Much work to be done

A lifesized game of chess
Jess enjoying a spring day in Kazacahstan

Hey everyone,

Well I just got here after losing an intense match of big chess. There is a park not too far from our house that has a chess board place. There are big pieces and everything. Elder Hasbiullin and I played against the other companionship and ended up losing. It was pretty fun though. After this, Elder Player and I will be going to the market to start checking things off our list of stuff to buy before we have to leave. My companion hates going there so Elder Player and I will be leaving our companions together and we will go to the market.

Time is continuing to fly. For some reason, last week I thought today would never come, but the week, as usual, went by in a blur. The APs were here and we did splits on Friday. I was with Elder Nuckols, who was in the MTC with me. It was a good split. Nuckols doesn't have permission to preach in Kazakhstan so all he did was stop people and ask how they were doing and stuff, then would turn it over to me. All day was like that, I was pretty tired after that day, but it was fun and successful. On Sunday, Venera came to church! Her first time. She really enjoyed it. I spoke on the Atonement and feel like I did a pretty good job. After the meeting, we had a contact that wanted us to go to their church meeting. We ran over there and got there in time to hear the last half hour of the pastors sermon, which wasn't all that interesting. Their church is held in the basement of an apartment building, you have to go down some creepy stairs and down a long dark hallway to get there. They are a branch of Pentacostles as far as I understand. Things got really interesting when they started praying in tongues. There were about 12 people there and they were all standing, pointing their hands somewhere and just rattling off sounds. Our investigator was next to me just making noise. I can honestly say that the spirit was not in that room, not in the least. All I felt was confusion, emptiness, and a little nervous, ha. After they finished, the preacher sat down and some people left and some people stayed to talk to us some. They asked us some questions, of course about why we don't pray in tongues. I was able to testify about prayer, what it is and why we pray. I told them that prayer is a conversation with God, and that when I speak with God, I prefer reverence and calm, rather than noise and confusion. They kept saying things like, ya but when I pray in tongues, God is able to give me revelation and answers. We said that He can do the same exact thing when we pray in our language. It is really interesting how people are deceived. Prayer is powerful, Satan understands that. When he gets people to either not pray, pray to idles or icons, or pray in tongues, he is able to stop that person from having and using the power of true, pure, prayer to our Heavenly Father.

After that little adventure, we went back to the branch where we had a lesson scheduled with a new person. I think I told you guys about it, but a few weeks ago a girl called and said someone had given her our invitation and she wanted to know more. We hadn't been able to meet with her until this Sunday. We met her, showed her the branch and started our lesson. Her name is Olga, she is a 25 year old English teacher from South Kazakhstan. She has been here in Astana for a couple years or so and says she has been searching for the right church for her. We were able to teach the whole restoration. She was so interested and had a few good questions. She liked what we had to say and wanted to hear more. We gave her a Book of Mormon and asked her to pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We asked her if, when she receives her answer, she would be baptized. She said of course! We had an Easter dinner scheduled at the maxwells that night for the branch members. We invited her to the dinner and arranged to meet to show her how to get there. It turns out that she lives in the same apartment building as we do. She has seen us around a lot she said, but she never knew we were missionaries. I don't ever remember seeing her, but oh well. So when we met up to show her the way, she said she had already read a few chapters in the Book of Mormon. She was still really excited. The dinner was pretty successfull. Venera came and brought her 15 year old son along with her. It was a really good chance for us all to get to know each other better and have a good time. We watched the film, together forever, after the dinner and everyone enjoyed it. All in all a pretty good Easter, but Easter just isn't the same without coloring eggs, waking up to a basket full of chocolates and gumballs, and going to Grandma and Grandpa Geddes' house for the egg hunt. Holidays on the mission are just a bit different than at home, ha.

We met again with Olga yesterday. We started teaching the Plan of Salvation. There were some surprises for her there, some things that were just completely new for her. God has a physical body, premortal life, those kinds of things. We will have to take it a lot slower than we at first thought, that that is good also. We want her to understand and find answers, rather than just blindly accept what we say. We encouraged her to pray about all the principles that we taught. I'm sure she'll find her answers as she continues to pray and study the scriptures. She said she will be at church on Sunday, so that's good.

