Hey! What’s up? It is so weird to
think that my birthday is in 3 days! I don’t feel any older:) I feel still
young and vibrant! It feels like I don’t have a birthday. We are always
hurrying somewhere and rushing to do something. We don’t have a whole lot of
time to think about birthdays and stuff :) Haha
Yellow water coming out of our shower. Yuck. :)
I am glad you liked the pictures! I
haven't sent any in a while :( The Hare
Krishnas are SUPER nice people. They are definitely a force for good in the
world I just don’t really know what they believe in. They have interesting
beliefs but strong morals and I think that is great. I didn't know their church
was a worldwide thing! Pretty cool, if you see them make sure you say
"Hare Krishna" as a hello. That is how they say hello to each other
:)
I had the pop rocks in my sumka (my
bag) because I wanted to give the poprocks to some Russians on the bus ride
over there. They have a form of pop rocks here but it isn't the same. All the
people who tried them think they are the coolest thing :)
At the Elder Nelson conference last
week we all sang a version of "I know that my Redeemer lives".
"Я знаю жив искупитель мой" or Russian/English "Ya
znayoo zheev eeskoopeetel moi". It was really pretty! I decided the day
before the conference that I didn't want to be bothered reading the words off a
paper... so I memorized it :) Oh and I didn't know this either but Elder Nelson
speaks a bit of Russian. He could bear his testimony in Russian. Pretty
awesome!
I am not too sure why Elder Nelson
was in Russia. After our meeting he flew on out to see Lake Baikal with
President and Sister Brinton. Luckyyy! Elder Nelson was really complimentary of
us. He finished his talk and stepped down from the podium and right before he
walked out the doors he said two things to us. "Tell your parents I love
them, and tell them thank you for sending us the very best". At most every
zone conference or big training that we have with the missionaries and
President Brinton they tell us how great we are as missionaries and they tell
us we are the best. I don’t know if that is a common thing in missions, where
the president and wife praise the missionaries openly :) But sure does help to
keep us enthusiastic about the work... I kind of like it. haha
We made cake. Yum.
My week was overall pretty good. We
had a baptism! Kristina, the one who loves Elder Brown, got baptized. She was
making comments this whole week about how she was scared of the water and how
she wasn't too pumped about being under the water for a long time. We kept
assuring her that it would be quick – just down and up quickly and there would
be no problems. When the member who was baptizing her put her under, her leg
popped up. As you know, if she isn't completely underwater then you have to do
the dunk a 2nd time. The member held her underwater hoping that one of the
missionaries would push her leg down. She
started freaking out and came up gasping for air. She got all the way under on
the first try but also was really scared. I am sure that now she is VERY scared
of water! Wonderful. hahah. All is well,
she is baptized and next week she will receive the Holy Ghost. Missionary work
continues in the Motherland.
We also had a big training thing
this week for the Presidency of our branch. There is a program on the computer
called MLS and it is how the church keeps track of Tithing funds and so forth.
We had to set that up this week so we went to Irkutsk, got the computer,
brought it back to Angarsk, set it up, hooked up the router and got everything
installed and yesterday was the training. A senior couple flew out from
Novosibirsk to help us but the only problem is that they don’t speak Russian.
Yesterday Elder Brown and I were at the church for 9 hours working nonstop trying
to set up for the baptism, do some training, work on the tithing and stuff on
the computer, take down the font for the baptism and so on... All the while
translating for this senior couple. They are wonderful but boy was it a lot of
work :) During the training the Russian people kinda just talked over one
another and we had to try to translate their questions and conversations to
English for the Senior couple and then translate the answer or instructions
into Russian for our members and it was pretty hectic:) I love it!! Yesterday
was a really good day:)
I just have one bit of advice to
give this week. We had some news come up within our branch, and now
missionaries won’t be playing games with the members each Friday. It will now
be the members’ responsibility to run our Game Night. As soon as we told our
members, a few of them freaked out. They got very upset that such a change
could be made without their permission and they were starting to make rude
comments. It was kind of sad to see how quickly people could get insulted and
upset - especially over such a small thing. Another example happened when we
were setting up the baptismal font. We set it out and filled it half way up
with water on Saturday night. If we tried to fill it all up on Sunday we
wouldn't have enough time. We would fill it halfway on Saturday night and
Sunday morning we would fill the rest with warm water to keep it from being too
cold. One of the members came in all upset Saturday night. They demanded to
know why we were filling it up a day early. It would get cold overnight they
explained to us. They asked if we were trying to freeze Kristina and it was
just a bit rude how they spoke to us. When the member heard the rest of our
plan, they calmed down and all was good. These experiences reminded me of 2
scriptures in the New Testament: James 1:19 and James 3:5
I hope we always are keeping our
ears more open than our mouths. I can learn something new from EVERY person
that I meet. I know that is true for each one of us and I urge each one of you
to remember that:) I know we can be more happy and we will avoid contention a
lot easier if we listen to the whole story before we talk.
I love you all! I know the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true Church of God on the Earth today.
I miss you all :)
Stay Frosty
Elder Gardner
No comments:
Post a Comment