weekly letter

Happy Birthday Jesica!

Dear Family and Friends,

We went and taught two new people on Monday after P-Day was over, Anatolee and Roostan. They were both very nice and enjoyed speaking with us. They seemed to be alright with the gospel and i gave them each a Book of Mormon. 

We went and did some service for Baba afterwards and took Chau. We took piles of weeds and put them in a pile and pulled some weeds as well. We also took a letter to her and helped her read it. We shared a small thought and we were on our way. We both packed for Elder Lau to leave on his Korea trip and for me to go to the other Elders' house.

We woke up early the next day and went to the other Elders' apartment. We got there and we studied and then headed out for the day. We went to Sister Demchenka's and gave her a Liahona for her talk on Sunday.

After that we headed back to stop by a potential investigator but we could not find it and looked for a long time on the street and so we headed back. We made several other stops for potential investigators and less-active members nearby. No one was at home so we went to Country Pizza to find Alex. He was not there but we found out we could probably meet on the 10th of the week.  We also gave the English speaking waitress (we haven't met her before but she speaks alright) an English invite and she said she would try and come.

We then went to English Practice and had only one group that day. We had prepared to talk about people that have influenced our lives, inspired us and how they have guided us. Then we were going to tie it in with the Holy Ghost.

We talked about characteristics of a good role model. We had planned an activity but we didn't do it because they weren't to up for it. We had Elder Ostler tell a story then i gave the spiritual thought about the Holy Ghost from 2 Nephi 32:5. 

My two investigators came but they were talking to Elder Ostler after and didn't want to throw away the Books of Mormon but finally after talking to him they decided to just keep them for now. They were saying they didn't want to meet and talk about religion, they wanted to meet and talk about America and English and not just during English so the plan became to tell them they are invited to activities but we are here to invite people unto Christ.

Wednesday was a day of miracles. We called Chau and he came with us for the day. We stopped at my apartment and picked up a branch list and went back outside to talk to Chau about members we wanted to visit. Chau bought a movie ticket for later so he only had a little time till the movie then he would help us after the movie again.

We started to head over to an address close by and were contacting when we met a man named Dima. We started talking to him and Chau introduced himself. As soon as he did this, Dima immediately started a conversation in Chinese which shocked us all. We told him about the gospel and asked if he had time to go and get a tour of the church.

We took him over to the church and the whole way, Chau and him talked in Chinese while we were able to ask him a few questions. At the church, we ran into Alexander who takes care of the church buildings in our mission. It was great to see Alexander and he said all was good so we could give a tour. We gave Dima a tour and talked to him about the gospel. Chau said he was very interested and he took a Book of Mormon and said he would come meet with us before and during English practice. It was such a miracle to meet someone as nice as him. He was very grateful to have met us and he gave us his number and Chau also befriended him.

On our way out of the church, we ran into the Brysons coming out of their hotel. They had just gotten back from Nakhodka with the senior couple and were going to get the senior couple from their apartment. We talked with them and went to drop Chau off at the theatre. In front of the theatre, we met Edoch who is the husband of Sister Perfiliva and is Elder Ostler's investigator. He is doing great and we invited him to church and to meet the senior couple on Thursday after English practice.

We then headed to an address close by and they were not home so we went to stop at the branch on our way to another member's house so we could pick up another Book of Mormon. When we arrived at the church to pick up a Book of Mormon, we met the new senior couple. Their last name is Vasilov which means fun in Russian and they are great and fun!

We left the church to go stop at the member's house when we ran into Sister Margarita and we said hello and made sure to also invite her to everything. As soon as we were doing talking with Sister Margarita, we ran into this man that was a previous investigator of other missionaries and is very friendly. He is very energetic and loves to talk. We see him every once in a while in the randomest places. We talked with him and took him to the church to say hello to the Brysons and the new senior couple. Elder Bryson gave him a book about Joseph Smith and we gave him a Liahona for this month.

We left the church yet again but this time we actually made it to our destination. The member was not there so we left them a nice note and headed off to another member's house but it said he lived in a government building so we headed towards the theatre hoping that Chau would be done with his movie and could come with us again.

On our way, i saw Lawrence (he is from English practice and really wanted to know about the gospel but we haven't been able to talk to him since) and i told Elder Ostler and we ran to the first crosswalk so that we could run into him. He said hello but had to catch a bus and he was doing great and said he would come to English practice. It was a miracle because we didn't know if we could see him again and the other Elders were going to teach him. We continued to contact to the theatre and we talked with people and we had people who stopped us to talk. We invited a lot of people to English and church today while contacting.

Chau had not called us and his movie was not yet over so we found a bench to sit on and were about to look for one of our addresses to visit when a man asked if we could help him find a street. We said we could do that and i knew where the street was so we started walking with him and soon started to realize that he was drunk when he said he was a champion kick boxer and started showing us his moves like a little kid and was jumping around. We were near the theatre when i received a call from Sister Margarita and let Elder Ostler talk to the drunk man for a minute. The man was not interested in the gospel Elder Ostler said and i tried to help Sister Margarita as best as i could. As soon as Sister Margarita ended the call, Chau was immediately on the phone. 

We pointed the drunk man off in the right direction and he realized that he knew where he was going again and then we met up with Chau again as well. As soon as we met up with Chau, we ran into a very nice man that we had met over a month ago at a sports night. It was just Elder Ostler and i during that sports night and the members said not to contact anyone around us that night because it wasn't a safe situation. The man had gone out of his way to say goodbye that night and had joined us in playing a game. It was amazing to run into the man again and Elder Ostler talked to him for a minute while i was explaining our plans to Chau. 

