A promising new contact

Hey everyone,

We got up early today to come write home. We had the ap's over so we had to wake up at 5:30 to be here by 6:30. We have a breakfast at the senior couples house because it is one of the missionaries birthdays soon so we are celebrating today. After breakfast we are all going to head to the huge market here in Almaty. I'm going to start looking for a nice new suit! I don't know if I'll find one today, but we'll see, I'm sure I'll find something interesting.

I'm glad I'm not in Moscow too. I think that is a pretty scary city when it comes down to it. Especially since we use that airport often. I flew out of a different one the last two times but I have used that airport on my mission. Crazy. I just don't understand why people want to hurt other people. It just dosn't make sense.

I think President might hold off on opening the new city for one more transfer. It's really cold in that city because it is up on a steppe with no mountains or anything and it is way windy. It is pretty cold there all the time. He's afraid that it would be a bad time to open the city since the elders will be doing a lot of street contacting. I kind of agree with him, but at the same time, if he wants to send anyone from my group there, he would probably need to do it now since we only have 3 transfers left. Two transfers isn't a very long time to try to get some things moving in a new city. Oh well, as for me, I'm happy wherever. I think it would be a pretty cool experience to open up that city, but I really like it here in Almaty as well. The ap's came yesterday with President Woolley. President got straight on another plane and flew to Astana, the city he wants to open. He needed to renew his visa and wanted to check out that city so he decided to fly there to do it. It is an hour flight from here, so not too bad. He will be back tomorrow night and we will have zone conference on Saturday. We have a member of the 70 who will be with us so that will be cool.

This week we started working with a really cool guy named Almaz. He called us up one day and wanted to meet with us, kind of to practice English but I invited him to come to church and he said okay. He came to church, all three hours, really enjoyed the lessons, stayed after church to meet with us and then came back at 6 o'clock when we went to one of the members house for dinner. He's cool and we have another meeting with him on Sunday again. He can only meet with us on Sundays, but that's okay, I really want to help him do success and accept the gospel, I really hope he continues to enjoy what we have to tell him.

I think my companion is officially dying. I'm doing all I can to keep him going but he has three weeks left and he doesn't think there is much more to work for. It's sad but I'm glad to serve with him to see the things that I shouldn't do during my last transfer. I'm sure it is easy to get distracted and trunky, but it's also possible to work hard to the end. I'm really glad that the ap's came because it will give us some time apart to do splits and stuff. I think he will leave around the 16th so just a couple more weeks with him. The thing is, he's a really good missionary when he tries, but sometimes he doesn't try too hard. I'm sure its the same with all of us, we have our good times and bad. Anyway, I have no idea who I'll be serving with after him. I'll have to fly back to Russia sometime around the 20th. Maybe even a little earlier so I could go with my companion when he goes. I have to get a new Kazakh visa, in Russia. Maybe I'll be able to fly back here with a new companion. We are getting 4 new elders, maybe I'll get another greeny. Who knows. I hope I get a hard worker. There is so much potential here, it's crazy. That is one reason I want to go open up that city, because I know the other three elders would be the best in the mission and they would be able to help me work hard and be effective. It would be just the best end to a mission.

Sounds like everyone is doing pretty good. I can't believe Mikelle painted that picture, I thought she was just standing by one she liked or something. That's awesome! Congratulations to her. I hope dad's hand is okay, Rob said he sliced it up pretty good. Anthony wrote me a little note, I can't wait to see him again. Sounds like he's a little genius.
I haven't heard from Liz in a while, how is she doing? Is she large and in charge? Only a few more months for her. I hope she's not too sick. Anyway, I'm glad everyone is doing good. I hope dad is liking his new job. I'm sure loving my job. I gotta go though. Thanks for all the letters. I love you guys!

Elder Geddes

Time slows down again

Hey everyone,

Well another week has gone by. Honestly, this past week, from Thursday to Monday was probably the slowest time has gone by for me for a long time. For some reason, time just stopped and for a few days it seemed like we were in some sort of craziness. We have been struggling for investigators, which is probably why the time slowed down for a while. We have gotten 50 something contacts in the last month, none of which turned into investigators until last night, one of them finally met with us and we had a good meeting. We have just been stood up so many times in the past little while, it's what happens with new contacts, but still, it is not fun. Last night we finally had a meeting with a guy named Ruslan. He is a pretty awesome guy. He was really interested in what we had to say, took a Book of Mormon and said he would read it. I am really looking forward to meeting with him again. A lot of our contacts said they could meet this weekend, so tomorrow night we will be calling a ton of people and trying to fill Saturday and Sunday with lessons with new people. I am feeling completely better, so that's good. Being zone leader here isn't too tough. All the missionaries are really experienced, and we have a senior couple so a lot of questions and problems pretty much just solve themselves.