Things are going good, and I'm happy. Time is ticking, but I'm not scared, we have success right now, it will take me right to the end of my mission. I'm not going to lie, I for some reason have been getting tired of my companion every once in a while, but we always end the day friends, or start the day friends if we didn't end, ha. We are really good friends, but we've been together a long time, counting the first time we served together. I'm still sure that there's nobody else I'd rather serve with a this time in my mission. Good life lessons. I'm glad everyone is doing good back home, and that Meg and Mica and their kids were able to spend some time there. I hope everyone has a good week. Love you guys.

Elder Geddes

And so the miracles begin

Hey everyone,

We had a really great week, one of the best ever! It went by so fast because of all the good things that happened with us. On Saturday, we had district meeting at the Maxwell's house. The Moores had gotten there that morning so they were there with us. I got to give the spiritual thought, I used some awesome verses I have been studying lately from Alma 37 about the Liahona and about faith and diligence, if you get a chance, look it up, from v. 40-47. Compare it with 1 Nephi 16, it is really interesting and applicable to any stage of life. Anyway, after the meeting, we went out to dinner, just the elders and the Moores! We went to that place I told you about, the chinese looking place that has a restaurant on the 23rd floor. The floor rotates which is awesome, we got to see the whole city after about an hour. I got a steak, some fries, some Asparagus in cheese (can you believe it?) and Elder Hasbiullin and I split an order of Bish Bar Mak, the national dish of Kazakhstan. Horse meat and noodles (nothing special if you ask me). After the dinner, we had a meeting with a person we are helping with English. Sunday was a nice meeting. No investigators came, but it was nice to have the Moores there. They spoke, and after the meeting we all had an interview with Elder Moore since he is in the mission presidency. They had invited us to their hotel that night for dinner and to let us watch another session of conference. The other elders made lasagna which was pretty good actually. We only got to watch a couple of talks from the Saturday morning session, but it was really cool. The best thing was on Monday. We haven't been able to meet with Venera for quite a while, she was busy with work, then she got sick. Anyway we set up a meeting with her for monday and we went to her apartment for the lesson. We have taught her the restoration, the plan of salvation and so we wanted to teach her the gospel of Jesus Christ and try to set a baptismal date. We had planned out a really good lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We executed our plan and everything worked out great! By the time we got to the part about baptism, she had already asked, "how do I show my faith? How do you baptize people?" As we started to talk about baptism, she said "I already feel a desire to be baptized, I don't know why, but I feel a desire to be baptized, think about it guys." We told her, we have thought a lot about it and we want you to be baptized. Elder Hasbiullin extended the commitment and the first thing she said was, when. We told her we want her to be baptized the 21st of May and she said, what do I need to do? We assured her that we would be there every step of the way and that we would help her prepare for baptism. It was a great lesson and a great feeling. The spirit was strong, and she was able to recognize it. She said she had met with the Jehova's Witnesses for over 8 months and they wanted her to be baptized, but she never felt the desire. She now has that desire and has agreed to meet the challenge. She agreed to come to church this Sunday, and she also attended our activity last night at the branch. She has a 15 year old son and we can't wait for this family to start receiving the blessings of the restored gospel. We're very excited.

We also had another miracle a few days ago. We were contacting and we were talking to a really nice lady on the bus stop. As we were talking to her, a man in a suit walked up to us and said, guys, I see that you are well dressed and happy guys, that you are talking about something serious. I don't have time right now but lets exchange numbers and meet. We got his number and he left. We also got the lady's number on the bustop by the way. Anyway, that night we called him and set up a meeting for the next day. He invited us to his office in some hotel. As we were heading to the office, we were worried that it was going to be one of those pyramid scheme meetings or something. As we got to his office, sure enough it was one of those businesses. We sat and waited for a minute for our contact to come in. He came in and we sat in a corner of the room. He immediately started introducing himself, saying that he has been thinking a lot about eternal questions lately. He said he didn't know why he wanted to talk to us, but he saw us on the street, saw that we were happy guys, well dressed, working hard. He said, "people are just attracted to enthusiastic happy people, but usually I don't introduce myself to them. I saw you guys and thought, why not?" We were able to talk to him for almost an hour and explain that it was probably the influence of the Holy Ghost that made him want to talk to us, and that we do have answers to the questions of the soul. The whole time we were there, he didn't say one word about his business, we are really excited about him as well. He has a wife who also worked there.

