Christmas

Hey! I don't have much to say because we just talked  yesterday. The rest of yesterday was awesome! We went to the mission home and Sister Gibbons made an awesome dinner. President shared a spiritual thought and a couple missionaries did some really good musical numbers then we did the white elephant exchange.  It was really fun. The I came home and did call in reports and read the big paper thing and the book (of photos and thoughts from family members) while listening to Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack... best weekly call in reports ever! It was an awesome Christmas, definitely very unique and one that I will always remember. I loved reading the message that all the family wrote, that and the call were definitely the best part of Christmas.

I attached a couple pictures here of the party at Presidents.

First, I got the light up and Christmas carol singing tie, only to be stolen by Elder Harrison

Then I stole the Justin Beiber doll from Elder Howard (I really wanted that) only to be stolen by Elder Bounous, then by Elder Huffaker (which is extremely funny because he is the 70 year old cowboy).

Then I got a little missionary comic book with a ton of scripture puns, only to again be stolen by Elder Bounous.

 

Then I ended up with a lame little girls plastic pink locket, so it was a fun party but had a disappointing result.

 

Me expounding on the holy scriptures wearing shopka

Me pondering the holy scriptures while wearing shopka.

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They went and saw The Nutcracker for cultural night.

Picture of me in the opera theatre.

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Christmas Eve:

The gift that I took to our White Elephant gift exchange.

Christmas Eve dinner

Various present opening pictures and the aftermath: 

 

Party at President Gibbons's house 

Full of Miracles

I'm at the Webb's right now using their iPad to email while Elder Hyde is on the computer. We went to our regular internet place but it was totally full with ten year old boys playing World of Warcraft and stuff so we called the Webb's and asked if we could come over a little early and use the internet at their place. The district is all coming over a little later to make Christmas cookies or something like that. So anyway, it's really nice of them.

So this week has been alright. The bad news is that we haven't really had much success in the regular usage of the word, but the good thing is that we've been pretty busy doing things besides just straight tracking and street contacting. But don't worry we still got our fair share of that in.  We went to the concert of our investigator that took the picture for us. It was really sweet, he plays the marimba which is basically just a huge xylophone, but it was sweet.  He played with four sticks and it was really cool, and only half an hour so that was awesome, hopefully we can get a good meeting with him in a little while.

Drunk guy from the office didn't show and the number he gave us was bad, unfortunately that's more of the usual than the exception.  The guy from art club came to church, but then we haven't seen him since and he has never once answered his phone.

But we went and saw the inactive lady from art club. We had a decent meeting with her, but here's the awesome part. Dad will love this. She fed us holladiets (holodets). I have no idea how to spell it in English. Google it. It's basically meat gelatin. Actually the flavor was good and we had a little bread with it and actually when spread lightly on the bread it was good, but there was like no bread and she said you are just supposed to eat it plain anyway. It would just melt in your mouth in the grossest way possible, I can't even describe it. But it was awesome -  when she told us that she had it I was really excited because I have been wanting to try it for a while now.  It was gross, but don't worry I ate all that she put on my plate.

So New Years is really big here, bigger than Christmas. Because everyone celebrates it and just goes out on the streets and gets drunk from what it sounds like. But they also give gifts for New Years. And they call it the New Years tree instead of the Christmas tree. We are not allowed to leave our apartments after four in the afternoon on both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. So those could get kind of long. Bad thing is that a lot of our contacts have been telling us that they are too busy now and that I should call them back after New Years, so we will see.

So Christmas sounds like it will be really good. We are spending the morning at the Webb's with the district, they are making us breakfast while we do calls. We have church from 11-2 then from three to seven all the missionaries in the city are going over to President's for dinner and I would imagine probably a spiritual program and maybe a fun thing too, we will see. But it sounds like there won't really be down time, and to Rob:  there is no tracting rule, so that's really good.  So I'm going to FaceTime around 7:00 here in the morning. I think that is 4 there in the afternoon, but I may be off. I should be able to call you, but if not I'll send a email or something if there's a problem.

Well, really not that much interesting to write about. I finally broke out the big coat last night. It was really nice. A little inconvenient for pockets but really warm.

