Time marches on

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all your letters, I really love hearing from you all. I forgive you for emailing President Woolley mom, haha, I wasn't too embarrassed. I'm sure you aren't the only mom that has ever done that.

Well things aren't going exactly as I had them planned for my first week with my new companion, but all in all, I am very happy. My companion is an awesome kid with a real desire to work and help the people. He speaks Russian really well and has already taught me a few words. We have continued to speak Russian all week, partly due to the fact that we are with Elder Khussainoff, he has helped out so much, thanks to him we have set a solid pace for ourselves and our companionship to speak Russian to each other. We are still in a threesome and it is not always the most fun. We have been switching off working in both of our areas and sleeping in both of our apartments, it's not exactly ideal but we have made due. It's been pretty fun but I think we are all ready to get back into normal companionships. His companion had visa problems getting from Kazakstahn to Russia, which is why he is late coming. We think he will be here either saturday night or sunday morning. I can't wait. Being senior companion is a little harder than I thought it would be. Like I said, we are kind of lacking in the investigator area. President wants us to get 15 lessons a week and I know we can, but I really want to get lessons with different people. Elder Traasdahl and I seemed to meet with the same people week after week. That doesn't help anyone. We are going to be focusing a lot more on finding new people, along with getting our lessons in. Yesterday we did some finding and got a couple of good contacts. It was another testimony to me of how Satan tries to slow down the work. We spend a lot of time on the bus since our area is so big so it is important that we always try to talk to people on the bus. Sometimes it is just plan awkward and not fun because Russians don't talk on the bus. Anyway, I was feeling kind of sleepy and was sitting by a lady who was about 40ish and I was feeling like I just didn't want to talk to her. As I was starting to nod off to sleep, I decided that I just couldn't make excuses and needed to talk to her. I just asked her if she had ever heard of the book of mormon and told her a little bit about what it was and where it came from. She was really interested! Enough to even offer me money, a lot of people just think we are trying to sell the book. Anyway, I told her it was free and that we were just trying to help people have a chance to read it. I told her I would call maybe tomorrow or something and she said, give me a week, 2 days isn't enough to read the whole thing. I really hope she reads it and feels the spirit of the book. Also, we have made the goal to get in contact with every person we don't know from our branch list. We have been calling every number and fining a lot of people have moved or that we have a lot of wrong numbers. That will be a big service to the branch and to future missionaries. No wonder our activity rate is so low since half our members don't even live here anymore! And also it will give us a good amount of work to do as we track down all these people.

Sergey and Inna are.. okay I guess. They both missed church on Sunday. We have only been able to meet with both of them once since their baptism. Sergey needs a lot of support so that he doesn't fall back into the same crowds. We will keep working with him.

I am not sure if the package is in Moscow, I'll find out and let you know next week. I'm hoping to get it soon. We have had more weird money problems so I will be using personal funds to buy groceries today but I will be able to pay myself back in 2 days I think. Sometimes communication is just plain bad between us and Moscow.

That's crazy about the USU thing. What a weird guy. I'm not sure what password you were asking for, so I don't know what to tell you. Everything worked out right? What if I ended up wanting to go back to USU, is it still an option?

I'm glad to hear all is well at home. I'm doing good here and still having fun. I can't believe I will hit my year mark in 2 months, or that I'll be 20 in two months. Time flies. I realized I have already had my mission call for over a year and even went to the temple a year ago. That is just crazy to me. Well, I hope all is well there, thanks again for everything you guys do. I love you all.

Elder Geddes

Letter from the President

I was a little nervous that Jess hadn't written last week so I e-mailed his president to see if things were alright. I got an earful from Rob and Bob about it but I got this nice e-mail which made it worth it.

