Hey everyone,
Well June is here! I can't believe it, but I'm going home in a few weeks. We actually have bought our tickets to Moscow. We went a few days ago and bought them, we leave on Wednesday the 22nd at 6:30 in the morning, we will get to moscow at 8ish and have the whole day Wednesday and Thursday to be in Moscow with our group. Everyone should be getting there sometime during the day Wednesday, so it will be pretty awesome. Then I guess Friday morning we come home. Time is flying and I have less than 3 weeks in Astana. Lucky for me, we have three weeks worth of work to do, that's for sure.
I wanted to start of with a story that I forgot to tell last week. Elder Hasbiullin and I were going somewhere on a bus and there were two empty seats. I went and sat down, the seats happened to be in front of two young boys. I sat down and immediately one of the boys tapped my on the shoulder and said one word "sopli". I knew what the word meant, but I didn't know why he would say it so I thought I misheard him. I said, "what?" He repeated the word and I just said, "where" He pointed to my seat, and sure enough, I had sat in a nice pile of snot. I think the kid had sneezed in the seat before I had gotten in or something! He seemed pretty ashamed, and I was a little frustrated. I stood up but didn't know what to do, I had no napkins or anything. Everyone was kind of trying not to laugh around me (besides Elder Hasbiullin, he was laughing pretty hard) but it was obvious that everyone around me noticed the situation and thought it was a little funny. The conductor lady came around and I think she was trying to play off the situation because she just said "oh no, you kids know you aren't allowed to eat ice cream on the bus!" I was like, lady, this isn't ice cream! She actually kicked the kids off the bus, ha, and then she brought some napkins to clean off the seat. I asked if she had anymore napkins and she just looked at me and said, "Where?" Ha, she ended up bringing me some napkins, but it was a little awkward trying to wipe off the butt of my pants on the bus in front of everyone, not being able to see. Luckily we were headed to the senior couple's apartment so I was able to clean up in their bathroom. I was pretty annoyed, but at the same time, I had to laugh about it.
Anyway, we had a way good week this week. On Sunday, we had 16 people at church! That is without three people that were supposed to be there. Venera had something she had to do and missed her first meeting, our baptismal candidate had gotten sick the day before, and the baptismal candidate of the other elders had relatives come to town for a day. We had lots of investigators there, including Alibek, Venera's 15 year old son. We have had some lessons with Svetlana, our baptismal candidate, she is doing great. We had a lesson with her last p-day. She fried us up some potatoes and started making us some black tea. I was a little nervous because we hadn't talked about the word of wisdom with her yet. We were bold and we just said, no we don't drink black tea, explained briefly why, and she said "okay, it will be a hard 2 weeks, but oh well" and immediately poured us all glasses of milk instead. Cool huh? She's doing good about not drinking it. She agrees that it is harmful. She is addicted to it and admits it, but she is willing to give it up. She's great. We have another meeting with her tonight.
On Tuesday of this week, two elders from Almaty came up to Astana for the day with our registration lady. They had to take care of some visa problems but it was pretty quick so we got to hang out with them the whole day. Not exactly the most effective day, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for them to come here so we took the liberty of showing them the town. That night, we had a meeting with a lady named Gulnafis. I don't think I've said anything about her, but she's been coming to church for the past month. She's probably close to 60, and at first I thought she was a little weird, but I think she's just shy. Anyway, she really likes the church and the things we teach her. We had been praying about her to know if we should invite her to be baptized on the 18th along with Svetlana. While we were doing our weekly planning, we talked about it and tried to make a list of all the reasons she should be baptized on the 18th and all the reasons she wouldn't be ready. We both agreed that there were much more reasons for her to be baptized than to wait. We decided we would talk about it with her on the lesson. So Tuesday night, we had a lesson, we taught the second half of the plan of salvation. She accepted everything and really liked what we had to say. At the end, talking about the Celestial Kingdom, we talked about what we need to do to make it there. We talked about baptism and she said she knew that she needed to be baptized. We invited her to be baptized on the 18th, and she accepted! After that, she, for the first time, offered the closing prayer on our lesson. It was a pretty spiritual lesson, everything just flowed and everything just felt right. To celebrate, we went into the other room with all the other elders that were there, after she left, and each took a drink of camel milk! You can buy it here in bottles, it's pretty disgusting, that's for sure. It's carbonated, has a hint of vinegar smell and each and every one of us gagged a bit when we tasted it, ha. It was pretty funny. Now that I've tried it, I never have to try it again. So now here in Astana, we have 4 baptismal dates planned for the 18th. The other elders have two, and we have two. We are sure that our two are going to work out, we hope the other elders investigators will be ready as well. That would be an epic day for us if we could get all 4 people baptized. President Woolley and his wife will be coming to Astana that morning, so that will be great. It's coming up quick, just two more weeks from this Saturday. What a great way to finish my mission. I'm really happy about the way things are going.
It sounds like things are going pretty good at home, although I only got a letter from Mom. I only have a couple of weeks left, don't go and forget about me now! Ha, you all have only two more times to write me after today, let's all endure to the end here and I promise you'll never have to write me an email again after the mission! I'm sure everyone is getting pretty busy with summer preparations. I'm glad Alex didn't break his arm. Why did that dog bite him? Is he going to be scared of dogs now? I hope not.
Wow, today is the 2nd of June. Two years ago today was one of the scariest days of my life! Now I'm on the other end, and I'm just as scared to go back to where I came from! I'll be able to leave the mission peacefully and with a good conscience though. But it will still probably be a bit scary. I'm really glad that I have learned so much out here. I wouldn't trade the last two years for anything. Thanks for all you have done for me over the last 2 years, all your support and advice. I love you all and am excited to see you all soon. Have a great week.
Love Elder Geddes
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