Aleksei has been out of town for a month, but last time I called him he said he had been reading the Book of Mormon with his buddy up there and he is really interested in it. So Aleksei asked me if he could give it to him and I could get him another one.  This guy is full of miracles, so eventually it will be his time.

Well Merry Christmas. I'm excited to talk to you soon. Love you.

Elder Topham

Promising

So this week has been pretty good.  Mostly because we have been trying a bunch of different things and we've had some interesting experiences, but it's still been pretty disappointing because we still don't have any progressing investigators.  But we have some promising contacts that we are excited about. 

 

PS, I'm actually writing this from the mission office today, and a drunk guy just walked in asking questions about our church.  We set up a meeting for tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes.  I've got his number and I'll definitely call him tomorrow morning. 

 

So no transfer this time around as expected.  With the new training program there is a specific 12 week timetable of things you have to complete studying and applying as a companionship, so except for the occasional exception, trainers stay with their new missionaries for 2 transfers.  But next transfer I'm pretty sure I'm going to be out of here.  So we'll see.  Some there are some really good missionaries going home this transfer, and less and less of the "older generation" are left.  Elders Drasso, and Eborn are both going home, along with the best American Russian speaker in the mission, Elder Septon, and a couple others including the assistant, Elder Stewart.  And there are a few coming in too.

 

We did a few cool new finding methods this week.  We invited everyone at English group to a big "group lesson" in a comfortable setting.  Not a big turnout,  just 2 eternal investigators, 1 active member and two less active members.  The sisters, Elder Hyde and I taught together.  It was fun, we tried some fun, thought provoking ways of teaching.  Like writing the names of gospel principles on a plate, breaking the plate to symbolize apostasy, then showing how you can't put the pieces together- you have to restore it.  The only problem is that Sister Trottier tried to throw the plate into the trash can (in order to control the shrapnel) and couldn't get it to break. Like 3 times! Then the people there were like "No we get it! its a good plate don't break it!"  It was really funny. 

 

Then we also had a movie night. Just to watch Finding Faith in Christ, there were like 4 nonmembers there so, it's not too bad.

 

Here is quite the interesting experience.  We met a guy contacting.  An old little guy with a huge beard, really friendly, he's an artist and invited us to his art display.  So we were like sure we'll swing by, because he seemed pretty interested in hearing from us.  So we show up, and it turns out it's more like an art club.  Or something weird like that where there were like 10 oldish people and they were displaying this women's pictures. It was really weird, but anyway, we had no idea what was going on, but turns out, one of the people there is an inactive member who the sisters always try to get into contact with but she ignores them, and she likes us so we might be able to get to her.  And the oldest guy came to our movie night, then to church the next day, so I don't know, it's crazy how this has been. 

 

Then, I conducted my first baptismal interview this week.  It was tough because he didn't understand one of the commandments, and we had to postpone it.  It was crazy because there are only very loose guidelines, in PMG and there are no time requirements for any commandments and stuff.  I called the zone leaders to get their opinion and they basically just said it's totally up to you, which I admire, but it made it really tough.  Good news is we'll have another chance to do it right soon.

 

So we are allowed to use Skype or anything we want to call home, including video features.  And the Webb's are offering their computer for us.  So they have an iPad and suggested we do Facetime. they said it works even better than Skype.  So, if you will email me back what I have to do to Facetime call you, we will do that.  It will be Saturday night your time, I don't know exactly when, but I'll get you a time in next week's email.

 

Don't worry, I haven't opened the presents yet.  It sounds like it just might be our district at the Webb's (for Christmas) which will be great. 

 

 

Elder Topham

When You Feel Like You Really Made a Difference

So this week has been really good, it's actually flown by with the leadership training and exchanges.  

Leadership training was really cool, we just talked all about finding the whole time, and it was really good to get some new ideas, so hopefully they will be able to be applied well and work.

So I'm starting to go on exchanges with everyone in my district, and those are really fun.  I had Elder Dawson for a day this week, and it's cool, because he is totally fearless and literally talks to every person, which is mostly good, but there are some people where you just have to realize that it's a waste of time, but that's beside the point.  Anyway, we tried one of the new clever contacting approaches that was brought up at leadership training, and here's the story behind the pictures. I had him take a picture of me in this pretty spot,

then when the first guy walked by he stopped him and asked him to take the picture for us.

