick, so it was just us four. The Maxwell's are in Almaty right now doing a humanitarian project. The spirit is very sweet in a small branch. I remember a few times in Kaluga when the small branch spirit was there, but it seems much stronger here. The three members are so faithful and are so glad that we are here. They are very optimistic about the future of the branch. One of them has to go to India for almost a month for work or something, so he will be gone for a few Sundays, but his 15 year old son will still be here and will be coming to church.

Yesterday was Elder Hasbiullin's year mark on his mission. Can you believe it? I trained him! It has gone by so fast for both of us. We have both grown so much in this past year. We have become better teachers, finders, workers, and have become much more learned in the gospel. He is a good kid and I'm glad we're serving together. We ate at a cafeteria in our apartment building to celebrate. It was pretty cheap and pretty tasty, we'll probably start eating there more often.

When we got home at 9:00, we found a note in our door that said that we hadn't paid the bills and they shut off the electricity. Sure enough, no electricity. Our landlord is 27 years old and is what we say in russian, detskie sod (kindergarten). He is pretty immature and forgetful. He paid the bill, at the very last minute, but he did actually pay it. The systems are probably just a little slow here so they didn't have time to enter it in and stuff before they turned us off. We called him and he came over and got the paper and said this morning he would go first thing to get things taken care of. I hope so. Luckily we had ABSOLUTELY nothing in our refrigerator to go bad. Don't worry mom, we just got new money and I think we should be done with money problems. This week we have money to buy groceries to last a week! I swear, the last month has just been one big problem with money and food. But I think that should all be over.

We decided to call Ludmilla in Veronezh last night to see how she is doing. She was so happy to hear from us! She's doing great and has a new calling of the branch activities coordinator. She was confused and thought that I was going to go to the temple with her even though you aren't coming to pick me up, so I had to tell her that I wouldn't be able to go with her but that I expect her to go anyway. She said of course, and that she has already started working on getting documents ready and everything in order for June. That was the greatest feeling ever. I know I haven't baptized 100 people on my mission, but to know that one of the ones I did baptize is preparing to go to the temple and receive her endowment is the greatest feeling ever. I told her that someday I would return to Russia and visit her. I didn't know when, but I'll see her sometime.

The weather has been awesome the past couple of days. Although there were a few days this week where the wind just about blew us back to Almaty! This city has a constant wind, and for a few days, it was just crazy strong. We could jump up in the air and literally get pushed back about a foot or so by the wind. We tried to just run as fast as we could against the wind and felt like we weren't going anywhere at all. It was really cool and really fun for about the first 15 minutes, then after that it was just miserable! It stopped though. Today is so warm that, guess what mom, I put on my old shoes! The left one isn't as comfy as I remember due to the fact that the leather is all water spoiled and stuff but they are going to last till the end. I have made the executive decision that my coat and shoes are cheap enough in quality that I will not be bringing them home with me. Every single pocket in my coat is just haning by a thread and shoes are just bulky and cheap. They did the trick though. My coat kept me warm and my shoes kept me dry. I'll definitely bring home my grey nice coat, but my fur collar coat will be staying here. I don't have room for all that stuff anyway.

I think that is about all I have for this week. I am having a great time, although there have been some tough days here. On the other hand, I have been sleeping like a baby every night. It's just a little hard to be on the street from 11 to 9 with only an hour break for lunch. Things are getting better each day though as we are getting more and more investigators. I am loving the work and am sure that we will see some baptisms here in Astana. Thanks for the letters and support. I love you guys.

