Fairly Successful

Either of those two apartment options would be great. I am going to try to play basketball which would mean going to the Marriott Center often. But we would also do weightlifting at the student athlete building. But on the other hand, I don't know if that would work out, and my back up plan would be to teach at the MTC. So with that being said I really have no preference, it is actually kind of hard for me to picture everything anyway. So choose whatever, especially if you think one or the other is better, but if not, it doesn't matter to me. I just want to thank you for all of the time and effort that you are putting into this, I really appreciate it.

That was really cool to hear about Craig's little bit of fame. I really like him, and I'm glad that he got so experience that.

Good job being goalie Matt, and Dani the Air Alert will start getting really hard at week 6 or so. And it sounds like you made wise choices on your classes.

And Sam it's totally fine that you won't be at the airport, this way when I see you then you can get all the hugs and you won't have to share time with Mom and Dani. Oh yeah, and did I tell you I got your letter with the BYU decals in it? Well I got it not too long ago and now they are on the back of my tags and they look really cool

Everything this week went really well. A is still doing really well, he brought his mom to church again this week. We finished teaching him all the lessons because we are heading to Kemerovo tonight and will be there for a couple days, because that is where our zone leaders live now. Then right when we get back he should have his interview. Then hopefully the baptism next Saturday.

Our Chinese investigator is doing really well. We found out that he lives on left bank, so when I was on exchanges with Elder Jones over there we taught him, and now the left bank elders will take over. We were teaching him the plan of salvation in his dorm room and he was really into it and had some really good questions.We had a little display thing layed out on the table,then two of his Chinese buddies walked in, and he started explaining the whole thing to them in Chinese, one of the spoke Russian well, the other one almost not at all. So he is doing really well, but he didn’t make it to church this week.

Other than that the week was fairly successful in getting some first lessons, some of the people we taught are very humble and hopefully we will be able to help them. I think that's it. I'll send some pictures now.

Elder Topham



A picture of me and Elder J "thrusting in our sickles."

Here are some shackles that people got shipped to Siberia in.

 Me the hammer and sickle at the museum.

And me by a soviet rocket that is right by where we live.


 Some pictures of the baptism

 

 

Hey how's it going,

That is awesome news about Ms. Lewis and her daughter! I remember one of our trips to a Nevada student council conference and I think it was Chandler (but possibly Trent) had a really long conversation with her and explained a lot to her about the gospel and gave her a Book of Mormon. And from time to time throughout the year little things came up and we would talk about them. That is so awesome, she always seemed to think very well of the church and that is awesome to hear how everything worked out. That makes me really happy, I will love to see her and talk to her when I get back.

This week was really cool because A is doing really well. He is really on board with everything. He came to church again, went to Institute and went to the baptism on Saturday. He is accepting everything really well and it is very exciting. He lives right by us so we usually walk home together after our lessons, one time we ended a lesson at about 8 or so, and we told him that we were going to stay out and go contacting for a while before we went home, so he says, "Oh can I come too." I was like sure, but it's not very fun. But he went and we actually had a really good time together doing that. He is great because he always comes to lessons with really good questions and concerns, and he just listens and soaks everything in really well. It's made us really happy to have one really good investigator who we know won't cancel our lessons or not show up or something, and it has been a great experience for us to teach him. We are shooting for March 9 for baptism.

Other than that we have the regular grind. One investigator has been falling away, he's not really serious about being baptized enough to come to church or try to quit smoking, or even meet with us, when he has something more interesting to do, so that has been disappointing.

The other highlight this week is our new Chinese investigator. A foreign exchange student, he doesn't speak Russian very well, but we communicate all right so hopefully that will keep going on.

We went to a little museum this week with some old Russian peasant stuff. I thought it was really cool, because you could touch everything there. And a member of the branch works there so she treated us nicely and explained everything.

Then Saturday night was awesome. The sisters had a baptism, a babooshka. I did her interview last week and talked to her at church before. And she had me baptize her! It was really unexpected and really cool. It was a great experience and really powerful. And a little bit awkward and funny trying to get her to understand the hand positioning, leg bend and nose hold stuff, but it all was good. I'll attach some pictures of that and the museum.

Oh yeah, nothing here with the meteorite. I just heard about it from some people, that's all.

Have a good week. Love you

Elder Topham

Ok well I cant get the pictures to work here, so I'll send them another time. Sorry

God Saw Our Efforts

Hey thanks for your emails.

This week was pretty good. We still had a lot of the same challenges that we have been having, but there was some really cool stuff that happened too and some really cool new investigators.