We had told Chau that if he wanted to spend the day with us that he could have dinner with us and he was super excited. We went to Pyat Plus (the store which means Five Plus) and bought some food and went to the church kitchen to eat it. We were able to talk with Chau for a little while during dinner. Chau is a great member especially since he has only been a member for 3 months and we were very grateful to have him with us for today and he was very important especially when we talked with Dima. He will leave back to China on Sunday so we got some pictures with him. 

We headed with Chau to the bus stop and jumped aboard the first one that was available. Eventually, we got off the bus and walked to Sister Shor's house. We introduced Chau and had a small lesson. We invited her to the activities and to come on Sunday for at least one hour. We then asked her if we could help with anything or get her water. She said yes so we went and got water. Chau thought it was fun so he took pictures of us getting water. Sister Shor was very grateful for the small service.

We left to stop at one more house of a member before the day was over. We were walking and saw a woman coming towards us. She clutched her stomach and fell to the ground in front of us. She asked desperately and in agony if we could buy her some bread. We swiftly ran to the nearest store and waited in a line to get a big loaf of bread. We hurried back and she asked for water so we gave her our water bottles and she quickly drank all of the water we had. She snatched the bread from Elder Ostler and just started biting aggressively at the whole loaf without a care of what she looked like because she was so hungry. She quickly put the loaf back down after a big bite because her stomach wanted to reject the food because she hadn't eaten for so long. She started doing a little better and we talked with her for a minute and she asked who we were. We told her we were missionaries for the church and gave her an invite. She shook our hands very carefully and before Elder Ostler could do anything, she kissed him on the cheek. She started to go to do the same thing to me but i told her i could not and she shook my hand again instead.

We finally made it to the last stop of the day but they were not there so we got on a bus and rode back into the main part of the city. After we got off the bus we ran into two people that Elder Ostler had given a Book of Mormon to a week ago. They were super nice and were interested in getting a Book of Mormon in English but they were leaving to Vladivostok on Friday. We called the Elders there and invited them to church and activities in Vladivostok. 

We headed back to the apartment and saw a small family and decided to contact one last time before we went in. We gave them the Family Proclamation to the World and we headed back in for the night and planned the next day. 

On Thursday we left to the church and called a bunch of people for the small party after English practice to meet the new senior couple and for church on Sunday. We had already met many people and invited people but we wanted to make sure we invited everyone we could.  Elder Bryson came and helped me so that i could print off some traffic signs at the branch for English practice and i had some questions to ask him. After that we headed out to go stop at a member's house. We were close to their house when someone's hands came upon our shoulders. We turned to see a man in motorcycle protective wear and a helmet. 

He talked to us and his name is Alexander but goes by Sasha. He is 23 and was interested in the gospel a little bit. He was very polite to listening. I thought he kind of looked like Sergei at first but then he took his helmet off and he looked different. We asked him what part of the city he was from and surprisingly he was from the South so Elder Ostler pretty much got a new investigator because we set up an appointment for the next day. 

I was talking to Elder Crave on the phone afterwards and two drunk men came up to us. One was wearing a mask and he was the man with no fingers on his right hand. He grabbed us so we ran into a store nearby. A few minutes later he came in and grabbed us again so we got him off of us and ran between some buildings and came out the otherside. When we got back on the sidewalk a few minutes later, they were still following us. We ran through the middle of a block and then walked quickly to my apartment.

When we got to my apartment, my freezer was slightly open for some reason. We cleaned the freezer out and left some shelves out to dry and then we met Chau nearby. We went and got dinner then called a few more people. We set up everything for English practice. A drunk man came into the building and said he was looking for Elder Payne and wanted to come to English practice.  Sister Bryson explained with Sister Vasilova that Elder Payne is gone. He kept saying stuff so eventually we took him outside and sent him to the store to get a snack and said he could come to English practice when it started at 6. 

He came back but this time Elder Bryson was in the building. Elder Bryson left Elder Ostler with Elder Vasilov and asked me how my Russian was. I said it was good and he said, "Well then we will give it a try". We then went into a room and the drunk man was there. I translated for Elder Bryson and we told the drunk man he could come to English practice next week if he did not drink. He tried to argue a little bit and say he was not drunk but it didn't work very well with Elder Bryson so finally he gave in and we sent him on his way.

We had English practice and it went well. We talked about traffic signs and why we have them and how they are different in America. They asked questions about driving in America and it went well. Then Elder Ostler gave a short thought from Mosiah 3:19 about yielding to God and keeping the commandments and following his guidance so that we can be safe and he can take us where he wants us to go. 

After English we had a small party for the new couple. The Vasilovs are great and a very nice couple. They speak English very well and already get along great with the members. We were able to talk with many of the members and there was a lot of treats. We were very pleased with the turn out. 

We left early and were contacting our way back to drop off Chau and go home. Elder Ostler's bag broke because it was so heavy. We ran into yet another drunk person but this time it was a boy. He looked like he was probably 17 or 18. He kept talking and he looked miserable. He went to smoke and just inhaled it like a crazy addiction and the cigarette was gone in about 10 seconds of his inhaling. We eventually made it home and Chau offered his help again for the next day.

We received a call from Kostya on Friday, who is from Vladivostok, that said to be at the church at 12. We said we could so we met him there at 12 and he was visiting for a few days and staying with Sister Margarita. He asked what our plans were and we told him and he said he could help out. He told us to wait a minute because he needed to get dressed so we said okay then he asked for an iron and he was in missionary attire before we knew it.

We went to visit some people and they did not answer and so we started walking away when we saw the member sitting on the bench. Her husband was not there but she was sitting with an older woman. We went over and talked with them and i invited them to church and gave the nonmember a liahona. Kostya helped us talk about the gospel and then  we were on our way again. On our way to the church, we ran into Anatolee who is our new investigator. We said hi briefly and he said he would come to English on Tuesday because he missed it on Thursday.