Elder Geddes

A week of miracles

Hey everybody,

Another week flew by. Every week on Saturday or Sunday it seems like Pday might never come, then the next thing I know, it's Thursday. Time flies here. We have had a really great week, including some miracles, disappointments, and some blessings. We ended up getting 40 contacts last week, getting 5 new investigators, giving away 10 Books of Mormon and having over 700 conversations. It was definitely the biggest week of my mission. Sunday we had a different lady come to church. Unfortunately Anna couldn't come, and she is out of town for a while this week. I'll get back to her later though. Church was pretty good, Elder Hasbiullin and I taught Sunday school again, about the sacrament. It was really good. I'm still playing the piano, at least trying. I haven't exactly had a lot of practice on my mission and I don't exactly love the keyboard that we have, but it works, plus one of the other elders that got here can play too so we will be taking turns. Anyway, after the meeting, the woman who came to church (who happens to be the first contact Elder Hasbiullin and I received here) had some questions and we ended up teaching her the restoration. She's a really nice lady and is really interested, had good questions, but at the same time thinks that she could never abandon her church that she goes to. We'll see what the spirit can do with her. She did take a Book of Mormon and is supposedly reading, we'll see in a day or two how she is doing.

We had an awesome lesson with another lady on Friday. She had so many questions and wanted to know everything. She had kind of investigated the Jehova's Witnesses for a while, but she didn't agree with a lot of their doctrines and said she didn't get baptized because she didn't feel the burn in her chest that let her know it was right. We answered all her questions and she accepted everything we had to say. We taught her the entire first lesson and the spirit was very strong. I felt like talking about baptism and I knew somehow that Hasbiullin wanted to as well. Finally I got to a point where I could, and we told her that we want her to get an answer about this church, and that when she does, we want her to get baptized. She said that if she receives an answer, she'll get baptized. She also wasn't able to come to church on Sunday but we had a lesson with her on Monday. We reviewed the restoration and answered some questions she had about the bible. It was important, she saw that we are pretty well versed in the bible and that we can truly give her some answers. I feel like it was a good lesson to build her trust in us. On Wednesday, we had a family night at the senior couple's house. This week was a national holiday, so Askar and his son weren't in town, but Zhanna, the other member came and our investigator, Venera, came as well. She was supposed to bring her 15 year old son but he ended up having some other things to do. She really enjoyed herself. She is an English tutor, which is good because the Maxwell's think everyone should be fluent in English and do the whole fhe in English (we'll have to work on that one). She will try to be at church on Sunday. We're excited about her. She reminds us a lot of Ludmilla in Veronezh.

The other Elders came on Monday. We met them at the trainstation, took them to their apartment and then went to ours to have lunch. They live about 3 or 4 minutes from us, so it's really cool. We are really happy to have them here. We had our first district meeting on Wednesday. Elder Player is our district leader and he is going to do a great job. The meeting was really good, although it was also the first district meeting for the Maxwell's and they didn't really know what was going on. District meeting is always something an elder looks forward to. It is always spiritual and the senior couple ALWAYS prepares lunch for us. The Lowry's in Veronezh were awesome about it and the Moore's in Almaty were way good too. Sister Maxwell is the cheapest lady I've ever met in my life! Ha, first they asked where we wanted to have the meeting. We said, at your place of course! They said, okay, that's fine. We got there, had a meeting for an hour and a half and left without even the offer of a cookie or a glass of water or something. They said at first that they wanted to have family home evening once a month, or just as needed, but then they found some ice cream for 300 tenge and figured that they could handle that once a week. 300 tenge is 2 dollars. No matter what, if you talk to Sister Maxwell, she will bring up how something is too expensive, it is too cold, they couldn't understand something, pretty much just not the most pleasant person to be around. They don't have a single picture on their wall, a single little trinket on the shelf, and I know for a fact that as long as they are here, there won't be any of that. They are nice people, but just have a way of casually complaining about things and talking about money non stop. As you can see, I'm a little upset that we didn't get lunch at district meeting! ha, Oh well, it could be worse!

