This week was pretty crazy. Tuesday we took off from Krasno to Novo. I was in Novo Wednesday and Thursday. Then on Friday morning I took off for Finland and returned Saturday morning. Then that night we had a train back to Krasno and got in Sunday morning.

While we were in Novo on Wednesday President had a meeting with all the trainers. Then after that ended Elder Jones and I went with Elder Smith and Yatsiuk to help them move a member. That was pretty chaotic as usual for Russian moves. She lived on the 9^th floor. There was a little elevator but it only went to the 8^thfloor. Plus, she had 4 dressers and a piano. But probably the worst part was outside was about -30 C and we had to keep going in and out freezing then sweating then freezing then sweating. Ok but other than all that everything went really well and was all pretty fun. We got the whole thing done, loading and unloading in a couple hours.

Thursday was interesting because I was on the other end of the trainers and new missionary orientation thing. But it was really cool. I got to meet Elder Jurkovenas finally. He's sweet. It turns out that his English is actually really good. He understands everything and speaks almost like an American. His Russian is pretty good too. He understands really well. He speaks with a good flow and accent. His vocab is limited and his grammar is probably what needs to work on the most. But he is much better than a new American missionary coming in. He's a big guy. I've only got like two inches on him and he has a little weight on me. But he doesn't play basketball, even through it's huge there (Elder Jurkovenas is from Latvia) and everyone told him all growing up that he should play.

After we did the orientation and the Assistants took us out to lunch, I took the new missionaries shopping in Novo. Everyone got some coats, a few got boots and hats and stuff, we also got some Bibles. We did a little work that night with Elders Smith and Yatsiuk.

The Visa trip was pretty tough. Just going through 4 airports, 4 securities and having lay overs in each one. Thankfully by the last flight I was so tired that I just fell asleep before the plane took off and didn't even notice that it took off. It was nice to get to see everyone from the MTC and catch up on things. Talk to them about the release date decision and everything.

Yesterday was Elder J and I's first day together in our own area. We went to church, then visited our babooshka. We set up a lesson that night with our Uzbek family. Only the dad and son were home, everyone else was working. Elder J was pumped, he had the pregame butterflies a little before the lesson. I think he was a little disappointed that everything didn't go perfectly. I remember that is exactly how I felt my first couple days on the mission. But he had fun and liked it.

The next couple days should be really fun. We will spend a little bit of time at the Noels both days. And they will probably feed us really well.

I got Grandma's package that she sent. Tell her a big thank you from me. She sent us a little tree. I set it up in the kitchen with the ornaments on it. It brightens up the apartment with a little more Christmas spirit.

Everything that dad said about the Skype is correct. I don't know what the time difference is. But I'll be calling from here at 11AM and I'll use the name that you gave me. Last week we did that boiling water thing too. It's really cool. About half of it vaporizes immediately. The other half turns into snow immediately.

OK, that's all. Talk to you soon.

Elder Topham

 

Here is a picture of Elder Rubow and I with the Vetzels on our last day together. They are an awesome family that lives close to us. 

Me with their older son.

 Then Elder and I at the mission home together.

Then Elder J and I at our apartment by our Christmas tree.

 

Zone Conference Cake

Hey, I just emailed you what I got from President. (Drew forwarded us an email regarding a change in his release date.) He told us each personally about it at zone conference. He explained it all well here so I thought I would just forward it. Let me know what you think about that. Now, let me know what you think, if there would be anything for me to do for that month, or just in general what your thoughts are about the dates.

Also, I sent out some pouch mail at zone conference so let me know when you get it. Also I sent one to Rob's family but I used our address. Because I don't know if I have their new one.

Also at zone conference, I got my Christmas package. I cheated though, because when I unpacked it back in Krasno I unwrapped the one that felt like wool socks because I figured I could use those right away. Well done on the packing. Nothing broke. Elder Rubow and I have been enjoying the toffee. Still tastes like home.

Zone conference was epic. President owned it with a really deep presentation about the symbolism of the manger, swaddling clothes and the three gifts. Especially in the way that they relate to the temple, the atonement, and our personal spiritual development. He has an amazing ability to do something that is so scholarly that it is mind blowing and interesting, with all the while being very spiritual and applicable. Sister Gibbons, the Zone leaders, assistants and all the musical numbers nailed it too. I had a wonderful time because it was totally stress free and I just got to sit in the back and enjoy it.

I met the most recent group of missionaries from the MTC. They said that they knew Elder Jurkavenas and that he actually speaks English decently and Russian better than all of them, so we will see this week when I meet him.

Then, what might have been the cherry on this zone conference cake was during lunch when Elder Huntsman came up to talk to me. He told me that the guy we found contacting that night when we were on exchanges up in Omsk about 2 months ago got baptized last Saturday. I was really glad to hear that, and I made me feel good to see a direct result like that.

Then on Thursday I was on exchanges with Elder Johnson. It's the first time my whole mission that I've had a chance to work with him and it was awesome. I don't know if you remember but he is the one I was friends with at BYU that I would always play basketball with in the fall. We had a tough day, but a good time none the less. We rotated 45 minute contacting sessions with 30 minute defrosting sessions where we would put our feet on the heater and drink tea while we called old contacts.

We did a service project this Friday and Saturday. We put up wall paper in a couple rooms at a homeless shelter. Sorry I've been bad at pictures but the sisters and the Noels took some. It was kind of crazy and Russians are very honest and always tell you what they think you are doing wrong. Everyone would come in and say what we were doing wrong, but then they would all argue with each other because none of them agreed on the right way to do it. Anyway it all got up and looks good and I know how to hang up wall paper now.

Sister Brown put on a concert Saturday night. She is an amazing singer and did several songs, some while playing the guitar and some while playing the piano. The missionaries all sang one number together too.

Yesterday I gave a talk in church. I think it went alright. I talked about the concrete things we can do to share the gospel and told some experiences and emphasized how the Holy Ghost always helps us.

Everything is going well with our investigator family. Our teaching appointment before zone conference was interesting. We didn't get to teach much because the wife was cooking for us, and people were in and out the whole time. She fed us plov, which was awesome. And apparently the real Uzbekistani way to eat it is just out of one big common dish. Also, that it is usually done with just your hands. But she gave us all spoons because we were there. It was a cool experience and really good. Then yesterday night, the mom wasn't there because she got a new job working all evenings (which will make it tougher for us) but we had a really good lesson with the father and the youngest son.

Next week will also be crazy. Tuesday night I'm heading to Novo with Elder Jones and all the sisters. Then we have a trainers meeting with Pres there on Wednesday. It's cool all 3 new missionaries are coming to Krasno. The 1 elder and 2 new sisters. Sisters Karachova and Brown are the other trainers. Then Thursday we will meet our new companions and do the orientation with them and everything. But Friday morning I leave for Visa trip. The area presidency came out with a rule that you are not allowed to leave the airport on visa trip, so we fly to Moscow then Finland, then right back to Moscow then Novo. It will be about 24 hours straight of going through airports and flying. Saturday night we take off back to Krasno and my first day with Elder J in Krasno will be on Sunday.

Well, It is extremely cold. I think Jack Frost just covered wagoned Siberia and won't lift up the blanket. The days in Novo were I think the coldest I have ever experienced.