We finally got to the church where we met Chau. I had an idea because we had so many people to stop by and i called and asked permission to go on a split. I was given permission so i went with Kostya while Elder Ostler went with Chau. We went to an area and ended up by Sister Roomyantseva's house. She had just gotten home from her mini mission a couple days ago. The house was literally nonexistant when we looked at the houses that it should have been between. We stopped by Sister Roomyantseva's house and said hi then met Elder Ostler's new investigator that we had contacted on the street earlier in the week. We talked with him for a minute while he sat on his motorcycle then set up an appointment for Elder Ostler and Elder Crave to meet on Sunday.

We then went back to the church to have dinner and Kostya was talking with me. He pulled out a pin for a tie that had Batman on it and wanted me to have it so i took that as a sign of good friendship. He says he likes me very much. William from English called us and wanted to know if we could play Volleyball. We told William that we could so he came to pick us up with two of his friends.

He wouldn't stop asking us if we would change our clothes to play Volleyball. I refused so he drove us over to a small place nearby. Luckily, none of them were very good at Volleyball. We played for a short time then gave his friend an English invite and told him we had to go. I sent him a text later and told him that we could stay with him longer if he would let us talk about the gospel because he was bummed that we had to leave so early. 

We went back to the church and met with Kostya and Chau who were there playing piano. When we came out of the church building, there were two girls around 16 or 17 that came up to us. They asked if we spoke English. Elder Ostler replied yes and they asked where he was from. They didn't understand him the first time so i explained in Russian again for them then said where everyone else is from. They then asked where i was from and i explained that i was from America too. They told me to speak in English so i did a little and they thought it was cool so we gave them an English invite and we were on our way. 

We grabbed a taxi for our last appointment and dropped Kostya off on the way. We went with Chau and stopped by a house but they were not home so we made our way back home. We met back with the other Elders and eventually got a taxi home. The taxi company was having problems so we got home a bit late but we made it. Elder Lau and i went to bed. 

Saturday was a decent day as well. Kostya called and i told him we would be planning but he wanted to spend the day with us anyway. We met at the church to plan while Kostya was in the other room playing the piano and after planning we looked outside and it was raining super hard. I have maybe seen it rain that hard once or twice in my life. It was raining so hard that all of the taxi companies were busy so they weren't accepting phone calls. It rained so hard in 20 minutes that the streets and sidewalks flooded but were dried up a good amount a few hours later. After it stopped a bit, we left and went to Country Pizza. The power was out there so there were a bunch of workers in the dark and they told us the other restaurant was working. We went to the other restaurant and had dinner with Kostya but Alex was currently in Artyom so hopefully we run into him again in the future.

After dinner with Kostya, we went to sports night. We played this game called potato that is Russian apparently. Basically it is like monkey in the middle except you try to get other people to miss catching the ball so there is more people in the middle and if a person in the middle catches the ball, they get to switch out with someone in the outside circle. If there is more than one person in the middle, you can hit people in the middle with the ball for fun but if there is one person and you hit them with the ball then you have to trade places. We also played soccer and the turn out for sports night was pretty good (around 12) considering there has been almost no one recently. We participated a little bit and found someone to play with everyone else but then we left early to go say goodbye to Chau.

When we went to go say goodbye to Chau, he was super happy. We got pictures together and i had prepared a small spiritual thought. It was about bringing souls unto Christ and how great shall his joy be because he was helping us and if he continues to do this and endure to the end by building up Zion then he shall have eternal life which is the greatest gift of God. He really liked a scripture that said how beautiful upon the mountains we will be if we build up Zion. We gave him hugs and said goodbye.

We finally made it home for the night but a tree had fallen earlier in the day from the storm and so we had no power in the apartment. We talked about our plans in the dark and prepared for bed. Elder Crave called and was talking to Elder Lau who said our power was out but then i thought about it and i could hear the fridge on again. I told him to wait a minute and i turned the lights back on. 

Sunday was a busy day. We went to church and our number has gone back up a little which was great. We had President Brinton at church because he called the Elder Vasilov from the new senior couple to be 1st counselor and extended a few other callings. After church we talked to Artyom about Duty to God and then we had a small thought with Kostya about some scriptures then shared some of our favorite scriptures. 

When we were finally able to leave, it was around 5. We were walking home when we got stopped by two boys. We were talking to them and Elder Lau and I were each having a separate conversation with one of them (One was 15 and the other 17) and we understood each other very well. We eventually went to a bench close by under the shade and shared the gospel. We invited them to English and set up an appointment to meet afterwards. I gave them each a restoration pamphlet and one of them said he was Muslim and i asked him what is wrong with learning about our religion. I told him that it helps me and maybe learning some of the principles will help him. He agreed to take it and we came back and had dinner.

After dinner we left to meet Sister Demchenka and her family at the church. We ran into Sister Nadezda and her family on the way. We talked with them a few minutes and they felt friendly towards us which is good progress because we stopped to visit earlier in the week and they didn't let us in. We met Sister Demchenka at the church for Elder Lau and Elder Crave to be registered. We were waiting on Elder Crave so we shared a small spiritual thought for her and asked what she needed us to pray for. We came home and planned for P-Day.

The greater the faith, the greater the works, the greater the miracles! If we learn to recognize these miracles then it can build our faith and the process can start all over again! Pray to find the light and for the light to find you then work for it. I love you all! -Elder Elwood

 

good week, elder barney went home, being of service

Dear Family and Friends,

My last week with Elder Barney has been a good one. We got some good things done before he headed home.