I have been freaking out this whole week because it has been getting really warm and I still haven't bought a real traditional Russian fur hat. I thought I had probably missed my chance, that it was already getting warm and that they probably have put them away. I made everyone go to the market this morning to look. I found one! They still have a lot actually. There were some really cool ones, some really expensive ones, some really junky ones. I got a pretty good one for a pretty good price. It's not the nicest one I saw but it is really pretty nice. I talked the guy down 5000 tenge, pretty good huh? I ended up spending 10000 tenge. That's a little over 60 dollars. Pretty expensive, but the one I really liked was more than 3 times more. I'm pretty pleased with the purchase. I have only a couple things left that I want to buy before I go back to America. A Muslim prayer rug, a Kazakh jumpsuit, and a nice church suit if I can find one. They have a bit more of a European style suit here, if I find a nice one, I'll take it. Oh ya, I fell on the ice at the market! I fell hard and fast too. Right on my knee right on a big mound of lumpy ice. It was pretty bad. I guess it makes up for the fact that I didn't even fall down half as much as I fell last winter, ha.

I have decided to go to USU. I feel really good about it. I'm pretty excited. You'll have to do the talking for me, since I think you said the deadline is the 21 of June. I have no idea what to tell you about housing, if we need to get that early, or what the deal is. I'm going to kind of let you guys take care of that if that's okay. I'm not picky, I trust you guys to get me a roof over my head. Also, will you have to pick my classes? There are obviously some classes I would like to retake, one being that stupid creative arts class. I figure I'll be able to do some work on my gpa. As far as math, I think I have to take a placement test, which could be really bad as I have forgotten everything I ever knew about math. I'm not sure, just let me know what kinds of things you'll need to do. Honestly I wouldn't be against going back to Old Farm. That was kind of a fun place. Keep me updated about that if you find out anything.

Our shower has been driving me crazy, the drain just wasn't working and I would always finish my shower with water over my ankles. Today I got fed up and after my shower I took off the little U-bend thing. It was just full of nasty nasty hair. It was long hair, not our hair. Whoever lived there before us just clogged that thing right up! It was disgusting but I was able to take care of it and now it should work a little better!

Today is March 24th. Exactly in 3 months I will be home. It's going by fast and showing no signs of slowing. I am happy, working hard, getting along with my companion, and still learning. I'm so glad I'm here in Astana. I know I'll be able to work hard til the end here. Thanks for all the letters and pictures. I really enjoy reading and seeing how you are doing. I hope everything is going good back home, and that Grandpa is able to meet with that doctor, that would be awesome. Have a great week. I love you guys.

Elder Geddes

The fields are white all ready to harvest

Hey everyone,

Thanks for writing, it sounds like lots of stuff is going on back home. I'm glad to hear that the babies are home and that Liz is feeling good too. Well it has been a pretty interesting week. I am really really happy to be here in Astana. It is already apparent that the Lord has been preparing people for the gospel here. I know that by the time I am done serving here, there will be a handful of new members in the branch.

Last Thursday was kind of just walking around looking at the sights. This city is so interesting. We are here in the capital of a country I had hardly heard of before my mission and it is one of the most modern cities ever. It is still in the process of being built of course but the buildings that are here are really beautiful. I have been taking lots of pictures to show you guys. Friday we were supposed to meet with the registration lady so we could recieve our permission to preach and our registration. The papers didn't come in time so we couldn't meet Friday. Which means we had another day that we legally couldn't preach. We got on a bus and wentto the market and bought a bunch of stuff for our apartment. We got a frying pan, knives, some other stuff I forgot, oh an Iron and Ironing board, we got almost all the stuff we needed. Our apartment is still kind of empty, there are no desks or any table in the main room for us to study on and stuff like that, there aren't any coat hangers or bookshelves. I have been studying on the couch, Hasbiullin uses the kitchen table. Today we will spend some time to get things a little more in order. That took up a lot of time actually to go to the market and back, we also kind of just went around the streets trying to figure out what was what, what was where, that kind of thing. Saturday, we met with the lady at around lunch time and we talked to people on the streets the rest of the day! I haven't done so much street contacting at one time ever in my mission. All day every day, we have just been on the streets talking with people! It has been cool how the Lord has blessed us. The time doesn't drag by, we are getting contacts, we are having fun and we are doing what we were called to do.