I'm not sure why, but the Lord has been answering our prayers really really fast lately. Sunday night we had sent a message to Venera, making sure our lesson was still set. We hadn't heard back from her, but as we were praying before bed, I asked that we would be able to meet with her. We closed the prayer and the phone rang, a text from her saying everything was good. The next day, for some reason they had shut off our lights and water, so we couldn't shower or do anything really. So we just got dressed and went out contacting first thing in the morning. We got back, still no water or electricity. We were getting worried that our food was going to go bad. We needed to leave for our lesson and we didn't know what to do with the food. We figured, oh well, it should be fine. Before we left the apartment, we said the prayer and I said, please let the lights and the water come back so that our food didn't go bad, and literally at that second the lights flipped on and we were able to leave knowing that our fridge was fine and that all our food would be okay. Small examples, but important ones. Just goes to show you that the Lord listens to even our smallest of desires and problems.

The AP's got here this morning. We already went and played 3 on 3 basketball for about an hour and a half. I wouldn't say I'm great by any means but I'm getting better and enjoying it more each time. We will be working with them tomorrow, so it will be pretty fun. We should be able to find at least one lesson for each companionship. I'm excited. The AP's right now are Elder Nuckols and Tanner. Elder Nuckols was in the MTC with me and Elder Tanner was in the group behind us. Elder Tanner and I served together for quite a while in Voronezh, so it's a really fun set of AP's.

When the Moores came up, they brought with them some mail that had made it's way to Almaty a while back. I got a letter from a member in Kaluga who just left for her mission a couple months ago. She lived in Moscow while I served in Kaluga, but her mom is in Kaluga so she came down a few times. She's really cool and really nice. She sent me a postcard and thanked me for my service in Kaluga and for my support of her and her family. She said "my mom always talks about you with a lot of respect, and you were a great example to me of a missionary." It was a short little note, but it made me so happy to know that people really do appreciate the work we do here. It brightened my day, that's for sure. It's so awesome when people take the time and effort to thank you for something, we should all probably make the effort to do that a little more often, we all probably know how it makes us feel when someone thanks us. It was a nice little surprise for me. Oh ya, by the way, last transfer, they closed down Kaluga. We just don't have enough missionaries. The good thing is that the office elders in Moscow are now traveling every weekend to Kaluga. They have Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday to meet with and support the members there. I guess there is even a couple of pretty promising investigators right now. I was sad that they closed it down, just because I have a convert there and I really grew to love the members. But at least the office elders have a chance to go there every week and support the branch. One of the office elders is Elder Erickson, he and I baptized Tatyana, so I'm sure that's a good thing for them.

We got things sorted out in the hospital with my companion. We had to go back about a million times and wait in about a hundred lines, but finally we got him some medication. I think I told you about it, he has this weird spot on his back that he is constantly itching, so I made him go to the doctor. Yesterday we got the medication and they said in about 10 days it should start going away. I hope so, I'm sick of him scratching himself! Ha, I swear, when you are with the same guy from the second you wake up to the second you go to sleep, things start to wear on you! But I really love Elder Hasbiullin, I'm glad we're together. We have a good time.

I will be speaking in church on Easter Sunday. I'm pretty excited. I'll be speaking on the 4 parts of the atonement. Usually we talk about the 3 parts, suffering in the garden, on the cross, and the resurrection. The fourth part I will include is the fact that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. Without that, there would be no atonement. There are several references in the scriptures when it talks about how Christ was tempted, but gave no heed to the temptations. The fact that he was able to live his life in perfect harmony with the Father, always being able to resist temptation, always serving and loving others, allowed him to give his life for us, and take it back. We know that Jesus Christ showed us the perfect example in all things, and that we are to follow that example. At the end of the sermon on the mount He commands us to be perfect even as He and His Father are perfect. Jesus Christ was able to withstand all temptations, technically, we can too. The fact is though, that we don't always withstand every temptation. The commandment still applies, be ye perfect, the only way we can progress toward that goal is by the atonement which provides the mercy needed to pay the demands of justice. We'll never understand the atonement perfectly, it's too complex and deep, but that just means that we can study it for our whole lives and always learn more! I love studying the gospel and learning, it's such a great blessing for us as missionaries and as members of the church.

