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

Astana!!! finally, now the adventure begins

Hey everyone,

Well it sounds like everyone is really excited to welcome a couple of new babies into the family, myself included. The pictures looked pretty good, they look healthy and cute. I can't wait to see them in a few months. I hope they get to go home soon, or maybe they are already home, anyway, I hope they are healthy and happy and that Liz makes a good quick recovery as well. My big news for the week... we finally made it to Astana!! After barely making it onto our train, we enjoyed a nice 20 hour trip from Almaty to Astana. I actually really do enjoy the overnight trains, they're fun.

Anyway, I'll start from last week. After writing home, we went to the mountains and went sledding and played some football. Sledding was crazy, it was fun, but a little scary. One sister wrapped herself around a tree going about a hundred miles an hour, she jumped right up after that though. We all though she was a gonner! I had a good time, even though I didn't feel way good. The next day we had zone conference. I was just feeling terrible the whole time. I had a headache and my whole body was achy and stuff. I think I had a flu or something. The worst possible day to get sick, after not eating hardly anything the whole week before due to a lack of food, I ate very little at Sister Moore's dinner due to lack of appetite! I was pretty bummed. She made some kind of shredded pork or beef sandwiches. I did eat some and it was really good but I just couldn't eat too much. I slept through a good portion of zone conference, nobody bothered to wake me up because they all knew I wasn't feeling too great. All day Saturday I wasn't feeling too good either, but by Sunday I was feeling better, which was a miracle. President Woolley was with us at church and after church he gathered the four of us who are going to be here in Astana and told us some news about when we would be able to go. He said, I want two elders to go Tuesday night. He wanted my companion and me to go but he thought I was sick so he was going to send someone else. He asked me how I was feeling and I said, I'm feeling great, I'm ready to go. So that was that. The other two elders didn't come with us because one of them has to go back to Russia and get a 6 month visa for Kazakhstan, which means his companion had to stay in Almaty to wait for him there, rather than have an awkward threesome here in Astana. We were happy to go, they were bummed to stay of course. They should be here next week or so. Well Tuesday was the 8th of March, a big holiday in Russia and Kazakhstan. It's Womens Day, the equivilent to our Mothers Day in America, I think. Anyway, there was a big branch activity and we missionaries prepared a number. We watched and studied a clip of the Temptations performance of My Girl. We practiced for a combined total of probably 2-3 hours, and we pulled it off. The dance was a way big hit, I got it on film and will show you all someday. It was a lot of fun. Anyway, after the activity, we needed to get home to finish packing and cleaning up our apartment. We had someone from the branch coming to pick us up at 7. We scrambled to get everything ready, we each had one suitcase and then there was one more suitcase full of supplies for Astana. We jumped in the car and headed out. Our train left at 7:53 or so, so I was keeping an eye on the clock the whole time. At about 7:30, the driver started asking us some questions about our train and stuff. We told her what train it was and she said "guys, that train leaves from the different station!" We said, ya we know, where are you taking us? So she got us on the right course and we started cruising to the other station. We jumped out of the car at about 7:40 or so and started running, asking people where we needed to go. We got on the right track and started heading out but two young guys stopped us and we had to weigh our bags. I guess you are only allowed to take 35 kilograms per ticket, I'm not sure why, but that is their rule I guess. Well both Hasbiullin and I had about 37 or 38 kilos, plus another suitcase that weighed about 36 kilos! We said, our train leaves in about 5 minutes. They said, okay, 2000 tenge. Luckily I'm with a Russian, he bargained them down to 1000 and I threw them the money and they let us through. It has been interesting living in countries where everything is taken care of by under the table deals like that. Anyway, we ran through, found our train and headed for the wagon. I forgot to mention that the suitcase full of Astana supplies is about the most worthless sorry suitcase you've ever seen. The entire handle that usually comes out to drag it with has been ripped out, leaving a gaping hole, so you have to drag it just using the top handle thing, and both of the wheels are messed up so you are just dragging it on its bottom, ha, it's a joke of a suitcase. It's Elder Player's suitcase, and he is taking it home with him, I can't wait to see his parents faces when they see it. The inside supporter things along the walls of the suitcase are broken so now it naturally sits flat as a pancake, ha, its funny. Anyway, some older guy had grabbed it out of our hands to help us take it to the train, of course for money, but we just let him take it. As we were jumping on the train, we grabbed whatever coins we had and gave him a grand total of 170 tenge, around a dollar. He wasn't too happy since he had just ran a good distance, including a couple staircases, hauling our 70 pound piece of junk, ha. Oh well. After that, things went pretty smooth. We had a pretty restful 20 hour ride. I fell asleep probably around 11 o'clock and woke up at 8:30. Not that I was trying to be disobedient, but we were in a train until 4:30 anyway, I didn't feel like waking up at 6:30 just to sit there until 4:30. It felt good.

We got here yesterday, Elder Maxwell met us at the station. He is originally from Canada, but lived in America since he was 14 years old. He and his wife lived in California the past 20 something years. His wife is from Tahiti, I'm guessing they met on his mission since that's where he served. They are way nice. They themselves have only been here about 2 weeks, so we are all just going to figure this out together. They had been living in one of the apartments that the elders will be living in while the other senior couple has been showing them around. The other couple left so they have just moved into their apartment. Sister Maxwell fed us dinner, some bean soup that tasted a lot like a soup that mom makes, it was pretty tasty. After that we went to see our apartment. Elder Maxwell gave us the keys and we said goodbye. Elder Hasbiullin and I just walked around a bit, crossed the river (still completely frozen solid) and took a look around. We got back to our place and unpacked a bit, although we don't really have a chance to unpack everything yet because we have no hangers and no place to hang hangers. Today we will hopefully get a rod to hang our stuff on. Also, we will need to get a cell phone, an iron, an ironing board, food, and whatever else we come across that we need.