I gave the spiritual thought at family night on Monday from Mosiah 2:17 and basically asked who are other people in our lives and then expounded off of that (the answer i eventually wanted was neighbors). Next i asked who our neighbors are (people next door, work with, go to school with, play with, etc), how can we love our neighbors (lots of good answers and then the answer at the end is by serving), then how can we serve our neighbors (sharing the gospel was the answer to continue the discussion but it is good to let members come up with other good ideas they can use as well), why do we share the gospel if we love our neighbors (because if we love our neighbors and want to serve them then we will want to share the gospel with them), what is bad about the gospel (the members said nothing is bad about it so that leads into the last question) and what is holding us back from sharing the gospel (the members discuss some things that make it hard for them to share the gospel which can be referred back to general conference such as overcoming fear with faith). I was told my Russian is very good so far and Sister Aytaleeyeva (Russian Sister Missionary) has been asking for help to learn some English when i see her and so she has been asking for some language learning ideas. We had a good amount of people at family night again so i was proud(: Afterwards, we gave Cveta a blessing because she was having bad dreams.

After English practice on Tuesday, we had stuff to do which was good because there was no one to talk to after because we decided we aren't talking much with William and Makceem anymore since they aren't interested in the gospel. Artyom, the priest in the branch, is getting ready to go to a big youth conference in Russia and he was acting nervous so we gave him a blessing after English practice and he was really grateful for it. 

We had two kids stop us and ask us what we were doing in Russia when we were on our way home. They seemed interested in the gospel at the beginning. One of the kids asked a bunch of questions about the gospel and we answered him but nothing ended up happening when we asked to teach more.

During district meeting this week, we talked about lift and drag which is something from zone conference. We talked about how airplanes need more lift than drag to take off and the less drag and the more lift that they have, the better it takes off. As missionaries, we need to look for the things that are causing drag and become more obedient but then also find things that make us lift so that we can take off.

We went to Sister Pyskol's apartment after district meeting. She asked on Sunday if we could come over on another day because she wanted to say bye to Elder Barney. We went over and had a good conversation with her and i shared a few verses with her from 2 Nephi. She had us stop by and pick up a treat the next day because the power had been off most of the day and she had something she wanted to make for Elder Barney. 

We had a lesson with a man named Vladimir. He came and he was super nice and showed us some pictures of his family. We showed him some pictures, talked about the gospel, the family proclamation to the world, and gave him a Book of Mormon and asked him to read it. After that, we gave him a church tour and he left. He is a super nice man and he is now a new investigator but we really need to plant a seed of faith in him.

We went and had a surprise visit with Yevgenni as our last event of that night. He hadn't been answering the domaphone or his phone so i came up with the idea to call a neighbor to let us in. We got in eventually and knocked on his door. He didn't answer so we knocked one more time just to make sure he heard and eventually he came.

Yevgenni said that he has been in the hospital. He couldn't talk very well since they had shoved a camera inside him and it was hard for him to say much. He said that he wasn't sure if he could come to church.

We headed over to Baba's house on Friday. We picked some stuff for the Bryson's at her garden because they helped her so much with it and she wanted them to harvest their plants. We talked with Baba and the Brysons inside and had brownies and helped translate. Elder Barney and the Brysons left so it was a good visit to do beforehand. She was also very happy they all came and i feel it was a very good service. 

We went to go stop at some addresses of previous potential investigators and had a great time contacting on the way. I started a conversation with a man named Valyera and we had a mini lesson with him. He was very nice and wanted to know more but wouldn't really give us any contact information unfortunately. We talked to some other people and felt like this part of our area will be super fruitful so we are going to work with it more in the future. We talked with another man named Sasha. I stopped him and i didn't think it was really going to go anywhere but we kept talking. Elder Barney testified and the man kept talking with us while he was with his girlfriend and then asked how we could meet with us again. I gave him an invite to church and he seemed enthusiastic to come when he can. He avoided giving us his number then i showed him the English practice invite because he tried to speak a little English as we were going and i had taped some English invites inside of the Sunday invites. 

We were so blessed with good contacting that we were enthused to do better. We talked to so many people that we didn't have time to actually do any stops to the people we planned but we almost got some new investigators and didn't have any appointments set up.

Saturday was a small day to get Elder Barney ready to go home. I helped him pack, did some studying, a little cleaning, cooking, and some packing of my own. We made a few stops then Sister Ayteleeyeva called and asked for a blessing so we headed over to the church and gave her a blessing because she hadn't been able to sleep.

After church on Sunday, Elder Barney and i got in the car with Zhenya and he dropped me off at the other Elders' apartment where i said goodbye to Elder Barney. We ate dinner and then headed out to some appointments. We went to Edik who is the husband of Sister Perfiliva. We had a lesson about things he is worries about and he is a good man. I shared with him the big picture of the gospel and tried to get him to make a baptismal date but he wasn't comfortable yet so he didn't. We gave Elder Ostler a blessing because he wasn't feeling well and we went to bed early. That was my week! We did some good service, gave some blessings, we were blessed with good contacting, i will be getting a new companion on Wednesday, and we are ready for another week! Love you all, Elder Elwood

Picture attachments:

1. Giant spiders that they have all over outside. You are fine as long as you don't walk into their web. There is no problems with them coming inside and i rarely see any bugs in the apartments of anyone ever and they aren't big or anything.

2. One miserable cat after the rain. 

3. A random building i saw that was interesting

busy week preparing for baptism

Dear family and friends,

This week has been busy because we were preparing Lev for baptism. After groceries last Monday, we went straight over to Lev's house even though it was P-Day. We had a great lesson with Lev. He said he was going to China the next day (he didn't end up going) then he said it was only for a day because he could ride a bus to China in two hours. We asked him if he wass ready for baptism on Saturday and he said okay let's do it and shook Elder Barney's hand. 

We gave him the commandments to follow the prophet, keep the word of wisdom, and to obey and honor the law of the land. He easily accepted all of them and is ready to go. We really reinforced the whole lesson even though he didn't seem to have much doubt about being baptized. We wanted to make sure he was super solid for baptism. 