Yeah, you can always feel the difference even between -30 and -40. Everything feels the same, but you notice that it takes less time to get frozen on various parts of your body. But don't worry mom, I'm staying warm enough. I don't really use the hand or foot warmer things because it's just too cold. I feel like those would be optimal if you are outside for a long time and it is pretty cold. But we are outside for a half hour at a time or so.

Yeah, the Book of Mormon is still in hand, it's fine I just wear my leather/fur mittens and carry it and it's all good.

There is snow everywhere, but more in Novo.

So they don't clean off the sidewalks so it is just a layer of what I call "permafrost" just layers of snow that have been beaten down by people walking on it so it's just a hard snowy/ice path. We usually walk no more than half hour to appointments. If it would take longer than that we will get on a bus.

Being back to Novo was pretty cool. It was nice to know where I was going. Plus I got to see Misha at the branch while I was there.

Ok that's all. Would that be ok if I called at 11 am Krasno time on Christmas day? I think that's what I'm planning on. I took the last shift because I'm calling the west coast.

Well talk to you and see you next week!

Elder Topham

This is a picture of Drew that Elder Rubow sent to his family, captioned, "Elder Topham says study the scriptures!"

 

The Area is Going Well

Hey everybody, this week has been pretty good. It seemed to go by really fast.

Carson had a good question about how we keep our legs warm when its so cold. There is really not much you can do but wear thermals. So I just wear a pair of thermals under my pants. I think the legs just don't get as cold as the body for whatever reason. I only have a problem with my feet getting cold. And when I wear thermals it helps my feet stay a little warmer too. There were a couple of weeks last winter when I wore two pairs of thermals at a time. I will probably have to do that this week.

Our apartment doesn't have an oven, but it's no big deal we do all stove cooking anyway.

We found the apartment for the new companionship, and signed on it so that's all done. I'm very glad that its all done too, because that was a really stressful process. We went out with a Realtor to look at a couple places and we picked the best one. Then the next day we came with our "visa registrar" (that's the member of the church in each city that handles the registering of each missionary and the apartment signings), Olga and we worked out the contract with them. That was super long and intense, but Olga got it all worked out. I'm still not used to the way business is done in Russia, just long sessions of yelling and saying rude things to each other but then in the end it gets settled. The new place is nice. So whoever goes there will be lucky.

There is only one new elder coming in this transfer, and a few the next couple transfers, so I think the influx will come in later. Probably from those who are receiving their calls around now.

This week we found some new investigators and they all had a similar theme to them -- all through our efforts to find and teach the inactive members. I'll tell you about each one.

The first is an inactive member that we have been trying to help. His mom lives with him and she is legit. She worked in a factory that built Soviet rockets here in Krasno. Anyway, she has been participating in the lessons and if we can get him to come back we are confident that she will come with them.

Then we found a new inactive guy this week who let us when we checked his address. We came back a few days later and during one of our lessons his friend showed up. So the guy invited him in to come meet "his American friends". So it was a really sweet comfortable setting to get to know him and begin teaching him. And he ended up being really interested. And even if the inactive member wasn't the best doctrinal or testimonial support for the lesson, he made all the difference just showing his friend that he was comfortable with us and trusts us, and that its not weird to come to church and stuff like that.

Then the coolest one happened Saturday night. We had a really awesome busy day, but we couldn't get any lessons scheduled for the evening, so it was looking like it would be a tough evening. But we went to the first inactive guy on our list and they let us up. And without saying much to us at the door let us in. Then after a few seconds of talking and introducing ourselves. it became pretty clear that they were not members. So I don't know why they let us in because on the intercom Elder Rubow specifically asked for that guy. Maybe the people living there didn't understand, or maybe they were just prepared somehow and felt like they should open the door. Anyway, we find out that the apartment was sold recently and they are renting from the new owner. The family living there is an Uzbekistanian family with a mom and dad, and 4 kids. Three of which live at home still. The dad is Muslim and the mom is Christian. They are the nicest and happiest family that I have seen in Russia besides members of the church. We spent a good while getting to know each other and taught a little about prophets and families and they invited us back for tonight, so hopefully that will go well. We are really excited about it.

The area is going well and it's cool because we are usually pretty busy and don't usually spend too much time just tracting or contacting. We have a handful of consistent investigators, less actives, and there are a good amount of active members that we visit every now and then. Also I did both exchanges this week so I spent a day with Elder Kelly, and Elder Jones.

Well, that's about all I can think of. We will be in Novo Wednesday for Zone conference and Thursday to do exchanges with the Zone leaders.

Still nothing solid for Christmas, but it will for sure involve the Noels feeding us :)

I'm planning on skyping with you our Christmas morning and your Christmas eve night if that's still cool?

-Elder Topham

A Good Time Serving

Hey I got those videos that you sent last week to work. Whose gun is that and what is it? I was not expecting the videos to be of Mom and Dani so that was really cool too.

Dani, keep up the good work. I don't know your calculus friend. That's awesome that you are having so much debate success although I am a little worried when I get back that you will own me if I ever try to argue with you. But I hope my height advantage will still give me the volleyball edge even if I'm rusty.

Oh yeah and Mom, that Reese's desert bar mix was awesome. It was just sitting in my bag and I hadn't whipped it out because we don't have an oven then I glanced at it and it said, "delicious no bake recipe!" So it was really easy to make and really good. You might have to send that for my birthday too.

Well, I feel like the week has gone by pretty quickly. Elder Rubow and I are still having a good time serving together. We had some nice investigator success this week. I'll give the rundown.

A is probably the only pure, no effort, free, member referral investigator I've ever had and it's sweet. A less active member just called us up and told us that he wants to bring a friend to meet with us. And he set up the time and they both showed up at the branch for a lesson. So we were able to teach him twice this week with his friend.

Then we found the most convenient investigator ever. V, who we contacted close to the branch, lives in the building right next to the branch, so he should have no excuse not to come to church and it's really easy to get to his place whenever we need to.

Then S, an English investigator from before, is back on board, but he is going to Novo for a month for work. So I've got him hooked up with Elder Davis down there for the month.

Then the most exciting one is S and Z. They came to the branch when the member who is in charge of maintenance was here and he gave us their info and invited them to church. They showed up. And this member has been really nice to them and helping them out with some of their problems. He's 60 and she's 50 so it's quite the interesting couple. They are extremely nice and accepting. They love to chat and get off topic easily but they said they want us to come over every day and we set baptismal dates with them on our first lesson. So that will be very fun to work with them.

Other than that it's just been the regular struggles, like getting first lessons to work out with seemingly golden contacts, who just don't show or answer their phones or anything. We've been working with a realtor to search for an apartment for a new companionship of elders.

I think the rest of the transfer will go by really fast, probably even the rest of the month. Because next week we go to Novo for exchanges and Zone conference. The week after that is visa trip and the transfer. Then the week after that is Christmas, so there is a lot of stuff to look forward to.

Well love you all, have a good one.

Elder Topham

The Members Here are Awesome

Well I guess this was the end of my first full week in Krasnoyarsk. Its been a good week. Serving with Elder Rubow has been really good. He's easy to get along with and is very funny with all of his stories and how he always speaks his mind.