Dear Sister Geddes,

I tried to call your son on the phone when I read this email, but I didn’t reach him. I did talk with the senior couple in his area. Sister Lowry saw him yesterday. He is fine. He had decided to take his preparation day today because he was receiving a new companion this morning. His new companion is Elder Cecil. Your son is now a senior companion. You need to know that he is an absolutely special missionary. He is all that a mission president wants. He works hard, has a testimony, doesn’t complain, and is a real team player. You can be very proud of him. I expect you will hear from him today. If not please write me back.



Best regards,



President Woolley

Nervous mom, what can I say

Hey everyone,

Well, I figured I could get away with emailing one day late, what with transfers and all, but to my surprise I got a call from President Woolley this afternoon and he said, "Elder Geddes, I got an email from your mother, she's worried about you". At least I know I am loved but for future reference, wait until at least day two to email the president

Anyway, we picked up my new companion from the train station this morning. We will be in a threesome for a day or two while Elder Khusainoff's new companion is stuck in Kazakstahn trying to get a visa. Hopefully he will be here by Sunday though, threesome's are no fun. My companion is named Elder Cecil. He's from Sacramento. He is one transfer younger than me and is very energetic and enthusiastic. We have spoken Russian all day and will hopefully keep that going throughout our service together. I can't wait to get to work with him and revive this area.

Last Sunday I had the chance to be in the circle to give Sergey the Aaronic Priesthood. What a sweet experience that was to help him take one more step toward being a strong solid member of the church. Elder Cecil and I will be working closely with him and with Inna to help them along the way.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. We met with all the people Elder Traasdahl wanted to meet one more time before he left and then we had to spend pretty much the entire day Wednesday packing his stuff. I took the opportunity to clean the apartment really well. That's another thing I hope comes from this new companionship is a little bit of a cleaner apartment. I never understood why it bothered you so bad, mom, that I would always leave my coats, or my sweaters, or my clothes or just random stuff all over the place until I was companions with Elder Traasdahl. For some reason the guy doesn't belive in hangers or something because he had a pair of pants in ever room, shirts draped over every chair, and ties (still with a knot in them) all over the apartment. It is pretty annoying, isn't it. Anyway, Wednesday night when we went to the trainstation to drop off Elder Traasdahl and Elder Waite, four members and one investigator came to see them off. It was pretty cool that they care about the missionaries that much.

We will be moving into a new apartment pretty soon since we found one right by the branch in the same building as the other elders. President wants us all to live as close to the branch as possible so we are signing the contract tonight. Our landlady will be sad to hear it. She loves us to death. Every time she would come to pick up the rent, we would clean up real fast so when she got there she saw two american boys in shirts and ties, studying from the scriptures or other books, listening to some low classical music, ha. Also, all of our neighbors like us too. We have a bunch of old grandpas that stand outside our building and smoke and shoot the breeze and they always say hello to us and goodbye. One time our land lady came to the building while we weren't there and she said the old guys explained to here that of course we weren't there, we leave every day at around 11 o'clock. I thought that was pretty funny. I like our apartment a lot, especially since we live right by the mcdonalds but this one we will move into is nice too. It's a bit smaller but it is brand new and so we will be the first to live there. Also, it is 5000 rubles a month cheaper, so that's nice.

I still didn't get my package yet, maybe if it comes today or tomorrow to Moscow, Elder Tanner can bring it with him when he comes down here. I didn't even know it was St. Patricks day until later that day and I just happened to be wearing my green pants with my green tie, so I was safe. Molodetz mom, for doing all your phone stuff by yourself, how come you got a new phone? That's really cool that it hooks up to your car.

I am still feeling healthy as ever, of course with the exception of a few days here and there. Namely the morning after "The Ultimate P-day" If you remember me telling you about the ultimate pday and how the priesthood makes a big meal, I am starting to doubt that day. Last month it was hot dogs and macaroni noodles covered in butter. I figured it was just an off month. Last night was Greshka and nasty meat with a side of grease. Oh well, I have learned that anything becomes edible with just a bit of ketchup and mayonnaise.