We went to family night that night and it was pretty successful. We had President Shadruhen show up with his family and Sister Perfiliva showed up and brought a nonmember friend. Her friend seemed nice throughout family night and the sisters are hoping to teach her.

We woke up at 5 on Tuesday and got ready to go for the day. We headed over to the other Elder's apartments and i laid on the bed. I wasn't able to fall asleep because i was so hot but then Elder Ostler was nice enough that he came and plugged the fan in so it was blowing on me and i fell right asleep. We had our studies together and then we headed out to go to Pasha's house. Pasha wasn't there so we decided to contact back to our next appointment. We saw an old man sitting on a bench so we both had the idea to contact him so we did. He was really nice but not interested in the gospel. While we were talking, eventually more and more old men kept coming out to sit with him because they are all friends and eventually there were about 6 old men interested in talking to the Americans and their broken Russian but maybe one of them was almost interested. 

We couldn't understand them very well but they enjoyed talking to us. We hope to see them again when one of us or our companions better understand what is going on. They were nice enough to help us call a taxi when we needed to go though. We met with Yevgenni next. We taught him the last part of the plan of salvation. It was super hard and we struggled but we let him know at the beginning that we would talk slow and used a couple how to begin teaching points. 

Yevgenni was super nice throughout the whole lesson. We taught him then told him that he said he would come to church either last week or this week so he could see Elder Barney before he leaves. I told him that Elder Barney really wants to see him at church and would be super happy. He said we could call and remind him and that he would come and try to make it for 2 hours. We then talked about baptism. I told him i had a question and he let me word it slowly and carefully. I told him how important baptism was and asked what he thought. 

He responded by saying that it is hard and that there might be a conflict with his family so i repeated it with emphasis again. I asked him what HE thought about baptism and he said that he feels like it is important and that what we say is true. I then asked him if his family felt good about it, we helped him, and he felt ready, if he would be baptized on August 24 then i re-emphasized/asked again twice later to make sure he had said that. We had a great lesson and i told him Elder Barney would help review everything later. I asked when we could meet next and he said Sunday and then we talked and set up an appointment for Sunday.

The next day, I woke up at 3 and woke up Elder Ostler because i bumped the clock off the nightstand. Elder Ostler woke up so i asked him the time and he fiddled with his clock and giggled and said, "oh it is 3, we still have 2 hours left to sleep." Later i figured out that he didn't remember fiddling with his alarm clock and he turned the alarm off.

Luckily, i kept waking up and eventually woke up to tell Elder Ostler that our bus was leaving in 3 minutes. He tried to get up and i said that there was no way we were going to make it. The buses leave on time, he still had to get ready and then another 15 minutes to walk there. I told him to get ready as fast as he could since i was pretty much ready in 5 minutes.  We finally got out to the bus station and i saw a bus so we quickly got on. I asked the driver if it was for sure going to Vladivostok and he said yes so i got us two tickets.

I didn't know exactly how to get to the mission office but i had a general idea to get us there and i was very confident. I found a bus stop but it was facing the wrong way so we walked a little while and finally found one when Elder Barney called to make sure that we were getting there. Eventually we made it to the branch in Vladivostok with 10 minutes to spare. It was a great zone conference and i took lots of notes.

After zone conference, Elder Barney went through some of his stuff, i picked out a winter jacket for later and then had a brief interview with the President.We missed the last buses to Ussurisk and so we headed to the train station. We missed the last train to Ussurisk so we went to the assistants' apartment and sent everyone else to other apartments as well.

We got ready the next day then headed to the train station. We all got tickets and boarded the train. On the train, Elder Crave went to contact some people. While he was talking to one man, the woman next to him seemed irritated but then she became super nice and they had a great relationship by the end. Another lady who just happened to be on the city bus with him the other night got up and yelled to the people not to listen but they did anyway. Apparently she did the same thing on the bus the other day too. I didn't just want to sit there while everyone else was sleeping so I got up and sat by him and he looked at me and i told him that i was his companion. I knew i couldn't say or understand much but i said a few things and was just there for support.

Elder Barney got up and sat by the lady who was yelling previously which got Elder Ostler to wake up a bit and they both talked to her to prevent her from saying anything further. We had a good conversation and invited them to things and i think Elder Crave got one of their numbers for a referral.

Eventually i saw a man on the train and there were only two other people on the train and the man was finally awake so i wanted to go talk to him. I went to the man and was talking to him in Russian but he wouldn't respond. Finally he said in a very sickly voice that he can't hear well. I gave him a pamphlet and slowly/loudly said i wanted to give him it and hoped he heard. He smiled and took it and just smiled the rest of the train ride. I felt good afterwards but it didn't feel like much.

We came back to the apartment and ate and got cleaned up. We headed over to Lev's house and gave him a lesson to finish up everything he needed to know for baptism. He received everything well when we talked about the rest of the commandments and committed. We talked to him about details of the baptism and prepared him for the interview. It was a great lesson.

Afterwards, we were headed over to another appointment. There was this lady that was very interested in us. She walked with us a while and we talked. It was interesting but i didn't understand a lot. Elder Barney later said that she was interested in interviewing us. We told her we couldn't but we guessed that she had her camera rolling and sitting in her bag facing us the whole time. We guessed this after talking with her. She gave me her number and said to call her if we found out if we could have our names published. 

On Friday we went to the branch to get Lev's interview done. Lev showed up a half hour late but all was good.. eventually. His wife hadn't signed the permission form yet. We all watched the restoration video and we did the interview anyway! He was ready to go except for his wife's permission.

Kostya showed up. He is a member from Vladivostok and is very solid. Kostya stayed with us throughout the day and it was good. We started planning and then we eventually went to dinner with Kostya at Country Pizza. After Country Pizza we went over to Lev's house with Kostya and we had a long discussion with his wife, Ereena, who finally signed his document so he could be baptized and she also decided to come. We went back to the church and planned some stuff for the baptism then we took Kostya to the Bryson's apartment and came back and planned for the big day.