I feel like the work has been going slow, and Sunday was very disappointing again. We had found two new investigators on our own this week and both of them committed to come to church. And not only did both of them not show, one basically dropped us over the phone five minutes before the meeting started. So it has been pretty slow with investigators.

The good news is that the members here are awesome. And we have been able to go to the homes of some great families who really love the missionaries, and those are always really refreshing experiences. In addition, in the process of us going through the branch lists and with some assistance from the branch council we have worked up quite the teaching pool of inactive men. We've got about 5 who we have met with and taught and agreed for us to come back again. So we have been spending a lot of time working with and visiting them and that can be really rewarding, so it has been a good experience so far and hopefully we will see some big progress. Also we have been doing a lot of service and things for members. Like there is a member here in a wheelchair, and one thing about Russia is that there is no handicap accessible anything. So we help her get to church and back. We gave a handful of sick blessings yesterday, because there are many, many women here without priesthood holders in their family. Also, we take the sacrament to an old woman and she is a saint. 94 years old, and really all she does is sit there and listen to the Book of Mormon and New Testament because she can't read anymore. And she always tells us, "Make sure you call before you come over, because who knows I might not get up next week!" But she says it in a really funny cheery tone.

It feels like the Russian government, media, and church have picked up anti-Mormon efforts recently. I guess there was a big TV special on the network channel last night all about the Mormons. Where they tried to make it look like journalism, but you know how they do it, where they show all the parts of the clips from us to make us seem weird and the way the anchors talk and the words they choose show that they are clearly against us. Then they ended the program with an interview with an orthodox priest who told everyone that we were a cult that doesn't believe in Jesus and blah blah, and they just ended it on that with no commentary or rebuttal. And I feel like you can really feel the effects of that in the everyday person that we talk to in the street.

Thanksgiving was awesome. All the missionaries spent a couple hours on Thursday afternoon at the Noels. They went huge, and had everything you could imagine, which I'm sure was really tough to find all that stuff out here. After the meal I had to sit on the couch and just veg because I ate so much I couldn't do anything else, so it was awesome.

I accidentally missed Dad's question from last time. The new assistant is Elder Probst. He's really cool, came in 6 weeks after me. He served in the office for a while and he's really good and thorough.

People and weather seem about the same here as Novo, although it seems like we haven't gotten much snow here. Transport is a little tougher here without the metro and there is always traffic in the city, so sometimes its pretty inconvenient to get places.

-Elder Topham

 

Here are some pictures from my last week in Novo with Vanya, and some members, and by a statue thing.

Krasnoyarsk

Hey this has been a really interesting week.

I feel like this is the first time that I have ever gotten a transfer. Although it has happened twice before it felt like a totally new thing because it has been so long.

The last few days in Novo were really good. On P-Day we made the Webbs dinner which consisted of plov, fruit salad and dessert blini. It was a really good time, and it was good to make them food after about a year of them feeding me. We had some good lessons with some members and investigators right before I left. Especially Vanya is looking really good and will probably be baptized soon. It was definitely sad to go and leave some of the people there. On Wednesday we went to the airport really early to get Elder Yatsiuk. He is Ukrainian so he didn't get delayed with the rest of the group coming in. And we did the normal orientation stuff with him that day and that night I took off on a train with Elder Kelly to Krasnoyarsk.

Krasnoyarsk has a very different feel to it than Novo does. Our area is everything on the south side of the River. Most of the newer stuff and the main business center of the city and even the majority of the population is on the North side of the river, but the branch building and most of the members live on the South side. Out of any of the Russian branches that I've seen this looks the most like an American branch with some families and a bunch of kids running around. The members here are really special and there are a few really strong families.

In fact, we didn't have any investigators to start out with, so we have been spending a lot of time meeting with members, and we do our regular talking to people and street contacting. Also, in order to advance the creation of the stake we have been helping the branch trim their records of people who actually don't live here any more, so we have been going around visiting all the members that nobody knows and seeing if they still live there. And usually if nobody knows them it means they are long gone by now.

The Noels are great. I'm going to miss the Webbs, but the Noels are taking really good care of us. And there is a lot of talk going around that Sister Noel is going HUGE for Thanksgiving. The missionaries here are really young. We just have 4 Elders and 4 Sisters. All of the junior companions except for Elder Rubow are being trained. And I feel really old because I picked all of the missionaries in the city up at the airport except Elder Kelly. So that means 2 Elders 4 Sisters and the Noels. So that's a weird fun fact. Because of everyone being so young, Elder Kelly and I have to share all of the translation responsibilities for the Noels. Which I don't mind doing at all, it's fun and a good challenge.

We found 2 guys this week that we contacted, later taught, and they both committed to come to church but neither of them showed.

Elder Rubow is sweet. He is a southern gentleman from North Carolina. He's from Durham but he likes UNC. And he is a wonderful story teller, and I love sitting there listening to him tell stories. I'm sure you already know more about him if you read his blog.

Well I think that's about it. This week should be a good week and hopefully by the end we can get a couple investigators on the program.

Oh hey Mom, guess what, right before I left Novo I got 2 packages. The Halloween one with all kinds of candy and oreos and stuff and the long skiny one with the popcorn. Thank you! Love you.

-Elder Topham

Transfer This Week

Hey,

I noticed when I was rereading last week's emails that I didn't answer one of the questions correctly. You mentioned how the new missionaries come in a week later, and that's true, the transfer is this week on Wednesday, but the new missionaries won't come until next week on Wednesday. Everyone is going to go to their assignments and the trainers just have special arrangements for the week. So that doesn't effect the transfers for the rest of us. I mentioned about something that might effect our transfers is how the MTC is probably going to shorten the length of everyone's stay at the MTC in order to deal with more missionaries. And if that does happen then it could change the pattern of when missionaries come in, and that would change all of our transfers and release dates, so we'll see about that.

Commenting on Grandpa McCoy's email. I noticed in Russia that people are much less likely to give tips and they are not expected, but only given if you are actually impressed by the service. So either you did a really good job, or that lady comes from an area of Russia with people much politer than where I have been.

What part of Lenin Square does the camera show, what's the angle? That's in my old area so I used to be there a lot, now we don't go there as much.

I feel like I got a package of candy and note cards a while ago, but not within the last month or two. But it's ok, even if they come late, they'll get here. Yeah, any time we or the zone leaders go to cities we take all their mail and packages with us. Or if anyone else is travelling through the city for any reason like visa trip or transfers or anything they take all the stuff, so you never have to wait more than a couple weeks.

Really I haven't kept in touch or written anyone who are on missions. I kind of feel bad about it, but it is what it is. I have sent some letters back and forth with Jordan Dudley since the beginning until now. He should be going home pretty soon.

This week was pretty good. We spent all day Tuesday in Barnaul and parts of Monday and Wednesday traveling. I think the Elders down there had a really good time with us, especially because they are the only companionship of elders down there right now. Elder Terry and I had a great day together. We taught one guy who looks like Jack Sparrow, but with a clean hair cut. He was in the slammer for a while but cleaned up his act, he had attended the baptism they had in Barny a few days earlier and he said he really felt the Spirit, so we set a baptismal date with him, and he is looking really good. He has a family and he is really humble, so it's the perfect situation.