Kind of a short boring letter but hopefully things start picking up real soon. I am so glad to be with my new companion and have a fresh new chance to get things done here in Veronezh. Thanks for everything, I love you guys and will talk to you next week.

Love Elder Geddes

Hello everyone,

First and foremost, Sergey and Inna were baptized and confirmed last weekend!! It was such an awesome weekend. I felt a lot of things over those couple days that I'll never forget. I found out I would have the chance to baptize Sergey, so I started getting a bit nervous and excited. We showed up on Saturday and were waiting for our baptismal candidates. I was feeling so scared and excited for them, hoping that they came through. Sergey was the first to come. That was the first time I really noticed the physical changes that were beginning to take place with him. His face had more color in it, he had a big smile, and he was wearing a suit and tie! I'm sure a combination of quitting smoking and the gospel fire helped his face to have a bit more color. Anyway, we still waited for Inna and she finally came. We got some pictures and went and got changed. Sergey's pants were way to big but we got them figured out. It was so cool to see him in his baptismal clothes. I even tied his tie for him since he didn't know how. We went and listened to the talks for the program then went downstairs to the baptismal font. Elder Traasdahl baptized Inna first and I had been going through the prayer in my head over and over again. Finally it was my turn. I got in the water first, followed by Sergey. We got ready and I closed my eyes for just a couple seconds to calm down and allow myself to feel the spirit. I said the prayer perfectly with as much power and authority as I could muster and then dunked him. And just like that it was over. He and his mom were both so happy. Later that night as I was writing in my journal, it really sunk in as to what I had really done that day. I had performed a saving ordinance for a 16 year old boy in Veronezh Russia. I would have never known about Sergey had I not been called to serve here, and yet I was able to participate in his first step toward eternal salvation. Of course, he still has a long way to go but he's that much closer to receiving the gift of eternal life. I was also able to participate in the circle the next day as both of them received the gift of the Holy Ghost. What an awesome feeling.

The rest of the week went by really fast. Yesterday we went to Lipitsk for Elder Traasdahl to do a baptismal interview with a lady. We actually had to go to a small town village thing where she lived. It was like stepping back in time. I was just joking as we were walking down the street and said, is this her house? Referring to a crooked old cement shack. The sisters said, yep. We knocked on the door and stepped inside. It was warm because they had all 4 burners on the stove going along with the actual oven itself with the door open. All I could think of was how dad told me that uses all the oxygen up, but luckily there is big gaps in the door frame and the windows are really drafty so hopefully they are getting enough oxygen. This woman was from Armenia, she spoke fine in Russian but for some reason she didn't understand very well. That's the reason she didn't pass the interview... oops. I'm glad Elder Traasdahl was smart enough not to pass her. She had some things that you can't just ignore, like the fact that she's not really married to her husband, and she didn't know some pretty crucial things. I'm afraid some missionaries overlook some things when giving interviews. It was crazy to see the conditions people live in. They had a terrible terrible outhouse out back of their house. Most houses around had some old wells in front of their houses.

I'm not sure what else big happened this week, we are in kind of a bad situation as far as investigators, we have been less than effective in the finding department. That will be something that will change starting next Thursday when my new comp gets here!! We just got a call from President Woolley. It was a bit surprising to say the least. Elder Traasdahl is being made AP for his last transfer... don't ask me why. Not that I don't feel like Elder Traasdahl is AP worthy but both he and the current AP are going home next transfer. That's weird to me. That means that I get to stay here in Veronezh. My new companion is Elder Cecil. He is one transfer younger than me, making me the senior companion. I will have a lot of work to do to try to get our area going again. I already have some big plans of things we will be doing different in this companionship. So, after three transfers, I will say goodbye to Elder Traasdahl. There were some good times, and there were some bad times, and there were some really bad times. All in all, I am still going to say that I learned from him. I learned a few things not to do, I learned some things that work, and I learned that I can keep my cool in some of the most trying circumstances. I know how to control my anger while still getting my point across. Elder Traasdahl had some good qualities. He was actually a pretty good leader. He remembered to do things people asked them to do, his only problem was that he has a really short temper and he takes everything very personally. I'm excited to get a breath of fresh air with Elder Cecil. I have only talked to him a few times but he seems like a really good kid. He was one elder that I thought would be a lot of fun to serve with. I'm pretty sure he speaks Russian really well for how young he is, he had a native companion for either one or two transfers. Anyway, I'm really excited about things right now.