He did, and I sent it to you, then as he was giving us the camera back, we just chatted with him, and he invited us over to a little cafe to tell him more, so it was awesome! It worked first time and got us out of the cold!  He didn't end up being really interested, but we'll see, we might see him again.

And we even got let in while tracking on the same day! It was awesome, because we didn't have any meetings planned the whole day and we ended the day with two investigator lessons. 

It's been pretty cool, the last two weeks I've given 5 blessings, 4 for health and 1 comfort  It's pretty cool because that is definitely one of my favorite things to do. Dad and I have talked about it some, and it's been really cool how what dad and I talked about and what it says in my P. blessing are really true.  I actually feel kinda drained after we leave those meetings, but it's a really good kind, like I just finished working out, so I love it.  And to make it even better we gave blessings to an inactive guy and his active mother.  We saw them 2 days later and they both were really grateful and said, "thank you so much, I felt better the next morning and went to work" and the guy even came to church! Well, at least sacrament meeting, and he was playing on his phone most of the time, but it's still progress.  It's just really cool to see these instances where you feel like you really made a difference.

So the branch just made home teaching assignments and we have a companion, so hopefully he will be down with going with us and that will allow us to have a few more appointments.

So, to answer a few questions, it's pretty much the same decorations here for Christmas, just not near as nice, as far as homes and things go, they do trees with some lights and ornaments, but it is all just apartment buildings, so there really aren't lights on houses, but Lennin Square looks pretty, they put up some lights and it looks really cool.  So Elder Drasso was looking for a nativity set for a while for his parents and wasn't having luck, but I'm sure they would have them in Moscow.

So for our meals, we pretty much have to cook for ourselves every meal.  Aleksei is the only one who has ever fed us, oh and gleb too back in the day, as far as full meals go.  We have a pretty basic diet, pasta with red sauce and meat, pasta with white sauce and chicken, rice with chicken, rice with chicken and frozen veggies, pelmeini and vereniki, those are the dumplings with meat and potato in them respectively. Sometimes with frozen veggies also.  Sandwiches, American or Russian style. Ummm... maybe a few other basic things with potatoes.  We are going to do a borscht this week, we had this little borscht pack in the fridge you just have to add potatoes and cabbage, so we'll see. I bought a cabbage this morning that's pretty cool, I was surprised with how heavy it is.  We usually do breakfast pretty nice, we take turns cooking up some eggs usually. It's nice because it holds you over through a long time and it's a really cheap source of protein. especially here it seems.  

Dennis is really nice, but pretty much not interested.  Ilya actually gave his Book of Mormon back to Dennis to give to us.  We convinced Dennis to keep his own, and I can see another meeting coming in the future somewhere, but we'll see.

So I just recently finished the New Testament.  Usually during studies I warm up with a chapter or 2 from the Book of Mormon, then some from whatever I'm reading straight through, like the New Testament (I don't know what I want to do next, either Jesus the Christ or Old Testament).  Then I work on whatever topic I want to study that day, usually it has to do with a lesson we are teaching that day or an upcoming district meeting or something. I like the system it works pretty well.

So here's a little story to kind of illustrate how things are just different here.  The ZLs came in to town on a bus, like a 5 hour ride, from Tomsk.  They got off the bus and Elder Erickson realized that he left his backpack, they go back to get it and it's gone.  Elder Stuart (the ZL, not the AP) finds the bus driver, somehow finds out that bus driver hid it, and pays him 200 rubles to get it back.  It's really funny, mostly because little corrupt things like that happen all the time, but it's really funny because 200 rubles is like five bucks.  It might have even been 100 ruble's, I don't really remember but it was something ridiculous like that.

It's been pretty warm considering the season, still haven't been wearing the big jacket yet.  I think there will probably be a big temperature drop soon, so we'll see.  So anyway I haven't frozen yet, the work seems to be picking up, so I'd say everything is good.

Elder Topham

This is Tamara the less active woman who we see fairly regularly, and her teenage daughter, and the little girl is their neighbor.