Wednesday was the last day of English for this cycle and we got another investigator, Vanya, from it. In fact, he was probably the main highlight of the week. We taught him on Friday and on Sunday. He is my favorite investigator because he does all of his reading assignments and he has really good, intelligent and logical questions, so you know he is really sincere and wants to know. He couldn't come to church on Sunday but we taught him in the evening a half hour before the little Youth and Young Adult fireside started. Artom and Misha both came to the lesson and Misha did a really good job testifying about his "re"conversion and that was really cool. Then afterward Vanya went to the fireside with them. So it was really the perfect situation. But it was just so scary dumping him off like that and just hoping that the members would be nice to him and talk to him and make him feel comfortable. I've noticed that I have a much more complete perspective like that now, having seen those situations from the point of view of the missionary, to help make me a friendlier member.

We got our drug addict investigator to come to church again, but it's been tough with him, and that may be about all we can do for now.

Today we are going to make the Webbs dinner. It will be really fun, because they have fed me for over a year this will be really fun to have them over at our place and feed them. We are going to make borscht and plov and dessert blini and fruit salad. It should be really epic. Hopefully they will mention it on their blog, but we'll see.

Ok, I think that's all I got this week. I'm taking off Wednesday for Krasno so I should be there next Monday.

Elder Topham

The Book of Mormon: Epic and Powerful

(Note from Mom: much of Drew's letter that follows is answers to questions we asked based on information we had from either the news or other missionaries, I've added a few notes to help clarify what he is talking about.)

Yeah it's getting pretty cool here. It's been snowing off and on. Everything is pretty covered but not too much yet.

Yeah, it was a pretty interesting week with the protests. (Note: for info on the protest that we asked Drew about see http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/11/01/mormon-missionaries-young-guard-kremlin-protest-moscow/1673775/). On Wednesday night we got a call in the middle of the night from President waking us up. He said, "Elders, we have an emergency that we need you to take care of tomorrow morning." And I thought it would be a huge deal from that first line, but he just told us that there were protests planned for the next day. The area presidency and the physical affairs department of the church had all the missionaries in those 7 or so main cities all stay inside that day. So we just had to call the Novosibirsk missionaries and tell them to stay inside. From what he said later on in the day, stuff only happened in St. Petes and in Moscow. Only 10 people in St. Petes showed up, but I guess the Moscow one was pretty good. Everything here was just anticlimactic.

So yes, the new group is going to get the 3 year visas and they will mess up our transfer schedule, but we still don't know how much. So that could possibly mess up my release date. We still don't know exactly. But if it changes I don't think it can go any later. Because it can't be pushed back past June 18. Without special permission the president can only set the release date within 30 days either way of the report date. But hopefully we'll find out soon and I'll let you know. I don't know if we will get those next time or not, but probably.

Book of Mormon is going well. (Note: President Gibbons challenged the mission to read the Book of Mormon in 85 days). I just decided to knock it out quick and so I'm almost done. It's been a really cool experience reading it really fast because everything that you read before is still on your mind and it all links together more. For example, the last two days I've been reading in 3rd Nephi, and it is so much more epic because the whole book has been leading up to the point when Christ will come and it has been extremely touching, and I think you lose that feel a little when you just read a little each day. Carrying it around is cool. (Note: The missionaries in the Novo mission have been asked to carry a Book of Mormon in their hand at all times when they are out.) You just have to make sure you have really good gloves so your hand doesn't freeze. Usually I do the Michael Jackson one glove approach where I put a glove on my left hand to carry the Book of Mormon, then I leave my right hand uncovered and just put it in the jacket pocket so it is more accessible to use the phone, shake hands, write stuff down, etc. Some people have asked about the book. For me it has only happened after I have started the conversation, but there have been some experiences in the Mission where people have come up to missionaries asking about the book.

Well the Thursday lock down day was the most unusual part of the week. It was actually really nice, because Thursday is planning day anyway. And it gave us a little time to study extra and clean out the closet, it was a nice little rest. We kept making jokes all day about the angry mobs coming up to our apartment and how we would deal with them, but they never came :(

Wednesday was my last ZLC. President had Elder Kelly and I each share out testimonies at the beginning. Then we discussed some issues in the mission. President shared some epic stuff about how the Angel Moroni is a great example of a missionary in his dealings with the prophet Joseph Smith, and how Joseph was like his investigator. President also nailed it and gave a really moving lesson about love in leadership that made a deep impression in me.

Victor is still doing well. He hasn't been able to come to church because of work. But this week we went over the baptismal questions, and we really just need to help him start living two of the commandments and he will be good to go. The change that he has continued to make is incredible, he is nothing like he was when Elder Anderson and I started teaching him months ago. Our other promising investigator is Aleksei who came again to church, so that’s a good sign. He's still moving forward well. We got a couple new investigators this week from our street contacts, so we will see where they end up. One of them came to church with us. He is in a really tough situation, has problems with narcotics and I can't describe the place where he lives. But he is very humble and he already had a testimony of the Book of Mormon. He can't concentrate on anything for very long. But when we showed him the Book of Mormon he said that he had once had that book and he remembers that right when he opened it and read one verse everything became easier/lighter (it' s the same word in Russian) but he had lost the book a while ago. So hopefully we can help him.

That’s about it, it was a really good day a church, a big turn out from the recent converts and less actives that we have been working with. Even Mixael the one we have been home teaching for months finally came.

 

We are heading to Barnaul tonight. and we will come back to Novo on Wednesday and be here the rest of the week, so it should be good.

Elder Topham

Interesting Stuff

Hey,

Dad, Sister Sanford from Henderson is going home in December, that's about the same time as her brother. The next transfer will be on November 14 so there is still a little time. Everything will probably be finalized tomorrow. Culture nights are back too.

Danica, yes I definitely remember the urinal theory, and I believe in it 100%. Did Dad catch that frisbee? it looks like he is coming up a little short, but he could still be moving up in the jump and make it.

Mom, the trip was good, I think I will miss it at times once I have a different assignment. I am definitely very grateful that I have been able to go all those places and get to know well all of the missionaries in all the cities. Yeah, I'm pretty confident with the Russian abilities, but I was only the official translator from Russian to English, I would not have been as good the other way around.

Matthew, you look a lot taller in the pictures I got today.

Well, most of the interesting stuff that happened this week happened while we were on our trip to Omsk. But before that I have one interesting story. There is a member here who recently moved away to Moscow. She told us to visit her mom, so we did. I assumed that her mother was not a member. We get there and she was a very active older woman, very happy to see us, very nice. She wanted to make us tea, and we declined her black tea so she said she would make us herbal tea. She was making it, then started shoveling this coffee powder into the pot also. And as she is pouring our cups we keep telling her that we can't drink it, and that was a constant struggle for the whole visit. Anyway, she was really nice, she kept making us eat more and more honey. She said that all she eats is honey and coffee. She also was showing us how she plays ping pong and accidentally knocked over her cup of the coffee-tea stuff. Anyway, the talk was going really well, and it turns out she believes in the Book of Mormon and likes the church but when Elder Davis asked her to be baptized we found out that she was already baptized. And she is just a mischievous old woman who wanted us to drink the coffee just for the sake of causing trouble (she admitted that). She said she would start coming to church. I guess that story wasn't important at all, and you may have had to be there in order to realize how funny it all was.