We left early the next day and went to fill up the font. Elder Barney couldn't get the pump working so i started filling the font with buckets. We called the other elders and got the pump working while we used buckets to fill it up as well. We got everything ready and Lev was all ready to go.

We went through the program and Sister Alla read a poem as her prayer and it was strange. Then the baptism went well and we ended with the hymn Teach Me To Walk In The Light. We all had refreshments afterward. We are proud of Lev for being baptized. We were also very glad to have Kostya from Vladivostok at the baptism and he performed a special musical number on the piano which was How Great Thou Art.

On Sunday at church, Lev showed up and he received the Holy Ghost. Lev stayed through priesthood today and that was the first time he has ever done that while i have been here. I am so glad to have him come but he will be leaving for a few weeks on a short vacation. He is a great new branch member already so we are going to make sure we keep in contact while he is gone.  We headed out later and stopped at Sister Pyskol's house. We talked to her about paying tithing and she does but it was a good, small review. We gave her the sacrament and we headed out again.

It was raining all day and super hard so it was a wet day. We met up with Artyom and stopped at tons of places for investigators and branch retention but nobody answered. Artyom slipped and fell in a mud puddle but he was alright and got cleaned up at the church. It has been a busy week preparing for a baptism and being in Vladivostok so we got a lot of things done! Love you all! -Elder Elwood

Lev was baptized this last week.  I hope that all of you will join our family in praying for lev's wife that her heart will be softened and that she will join the Church and that they can be supportive of each other.  

new posts

HI, I am Jacob's mom and I have gotten behind.  I apologize.  Here are the last few letters and pictures from him and I hope you enjoy them as much as we are.  He would love to hear from any of you.

pictures of jacob and the area where he serves

These are pictures of Jacob in his new wool coat, the pizzeria that they go to and the owner is an investigator, a church, the ocean and a ferris wheel, the city

jacob's letter

On Monday Elder Barney and I went to the Chinese market. I found a nice lighter jacket but still really warm and got it for $68.75. It will probably work great as a winter jacket in Utah. Elder Barney has the same jacket but it is grey and he spent around $80 on his. I really like mine and am excited to wear it. I bartered with the lady and pretended to want another one and then brought the price down after she said she wouldn't go lower than $80. 

We went to family night and we had a lot of fun with the members. We played the hide the pen game and i have been lucky to find it in the room very fast every time. It was great to have different missionaries with us that haven't been to this area (Elder Crave and Sister Morgan) and it helped with the members.

A lady named Zeenaeeda needed help with her garden while the sisters were gone for a couple days on transfers so we went and helped her on Wednesday. Her garden just outside of the city. We rode a bus and then walked to her garden. We found out really fast that we were paying for her bus ride when she walked right off the bus without paying and the bus driver and us were both really confused. 

We went and dug out a bunch of weeds and planted potatoes for her. The area was very pretty to look at.

We headed back and cleaned up and our landlord was ready to meet soon. I had done a little cleaning during dinner to make the apartment look nice. The landlord came he collected our money and said that he wanted to bring someone into our apartment because he wants to sell it. The people had left so they didn't look that night but we might have to look for a new apartment soon or we will have a new landlord i am not sure. 

English was quite interesting on Thursday. We had a man show up with another man who has been coming every week for the last few weeks. The man came and he was older and he was very fun to have there.

The man's name was Valyera. He asked my name and i told him and then showed him. He told me that it must be Russian then he asked if i was Russian and i told him no but he said it sounded very Russian (we are speaking in English). He also couldn't comprehend why we were called elder in Russian. Throughout English he kept telling me how my name was really great and similar to his then he said, "How can you not be Russian? Why are your eyes so dark? You are Russian!" I told him i was just fine with that. There was some really funny things said throughout English. The man talked about how Russia will be the 51st state and i told him it would make a great new state. I also told him he was 28 every time he said he was old and he liked that as well. For some reason he was talking about money for a little while and kept handing me bills. We talked about food and it went silent for a minute and he said "I love BBQ!" and everyone busted up laughing. The whole time he kept leaning over and asking me things so it was funny. 

We invited the man back. He is a librarian and knows a lot about his history. He said we were very friendly and there were lots of hilarious things that he talked about. 

We went to Country Pizza after English because it is the 4th of July and Alex wanted us to come and we were hoping to get his number so we can get a new investigator. We got there and the restaurant was full. Alex was wearing a really funny costume that we got a picture with.

Our waitress spoke some English because Alex told her to talk to us. He came over and made sure she was speaking English as well. She spoke alright and she was really proud of it. At the end she tried to ask us if we liked it and said would you like the pizza house. It was really funny and it took us a minute to understand her. We gave her an English card and gave Alex a bunch for his friends when we walked out. 

Alex gave us some red, white, and blue balloons as we went out. There was a man trying to sing these English songs that are old and i have never heard of in the restaurant. Alex brought us two huge waters at the beginning and said, "two huge waters" then he smiled and said, "on the rocks." On the other days we had a lot of missionary things like planning, church, the usual things, etc. 

Well that's about all for this week. Hope you all had a great 4th of July! -Elder Elwood

Jacob's July 14th letter a week of miracles

Dear family and friends,

It has been a week of many miracles and successes! I have been staying very busy with Elder Barney and we have served very diligently. Here is my update from the last week:

On Monday we went and I got my second Russian haircut but this time I spoke to the lady in Russian. She asked me how I wanted it done and we were able to understand each other enough during the haircut that it turned out how I wanted. 

Tuesday was an interesting day and probably one of the best so far. We made pizza with my recipe for lunch. The pizza was not very good in my opinion because we decided not to use the yeast because there was a dead fly in it and it looked old. We made a non-yeast recipe and there were a few other minor changes that should make the pizza a lot better next time.

