A Lot of Work Still to Do

Well, I feel like this week went by very quickly.

Monday night we went out so see Andrei and his family. We had a good time over there and Irina fed us as usual, with that egg crab salad thing that I really like. Andrei is warming up to us more and more and participating much more in the discussion and giving us good answers. And he came to church again this week, so he is still moving along slowly.

Tuesday we did our regular office work, then we had a meeting with all of the missionaries who are going to Kazakhstan, and with all of the missionaries who are in Kazy right now. We were in the mission office with President, and the missionaries who are here now and we also had The Almati and Astana missionaries in on it by this church program to hold long distance meetings, basically just like skype but more private. The set up in the mission office is sweet with a nice flat screen and a sweet remote control camera. President basically just tried to motivate everyone and give everyone a little more direction on what they should and should not be doing down there. Speaking of Kazy, Elder Anderson and I will be going down there starting in the middle of this week with President. We will stay down there for a week. First to Astana where we will go to church, then to Almati for a few days and we will hold Zone Leaders Conference from Almati using that same video technology. Its been a rough time for Sister Gibbons because her mom just passed away so she will actually be flying home for the funeral this week, so President is sad with her but also kind of excited that we get to go on a man's road trip. (Actually he wants to take a train across the boarder from here to Astana, but we'll see if that works. That would be really fun.) So next p-day I should be writing you from Kazakhstan. Tuesday was also really cool, because we had a lesson with Viktor and Misha. And we ran into like 4 people in a row on the way home. Including 2 people who had seen us around and wanted to talk to us, our favorite bus conductor who quit her job and wanted to talk to us, and Aleksei who had disappeared on us because of his new job. It was really cool because we usually take the bus home from the branch, but this time we decide to take the metro because we just both felt like the metro would be better this time because there was maybe traffic or something. Then at the metro exit it's a big toss up which way to go out because they are equally as far from our house, so we just said whatever let's go left today because there is a hot dog shack that way and I was hungry, then boom all these 4 people right back to back. I thought it was my stomach leading us that direction, but I guess it was the spirit.

Wednesday we had to get to the airport at like 5:00 in the morning to pick up the new senior couple that is in Krasnoyarsk right now, then check them into a hotel. Then we went right to the zone leaders' place to start exchanges. I was with Elder Davis all day and it was awesome as always. We actually went and saw the old original Aleksei. He's got his roof built now and he came to church, but he's still coming along very slowly. Other than that, we had a good member lesson, an investigator lesson that didn't really work out, and a more successful than usual street contacting session. That night the patriarch was in the city and gave a fireside for the members. He's traveling the mission for 3 weeks doing blessings.

Thursday we planned and the patriarch did a meeting for all the missionaries in the city. It was interesting, it was all about the use of chiasmus in the sermon on the mount and it was fascinating and seemed much more like a BYU religion class or lecture than a fireside or missionary training meeting. But it was very interesting, and entertaining. And it also makes sense because he was a BYU professor of Russian and Theology for a long time. Our meetings didn't work out that day, but there was still English. For story time I told the story that President Utchdorf told a few years ago about the plane crashing into a volcano because the coordinates were off just by 2 degrees and it ended up like 50 km off target. Then Elder Anderson came in and pwned everyone by telling them about the apostasy. And how that is what happened to the churches.

Friday we had district meeting. Then taught Victor, then taught Aleksei. We taught him the last two little commandments and talked about his baptism, he still wasn't confident that he was ready even though he is based on all of the requirements. So we had him do the interview with Elder Smith anyway and tell us at our meeting the next day. He passed the interview and Elder Smith did a great job helping him along and encouraging him.