On Wednesday the Area President, Larry Lawrence, and the General Primary 2nd Counselor and the General Relief Society First Counselor all came to Novo and put on a fireside. Then we all got on a train that night with President, and went to Omsk. During that day, the sisters wanted to visit some of the members in Omsk. Elder Davis and I went with President Lawrence and Sister Stevens of the Relief Society and visited a widowed babooshka in Omsk. It was a really cool and funny experience. They had asked us to call ahead and tell her not to make any refreshments. And we did so. But we showed up and she did anyway haha. And she was super pushy and insistent that we eat all her stuff and drink her tea. We as missionaries were used to that, but it was really new for the others. They were lucky because it was just blini and jam and a really mild tea. We translated for the visit and that was fun because the babooshka would like to go off on random stories (usually about why certain people went inactive) but she was a really sweet lady who tries to help everyone and bring them back. At the end we gave her a blessing. President Lawrence, Elder Davis and I participated. He pronounced the blessing and I translated it into Russian, as he was going, for the lady. That was also a really cool and powerful experience.

That night Sister Stevens and Sister Esplin also did their training fireside in Omsk. When I when I was helping Sister Stevens set up she reminded me of Mom how she had everything so prepared and had like 3 back up plans and was always so thankful for every little thing that we did to help, and was just all around radiating righteousness.

Me, Elder Hyde, and Sister Stevens. We don't look too good because it had been a long day for us already. This was taken at the end of Thursday after she gave her fireside

The other exciting thing was that two sisters in Omsk had to go to the hospital. So Elder Hyde and I were in the hospital all morning Friday, and Elder Davis and I were in the hospital all day Saturday translating for them and for the Gibbons. It was a really nice hospital and they did a really good job there.

Well that is pretty much all of the exciting stuff that has been going on. Other than that it is just the regular stuff.

 

Elder Topham

 Kazakhstan Trip

This is a sweet hat I bought.  It's made in the style of the Kazakh yurts but it's a flat billed baseball cap, it's sweet.

 

Miscellaneous

Hey,

This week was good. We were in KZ still until Thursday. We spent most of Saturday at the mission home because there was a priesthood council meeting. We had some time on Friday and Sunday to work in our area. Wednesday night we take off to Omsk and we will come back on Saturday night. The next week we may be going to Abakan with President to look at the possibilites of opening it up for missionaries when the big wave comes in the next year, but we will find out tomorrow if that trip is going to happen or not.

I'll answer everyones questions first, I feel like I got a good number of good questions so that's nice and I'll have some stuff to write about.

DAD

Yeah it sounds like summer term would be a good option. Do you know when class registration is for summer and for fall?

SAM

Pediatrics sounds better. Labor and delivery sounds gross.

No Halloween in Russia. There are some parties I think but that's only to have an excuse to dress up skanky and party. Nobody hands out candy to kids.

MOM

54 Elders and 19 Sisters. Probably about the same amount of Elders as when I came out plus a handful more for KZ. Probably a few more sisters. All from the last couple months.

Almaty was good. Yeah, it is much different there (than Astana) because there are many Russian and Kazakh members. So the missionaries do stuff with them, either teaching or service, a lot more. And it functions more like a normal branch. It's noticeably warmer there than in Novo. The last couple days has just been a rainy snow mixture that turns everything muddy.

I bought a pair of winter boots before last winter, and a few months ago a pair of regular shoes. The ones I came with are actually still holding up really well. Just the interior padding has been worn down, especially in the front where I put a lot of pressure when I walk apparently.

Shirts are great. Suits are still fine, not amazing. I might buy a Russian one some time, but I don't need to. But they have all that stuff here anyway if I ever need it it will be easy to get.

I don't think I've gotten that package that you are talking about, unless I did a long time ago.

MATTHEW/DANI

I love you

Well some other stuff that I can mention.

The Almaty missionaries go to a university 3 times a week to study Kazakh. It was really cool and kinda weird. We were just coming in to the campus in our suits and all the students were kind of staring at us then we go into our class room. The class is only the teacher and the missionaries and it's really cool.

At the priesthood council meeting I translated into English for the English speakers. And besides that, President just wanted us to go there so that we were aware of everything that was going on. I think I learned a lot of useful stuff about being a branch president that I had never thought of before. Mostly stuff to do with tithing and the roles of the clerk and stuff like that.

We had a new investigator come to church. Half of the sacrament meeting talks and both of the lessons were about temples and eternal marriage. And they weren't presented in the most investigator friendly way, so I hope he comes back.

We visited one of the members who is in a hospital on Sunday. She is mentally challenged and broke her leg. It turned out the hospital was like a combined mental/physical hospital. I can't really describe what it was like, but I have a much deeper appreciation for how many blessings I have. And no matter what a hospital in America is like I will never be able to complain about it.

The last couple weeks during our work out time we have been doing "Air Alert 3." It's a program with various leg and jumping exercises designed to increase your vertical. My calves are getting huge. It's a 15 week program, and it's been really fun to do.

The Spirit is Real, Revelation is Real

Hey,

So I double checked and the release date is June 12. So I think it would be a good idea to move the Idaho trip a week back, and I can still decide what I want to do, whether I push it to get into summer term or if I find something else to do for the summer, I can worry about that later.

Kazakhstan is pretty good. We Got into Astana yesterday and went to church, then spent the evening out on the streets. It was pretty cool to be able to walk around Astana, but I can imagine that would get very old, to walk around for hours on end just to see if people want to come to English and to have them help us learn Kazakh. We are going to Almaty tomorrow where Elder Anderson is serving. The really unfortunate thing is that Elder Anderson is still having visa problems and he was only down here on a 1 month visa so he had to go back to Russia at the exact time when we were coming down, so it's a bummer that we won't be able to see him, but he's living in our apartment in Novo right now and he's working with a few of our investigators from before. We'll see what we will be doing in Almaty, but last trip it seemed that the Almaty missionaries were much busier with various things, service, stuff with members, and other stuff. I don't think the rules are going to change any time soon, its just frustrating and seemingly random who gets the permissions to preach and when they come. So hopefully that just smooths out in the next little while as the church gets registered here.

I definitely remember doing that project that Danica is doing. How it was centered on the "Cultural Diffusion" between all of the different cultures at that time. And we definitely made a nice poster board but I forgot where we did it. Maybe Jake's house.

Well, not much happened at the beginning of the week, just pretty much all of the regular stuff. On Tuesday I had Elder Marcy in my area to do an exchange and Elder Davis went to that area. On Thursday we were at the mission home for a while because after our regular stuff there (calling the zone leaders, discussion transfer scenarios, etc) President had us stay and do our regular interviews. I love those interviews, it's like 30 minutes of pure inspiration directed right at me. It's amazing how he just kind of starts by chatting then after a few minutes he knows exactly what council to give. And I walk out of there thinking, "How did he know I needed to hear that? Nothing I said even pointed to that." That is one of my biggest testimony builders that the spirit is real and revelation is real. We talked a little about my future in the next few transfers which now seems to be a little different than originally planned. He gave me some really good advice about discovering what the will of the Lord for me is in my life and trying to follow that. He also complemented my natural ability to be able to uplift others and challenged me to stretch that even more to find more opportunities to uplift others. It gave me a bunch of good things to think about, especially as I listened to some of General Conference this weekend.