I can't believe all the changes that are going on back home. I probably don't even realize how different everything will be. Things would have been different no matter what, but it seems like just about everything is going to be completely different at home. Good thing I have a few more months still to let you guys all get settled and figure out all the changes yourselves before I get there. Dad will have to fill me in on what his new responsibilities are. Is he just going to be sitting in an office now? How did monsanto handle it? Is that a pretty quick process? Was Delvin sad? I bet that was strange to walk out of that place. Hopefully someday we have some land somewhere near Soda Springs so we can visit from time to time and keep it in the family. I'll be fine with wherever I fly to or wherever I first go, but that would be really cool to be in Soda for the 4th of July.

I have a feeling that once January is over, time will really start flying. February is a short month and after that I will have just a little time left. In a few weeks we will find out who is going to Astana, the new city in Kazakhstan. Once we find that out, my future will be a lot more stable. I will either find out that I am going there or staying here. If I go there, obviously I would be there until the end of my mission. If I stay here, I should be here until the end of my mission as well. One kink in the system, that could add to my chances to go to Astana, my Kazakh visa ends at the end of February. I will have to somehow get another few month visa, I think the only option is a 6 month visa. I have a Russian visa in Moscow on my other passport, but my Russian Visa that is on my passport right now expires in a few days. That means in a few days, I won't be able to get back to Russia if I wanted to. Somehow they need to get me my other passport, or something. President is really good about that kind of thing so I'm not worried. I could always go to Kurgestan or someplace like that, ha.

Some elders had a baptism here on Saturday. I was one of the witnesses and she had to be baptized 5 times. She was wearing this way big loose dress and it would just get a big air bubble and not go down. Elder Moore tried to say that just the person had to go down but the white handbook says that clothing has to go down as well. He said there is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. When it comes to baptism, I would rather go with the letter of the law. Finally, one of the elders took off his belt, she put it on, and she was baptized one last time. She was a champ about it. She joked about it and laughed, she wasn't offended or anything. I say that women should just go for the jumpsuit. It might not look as classy but I think the dress just causes problems. After the baptism, there was a branch activity. A girl in the branch just got home from her mission, she was actually in the mtc with me. We had songs and dances. The missionaries sang a song, we did a couple of skits, and had a good time. We had a few investigators show up to church on Sunday which was really good. One of them was a man that a member invited a few weeks ago. We haven't been able to meet with him yet but he is one of the ones we need to meet with this weekend, so it should be pretty cool.

I see that my letters have been getting shorter and shorter it seems like. Not that less and less is happening, probably the complete opposite of that. Also, there are more missionaries here, more things to do, more things to get distracted with on pday, so I'm sorry if my letters are getting worse! Actually, last pday, we wrote home, bought groceries, ate, and then started working at around 3. My companion has really started working harder since we have started serving together. He decided it might be a good idea to sacrifice 3 pdays to show the Lord that we really want to make a goal and get some baptisms. I agreed, partly because I felt like it would be a good sacrifice, but mostly because I wouldn't argue with him for trying to work too hard, when at the beginning of the transfer he didn't even hardly wake up in the mornings. He has a desire to finish strong and I'll let him do that. Today the other elders want to go up into the mountains, we aren't going with them. I feel a little bad but I just need to remember that sometimes you have to do things for your companions, serve them and help them. Next pday will be the last one we will sacrifice and then after that I will be living it up every pday for the rest of my mission. My companion has less than a month left, I think that might be another reason time slowed down for a while. A change will be coming my way no matter what at the end of this transfer. It always makes me wonder, who will by my companion? Will I be here? What will it be like? I feel probably like you and dad, not exactly certain what will happen in the future. It's all for the best though, and I am having a blast. I will try to keep track this week of all the miracles that happen this week so I can let you know next week. Thanks for all the letters and support. Good luck with everything, especially to you, Dad, with your new job. You'll get used to it pretty quick probably. Anyway, I love you guys, talk to you next week.

Elder Geddes

Baptism on the 29? Prayers appreciated

Hey everyone,

So dad is back down in the basement, huh? That's okay, nothing wrong with the basement. I'm glad Dad has had such a good time and has done such a good job. It will be a big adjustment I'm sure but it will be good. I feel pretty lucky to have been involved in all of it as well. I see the advantages that came because of it and know that it had a good impact on my life.