Today, we are planning on going to see the sights, since the ap's are here. It should be a nice day, we'll get some good pictures, without the snow and stuff. This is a pretty cool city, some days I just still can't believe I'm here. I'm really glad I am here though. I have a little over 2 months left and we'll be working hard until the end. Thanks for all the letters and support, I love you guys!

It's hard opening a city

Hey guys,

Okay, right off the bat I'll start with the cool story for the week. So one day we decided to mix things up and go straight out in the morning and contact at like 8 o'clock. We went out and started to talk to people and noticed that there were tons of people at this one bus stop. We wondered what was going on so we asked and found out that the president would be making an appearance and a speech and so the city was bussing people there to watch. Sometime last week were the presidential elections. From what we heard, President Nazerbaev received 95% of the votes! Everyone loves him here, but wow, I don't know if I can believe that one. Usually they have elections every 7 years here, but this one was different. President Nazerbaev was elected president until the day he dies! He's pretty much king of Kazakhstan now. He's already been the president for 20 years and he will probably be around for another 20 or so. Anyway, we decided it would be a once in a life time thing so we ran home, grabbed our cameras and ran back to the bus stop. We got on one of the last busses and got a free trip to the location of the speech. There were lots and lots of people there and we didn't really know what was going on, but we ended up getting in a pretty good spot. We were pretty close to the aisle where President walked down the red carpet. My comp got it all on film because he's really tall. It was pretty cool. He gave his speech in Kazakh, then in Russian. The whole city was pretty much just partying the whole day. There were open air concerts and food all over the place. It was pretty cool. I've never even seen the president of the USA but I've seen the president of Kazakhstan. Cool huh?

Well this week somehow went by really fast, as usual. I don't understand it. There are some days when I look at my watch and see that it is about 3 o'clock and I think, there is no way I'll be able to make it through another 6 hours of this. The next thing I know I am laying in bed thinking, how did I make it? I can definitely say that the Lord is strengthening us and helping us get through the days. Not that we are just here to endure our time, but even when we have a successful day and get good contacts, all day out on the streets talking to everyone you see takes its toll. I think all four of us have had a moment or two when we thought, that's it, I can't do it anymore. Mine was this week. We had a day with two lessons planned, one at 4 and one at 6. I was so happy, I thought, no problem, contact until 4 o'clock, take a break and teach a lesson, conctact for an hour, take a break and teach a lesson then finish off the day with an easy 2 hours of contacting. At about 4 o'clock we went to the branch to meet the guy, he didn't show up. We called and he didn't answer. I thought, oh well, it's not so bad, just two more hours and we'll get to teach a lesson. I was able to contact for the next two hours with a good attitude and desire. Then at 6 o'clock, we called the investigator to say that we were almost there and she said that she wouldn't be able to meet with us afterall. I just wanted to sit down right there and quit for the day. I didn't see how I could possibly go another 3 hours. It just didn't seem possible at all. I had actually that morning read in the Book of Mormon about the sons of Mosiah, how even they at times were discouraged. It says that the Lord strengthened them when their hearts were depressed and they wanted to turn back. I said a little prayer and just asked for some strength, to just make it to the end of the day. Off we went. We continued to talk to people and continued to work. That was one of those nights when I layed in bed and thought, how did I make it? Another miracle about the whole thing is that each morning at 6:30, I am able to wake up, and get out of bed without problem. I am so beat by the end of the day but the next morning I am able to jump up and do it again. This has been a trying month for me but I think I have grown, even in this month. I know I'll make it through this next two months and I'll be a better person for it. I really want to see some success here of course. I think it isn't out of the question to see some people get baptized before we leave, I really want to see some success. I know that most of what we are doing is planting seeds for the future, but it would still be neat to see some fruits.