Thursday night we took off for Omsk. Friday we did all of our Visa business at the consulate, and had some time to work with Elder Newman. Then on Saturday we watched the 3 Saturday sessions of conference with the Omsk missionaries and took the train out to Astana that night. It was pretty nice crossing the border on the train. At about midnight the train was stopped and a Russian border agent opened up the kupet and flipped the lights on and checked our documents with the usual questions. Then about 1:30 the train was still moving and a Kazakh border agent came through and did the same thing. I was hoping it would be a little more intense for the story. Like they would come in yelling with AK47s, but it was pretty mild. And actually way more convenient than the airport, because you don't have to stand in a line, you just sit in your bed while they check your documents. At church yesterday we watched the Sunday morning session with the members. Well, that is the Kazakh members. There were about 20 American members who did a sacrament meeting in the other room, and the missionaries and maybe 5-6 Kazakh members watched Conference in Russian.

Ok, that's it. Love you Mom.

Elder Topham

Looking Pretty Good

Hey, how's it going? It's been a little chillier here, I even wore a scarf yesterday. It's pretty rainy and yucky today.

Mom's questions:

The Angry Birds soda had some name to it, but it was basically Hawaiian punch. They have various flavors.

Let's see, my release date is June 12 if I remember correctly, I think that is when the transfer falls.

For Christmas, really I don't need anything. I definitely have plenty of hand and toe warmers, I have some from last time and usually you can find those in apartment closets from past missionaries. I've got plenty of socks, and if those go bad I can buy some here, I've got plenty of spices and cooking materials and treats, so really I can't think of anything to request. So don't worry about making it a big package or putting a lot of stuff in it, because I don't really need anything.

Sam's Questions:

So we haven't watched Conference, we should be doing that next week.

It doesn't really matter on the decal, it's no big deal too, but anything would be cool, anything Transformers or Basketball or anything, it doesn't matter.

Dani:

Great Job on your history test! I'm pretty sure I got a B on that first test.

Dad:

Thanks for the email, I like your perspective on things. It really makes me smile.

Matt:

Love you bud, be good!

This week was pretty good. We were busy during the week with transfers and new missionaries. In addition to what we normally do we also ran a training meeting for all of the district leaders on Thursday.

Things are looking pretty good right now. We have 2 solid investigators with baptismal dates. Viktor keeps making steady progress and has been continuously changing during the teaching process. I'm not sure that he will make his date that is at the end of the month, because he keep getting scheduled to work on Sundays, but he is doing very well. Our other date is Aleksander. His is a very funny story. He is the one who came with us to church that one day but then took off right before the meeting started. Anyway 2 days later we ran into him at the bus stop and he told us that he felt like he wasn't ready, and it was too early to make his decision and stuff like that, so we had to spend a while explaining what went on there. So anyway, we taught him about 3 times last week, he's read quite a bit, and he came to the baptism on Saturday and to sacrament meeting and didn't run away either of the times. (He was a little hesitant to come to the baptism, but we thoroughly explained to him that it was not HIS baptism and he could just sit in the back row and watch.) So I think he really liked the baptism. He might have been a little weirded out about sacrament meeting, after hearing testimony after testimony about the temple. I really admire the faithfulness of the members here and their love and desire to go to the temple when it is so far away, but it's tough on the investigators sometimes when they talk about it so much at sacrament meeting and bring it up when they are assisting with our lessons.

Other than that things are going well, just kind of moving on like usual. We are going to start traveling again next week and that will be very interesting. We are going to Omsk on Thursday night, then straight from there to Kazakhstan for about 5 days. So we will watch half of Conference in Omsk and half in Astana. And I'll be writing from Astana next week. We take an overnight train to Omsk, an overnight train to Astana, then fly to Almaty, then fly home. So I can assure you that it will be quite the exhausting trip.

Saturday night all the missionaries in our branch put on a Mexican night. A little fiesta that the members could invite their friends to. It went really well, much thanks to Elder Smith who did a really good job planning, delegating, and running it, and the Webbs and the sisters who did all the food and decorations. We and the Zone leaders did our parts but not as much as all of them. We had everyone just eat and talk for the first little while. There was also a photo booth where people could take pictures with a sombrero and mustache. Then we had a little show. Elder Walker played the guitar and Elder Hoggan danced, then Elder Davis and I gave a little thing about the history of the Church in Mexico that was pretty interesting. Then we taught everyone the Mexican Hat Dance, broke a pinata and sang I Am a Child of God in Spanish. Then we split up and took everyone on a tour of the church and had three stations where members told them about the church and what goes on there. It was a huge success. There were probably about 20 members and 30 non members. All of the non members went on the tour. All of the non members were people who go to English or are already our investigators or contacts. The only unfortunate part was that no members brought any friends. But it was still a huge success and a bunch of people were interested in stuff on the tour. Well, I think that's all I got. Love you.

Elder Topham

A Lot of Time to Contact

Sorry I haven't really read the emails that you sent me very well yet. I got a lot of stuff from President today, and the absentee ballot, and I sent those pictures so I don't have much time. I'll be able to read them this week and answer them thoroughly next Monday.

This week didn't go too well. I guess it started off really bad when Monday night we had a lesson with an investigator at a member's house and right before he texted us and canceled and said that he didn't want to continue meeting with us and coming to church any more because he doesn't want to leave his own church. And besides that message he hasn't actually talked to us about it or answered our calls. We also had some rough days Tuesday and Wednesday with people canceling first meetings on us. Really the only investigator who we are consistently teaching is Viktor. And even that is really one once a week because of his work schedule.

The Visa trip was nice and went very smoothly. All of the planes were on time and there were no problems at all in Helsinki so it was great. We had a little bit of time Thursday evening to see some stuff in Helsinki, Elder Davis and I had to go to the travel agency there but it didn't take long at all. Then with our group we got to see some of the churches and cathedrals there, so that was really cool. Friday morning we went to the temple and that was also really special. That is probably the last time we will get to go to the temple on the mission because some new measures got passed that we should be able to get three year visas soon. Also, even if that doesn't happen soon the area presidency made a suggestion that you shouldn't go to the temple on visa trip you should just get the next flight out immediately. So we will see what happens next time. Actually, next time I imagine Elder Davis and I will just get our new visas when we are in Kazakhstan. It was nice on the Visa trip I had a chance to talk to Elder Hyde for a long time and catch up with him on stuff, because I hadn't seen him for a while.

Saturday and Sunday we had a couple lessons between home teaching and recent convert Aleksei, but we had a lot of time to contact and I bet that will also be the theme this upcoming week. New missionaries come in this week so we will be spending a bunch of time with them and that's always really fun and my favorite part of the transfer. We are also doing a training meeting for all of the district leaders on Thursday.

Probably the best part of this week was when Aleksei passed the sacrament. That was really awesome, in fact it was really cool that Misha did it with him and was walking him through how to do everything. We talked about missionary work with Aleksei and he wants to go it sounds like, but he isn't very sure yet. Well, I feel like things are going alright and we've been working hard and everything but we've really hit a slump in the area, so we'll see how it goes.

- Elder Topham

Oh yeah, sweet video of the AK 47 and awesome job at debate Dani, sounds like you are owning.