Then on Saturday he said he prayed about it but he still isn't ready. He says he wants to change more before his baptism and make everything, especially going to church, more of a habit. I think that it is actually mostly a social concern. So either way we reset his date until August 19 and made a really good concrete plan of what he has to do up until that point to be ready, including coming to church all 3 hours until that point and explaining more to his mom and his girlfriend about the church and why he believes it. It was actually a great and really spiritually uplifting meeting. We also finally got into older Aleksei's house. His wife didn't stay for this one, but we had a great lesson with him. This work is just killing him, and we gave him a blessing to help him deal with everything and I think he really liked that and he told us that after our talk he felt a lot better and a lot calmer. But we have a lot of work still to do with him. Saturday we also had interviews with President. Those are always very uplifting and inspirational. That is something that I'm trying to learn from President by being able to serve so closely with him for so long. He is just amazing in interview settings, just helping that person and making a huge difference in their life every conversation, so I would definitely like to develop some of that ability too. He was telling me about some of the blessings that he has received in his life and how they have even new meaning to him now. (Mom do we have any blessings that I have received recorded besides my patriarchal blessing and the one that Dad gave me right before I left?)

Sunday rolled around and we went to the office early to get the baptismal programs worked out. 4 people were scheduled for that date, but ours and Elder Smith and Lionheart's didn't work out, But 2 people still got baptized after church. It was a huge turnout. The only font is at the other building, so a bunch of our branch went over there after church, and almost all of the left bank branch stayed. So there were about 100 people at this baptism. It was incredible. Older Aleksei came too, so that was a really good experience for him. That night we went home teaching with Paval to the babushka, Ludmila. Well, that's the week.

So the Olympics aren't as big over here as they are in America. And this is the one time I really feel like dang, I really just want to take a day off and watch TV. I didn't feel like that for Superbowl or March Madness or anything, but there's just a special place in my heart for the Olympics. I haven't seen any at all, and I've only heard little fragments, most people don't really care. There are some, like the recent convert in our branch. He is a high school volleyball coach and he loves sports, especially volleyball, and he told us all about them yesterday, and tried to convince us to come over and watch with him. Don't worry, I'm definitely cheering for Russia.... to get 2nd! Go America baby! No, but seriously I want Russia to win, just not if there is an American in the competition. They are my second favorite. Its like UNLV basketball, they are great and I love them, but I'm just not going to cheer for them over BYU.

Love,

Elder Topham

Sofia right after her baptism.

Us with young Aleksei on the boat on that same activity.

Me talking to Vika (Andrei's daughter) on the boat cruise branch activity. (I stole her hat)

District Meeting

Recently active Misha



Us with President and Sister Gibbons with matching ties

Us celebrating Elder Anderson's birthday.

Us celebrating Elder Anderson's birthday.

Us celebrating Elder Anderson's birthday.

The Hand of God is Involved in This and Watching Over Us

Well, last Monday two more sisters came in from the former Moscow West Mission, so we picked them up with President at the airport, and it was sweet because we got a dinner at the mission home out of it. Then President and Sister Gibbons usually show a slideshow about them and their family. But we have seen it so many times already that they let us do it, so that was fun.

Tuesday. We did the usual office stuff as well as a little orientation for the new sisters. We taught Aleksei and Viktor.

Wednesday. The meetings that we had set up didn't really work our for whatever reasons, so that was a bummer, but then we had another good English Session.

Thursday. We had an epically long meeting with President at the mission home where first we called the zone leaders and did all of the normal Thursday stuff, then we talked about the next few transfers and what was going to happen. It was crazy and I can't even begin to describe all of the complexities that turned it into this giant logic puzzle where you would think you have a solution but someone points out one little piece that doesn't fit in right, and you have to start rearranging everything. A lot of the complexities dealt with the massive amount of new missionaries coming in the next 3 transfers, especially sisters. Also choosing who will be going to Kazakhstan a long time down the road, in order to start getting all of their paperwork going, among other complexities. We finally got everything worked out. President just texted us this morning telling us about a few last minute changes that he made. It was just amazingly fun to really have to try to figure out the best way to make everything work. After the meeting we taught Aleksei and Vitali, then had to run to the train station to catch our train to Omsk. That was a really crazy and busy day.