Sounds like things are going pretty good back home, what am I going to drive when I get home? How is the blue car holding up? My birthday is coming up isn't it, weird. I think you will never go wrong by sending me oreos or packets of food mix. We have lots of taco seasoning at our apartment, even a big thing of Lawry's seasoning salt. Elder Traasdahl's mom sent him these things called pasta-sides. I used to buy them in wal mart when I was at school. Those were good, but I can't remember if they make enough for two people. Things get shared so if you find things that make enough for two people it would be the best. Hamburger helper was really good. I still have some spaghetti sauce packs. We really enjoyed those muffin mixes. Anyway, I haven't been disappointed once by the packages you send so don't worry too much. I feel like I am accumulating a lot of stuff so it might be smart to send me disposable things. I guess I won't send anything home this week since I won't be leaving Veronezh but someday I will.

I hope the session winds up on time for you dad. What's the economy like these days? That's cool that you guys saw Marie. She is a nice girl, so Aaron is still sick? I thought he just had to lay off the dairy or something. I need to write him and see how he's doing. I haven't heard from him since he told me about his problem. That's too bad.

It is slowly but surely becoming spring here. The sun is coming up in the mornings and staying out all day almost until 6 o'clock or later. We got a bunch of snow a few days ago but it is really nice weather. There are a lot of pretty places here too, there is an investigator we have that lives out in a pretty foresty area. Well, that's about as much as I can think of from here. Things are good, I'm happy and I'm glad I'm here. I love the work and I love learning all the stuff I am. Sometimes I feel like I'm just not the man for the job but other times I feel the support of the Lord helping me out. Thanks for everything. I love you guys and hope you have a good week.

Elder Geddes

p.s. I have a better picture of all four of us where Inna isn't closing her eyes, just not on my camera. The brown water is in our apartment. It's just like that sometimes when they shut our water off and turn it back on. The old guy just looked super Russian. I feel like if you turn it black and white or something it would look cool! Enjoy! Oh, and can you send this to Kayla please?

Mission Experiences

Hello everyone,

Wow, mom, I can't believe you! Ha, I hope you are okay and nothing serious happened, you need to be more careful! There is a girl here teaching English and she was recently with her friends taking pictures outside. She was walking backwards to try to get a better picture and slipped and fell forward. She tried to do the same thing and save her camera instead of her face and she had the biggest fat lip even the next day. She knocked one tooth loose but as far as I know it is fine. Anyway, the moral of the story is, prioritize. You need to save your face before you save your phone or camera! It sounds like you are having a good time there other than the fall, so that's good. Say hello to the kids for me.