 

Well here are a few pictures from Finland...

 

The first couple are from a Lutheran church that is made out of rocks, it's really cool.

They next few are the main Lutheran cathedral in Helsinki. 

I am drinking an Angry Birds soda. Do they have that in America? I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

 

A Cool Experience

Hey,

I really enjoyed Dad's email. That's what I've been thinking a lot lately. Especially the last couple days.

Mom, thank you as always for your nice emails, those are all very much appreciated. One of the things you mentioned was only pictures on P-days. And that is an issue that I've been trying to deal with, because I was in the ZLC when all of the rules were decided and discussed and when that was discussed there was no consensus on that issue. There's a lot of confusion with rules because so many were added and discussed that it's not very clear sometimes.

Dani, keep it up. Good luck on the forensics tournament. That's like CSI right? Whoever finds the murderer first wins the tournament? Ok fine, just kidding.

Well this week was pretty good.

I think the beginning of the week went pretty well. We taught Ilya on Monday night and Tuesday night. Wednesday I worked with Elder Walker. Thursday evening we were on a train to the Kuz ( he means Novokuznetsk) and we were there all day Friday. That was a good trip. I was with Elders Turley and Bunnell. We had a cool experience on the train, it was a day train so it was just a regular sitting car with three seats to a row. Elder Davis was in the middle with me and a lady at his sides. After a while into the ride, the lady asked him what I was reading and if she could see it. So she took my triple combination and read it for about half an hour. Then we talked for the remaining 2 hours of the train ride. She was actually only changing lines at the Kuz to go to a little town far away from all the cities in our mission, but we gave her a Book of Mormon and all the pamphlets. And got her info. That was just really fun because of how rarely people themselves show interest.

Saturday evening was nice, we taught Ilya, Viktor, and Aleksei. Now Viktor and Ilya both have dates set in October.

Sunday was going to be really good because one of our investigators was going to come, then on Saturday night, while contacting, someone agreed to go with us to church the next morning. So we meet the guy at the bus stop before church and we ride the metro together to church and chat on the way. We get there like 15 minutes early and show him the building and introduce him to a few people then we turn our backs for like a minute and the guy just left, didn't come back, didn't answer our calls. It was the weirdest thing ever. I don't know what he was expecting but I guess there was something there that he didn't like or that spooked him, but I have no idea why someone would actually meet us and come with us and leave before the meeting. Anyway our investigator also didn't show and texted saying he couldn't make it. So it was a pretty disappointing day at church. The bright side came in Priesthood when Aleksei got the Priesthood. We went home teaching with Paval in the evening and other than that just contacted the rest of the night.

Well, I guess that's it, can't think of much more to say. I finished the Old Testament this morning. I think that was a sweet experience and I learned a lot and it was well worth it.

Elder Topham

Tons of Miracles

Hey whats up?

I busted out that sweater that you sent me for my birthday, I think it was for my birthday, because it's getting a little chilly here the last couple days. It's not really that cold, but whenever we go out in just our suit jackets the babooshki always yell at us that we are going to get sick. Anyway, We got back from Tomsk Friday night, and I was exhausted, probably the most tired I have ever been on my mission, besides after long flights, because we just put in 3 grueling days in Tomsk. Elder Davis and I are going to Novokuznetsk later this week. Then Visa Trip next week.

Last Monday we had our last lesson with Nastia. She left back for Kazakhstan while we were in Tomsk. It was a huge success because the main problem we had been having with her is getting her to pray out loud. Before Monday the best we could do was brainstorm with her what she wanted to say and actually write out with her her prayer and have her read it, but at the end of the last lesson she just whipped it right out on her own, so that was a huge success because she really believes everything, but just had that huge hurdle. Now we are happy and confident that she has everything she needs to keep making spiritual growth through prayer and scripture study until she comes back next year and hopefully marries Artyom, then the missionaries will just need to teach a couple commandments and she will be ready to be baptized.

Tuesday we had a really touching lesson with an older man right before we left for Tomsk. He told us about how his father left him when he was little and also his mother was killed by the Germans and he was raised an orphan and just overall had a sad life, and as we talked about Christ and the gospel you could tell that it really was touching him and the spirit was comforting him even in that very moment. We should see him again early this week. Then we had a meeting with all the ZLC + Elder Harrison -Elder Beckh who is in Kazy, and President gave a sweet pep-talk and we worked out some planning details about our trip. He drove the four of us to Tomsk and the other 4 took the bus to Kemerovo. Tuesday night Elder Walker, Stoneking and I worked together while Elder Johnson and President met with the branch president going through name by name all of the men in the branch and finding out where they were at and what the next step is. That meeting was very successful because just by doing so they got a more accurate count and added a few priesthood holders, then made a plan to get a few more the priesthood soon.

Wednesday I worked all day with Elder Stoneking. We spent a lot of time street and park contacting. I think we only had one lesson set up going into it, and we were at the branch standing outside the front talking to people as they walked by until our guy showed up. One guy agreed to come take a tour of the building. So we thought we would do that real quick, and we finished and our guy still had not showed up so we sat this guy down and taught him the first lesson. It was a sweet experience. That goes to show how if you make plans and are working hard the whole time then, even if the original plan doesn't work out, the lord will take care of you and something good will come of it.

Thursday I worked with Elder White. We had 4 meetings set up. Two from former investigators who I had previously taught and 2 from new contacts from Wednesday. Three of them called and cancelled and one just didn't ever show up or answer his phone, so that was a huge bummer and we again spent a good amount of time street contacting. The highlight of our day was probably at the very end of the day when we were both very tired, and tired of walking around so we went by the boardwalk of the river. We decided that if there is any guy sitting out here alone than he must be out here pondering deep questions. So we spotted a few couples but one guy sitting alone, so we sat by him and chatted him up and ended up having a really deep spiritual discussion and really helped him out.

Friday we had an hour before district meeting so we went contacting in the pouring rain. That was sweet because 2 out of the first 3 guys we talked to were interested at least to some degree. I take that as a reward for sticking it out in the rain. Elder Johnson ran a really powerful district meeting. And we took off back for Novo right after on the bus. (President on Wednesday worked with Elder Jensen and Harris then took of for Kemerovo)

In Kemerovo there were tons of miracles. There were two investigators with baptismal dates for soon and they got them both baptized on Friday, as well as two guys that they found on Wednesday. I guess the elders taught them a first lesson and had them both pray right then and there and they both said they felt a really strong answer that its right and they wanted to be baptized. So they taught them all the lessons and baptized them on Friday. President was there and gave an exception to the guideline that investigators should attend several sacrament meetings before the baptism. In Tomsk there was a lot of success, we didn't baptize anyone but we set a handful of baptismal dates, found many new investigators and I'm sure a lot of men came out to church yesterday but I haven't seen the numbers yet.

This whole trip was a huge testimony builder about how President is inspired and how the revelation works. About 2 weeks ago he said he wanted the 6 of us to go to Tomsk, then a little after that he felt impressed that Elders Anderson and Harrison should go as well, then last week he felt impressed to include Kemerovo, then boom all of these miracles, especially in Kemerovo.