Friday we got into Omsk in the morning. We spent a couple hours at the Kazakh consulate working to get us some Visa's so we can go down there, went to district meeting and back to the consulate. Everything worked out really well, it just took a while. But it was also cool because while we were there the second time, there was a couple, the girl from Poland and the guy from Switzerland, who both spoke English but not Russian (at least not very well). We were able to help them and translate for them and it was cool. They were very grateful and we made good friends. We spent the rest of Friday with Elders Newman and Rubow.

Me in omsk with Elders Bailey and Kelly

Saturday I was with Elders Kelly and Bailey all day. We had a good one, all afternoon we went sign-boarding. We had a whiteboard with the question on it "Does God really exist?" and we had a tally going and had people come up and put their tally on the board, then we would try to talk to them and stuff, so it was pretty cool. Most people of course just ignored us, but some people were really into it and I think it was much better than just regular street contacting. Elder Bailey is still pretty new and doesn't speak or understand very well. So he even had this clipboard with a place for people to put their name, the reason for their answer and their phone number and he actually got a few people like that - it was sweet. That night we had a lesson with a babooshka who has been a member since the beginning of the church in Russia, then an inactive man. We got back on the train that night. It's been extremely hot here, but it was even hotter in Omsk and was ridiculously humid, and something about their apartment had bad air circulation or something. I was so gross for that whole trip, sweating a ridiculous amount. When we were inside studying and eating lunch, I got a towel wet and froze it in the freezer and put it on my head, that helped somewhat.

Sunday we got in on the train and had time to shower and get to church. It was awesome because we had 4 investigators show up. We were actually expecting 4 but, it never actually works out like that so I was very happy. We did some home teaching that night with Brother Paval. Another highlight of Sunday was that Misha gave a talk in sacrament meeting. He was really nervous and it was probably only about 3 minutes long, but he did a great job. And the best part was that his mom, Olga, came to church to watch him speak. I think that was probably her first time for about 8-10 years, so we were also very happy about that.

Some updates on the people:

Aleksei is on fire. He was a little hesitant that he is really ready to be baptized so we read some scriptures to him and went over the baptismal interview questions. It was at the Webb's place and Aleksei understands English pretty well so the Webbs participated and did awesome during the lesson. Especially when Aleksei had a question about repentance and how he can know if he has really been forgiven. Elder Webb just owned that question. It makes sense because he has been a stake president for 10 years and has a little experience with stuff like that. There is a baptismal service on Sunday after church, and as long as he feels ready he should be baptized then, so we'll see.

Viktor came to church this week, he's still progressing slow. (Its cool about Dad teaching the gospel principles lesson, we had that same one about work and responsibility).

Evgeni also came to church but we didn't even have a chance to teach him last week.

Andrei is our part member family investigator he has been pretty regularly coming to church, and we are going over there to teach him tonight.

Vitali's lessons are interesting. It seems like every time he comes in with some doubts about something he read on the Internet or something that he read in the Book of Mormon that he didn't agree with and every time the lesson just ends on a good note and puts him back on track but unfortunately he did not come to church.

Other Aleksei has still disappeared, we need to stop by his house and track him down. It's interesting we were seeing him about every other day and about two weeks ago the last lesson we had I actually left my triple combination at their place for his wife to read. We didn't have a clean Book of Mormon with us so I told her I would bring her one in 2 days and until that time she could read mine because it was that important for her to start reading now. So it's garbage that I haven't had my nice triple with all of my markings in it, but I also think that it's more than just a coincidence that we had met about every other day for three weeks and right after the lesson when I leave my nice book there and make arrangements to come back and get it is right when he gets his new job and disappears. So now we have a very convenient excuse to track him down and get into his apartment again. It reminds me of what I read this morning in the Book of Esther. When Mordecai basically said, "either this just happens to be great timing that when you become queen and are in a position to save us, the king is about to kill all the Jews, or the hand of God is involved in this and watching over us." Here is the real verse without my paraphrasing. 13 Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews.

14 For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Well that's all I got for now.

Elder Topham

 Walking home...

It's About Them, and About the Lord

Hey, whats up?

