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