Sunday was disappointing because all three of our lessons bailed on us. So after church we taught another member family then contacted for a while. Pretty much all the investigators that Elder A and I had have died off, so we need to focus on getting some new prepared people. We have one really good one right now who Elder Davis and Anderson found and taught literally right when then got into the city from Tomsk. He agreed to be baptized and he came to all three hours of church and loved it.

Well, I think that is it.

Elder Topham

Solid

Hey what's up everybody. Hey Mom, love you.

This week's been pretty solid, I think it's gone by pretty fast, it was stressful at times but everything went pretty well.

We spent a lot of time this week doing stuff for various conferences. Zone Conference (missionaries), District Conference (members), and Zone Leader Council. I guess when a General Authority comes out here you schedule all of the meetings you can in that week. In the time we were not doing that stuff we had some investigator lessons and some member lessons, so it was pretty busy.

Wednesday we had another test run for the District Conference and we got everything to run really smooth.

Friday was the combined Zone Conference. President Bennett came in and called everyone to repentance. Including having everyone go out street contacting for an hour before lunch. President Gibbons did a sweet job not backing down on anything that President Bennett said, but at the same time making it sound more inspiring and like he is really on our side, I think he did a wonderful job. I thought Elder Bennett's was really good too. He said a lot of things that a lot of missionaries needed to hear that will help many of us change. There are many new rules and restrictions now. A few were some older ones that President G wanted to clarify, some are from recent instruction given by the Apostles at the mission president's seminar and some are from Elder Bennett, the way he interprets the handbook. Most of them outlaw anything that can possibly take away any time or attention from doing missionary work. For example, no music except for P-day and even then only MoTab and Russian classical music. No meeting with any other missionaries to do activities on P-day. No culture night (which is very interesting because we had all bought tickets for a hockey game tonight to be our culture night for this transfer. The one culture night activity that I have been waiting for a year to do. So we are just going to have to eat the cost of those and try to give them away to someone). Oh, and here is the hardest one: senior couples aren't allowed to feed us meals at district meeting any more. And we can't have them at their apartments any more. There are many more but I think those are the main and most interesting ones.

My role for Zone Conference was to conduct the morning session, we also did a bunch of logistical preparation things.

Saturday afternoon we ran the technology for the Priesthood and auxiliary training meetings for District Conference. That one was pretty rough because after we had made a beautiful set up of running a hard wire across the ceiling right to where our state of the art broadcast equipment was set up, it wouldn't work. So we had to do plan B and run the thing with dinky web cams and WIFI. After the meeting we quickly found out that the router just went down and we reset it and ran the adult session and the general session almost flawlessly. It sounds like all of the cities got the feed really well. We also made sure that all of the Americans there had working headsets for translation (that is of course except the young missionaries and president Gibbons). Elder Anderson translated all of the meetings into English for them. While they spoke, Russians translated it to Russian.

So it looks like numbers wise the only thing holding us back from a stake is the number of active priesthood brethren in Tomsk. So President was impressed that the entire ZLC should go on a 3 day field trip to Tomsk in order to find and start teaching those future priesthood leaders. We are leaving tomorrow and coming back on Friday. Just this morning we changed the plans up a little. Because now President is going to move the Kemerovo group- this is a city with a tiny branch with one active priesthood holder that is about the same distance from Novo and Tomsk and is now a part of the Novo branch- to the Tomsk branch. And we are taking Elders Anderson and Harrison on the field trip as well and now 4 of us will go to Tomsk and 4 to Kemerovo and President will go to both cities. Going to Tomsk will be me, Elders Davis, Anderson, and Walker (all of us have previously served in Tomsk) and to Kemerovo, Elders Carr, Kelly, Bowler, and Harrison. So that is going to be an awesome adventure and I'm sure it will be a very spiritual experience going there with such a specific purpose.

Nastia will be going home this week, so we have a last lesson with her planned tonight to try to get her some good reading and praying habits. We have tons of numbers right now that we got as street contacts, that we haven't had enough time to follow up on and get meetings with. So we will have to spend some time doing that when we get back from Tomsk.

I think that's all. I think visa trips are all back to Helsinki now. Sounds like you did great at the volleyball tournament Dani, that one picture of you hitting looks like you jumped pretty high!

-Elder Topham

Technical Difficulties

Hey, what's up. 

I'm a little later today because we had some stuff to deal with today. First, someone offered an apartment to us that is much less than we pay for ours, so we had to go take a look at it. It's smaller which is fine, but the kitchen isn't good and the location isn't quite as good, but it is significantly cheaper, so we'll see if we move or not. Then, Elder Bennett from the Seventy and the Area Presidency is touring the mission this week and he had us come to his hotel and interview with him today.

I feel like this last week has been ridiculous with the amount of stuff popping up here and there that we have to take care of. One thing is the new program from the missionary department of the monthly "Zone Training Meeting" which is done once a month by the zone leaders with everyone in the zone, in place of district meeting for that week. That's really tough for our mission because the 3 cities in each zone are from 5 to 8 hours apart. So this time we ran the zone meetings by the church webcam program. One of them was decent, they just had some cutting in and out problems, but the other one was a disaster technology wise. Also, there is a district conference coming up this weekend, and that will also be broadcast out to all of the cities in the mission. So we did a test run for that on Sunday after church. It was pretty rough, there should be another one on Wednesday so we will see how that goes. There is also the upcoming Combined Zone Conference. Elder Bennett is going to be there for that so we are trying to help plan and set everything up.

We had a ZLC last week that went well.

The most positive experience of last week was Aleksei's confirmation. I confirmed him and it was a really good experience for both of us. I was actually really nervous when we started but once I got the necessary words out, everything felt really good and all the words just really flowed from there.

We hadn't seen Andrei for a while but we went over there on Sunday after church and I think we are making a little bit of progress with him.

Viktor surprised us and came to church. We hadn't seen him or even talked to him for a couple weeks (he got a new phone number)

We taught Nastia, from Kazakhstan, probably about 4 times in the evenings this past week and she came to church. We were really pleased with her progress, she is so shy that especially during our first 2 meetings it was hard to tell if she was getting anything or what she was thinking, but she's been warming up a little more and when we taught the Plan of Salvation and Gospel of Christ she did a really good job showing us how much she understands.

There are a couple other investigators who we just started with.

We did a nice job seeing members this week. Maybe about 4 or 5 member lessons, we haven't seen any direct results from it, but a few of the members who we taught this week were really pumped during testimony meeting and shared their testimonies and included how thankful they are for the missionaries, so that was nice to hear and I know they appreciated it.

As far as I know all the permissions (to preach in Kazakhstan) went to Astana and there aren't any in Almaty yet. And yes, those are all individual. That is something that we weren't expecting to come through until after the church was registered, but it looks like they are both kind of just going through the system parallel.

Elder Harris is looking great, he's out in Tomsk now. I think they tacked 4 transfers on the end of his mission.

Now we have a few more missionaries than we have had for a while, but about the same as when I came in. In a few months we should have more, especially sisters, we will have many more sisters than we have ever had.

Yeah, as far as a member program its seems like it has a much different feel here than in America. Our goal is to really try to help and strengthen the members. Its tough here because being Mormon is much more culturally accepted in America, and you don't get much persecution for your beliefs, so we are trying to strengthen their testimonies, then help them do missionary work from there.

Well, that's all. Hope everything is going well there.

-Elder Topham