Well I just got back from Moscow again this morning. I can't remember if I told you but our zone conference was yesterday in Moscow. It was so much fun and so spiritual. We had Elder Schweitzer of the 70 and his wife speak to us. I got a lot of motivation and promptings from the spirit of how to be a better missionary. I love when we have such powerful meetings like that. After the conference, Elder Traasdahl had a zone leader meeting so me and some of the other companions of zone leaders went out to do some contacting. We did some Dan Jonesing if anyone knows what that is. You probably would recognize the painting of Dan Jones if you saw it where he is standing up in front of a bunch of people just preaching. We did that outside the metro. We split up into groups of two and one person would yell for a few minutes while the other person was trying to talk to the people who were interested. It was scary but a lot of fun. Also, it wasn't that effective so we only did it for a few minutes. The trains were actually pretty good, I slept really well on both of them. We got back this morning at around 7:45. I thought for sure I would get the package you sent me but for some reason I didn't. I think the next chance I have to get it will be in about 2 1/2 or 3 weeks when my companion goes on a visa trip, if we are still together. Transfers will be at around the same time and a lot of stuff could happen. I'm not sure if president will just leave me and Elder Traasdahl together since it will be his last transfer or what. Anyway, I'm excited to find out. Our baptisms are still on but we had to move them back a week. They had a holiday called men's day so people got off of work and school for monday and tuesday. For some reason, that means they have to work on saturday so we had to move it to next saturday. That will be good though, it will give Sergey a few more lessons so he has a better understanding. That's really pretty much all that has been going on this week. I still have those times where I feel very inadequate and feel like I'm not doing anything here. I have never wanted to quit and I never will but I just have been having to work through some down times feeling like I just wake up every day to do the same thing but I think these two people getting baptized will help me realize that work is getting done. Also, we have reactivated a woman! I forgot to tell you about her. Her name is Anna and she hasn't been to church for a really long time. She has nothing against the church but her health isn't all that great. The solution to the problem though, was that she just didn't want to travel all the way to the branch building alone. We worked through the branch council and finally have gotten the branch president to start picking her up every sunday and taking her with him. It has been two sundays in a row now and I am pretty happy about it. It's things like that that help me push through the not so fun times. Anyway, that's about it. I hope you are all doing well. How are you hanging in there dad? Are you about sick of being in session? Hopefully Megan and Mica are having a good time in Vegas. Have a good week everyone and I'll talk to you later. Love you!