Sunday, the first ever real church meeting in Astana, went really well. There has been one member here for the past 3 years, she has just gone to the humanitarian aid couple's house every Sunday where they would give a prayer, pass the sacrament, they would give her a talk from conference or some kind of article in Russian to read, they would read one in English, then they would go their seperate ways. This week, we met in our new branch building (a small room on the second floor of some kind of office, it has a few chairs and a couch, a big table, and a smaller table) and had a kind of real sarament meeting. I played on the keyboard, we had the sacrament, then we had a talk from one of the three members. It was about a 5 minute talk, then Elder Hasbiullin and I were asked to give a lesson on the priesthood. Things are a little different when you are just a group. Can you believe it? We don't even have a branch, we are just a group! Cool huh? There were 8 people there however, honestly there were a few weeks in Kaluga when only 8 people came! The best part about it all, there was an investigator there! We showed up, saw the members, and saw some kind of woman. Askar, the member who just moved here from Almaty, invited a friend to church and she came! Her name is Anna, she is 39 years old. She has 3 kids, twin boys who are 17 years old and are currently in America finishing High School, and a 9 year old daughter named Stephanie. Her last husband was Scottish, her last name is Pinkerton, can you believe it? Anyway, she participated in the lesson, seemed to enjoy herself. She speaks pretty good English, and her daughter Stephanie is fluent in English and Russian. She goes to an American school here in Astana. All the teachers are Americans and there are lots of foriegn kids there. Anyway, we were all just talking after the meeting and Askar, very awkwardly, says "So Anna, when can the missionaries start working with you?" She didn't really understand what he meant by working with her, but we quickly explained that we just wanted to meet to let her know some more about the church. She's so cool and really nice. She has been here for 2 years and honestly I think she is lonely and feels out of place. The branch will be her family and is exactly what she needs. We planned a family night at the Maxwell's apartment Tuesday night and she said she would come. She left but then a few minutes later she called back and said she wanted to show us around Astana. She has a car so she said if we wanted she would come get us and we could meet her daughter who didn't come to church, and we could see Astana. We thought it would be a good chance to get to know her and let her know who we are, so we agreed. She came and got us and we were driving, just chatting, she drove right to a restaraunt. She said, this is a really nice place, never very full. We told her, we don't need to eat, but she said she and her daughter were hungry, so we figured we would just take the chance to talk about the church while she and her daughter ate. We told her we didn't want anything but she ordered us the lunch deal. By then it was too late, so we just went along for the ride, we were of course starving, and who wouldn't eat, it was some nice French restaraunt. We felt bad that we were eating there on a Sunday, but it just kind of happened. I won't lie, the food was way good. It had a salad, way tasty bread, steak and potatoes. It was called a steak but it was pretty much a big hamburger patty. It was pretty tasty though. She paid for the whole thing, somehow she is pretty wealthy. I know her former husband, the Scottish guy, works on the other side of Kazakhstan near the Caspian sea in the oil business, so that might be where she got her money too. Anyway, she paid, we had a good conversation, were able to tell her a lot about the church, and get to know her daughter as well. She came on Tuesday to the family home evening. The lesson was given by the Maxwell's. They had prepared a lesson about family home evening, and about family, how to strengthen family, how to do FHE and stuff. They had Anna read a story about a little boy who was running around his house when he said, Mom, do you smell that? The mom asked what the smell was, and the 4 year old boy said, it smells like happiness. The woman in the story admitted that she didn't know what happiness smelled like anymore, but that the 4 year old was able to smell it, at this point Anna asked someone else to read, she continued to listen and just cried the whole rest of the story. I'm not sure exactly why she was crying, but I hope it was a good thing. She really enjoyed the family night and afterward invited us to some kind of art show that her friend had put on. She wanted us to meet her friends, we went and met a few Americans and some Kazakhs. We were able to tell them that we were here as missionaries and stuff but they weren't exactly too interested. It was worth a try. The next day, yesterday, she called us and invited us to some kind of celebration and a fancy pants university here in Astana. We thought that would be a good chance as well to go meet some important big wigs. We gave out some invitations to the people who were interested. I got talking to a black guy from England. I told him about our church and gave him an invitation, some info about the church with our number and address. He asked if he could share it with other people, and I said, please do! He said he works in a different university but that they are all kind of connected and that he would put our info up on the bulliten board where there are all sorts of different announcements and information about different things. I thought that would be pretty cool, I am really hoping that we get some calls from that. President Woolley wanted us to try hard to build bridges with the government and with the Muslim church. Anna is turning out to be a really good contact. She wasn't affraid to tell her friends who we are and what we are doing here. It was cool. Actually before the ceremony thing we met her at her house and were able to give her a brief real first lesson. She accepts what we have to say and seems really happy about it. She thinks we are just the best friends ever and said that she knows that God sent us to her. We are excited and are sure that she will be our first convert here in Astana. She is really good friends with the member that invited her, so she already has friends in the branch, she speaks English so she gets along and really enjoys talking with the senior couple. She said next week Stephanie will be with her for sure. She said that she wants Stephanie to be raised in this kind of surrounding with people like us in her life. We are so excited.

