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