It was a pretty mild week. We didn't travel anywhere or do any exchanges. We just had our regular business with President and a good amount of time to work in our area.

For P-day we had a little going away party for Elder Ortner with the missionaries and a couple members he was close to.

Tuesday we had our regular office stuff in the morning then in the afternoon we went over to a member who lives really close to us. She was remodeling her apartment. We went and helped her rip down all the wall paper and clean off the walls. Then clean the ceiling. The next day we spent an hour there painting the ceiling. Then an amazing thing happened and it was just like the textbook - do service for members so that they like you and they will give you referrals to teach. Just as we were heading out she said, "Well, just come back tomorrow and I've got this friend who has been reading the Book of Mormon and I'll invite her over and introduce her to you." So it was awesome and that is exactly what happened. And as a matter of fact, that is the first member referral that I have ever gotten (not counting within a part member family or from recent converts). So it was sweet. We spent a couple hours doing home improvement work that was really fun and now we have this lady who we can hopefully start teaching soon.

Wednesday evening I did the "micro-sermon" at the end of English. (I like that terminology better, because spiritual thought sounds weak.) I was talking about prophets and showing all kinds of pictures of all these prophets of old and getting people to realized how important they are then talked about our modern day prophet. It was really cool because people were really surprised when I whipped out a picture of Thomas Monson right after Moses. It got people really interested, and it was a little hostile just preaching that to like 30 people who are looking at you like "this guy is crazy what is he talking about?" But it was cool because a lot of people wanted to ask missionaries questions after. One guy even laughed when I said that there is a prophet on the earth today. So after, I went up to him and said, "So I guess that's the first time you've heard that, huh?" And he says "Yeah that's pretty strange." We talked for a few minutes and it was sweet because he agreed to come back the next day and Elder Anderson and I taught him the first lesson and he listened really well.

Last Saturday there was a branch activity. We took that cruise down the river and got off at an island to have a picnic. It was really sweet because of the awesome turnout. Aleksei the younger came and it was huge for him because he just took off with the other guys his age and even after the thing he told us that they all hung out together all night, so he's in now and has friends in the branch. Also, Andrei who is our part member guy who we have been struggling to help actually do anything, came and brought his little daughter even though his wife was working. Also the member referral came, and a few other members brought some friends who we got to meet. So it was a really productive activity. It was awkward that it was on a beach and most people went swimming and we were in slacks and ties on the beach. We tossed around a frisbee and a volleyball and at one point people from around the beach who were there drinking and partying came over and wanted to play with us and it was me, Elder Anderson, and like 10 of them. They questioned our apparel a bit but I told them that's the fashion in America, and everyone goes to the beaches like that. It was also cool because one of the members brought a friend with them who was crippled and struggled to walk with a walker, but had no chance on the sand. So Elder A and I got to carry him from the boat and across the island and back. It was super hard work but awesome to be able to help out like that.

We had a really disappointing day at church. We were expecting several investigators but absolutely nobody came. So it was a really disappointing day at church. And I'm worried about our 2 investigators with baptismal dates not being ready.

I learned a very strong lesson this week. I was in a bad mood one night because our best investigator canceled on us, we had bad results on the street, and a member was rude to me over the phone for no reason. I was just in a bad mood and thinking what the heck am I doing wrong? Why are they treating me like that? Why do they treat me like I'm dumb or say rude things to me? And just thought "whatever, I'm going to bed." The next morning I had this amazing experience. I prayed that I would be able to have the right attitude to do missionary work that day and to be happy and positive and I got an amazingly clear answer. Actually, it came from some words of a song that was playing during breakfast and the scripture study that morning. This piece of revelation just smacked me in the face, and it was like, "It's not about you. Why are you looking at these things that happened as why did they do this to ME what I'm I doing wrong? You need to think about them, it's sad that they didn't accept it for them, but this work isn't about you. It's about them and about the Lord." It's kind of hard to describe, but that idea changed my whole outlook and mood.