We are starting a big adventure, along with Liz and Dallin! It will be really interesting for us all to see what the next few months will bring. I am just now realizing how close it is, and how fast time will fly. I just finished my last transfer, moved into my last apartment, am serving with my last companion probably, it's all pretty crazy to me. There is a lot to do here in Astana, next week I'll have stories about how the people react to the first missionaries in their city. We are excited to get going. I'm glad to know that everything is going good back home. Thanks for everything, have a good week. Love you guys.

Elder Geddes

Still in Almaty and waiting.....

Hey everyone,

Well I got new shoes! They were about 1000 rubles, they are pretty nice and they were a pretty good deal too. I figured that was one of the first things mom would want to hear. I will wear them until about may when it starts to warm up in Astana, then I'm going to put on my good ol' eccos to finish out the mission. I figure as long as it is dry I can wear them, they still look okay. I cleaned them up real good and set them aside. My shoes are pretty warm. They'll serve me well the next few months in Astana. Oh ya, by the way, I'm still in Almaty! We still don't know when exactly we will get to go, but the rumor is next Tuesday or Wednesday. As far as the money goes, I think the picture of our fridge should explain that, ha. We are fine though. We have money now and will be fine. We still don't want to buy a ton of food just to leave it all here in Almaty.

Anyway, I'll start from the beginning. Last week after writing home we all went to the market and I got shoes, then we took a look at the central Mosque here in Almaty. It was pretty cool. They are very simple inside, no pictures, not really anything at all. It was just a really big room that only men are allowed in. There is a different part for women. People were praying there and doing their thing. It was quiet and peaceful. We went into a different room and I witnessed a lady become a Muslim. She had to recite in Arabic a certain phrase, something like There is no other God besides Allah and his prophet Muhammed. Then she signed a paper and, boom, she's a muslim. The man told her that now she should start praying five times a day and coming to the service on Fridays. Pretty interesting.

On Saturday we went to the mountains with the priesthood from the branch... or at least 3 of them. Honestly this branch has some problems. People are so laid back here in Kazakhstan that certain things just aren't important. Only a couple people were there but we made it fun. We sledded down a way steep mountain, I immediately plowed into a tree, giving myself a dead leg for the rest of the day, it is still a little sore now. We got it on film, two different angles so it's pretty cool. We had some shishkabob things that we all probably would have been better off not eating. After lunch we were playing american football. Our elders quorum president walks over to the middle of the field, says he doesn't feel very good, bends over and throws up right in the middle of our field! It was pretty funny. We grabbed a sled and shoveled off the puke. When we were getting ready to clean it up, the guy with the car, who happens to be an American, drives his big heavy suv into our field to pack up the stuff. The snow was way soft and pretty deep so he got his car way stuck! It took around an hour for like 10 or so guys to get it out! I couldn't believe it. It was a pretty good adventure though. We got back to the branch and there were two baptisms.

The next day we were pretty dead tired from pushing and pulling and running and playing the day before. Sometime on Monday, my stomach started bothering me really bad. Tuesday and wednesday we spent about an extra hour inside the house because I felt pretty junky. Last night I was still feeling bad and this morning too. The AP's came and stayed at our apartment last night and we are all going back to the mountains right after this. I asked Elder Harrison to give me a blessing. It was a really powerful blessing, I know I have asked for a lot of blessings, in particular because of this sickness, but my partrarchal blessing tells me to never hesitate to ask for a priesthood blessing. I feel really confident that the priesthood has the power to heal people. I am so glad we have this true principle in our church. It is such a blessing for all of us.

We have been actually doing a lot of contacting the past week. We are trying to get some good contacts and investigators for the other elders when we leave. Honestly it is a little hard to work as hard as possible here when we are just waiting for the go ahead to go to Astana. We are doing pretty well though, I think. We are talking with everyone and getting contacts and having a great time. President will get here sometime today and we will be having zone conference tomorrow. I'm pretty excited for it, especially for the dinner that will come after it. We really have been eating pretty poorly lately. Although, with how my stomach has been feeling, I haven't really had a huge desire to eat a ton of food.

Thanks for writing me last minute, I know my pdays have been messed up lately. I was happy to hear from you guys. I hope you have those babies soon Liz, I can't wait for the day I get to come read my emails and find out I have two new nephews. When I get home, one of my first assignments will be to learn which one is Ashley, which one is Lacey, which one is Miles, and which one is James. That should keep me busy for a little while!

Dad, I'm glad you are enjoying your new job, even if it is a bit boring. It's cool that you are making changes and are able to magnify your calling so to speak. Keep saving up your frequent flyer miles, that would be so awesome to come back with you guys!

And say thanks to Bishop Humble for the letter, I was glad to hear from him. I wanted him to be the bishop when I got home, but Bishop Gambles will do a great job.

Anyway, thanks for the letters and support. I love you guys and can't wait to write you next week from Astana (I hope). Have a great week everyone.

Elder Geddes