The weather changed from winter to summer overnight almost. One day we were in scarves, hats, gloves, everything. The next we were just in our coats without hats and gloves, the next day we wore our suit coats and the next day we wore short sleeve shirts. We have played basketball at a nearby school a couple of times, last pday we played and this morning we already played. It was fun and some good exercise. It is actually getting hot here which is something I never thought I would say. Winter was long but it ended quick.

We have some cool things coming up. This weekend the Moores will be coming up here from Almaty. They are going to be taking us out to dinner on Saturday after our district meeting. The place we picked out is a 20 something story building with the restaraunt on the 23rd floor. The floor of the restaraunt rotates so that you can see the entire city. It's actually not that expensive so it will be really awesome. They will be with us at church on Sunday as well. Then the next weekend the ap's are supposedly coming up here too. We don't know which day exactly, but it will be a good change for a day or two. After that, the next thing will be Mothers day, calling home for the last time. Sometime in the middle of May, I think the 14 and 15 or so, we will be going down to Almaty for zone conference where Elder Schweitzer from the 70 will be there. After that it will be my 21st birthday, followed by my 2 year mark on a mission. Lots of cool things coming up.

It sounds like everyone is doing pretty good. I'm always happy to read about all the funny and cool things that happen at home. I hope everyone has a good week and lots of fun times. Love you guys.

Elder Geddes

Jess used the clippers on his hair and it was a little shorter than he expected but he still looks handsome!

Pictures of Kazachstan, it really is a beautiful, modern city.

Challenges and joys of missionary work

Hey everyone,

Before I forget, I wanted to tell you this cool thing that happened last week but I forgot to write about it last time. Elder Hasbiullin and I were contacting, in kind of a different part of town tha we hadn't been in before and we were talking to a lady on a bus stop. A bus pulled up and a bunch of people got on. The last lady to get on was wearing a big fur coat. As she was stepping on to the bus, some guy came up behind her and kind of grabbed her and reached in her pocket and grabbed her cell phone. I saw the whole thing, and then the guy started calmly walking away probably trying to blend in with the crowd. I didn't know what to do but I kind of stepped in front of him and just said, Hey! I think it scared him and he stopped and looked at me, just then the lady got off the bus and ran up and grabbed him and started yelling at him to give back the phone. There wasn't much he could do so he just gave her the phone. She called him some names and then got back on the bus. The guy walked away and was kind of just standing in the shadows. We finished our conversation pretty quick and the guy was yelling for me to come talk to him. Of course I wasn't going to go talk to him, so I just started walking away. Elder Hasbiullin seemed to be a bit more spooked than I was and was trying to get out pretty fast so he had already gotten about 10 or 15 feet away from me. As I was walking away, some guy grabbed my arm. I immediately just tried to rip my arm away but he held on. He said, that guy wants to talk to you. I just calmly said, I don't need to talk to that guy. And he kind of just looked at me and let me go. We got out pretty quick, jumped on a different bus and just left. I'm not sure if the second guy was like a partner or something to the bandit, or if he really just thought that guy wanted to talk to me and thought that I didn't hear him. I didn't want to stick around to find out of course, so we just got out. It was pretty cool, I kind of saved a lady from getting her cell phone stolen! The sad thing about it is that about 25 other people saw the whol thing and nobody said a word or did anything. I know if that would have happened in America, at least in Soda Springs, people would have stopped the thief. I don't like the fact that most people here have kind of a look out for number one attitude. That kind of attitude doesn't help anyone, and if an entire city or country has that attitude, you see that they don't progress very fast at all. Anyway, kind of a cool experience.

Last week we went to a really big aquarium for our p-day activity. It was pretty fun. Then we all went to eat at a mall, we had some KFC! My week went by really fast, although we had some tough days. We lost a few of our investigators and one of our members left town for a month. I as pretty frustrated at first about losing our investigators, but then I realized that they just weren't the ones we should be spending our time with. I know that God's hand is in this work so we don't have to worry when things like that happen. We still have Venera, although she was busy all this week. It is easy to forget that we have only been here for a month, and that it will be like this for a while longer. We didn't really know what we signed up for when we got asked to open up this city, but we should have been more prepared for how difficult it is. Remembering that we are still so new here, and that this is God's work, really helped me pick up my spirits and have a good rest of the week. It went by so fast, I feel like just yesterday we were here writing home.