Love, Elder Geddes

Baptismal Dates

Hello everyone,

Well, I successfully made it back from my visa trip. I won't lie, I was a little nervous about the whole thing but after all was said and done, I felt pretty good about the fact that I was able to get where I needed to be when I needed to be there in one of the biggest greatest cities in the world. I hated the train ride up to Moscow though. It was so long and boring! When I got in my compartment, I was the last of the 4 to move in. The other three had been in there for who knows how long. There was a man, a woman, and a devushka who was probably about 23 or so. I wasn't too happy about having to share a room with her, the older people didn't bother me but she was wearing some sort of tights pants things and a small t-shirt. I tried to be nice and ask them all where they were from and they just looked up at me like I was some sort of creature and told me where they were from and not another word was spoken to me for the rest of the 13 hour trip. I was pretty bored so I just ended up falling asleep. I woke up around 6:30 or 7 and studied and read and stuff as long as I could and then tried to go back to sleep which just didn't happen for me. I slept pretty poorly and kept waking up to a younger girl sleeping about 2 feet away from me. It was weird. The good thing was that the train lady woke us up at 3:30 for some reason so we could be ready by 5. I was glad to get woken up so I could quit trying to force myself to sleep. Anyway, I honestly felt pretty cool getting off that train. I had packed as light as I could so I had my small jacket with a backpack and that's all. I headed to the metro and had to wait for about a half hour for it to open. I found my metro and made it to the stop I needed to be at. I asked one person which way to go and another person where the certain house was and I found the a.p.'s apartment without problem. My whole group met up there and we ate pretty much every thing in that apartment that qualified as breakfast food. I felt bad for the a.p.'s but oh well. Anyway, it was so much fun to be with my group again. They are all doing really well and we are all growing so much. We spoke Russian to each other mostly all day. We got taken to the airport by our mission driver and just waited for our plane to Kiev. In Kiev we had about an hour and a half, so we thought, so we just kind of walked around. I changed some money and bought a spoon that says kiev. Elder Guynn was so impressed with the money that he changed exactly the same amount of money as I did just so he could keep the bills. While we were there, we saw a couple that looked pretty american pointing at the different souvenirs so I asked them if they were from America. They were so happy to meet us. They had been in Ukraine for around 3 weeks getting approved to adopt a baby. They said it was pretty rough trying to be there that long without knowing the language or having any kind of real translators. They said they went to the store looking to by sugar and milk and came home with salt and yogurt. I can see how that could happen. Anyway, we helped them find out how much a few things were then said goodbye. When it was time to go check in, we all headed to the desk. When we handed the papers to the lady, all she said was, "oh, you'll have to get some different tickets" We had gotten the check in time and the take off time mixed up so we tried to check in about 5 or 10 minutes before take off. They found out how many of us there were and just like last time, made things happen for us and we got on the plane in time. It was a really big blessing. Usually people aren't too kind in airports but the last two times we have been extremely late, there has been one really nice worker who just decides to help us out. Pretty interesting huh. Oh ya, in the airport in moscow I got stopped by a cop. Two days before that, I had gone to this really neat army shop near my house and they have for sale all the different patches, pins, hats, belt buckles, everything you need if you are a cop or military. I bought a cop patch and had Sister Lowery sew it on my backpack. The cop stopped me and said, do you understand Russian? I said ya, and he said, take off your backpack. What is that? I told him it was a souvenir and he simply said, take it off. I took it off and he took it from me and walked away. Crazy huh. It was only 18 rubles so I'll buy another one and probably just wait until I'm home to sew it on. We got back to Moscow after a crazy landing in which we all thought we were dead. The Russians have this thing where they applaud when we land the plane. Some moron started clapping the second a wheel touched the ground and I'm convinced the captain must have turned around to see who was already clapping and we swerved all over the place! It was kind of funny. We got back to the office and got fed dinner. I made it back to the train station, found out which track my train was on and I found my room. I was the first one to move in, followed by one really nice guy. I had been up since 3:30 that morning so I was just so tired. It was around 11 o'clock and I just wanted to go to bed. The guy said the same thing, he told me he was going to go smoke then go to bed but when he got back from his smoke, I guess he felt like talking. I told him I was from America and that's about it, he just went on and on, somehow got onto the topic of the olympics and boxing and some party he went to in Germany. I was just fighting to stay awake when I felt a tap on my arm and the guy said, you can go to sleep now. Ha, I fell asleep while having a one on one conversation with a guy. I said, oh I'm sorry, it's just that I've been up since 3:30 this morning and he said, oh, I see, ya I just was going to tell you... and went on to tell me another 15 minutes worth of stuff about the olympics. Finally I got to go to sleep. I slept really good that night. I got back to Veronizh and headed straight to the branch building. I was so glad to be back. I missed sacrament meeting but I went to sunday school and priesthood after two days of not showering or shaving. It was pretty bad. Anyway, that is the visa trip story for this visa.

It just so happens I had some spiritual experiences this week. I'm really glad Dad served the mission he did though. I see myself learning those same lessons that he learned. I'm grateful for this challenge, I feel like it will make me really search out the spirit and spiritual experiences because I know they happen. Anyway, there are two Russian sisters serving in Lipitsk, the town about 2 hours from here. They were here in Veronezh and asked us for a blessing. I have done the annointing for probably around 15 blessings but I haven't ever done the actual blessing. I felt like this time, I would be picked to give the blessing. They had actually called the night before so I had all night to think about it. I knew for some reason it was going to be me that gave the blessing so I was trying to prepare some stuff in my mind, going over the grammar, making sure I knew how to seal the annointing and so forth. The next day, sure enough, Sister Gorkavenko asked me to give her the blessing. I laid my hands on her head and said her name and was just full of the spirit right then. I can finally say I have sort of had one of those experiences where I was just speaking. And I was speaking well. I'm sure I still made a few mistakes but I just felt good. I gave her a blessing of health and comfort and closed the prayer. It felt so good, I won't forget that day. Another great experience happened yesterday. We had a meeting with a 16 year old named Sergey. His mom is a strong member but he has lived with his dad for most of his life. He knows a little about the church but has just never joined. We have met with him once before, and we tried to meet another time and he supposedly took the wrong bus so he didn't make it. Yesterday, he showed up for his lesson and we taught a good lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ, faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. We challenged him to be baptized on the 27th of February and he agreed. Keep him in your prayers. He is a really good kid and he is ready but it will still be a miracle if we can baptize him on the 27th. He has smoked since he was 7 years old, thanks to a great older brother. He says he has been trying to quit anyway because he doesn't have the money to support the habit and he knows it is not healthy. He seemed pretty confident that it would be no problem to quit so let's hope he can. If he gets baptized, it will be because of the faith of his mother. She has never lost faith that if she does what she's supposed to, the Lord will bless her and her family. She's a really strong woman. We actually have another baptism planned for the 27th, a 23 year old girl named Ina. I don't think I told you about her because I wasn't sure what was going to happen. The sisters here both just got transfered, right after they set a baptismal date with Ina. President figured it would be best if we took her since we know her and it would be harder to all of the sudden have two brand new sisters teaching her. So, we are working with her and are planning to baptise her on the 27th as well. Keep these people in your prayers, baptism is a big step, especially when you are such a minority here.

