Warming up!

This week was a good week:)   I am so glad we got the chance to talk last week:) It was great seeing and Skyping with you all! A well deserved treat if I do say so myself. I am super happy. 

 

I had a busy travel week last week.  I left Monday night at about 6:30 pm.  I took a train to another town about an hour and a half away - that's where the airport is. At midnight we caught a flight to Khabarovsk, then had a few hours of layover before our flight to Vlad. We got there about 6:30 am. We expected to meet the other elders in the airport but they didn't show up until about 11 am -  haha - so we did some people watching :) There were about 100 sailors that marched into the airport with their rucksacks and uniforms and stuff. Pretty cool:)

Ironically, I never made it into the city of Vladivostok. From the airport I took another train to Artyom (the small city about an hour away from Vlad). I still don't know if there were any packages waiting for me at the mission office.  But when I called there I was told that there wasn't anything waiting for me. Hopefully next time! President Brinton is flying out to visit us this week so hopefully he will bring some mail if there is any. If the president doesn't bring anything then I can check again in 2 weeks when I go to Korea.  

 

Anyways, I worked in Artyom from Tuesday until Thursday and then Thursday night at 8 pm or so we started our flights back to Angarsk. This is probably all superrrr boring to read so I will stop there! Haha but you get the point. 9 hours of flying each way plus layovers and no real food to eat. Only Kit-Kats and Coke. Terrible: p

Crazy 4 am sunrise from the plane:)

Our work in Artyom was pretty average. We were on the street most of the day in the rain. Good thing I brought my blue jacket. It isn't waterproof but it helped:) We met a big guy who was probably 30 or so. He told us ALLL about his days in the Army and how he was the best shooter and this and that and we listened very intently. Russians tend to be able to talk... and talk... and talk.. hahaha it is really quite impressive I dont think I could talk for a long time about nothing like they do:)

The second day in Artyom(Wednesday) while I was getting dressed one of the elders told me that I had a rip in my pants. I took them off to look and it turns out I had a GIANT rip in my pants. Probably a foot and a half long. This went all the way along the back of my pants from the belt line and down. ahahaha I dont know how long that has been there! I hope not too long... I was wearing a jacket the day before, but who knows what the people walking behind us saw! Hahaha whoops:) There was a seamstress close by though so she fixed them for 100 rubles:) (About $2.00)

Ripped Pants!



I had to go to the seamstress dressed like this!

I am super jealous that you met with President Perkinson. He seems like a great guy! It is super weird to think that a ton of the people with whom I have been working will never know him. There are a lot of missionaries going home and they won't have a chance to meet him. Pretty crazy to think about.  I will have almost exactly a year to work with President Perkinson. I am excited!  Without any time to learn the language, I am sure they will be relying on us missionaries to help them understand what is being said.   I have been practicing my translating skills! Hopefully I can keep up and be a blessing instead of a burden:) 

 

You are right, there are not a lot of missionaries in our mission. I heard one time that our mission has the smallest ratio of missionaries per square mile. That means we have the most area to cover per missionary out of all the missions in the world!  I think it is great that President Perkinson is thinking about opening up Yakutsk.  I have heard the city is kinda like the Yeti. We hear stories about it from time to time but I don't know anybody who has ever been there. Of course everyone wants to go there and open it up but in reality there are little chances of it happening. I would love to go hahaha I have no clue what I would do if they asked me to go - but it sounds great!

 

 

We met a cool girl this past week too. Her name is Kristina and she is about 19 or so. We started teaching her the gospel and she was super interested. She was asking questions, coming to church, always asking when the next time we could meet was. Then we got the bad news. She loves Elder Brown... dang it:( Now we can't teach her. We gave her over to the sister missionaries and they teach Kristina now. Oh well, she still is super excited about the Gospel and has a desire to get baptized:) Hopefully she wasn't meeting with us just to get close to Elder Brown. We will find out!

Elder Brown and I went to Papa Johns today! Soup with tea and a calzone for 220 rubles:)  (About $4.50)  Great deal!

That's me palming a basketball haha.  I am super short but I kinda got big hands

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyways, that is about it for this week:) I hope all is well at home, I miss you all <3

 

Stay Frosty 

Elder Gardner