After lunch we went around to visit a lot of people and give lessons. We decided to really focus on first strengthening the members by getting people to church and activities. Sister Pyskol was the first person that could meet. We met with her and talked to her about helping her grand daughter, Natasha, get to church. We met mostly because she didn't answer on Sunday when we called for the sacrament and wanted to make sure she was doing alright. 

After that we went to the Nadyezda family. We talked to them about coming to church also. For each of our stops that day we tried to get a referral by using the lesson and offering to help and asking them whom they would know. We are going to call their family on Sunday and remind them to come to church because they are working on it but the reminder would be helpful for them.

After dinner we headed to English and that is when the day got even more interesting. We got there and were helping members with things and people started coming in early for English. We had Lawrence, who came on Thursday and was the really funny person that liked to talk a lot and William brought him. Then William also brought another friend with him. We had Mr. Eugene there as usual, who made comments about some things we said not being realistic and he doesn't think about stuff like that and pretty much couldn't comprehend anything unrealistic. 

We also had this person who was new for the first time and didn't know English as well as the others but wanted to be in the more advanced group anyway. He had just gotten out of the army and was glad to be there. We also had a few other people and it was very interesting. Before English practice, William said they brought a guitar and asked Elder Barney if he wanted them to bring it in and play for part of English practice. Elder Barney said that it would be great. Elder Barney was doing something on the computer while i was watching William and his friend bring in this huge amp and guitar. I asked Elder Barney if he knew what he had gotten himself into and he said, "why, what happened?". 

We started English and Lawrence pulled out a ton of Russian quotes (probably like 40) that he had tried to translate using google translate. He said he knew they weren't translated well and he wanted some help and we said we would talk to him afterwards. I told them that we would give them the last 10 minutes of English practice to play guitar and they were satisfied with that. 

We had an interesting conversation during English practice and talked about what they would do if they could go back in time and most people didn't want to but others wanted to change something about their past. When we first started English we had everyone introduce themselves and say something fun they did in the last week. William said that he went and played sports with the Mormons and it was awesome. He says he is atheist (he is 28 but looks 18) but he started coming to activities, inviting friends and he stayed for the spiritual thought after English. We have his number and he is currently a potential investigator.

At the end of English practice, Lawrence went and played on the guitar. He made Elder Barney sing Yesterday by the Beatles and it was very interesting to listen to. We had Lawrence singing the lyrics but he had been trying to imitate the singer so he suddenly sounded like he had less of an accent but you could hear him trying so hard at the same time and he still had a small accent. Then at some parts his accent would come back in heavy while Elder Barney was trying to read the lyrics and it sounded super funny together. It was funny how they asked Elder Barney if he had heard the song then made him sing it.

After English i gave the spiritual thought. I talked about why God allows bad things to happen then i ended by saying that God loves us and by talking about our purpose on Earth. This apparently got Lawrence thinking. After our thought, Elder Crave went and played a little on the guitar with some of the people after English and Sister Perfiliva was talking to Elder Barney and me about ideas from how we celebrate Pioneer Day because we might do a branch activity based on it. I gave her a few ideas and she liked them a lot so we will see what happens.

After that we went and talked with Lawrence because we promised him several times we would help him with English things and he kept saying he was interested in our religion. He says things that kind of seem uneasy at first and we think he is going to say something bad but then he says something that agrees with the church beliefs every time and surprises us. 

He said many things about how he had studied our religion a little bit and he sees that we have much conviction and that we have such a strong faith in our church and that he wants to know more. He said that there are so many religions but that ours seems like it has more truth than any other religion and kept saying different things like that. He asked if we could teach him about it and asked for our number and we asked for his. He said before he left that if we could help him with this then he would help us ten times back and was super serious about it. It was a very interesting conversation and we are going to let the other elders teach him.

We went and had a lesson with Artyom about home teaching and set up some appointments for the next day when we had an exchange. We surpassed some of our goals so it was an amazing day. After everything was done, I came back with Elder Crave and we planned. It was a good day and i missed a lot of details because it was so packed and busy.

The next day, Elder Crave and I had great studies and it was fun being with him for the day and doing things. We went out and were more successful than Elder Crave thought we would be and we were busy again. We went and had a lesson with Volva first. During our lesson with Volva we reviewed with him the first four commandments. We asked him questions and made sure he knew that we were reviewing. He said he didn't have any questions and he was just good with everything we said. It was a good lesson and i spoke a good amount of Russian.

After our lesson with Volva, we headed out to do our drop by lessons. We walked way far out to the edge of the city and finally we arrived at Sister Shor's house. She was there and we talked to her about her daughter who is on a mission then we shared an article out of the Liahona. Afterwards we went and got water for her and there were a bunch of little boys playing with the pump and anxious to help when we went to fill up our water. 

We headed over to another man's house who was an investigator. He didn't answer so we got someone to open the door so we could go into the apartments and leave a Liahona at his door with a note. We went to put it on his door and right as we turned around, he opened the door naked but poked his top half out and said just a minute. We talked with him and he is lonely but Elder Crave is hoping to get him to church eventually. 

Finally we took a bus back and went to Elder Crave's apartment. We had 20 minutes till Elder Barney was going to call so we could meet back up. We hadn't really had dinner except for a candy bar so i told him we could relax, eat or i could help him bust out some cleaning. He asked if i would help him clean and i said yes i would. I asked him what he wanted to clean and he said the study room because that is where he needed the spirit to study.

During the day with Elder Crave i was surprised because he was taking notes on me all day especially during companionship study because apparently he was learning so much. He just kept listening to my ideas and just thought i had good stuff i guess. We met back up with Elder Barney and went home for the night.