It sounds like you guys have had a lot of fun lately, I'm sure it was a blast having so much family around. I can't believe Tanner is getting back, that's pretty crazy. It is still getting warmer here and I have gone back to my lighter jacket and don't even really have to wear gloves anymore. I hope this is the end of the winter and we aren't just having some warm days. Thanks for writing, tell everyone hello for me. I'm glad you are all doing so well. I love you guys.

Love, Elder Geddes

Mom's Reasurance

Hey everyone,

The church has switched to a google powered email and so President has asked us all to switch to these new addresses. Let anyone know who doesn't get a weekly email from me. First of all, I got Aunt Shauna's package, it was awesome, I ate it pretty fast though so I didn't have to share as much with my companion! Mom, don't worry about my apartment being too cold, we have the old radiator things on the walls, it's just that when it's really really cold outside, it's pretty cold inside as well. Right now, our apartment is around 68 degrees. The weather has been warming up here, it seems like we might be coming to an end of my first Russian winter. The wind has been blowing a lot lately so it's still pretty cold outside but the sun has been shining a lot and the river is actually starting to melt as well. That's neat that the Lowry's emailed you, they asked for your email address a while ago so I figured they would. They are pretty great people, I really enjoy serving with them. They just recently had a visa trip as well. They go to Finland for their visa trips because they like to go to the temple there. On the way to the airport in Moscow, Elder Lowry got pick pocketed and lost his wallet. He had around 37000 rubles in there that he was planning on switching to Euros in Finland. Also, he had his temple recommend and drivers license in there. I have taken my drivers license out since it doesn't do me any good here anyway, that way if I lose my wallet I will just lose my temple recommend, some money and a credit card, all kind of easy to replace. But don't worry, I don't plan on losing my wallet. I will be in Moscow on the metro by myself this weekend though. I'm not too scared of anything other than getting to the airport on time. I hope everything goes well. There was some really bad communication between us and the office so I didn't buy my tickets until today which means there were no good timed trains for me to get on. I get on a train tomorrow at 4:21 in the afternoon and get to Moscow at 5 in the morning. Don't ask me what I'm going to do from 4:30 until it's time to go to sleep. I hope nobody else is in my room but I'm sure their will be. I hope they are all either quiet business men or just a nice family or something. I don't feel like spending the night with 3 old bobushkas sleeping around me. Either way, I'm sure it will be hot and stuffy and smelly after being in a small compartment for 13 hours straight. So I will meet my group at the airport and go to Ukraine with them. I have a train that leaves at 10:30 that night and it doesn't get back to Veronezh until 11:30 or so the next morning. By that point I will be more than ready to be back in my own apartment in my own city. I'm pretty excited about the whole thing though since I haven't seen anyone from my mtc group in a long time. I can't wait to see them all and hear how they have been doing.

