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