Thursday was a great day of miracles. We had district meeting and we went and talked about getting people to church. All of our companionships have been working really hard on getting people to church this week, Sister Brinton happened to call earlier in the week and say that we were working towards 400 people at church on Sunday as a mission so this was already a good week to do it since we were working extra hard already this week. Then we planned to talk about it at district meeting and work for the rest of the week with it and we have already had great successes and miracles during the week.

We went to Pasha's house after district meeting. We have been trying to meet with him, stop by, call, etc and haven't been able to meet with him. Finally we stopped by again since we happened to be closer to his house than Yevgenni and he was there. We went in and he had a nice computer sitting there so after we talked about his life, i asked if we could share an I Am A Mormon Message off of mormon.org. We had looked at them a couple weeks ago to see if we could share some more often. We used one today and it was good because he plays music a lot and is in a band. He thought it was cool because Brandon Flowers plays music and had a good life but decided he wanted something better so he went for it. We invited him to church and i asked if we could call him on Sunday and he said why not so that was a success that we could call him.

We had some kids that said hi in English as we left Pasha's house. We talked to them for a minute and they understood a little English and talked in Russian as well. There was probably about 8 of them and they were interested in English so i gave all of them an English practice card because they all wanted one. We hurried to get to the church and we stopped by the store nearby and grabbed some dinner. English was good that day and nothing unusual. We talked about a variety of things. 

When we first got there, William showed up and Sister Morgan showed up after. She asked him about how they greet and hand shakes. He was explaining that normally girls really only greet by talking but he said by the mouth. Sister Morgan said oh goodness and left.

I had to explain to William that it sounded like kissing and he kept saying it was about talking. I explained that it sounds like kissing and he said oh. After that i went and made sure Sister Morgan understood his struggle to say it so he wouldn't feel awkward. William said that he wants to be married to a religious girl so that she has good morals. I thought that was interesting since he doesn't believe in God right now so he says.

The people we went to visit after English had apparently moved so we got a taxi. Elder Barney didn't remember Yevgenni's address so we got dropped off by Lev's house. We stopped by Natasha's house and didn't go in but she said she has Sunday off so she will be coming to church. That was another miracle since no one can even talk to her and then she told us she was coming to church before we said anything.

Yevgenni wasn't home so we came back and planned. While we were planning, we got a phone call from Elder Clark and he had a referral for us. We had tons of backup plans suddenly when we didn't even think we could fill in one spot of time. We had miracles just while planning.

On Friday, we had our studies and in the middle we had to stop and go to the church. Sister Demchenka called and said that some of the city authorities wanted to stop by the church and find out about it. They showed up and looked around and Sister Demchenka gave them a tour. 

The lady was very interested by what we do and asked a lot of questions. When she left, we gave her a bunch of books and pamphlets she asked for and she was interested in getting to know more about Mormons.

We went to Yevgenni on Saturday and he just happened to be coming home from the doctor so that was a miracle to meet with him because we had been trying for weeks. We asked if we could meet shortly and he took us inside. We taught him the first part of the plan of salvation after showing him our families. I talked about Elder Barney leaving and said that we wanted him to come to church before he leaves. He said that he will try hard to come either this week or next week before he leaves which is a huge step for him. He always gets excited and brings his Book of Mormon in during both meetings i have been to.

We stopped in at Country Pizza later in the day and asked if Alexander (the man we always talk to) was in and the girl said yes I am Alexandra. We told her no and we wanted Alexander and she took us to another Alexandra and finally she said that he wasn't in. I was thinking about how many people with the name Alexander(ra) could there possibly be.

We got to the church on Sunday and got stuff done with not too many problems. We called a lot of people we had stopped to visit to give lessons and invite them to church because they said it would be helpful if we could call and remind them and then they would come. We worked super hard this week to get people to church. Sister Morgan wanted a blessing so we gave her one then Sister Aytelova also then wanted one so we gave both of them blessings. Sacrament meeting started and Lev showed up but this time he brought his wife. We asked her to come to church and she said she couldn't but yet she showed up. During sacrament meeting, Lev found a baptismal service program in his hymn book and kept looking at it and talking to his wife about it so i thought that was something good.

Sacrament meeting was smaller than i have seen it before but we were glad to have our two investigators show up and know all is well with them. We also knew that even though it was small, we tried our hardest all week and Lev's wife showed up so we still saw the little miracles. I showed Volva how to pass the sacrament today for his first time and did it slow and carefully so he could follow and he did a great job and is a great new member. After sacrament we went and set two members apart for their new callings and they seem excited to do the things they have been asked to do.

The sisters came up to us and told us that there was no sunday school teacher for one of the classes and that they didn't prepare anything and weren't ready to teach a lesson. I said we are missionaries and are always ready. Then i looked in Sister Roomyantseva's class and no one was in there yet. I suggested that we could combine classes today since there was no one in her class so Elder Barney asked and that's what we did.

We gave the lesson in priesthood and went over some of the priesthood duties to help the priesthood holders in the branch. After church we went and did some clerking stuff and held branch council. This was the first time we have had branch council since i have been here but Elder Barney had me sit outside the door so i am not sure how it went. I talked to Artyom while the meeting was going on and we had a good conversation about cooking and he helped me with some words.

When we got home i had Elder Barney make some chicken while i made homemade fries and made banana bread batter to bake it later. This time i used the Paula Dean recipe i asked my mom for. After dinner i kept trying to call people with Elder Barney so we could meet a few last goals for the week. No one could meet and so we headed to Sister Pyskol and gave her the sacrament and a small lesson. We didn't find anyone on the way back so we worked on the branch retention plan while the bread was baking. The bread was a lot better than the recipe i used last time and was sweeter so i liked it.

My Russian has been getting better. The last few days I have been able to understand things and say things really well and it is a good blessing I have been able to receive. Love you all! -Elder Elwood