We had a pretty boring week this week, not a whole lot happened. We got to go to Lipitsk yesterday and go on splits with the sisters there. All four of us elders from Veronezh had to go. The main reason for the trip was so that Elder Traasdahl could give a baptismal interview to a girl there. It was a fun trip. On the way back, we had a pretty crowded bus so we just had to find a seat where we could. The very back of the bus had a bench seat all the way across that the other elders ended up sitting on. Elder Traasdahl and I got normal seats in the row in front of them. Once we got going, we looked back and noticed that a very loud guy (holding an empty bottle of what must have been some pretty strong alcohol) ended up sitting in between Elder Waite and Elder Khusainof. He quickly found out that Elder Waite was American and wanted to talk to him the whole ride. At one point I looked back and saw them in the middle of a good ol' fashioned thumb war for some reason. Obviously Elder Waite wasn't understanding all the stuff this guy was saying but he looked like he was concentrating pretty good on the thumb war. The drunk guy had a friend that had obviously been babysitting the guy all day and had had enough of him. The drunk guy started annoying the friend so much that the friend stood up and they started fighting! The friend landed some punches then sat down. I was laughing so hard watching Elder Waite in the middle of this drunken fist fight. Eventually the elders moved to some different seats. We had about a half hour left on the trip when the drunk guy started getting pretty bored. Do you remember the scene from Shrek 2 when Donkey is making that clicking noise with his tongue on the road trip and they tell him to stop then you see the donkey's head slowly come forward right between Shrek and Fionna's head? That's what this reminded me of. Elder Traasdahl was asleep and I was just sitting there when all of a sudden there was a head right inbetween ours. We told him to sit down and he did but then he started coming up again. His phone was ringing and he put his face about 2 inches from mine and said a few times "MAMA... MAMA..." he pointed to me that it was his mom calling. I said Answer it, and he obediently answered the phone and talked to his mom for a few minutes. At one point, he must have felt that the ride was too quiet so he let out a loud whistle. His friend came back and said some stuff to him and he stopped. The guy was harmless, thank goodness, so it ended up just being pretty funny. I was just worried he was going to throw up or something.

Anyway, that seems to be all that has been going on for me. It sounds like you guys are all doing pretty good. That's great that the babies were blessed, I'm sure that was a lot of fun. I was laughing pretty hard at the stories mom told me from the dinner afterward, nothing like a good dog poop story to lift one's spirits. I'm excited to get the pictures when my package comes. I will get to go to Moscow again for Zone Conference on the 24th so maybe it will be there by then. With all this stuff going on, February is going to be gone before I know it. Today is the second Thursday of the month, or, the ultimate p-day as I like to call it. Every month on the second Thursday, the priesthood bretheren get together and have a small lesson followed by a big dinner. For some reason, our branch president thinks it is good for the missionaries to be there. I won't lie, I look forward to it all month. Speaking of food though, I have eaten some pretty nasty stuff lately. This one lady keeps feeding us when we meet with her and it is just not good. The first time it was something called Hollodetz. I remember reading about it before the mission but I kind of thought it was a myth. They take something like the knees and ears of a pig and just boil them for a really long time, like 5 hours or something. They take the bones out and then cool down the junk thats left. What it ends up being is pork jello. You know what grease drippings look like the day after? Or that film stuff on top of homemade soup the next morning? Take that, add some shredded meat, and eat it! It's not good at all. The last time we ate there, she gave us stuff called greshka, which is like a kind of cracked wheat or barley or something. It's not that good but it's tolerable. Along with it she gave us fried eggs, which by fried I mean white on the bottom. She probably cracked the egg and left it in the pan for a total of 10 seconds. It was super runny and gooey. I choked it down though. Sometimes it's not all that fun to be fed.

Well, I'm glad everyone is doing good and having fun. Have fun with all the upcoming activities you have. Thanks for everything, I love you guys.

Love, Elder Geddes