But there was one big highlight of church. And sometimes I forget to look back and see the success that we've had and the impact we've made and I just think that nobody came so we were failures that week. But at church Misha, the formerly inactive, told us that he wanted us to come to his Sunday School lesson because he was teaching. It's his new calling and it would be his first time teaching. It actually worked out well because none of our investigators showed so we didn't have to go to Gospel Essentials, so we went to Misha's Sunday School class and he did a great job teaching the lesson. And as he was up there you could see the light in his eyes and his spirit radiating from him, that he has been converted and it was a wonderful sight.

Well I think that's it.

Elder Topham

Crazy Stuff

We had a bunch of crazy stuff going on this week.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal, mellow days where we just taught a few lessons and did some contacting. Also on Monday I went to the zoo... again. I think that is time #5. But I did discover the aquarium section that I had never seen before.

Tuesday night we are sleeping and we get a call from president at 1:00 in the morning. He was still in Kazy, he apologized and said he sent in the Elders from Almaty for leadership training and he forgot to tell us to go pick them up and they were at the airport right then wondering what to do. So we got them to our place, and the next 2 days were with them.

Wednesday we had a meeting with President to plan leadership training and to talk about some things of the mission, mostly involving Kazy. Then we had our second week of English and it was sick. 46 people stayed for the spiritual thought. I walked into first group right when it was time to start and there were like 20 people in there crammed into the little primary room. So it was really sweet, I had a really fun time doing it and hopefully we will be getting some solid investigators coming out from that, so we will see.

Thursday was the leadership training. And actually we had a meeting just 1 hour before with only us, Pres and the zone leaders. Pres had gotten really sick the night before and was looking and feeling awful, was up all night throwing up and stuff. So he asked for a blessing. Elder Blake anointed and I sealed it with the participation of Elder Anderson and the Zone leaders. That was a really cool powerful experience. I was more nervous about what I would say going into that blessing than a usual one because it was President. But once it got going, it was amazing how much the spirit kicked in and just calmed me down, and I just kind of talked and before I knew it, it was over. I have always loved giving blessings and am amazed by the way the spirit guides the words, but this one was really special just the overwhelming calmness and ease and flow. It was a really cool experience. At leadership, President spoke in the morning, Elder A and I gave a presentation about language learning. Then Pres and Sister Gibbons each spoke in the afternoon. One big announcement is that Pres is having all of the missionaries who go to Kazy learn how to speak Kazakh.

We took off Friday morning for Kiev. It was sweet because it was a direct flight from Novo to Kiev and we didn't have to mess with the Moscow airport. But it was Awful because our plane got delayed 7 hours! and we were just waiting there in the airport as they were figuring out what was going on forever. Once we finally got to Kiev, we had about 5 hours till our return flight home. So we didn't have enough time to go to the temple, we just had a few hours to go see the city for a bit and have some dinner. For only being in the city for about 2 hours we saw a ton! And we got a lot of sweet pictures. Then the plane back got delayed for a couple hours and by that time I was absolutely exhausted and we got back to Novo to our apartment around 10 in the morning and shortly thereafter went to district meeting and had to do some other stuff and went to the Fourth of July celebration that the missionaries put on.

Sunday we caught up on some sleep, especially because Elder Anderson caught something on the trip and not sleeping for that long just hammered him, and he's still not looking or sounding good. After I got some sleep I felt much better but I was feeling really crappy until then. So unfortunately we did not get to see the soccer stadium or the temple, but we saw the other main attractions in Kiev including some beautiful cathedrals and one of them that we went in even had a service going on so that was really sweet to watch.

So Kiev was great but the down side is that there is only 1 flight there and one back. For a long time, a period of a few days I think. So I think based on what happened, the office people don't like it because it is too risky with only that 1 flight and they might even send us somewhere else next time.

Young Aleksei came back and now he has a baptismal date. His phone broke and he was on the dacha for a few weeks so all is good it was just a little scary not hearing from him for a while. Other Aleksei is also looking good, unfortunately his work has been really picking up and he didn't make it to church but he is still looking great.