We had a little miracle a couple days ago. We had no lessons and were getting ready to contact all day long. We went out right after studies and contacted for about an hour and a half. We talked to a girl on the street and asked if she would be interested in practicing English. She said she wasn't but said she had a friend who worked in a nearby furniture store who would be interested. I'm sure she just said it to get us to leave and never thought that we would be persistent enough to actually go find the store and talk with the lady. She obviously doesn't know mormon missionaries! Side note, I realize that we are annoying as missionaries but it really sunk in a few nights ago when one of our contacts said that he would be out of town for about a month, also probably just to get us to forget about him and stop calling, but my companion without skipping a beat, opened his planner to exactly a month from that day and wrote himself a reminder to call that guy, ha, how is that for not giving up, ha. Anyway, of course we found the furniture store and walked in and started talking to the lady working there. She is about 29 years old and was just happy as can be that two people would come up to her and offer free English practice. She has just been studying on her own for about a year and has just wanted practice. We were able to talk with her for about 40 minutes, explain who we are and what we believe, and why we left all our life at home for two years to come here. She is Muslim, but had no problem listening and asking questions about our faith. We have another meeting set up with her for Saturday, so we will be able to start helping her with English and teach her the gospel. We'll see if she accepts. It was just a really nice little break from contacting and was just enough to get us through that long day. It was cool.

Yesterday was the warmest day so far this year. It was so nice. Today is supposed to be even better, we are going to go play basketball at a nearby school. I'm excited to get out and get some exercise, other than walking up and down flights of stairs. I'm so out of shape! Oh ya, and I cut off all my hair. There was a hair cutter here that was left over from the seniour couple and I got the chance to be the test driver. It only had two guards so I figured the bigger one should do the trick. Only after I finished did I realize that I could have actually extended the guard to make it four times longer than what I used. Oops. Oh well, I figure this will be the haircut I wear for the rest of my life anyway, might as well start getting used to it now. 2 years, lots of stress, bad diet, constantly being tired, a sure fire recipe for baldness :) I don't mind, I figure I have an unusually round head, obviously I was prepared from the foundations of this world to be bald. Who can complain about that? If you aren't with God, you are against him, I can't say I like the fact that my hair fell out but what can you do?

Church was really nice on Sunday, although it was just the four elders, the Maxwells and one member. The other two members were out of town and we couldn't get any investigators to come. We also got to watch three sessions of General Conference at the Maxwell's house. We saw Priesthood and the two Sunday sessions. Priesthood was awesome, and so were the other two. I can't wait to see or read the Saturday sessions and re read all the others. This was a very good conference from what I can tell. That's probably why the week went by so fast. I love conference. That's way cool that they will build a temple in Meridian. I wonder how long it will take?

So it turns out I have no idea when Easter is. I always thought it was the first Sunday in April, boy was I wrong. Also, I don't know when Mothers day is, I have a feeling it is the second Sunday in May since last year we called home on the 9th of May. If that's true, it's coming up quick. Only a month until I get to call home for the last time. Crazy. Then after Mothers day, a few weeks later will be my 21st birthday! It's like 19 and 20 didn't really exist. 21 is a big deal it seems like. Don't send me anything though. Take whatever money you would have used to send a package and either just get me something for when I get home or just put a few dollars on my card and we'll go get some lunch somewhere. It's not worth trying to get me a package. Every time the AP's or President come, they have lots of stuff to bring anyway so it's hard for them to bring extra things. It's not a big deal, holidays on the mission are just like any other day. Maybe you can make me a cake when I get home!

That's cool that dad got to go to a mission reunion. I hope my mission keeps up with those things, we have such a great group of people, I would really like to keep in touch with them. I bet that was interesting to see some of those people 34 years later. That's too bad that not everyone stays faithful after a mission. The good thing is that we know what to do to prevent it. Follow the counsil of the prophet and everything will go fine. By the way, how is Dillon doing on his mission? I forgot where he is, South America, or Mexico? Tell everyone from that side of the family hello for me.

Well this turned out to be a pretty long letter. Thanks for the letters and the support. I hope everyone has a great week. Love you guys!

Elder Geddes