Kazakhstan is going pretty good for us. My companion is starting to work harder for some reason. I have really appreciated his effort the past little while, it makes it a lot easier for me when he has a desire to work and find success as well. We sat down and set some really big goals and tried to make plans of how to achieve these goals. We want to have a baptism on the 29th of January. We are really relying on the Lord, seeing as how we don't have an investigator as of right now who has a baptismal date. Last night we had a meeting with an investigator who has already been meeting with missionaries and coming to church for a year and a half. He will be baptized, that's for sure, but right now his wife is out of town and he wants to get baptized with her, so it won't happen this month. We talked to him about his testimony and he admitted himself that the past couple of months (when he hasn't met with missionaries) his testimony has fallen a bit and isn't as strong as it was. He said himself that it is because he hasn't been reading or praying or coming to church. He wants the feeling back of a burning testimony and promised to start doing the things he knows bring those blessings. He is probably about 25 or so with a wife and a 7 month old baby girl. If we can get them baptized, it will be the first family on my mission that I have helped accept baptism! That would be a sweet experience. We have another investigator who has been known the missionaries for a long time but hasn't met for a while. He is doing success and we challenged him to baptism. He didn't accept the date but he promised to pray about it to know if it is for him. We have a meeting with him today, I really hope he read and prayed. We also have a really big goal to find new people. We have been contacting a lot and talking to lots of people, freezing our hands and feet off but we have seen blessings. We have gotten some good contacts, now we just need to turn them into investigators somehow. That is the hard part. Elder Cecil and Hoffman got here on Tuesday. They are pretty good guys and will be a good addition to the zone. They still haven't gotten their permission to preach and stuff so they aren't allowed to do street contacting and what not. They can stand there though, while their companion does the contacting. Anyway, Tuesday, there was a conference in Moscow for the zone leaders. They asked if I could skype them and be involved. It was pretty cool, obviously not as good as being there but I still was able to be involved and hear some good advice and stuff from President. At the beginning it was a little sketchy, I couldn't really hear too well and stuff but by the end it was coming in pretty clear and clean. The mission has a goal to baptize 31 people by the 31st of March. That is our goal at the moment. That seems like a lot of time but it really isn't. It will be fast and we will all need to work hard to make the goal. President is really counting on my zone to produce. A good portion of the missions baptisms last year came from Kazakhstan. He is counting on us do get some real work done here in the next couple of months. It was really cool because on the meeting there were 6 out of the 8 people from my mtc group. Both AP's and four of the five zone leaders are all from my mtc group. It has been so cool to watch them all grow and turn into such strong leaders and examples. President mentioned the fact that our group had become the leaders of the mission and made sure we knew that we needed to work hard and weren't allowed to get trunky because when we leave, it will be a new mission just like what happened just before my year mark. He needs the mission to get a bigger part of it's baptisms the first half of the year since the second have will have so many inexperienced missionaries. I hope we can pull through for him and for these people. I feel like the Lord has prepared us for these last 6 months from the day we all got our calls. I can't wait to see the results of hard work and faith. We talked a lot about goals and how each companionship should be setting goals to baptize at least one person before March 31. When you set a righteous goal and show faith that you can accomplish it, you invoke the powers of heaven, and God does the rest. Our mission saw a lot of miracles at the end of last year, and there are plenty more where that came from.

I got sick last week. I think I had tonsilitis. My glands were way swolen and I had these white spots all over my swolen tonsils. I couldn't hardly swallow anything. Being sick is the worst on the mission, because there is really nothing you can do. It got bad on pday evening. We had three lessons set up, back to back to back. After the first lesson I had a pretty good headache and was all cold and shivery. After the second lesson I just wanted to go home and after the third lesson I just wanted to die! Ha, it wasn't that bad but I definitely would have rather been laying in bed than teaching lessons at the time. We got home and I put on my thermals, my sweater and my mittins and jumped in bed. I sweated all night and ended up without mittens and a sweater but I think it helped. I had Ibuprofen which helped and then the next day I asked Sister Moore if she had anything. She had some basic antibiotics which I am still taking. I have a few more days that she wants me to take them. I feel pretty good now. The sore throat went away pretty quick. After the sore throat came other stuff though, I have just gone through the cycle this week. Yesterday I was feeling just fine and today also I am feeling good. Luckily I'm here with a senior couple, I would have just kept on taking Ibuprofin!

That would be really great if you could get to the temple every week. I can't wait to go there when I get back. That will definitely be one of the first things on the list. I'm still hoping on coming back to Soda Springs, even though I see that that might not happen. I want to see my name on that Arctic Circle board, I'm just afraid that kind of thing doesn't happen in Boise, but I guess wherever I go will be home.

Thanks for the letters, I am glad everything is going good back home. I hope everyone has a good week. Oh ya, I got a letter from Carlene Gunnel, if you happen to see her anytime soon, tell her thank you for the letters. She has sent me a couple on my mission and they are always very much appreciated. Anyway, I love you guys! Talk to you next week.

Elder Geddes