Also, aside from that, all the street contacting we have been doing has been paying off as well. We have already gotten over 30 contacts, given away 5 or 6 Books of Mormon and have met with a couple of people. We have some really promising contacts actually and we are really excited about that. We will be focusing on meeting with all of these contacts this week. We hope to get a few of them to come to church. There are lots of Muslims, there are less Russians here than in Almaty which is surprising because we are so much closer to Russia. The people are pretty nice and open here though, of course there are rude people and people who just plain don't want to hear from us, but what can you expect. We are talking with everybody. The other day, we were contacting and 3 guys were coming our way. I looked at the first guy who seemed pretty normal so I decided to stop them. I stopped them, started talking and then looked at the second guy. The second guy was an old drunk guy with one eye that looked like someone scooped it out with a rusty spoon, let me tell you, this guy didn't lose his eye in a hospital, more like in a bar or on the streets. It scared me so I immediately looked over at the third guy, also an old drunk guy with nasty black and blue bruised face. I realized I had stopped the wrong guys, and we got out of there pretty quick, ha. It was pretty funny. Later that day, we stopped to young guys. We were talking to them about the church and stuff when Elder Hasbiullin asked what church they go to. One of the kids seemed to struggle to say that they were Russian Orthodox. Hasbiullin jokingly said, what, did you forget which church you go to? The kid simply said, no, I have a stutter. Elder Hasbiullin immediately said, oh, sorry, anyway, about our church. Ha, I thought that was pretty funny. Foot in mouth moment, right?

Anyway, we are having a good time. The other elders still haven't gotten here. They should get here on Saturday though, that will be cool. Today we are going to just kind of rest a little bit. Every night I have been falling asleep at around 10:00, reading a book or something. We are pretty tired at night but we feel awesome during the day, working hard. We leave the apartment at 11:00 and just take an hour for lunch at around 1:30 or so and then get right back out. What an awesome place to finish a mission! I was glad to get a letter from Grandma and Grandpa and Pam today, thanks for that letter, I'm glad to hear that you guys are doing okay. It might be spring time there but I think we still have a good month here before the snow goes away and it starts to warm up. I'll admit that it isn't as cold as everyone said up here but it is still pretty chilly. Especially when the wind is blowing all day long. The wind just bites at you, and after a few hours of just walking around outside it gets pretty cold. It hasn't bothered us too bad though, we are being blessed like crazy.

I think that's about all for this week. I hope next week the good news keeps coming from your side of the world and I'm sure it will keep coming from my side. Thanks for all the letters. Love you guys!

Elder Geddes