I haven't seen any floods here or heard anything about them.

Unfortunately we were pretty busy on the Fourth of July but I know some missionaries made it to Carl's Jr. and bought a big watermelon.

Elder Topham

Pictures from Kiev  

The Spirit is Helping

The highlight this week has definitely been Aleksei. He's still doing really well. It's been a really cool experience watching him grow and change. It's been great teaching him all of the commandments. It seems like every time we teach him something he always agrees with us, and says, "Yeah I want to live like that, but it's going to be really hard and it's going to take me a while to change." Then we come back the next lesson, and he tells us how miraculous it has been and how the spirit is helping him so much as he is trying to keep the commandments. The other really cool thing about that situation is that we taught a lesson to his wife and son also. It has been tough because the wife usually isn't around when we come over, or one time kind of went and hid in the kitchen. But we have just been trying to be nice to her and befriend her every time we see her. And finally this week she decided to come and sit in on the lesson. We taught a quick first lesson and watched the movie "The Restoration." She has a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon so we also spent a lot of time talking about that. It ended up being great. She isn't as into it as he is, but she has definitely warmed up and hopefully we will be able to make some progress with her. Their son really liked the movie and that was good because it held his attention. He is 8 years old and reminds me of Matthew sometimes. The wife was working and didn't come to church. But Aleksei did for all three hours, and he still really likes it. He also did a good job this week getting by the peer pressure of drinking. One of his relatives had a birthday, and everyone was together drinking. He told us the day before that he thought it was better if he just didn't go. We actually had a lesson during the time of the party and he got 3 calls from his drunk relatives. The next day he told us that we was really surprised that his relatives after the fact told him that they respected that he doesn't want to drink anymore and they weren't mad or anything.

Our next promising person is Evgeni. He's really awesome. His mother was recently baptized and he's already come to church twice also. He seems to really like the Book of Mormon. It's kind of hard to work our schedules out so we have only taught him twice so far, also because he lives far away in Ackadem Gorodok but hopefully we can set a date with him next lesson. I really like him, we get along really well and are good friends.

English started up this week. We had a good 40 people come so it was a really good turnout. Elder Anderson and I are running 1st group this time which isn't near as fun, but the logical choice because those are the people that don't speak any English and the missionaries in that group need to be able to communicate with them and teach them from scratch. We are only running it once a week now, on Wednesdays.

Elders Ortner and Lionhardt had a baptism this weekend, so that was cool to see. Especially because Elder O goes home at the transfer.

Recently I've been reading about Saul, David, and Solomon. Its just so amazing the similar cycle that they all kind of go through with their rise to power and they are so favored by the Lord, but something always happens and their lives just spiral out of control. It's actually been really sad to read about, but I think I've learned a lot from reading their stories.

Dad mentioned that there was a problem in the ward about the "feed the missionaries" calendar being full (note - not everyone who wants to have them over for dinner has a chance, the calendar fills up so quickly). I thought that was very interesting considering that I have never been fed dinner at a members house my whole mission. It's interesting how some members seem to be a little tired of missionaries but some are really nice. And with those ones I've had plenty of good tea and little snack experiences, but never a dinner. I have only been fed dinners by investigators. Oh, maybe actually there is a part member family here and we have been trying to teach the husband and she feeds us pretty well every time we go down there.

Last week on Monday we had a little barbecue. The Webbs and Huffakers cooked up some shashlik which are basically shishkabobs. Today we will probably go to the zoo.... again that's what I get for being in the city so long. 5th time at the zoo. But it's fun every time because you go with different people and different animals are awake.

Thursday we will have a big leadership training meeting and Friday we are going to Kiev.

Well that's all I think.

-Elder Topham

Me, Anderson, Hansen, and Mitchell when they were with us for a week.

This is Elder Rich and I eating Shaurma with Misha.

Eating Shaurma with Misha.

MTC group on the last Visa Trip

MTC group on the last Visa Trip

Zone Conference