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.