Tuesday was a rough day and we had one lesson with a part member family that night, but we couldn't get anyone scheduled during the day. So we just contacted in the cold all day. It actually wasn't too hard to stay out that long, we both dressed really well and every once in a while popped into a store to warm up. But it was really hard to go back out after dinner.

Then on Wednesday we ran into the same situation. We had English in the evening, but we couldn't get anyone for the day, so we set out to do the same thing again. Luckily (or maybe God saw our efforts from the previous day and felt bad for us) the second guy we talked to was really interested and had just left that day to go look for work, not really knowing where he was going. He agreed to go to the church nearby and take a look and we were able to teach him a full lesson in the nice warm church.

Then that same day, we had just arrived to open up the building for English and the first guy came in, I had never seen him before and we started talking, he asked me when the next baptism is, and he said that he had promised Elder Fitzgerald that he would be baptized a year ago but it didn't work out and now he his ready. That's one of those times that you don't really know how to react, quite the pleasant surprise. We went to his home later that week, set a baptismal date with him and taught him. He has the desire, and I'm very grateful that God led him back to us.

We also had a great first lesson with a young guy that goes to English. He accepted everything almost better than anyone that I have taught a first lesson to and is a very bright guy. He is 17 and he came with his mother to church on Sunday and they both stayed for all three hours. His mom is actually a Baptist, which is very rare for Russia, she doesn't seem like she is looking for a different church, but she seemed to like everything that went on. We should be going over to their place to teach both of them later in the week.

I did another baptismal interview this week, for the sister's investigator. She is a sweet old lady, and she will be baptized on Saturday.

So other than that, it has been the regular day to day grind. But we are very grateful and optimistic about our two new investigators, and it's really nice to have a couple that you are really optimistic about to keep you happy and excited.

I appreciate the advice that you gave at the end of your letter dad, and I'll try to do that. It actually hasn't been too hard, usually on Mondays I think about school and basketball and stuff a lot, then by Tuesday morning I forget about it all.

My tooth feels good, it doesn't hurt at all.

The schedule looks good. Thank you for doing that.

I don't know about who I will room with, I'll probably just tell you in March if that's okay. There is zone conference March 13, so I'll make a decision by then. If I know earlier I'll let you know.

Ok I think that's it. Love you all, have a good week.

Elder Topham

No Greater Joy

This week was pretty good actually. We were finally able to pick up a few new investigators. Some people actually showed up for the lessons. We got one from our street contacts, one through a member that we have been working with and one through former investigators who we have been calling. Hopefully they will all continue to want to meet and will want to do something. That is the other problem that we have been having with investigators. They just don't really want to do anything. They are good guys and don't mind talking to us, but there is no real desire to know more or find out for themselves.

When we met with the inactive family this week who got offended by the anti Mormon stuff, she agreed to let us take the boy with us to church if he wanted to go. He did, so on Sunday morning we rode out there, then rode the bus with him to church. It was cool because we got to hang out with him on the bus and at sacrament meeting, a lot of people at church were really happy to see him. And there were a couple kids in primary his age that he made really good friends with it seems like.

The sisters had a baptism this week. So I got to do the baptismal interview for that. It was remarkably better than my first baptism interview experience. And it was nice to not have to be nervous about not understanding their answers this time. She was baptized on Friday and it was a really good service. The speaker who was supposed to give the baptism talk canceled last minute so I ended up doing that.

On Saturday I was in the center on exchanges with Elder Jones. The center of Krasnoyarsk is really cool. They have really nice classy buildings and tons of statues and fountains. They have speakers lining the streets and they usually play old school 50's or 60's American music or like jazz music and stuff. Basically all of left bank is really nice, but it's all good because most of the members live on right bank where I am.

Well I think here is my answer to your question: And really I'm going to give the same answer to both of the questions. The hardest and most rewarding thing about being a full time missionary is that it is exactly what the name implies "full time". It is such a sacrifice and very hard to devote 100% of your time and efforts to the Lord. From the second you wake up you start praying about the people you will teach or hope to find and all day you think about others and do things for others, never anything for yourself. It is very hard to work all day every day especially when there are hardships and little success, because really there is no break. Maybe an hour or 2 on P-day but that things flies by faster than you know it. But on the other hand this is also the most rewarding thing. It is such a blessing to only have to worry about one thing. Just doing missionary work, at home you have many things to think about but on the mission its just one goal. So especially when those rays of success pierce the darkness, it is so bright and so amazing the absolute happiness and sense of accomplishment that you feel because you have been putting all your energy into one goal and you did it. Also the feeling that you get when you worked hard all day, and you get home, you can feel the love of the Lord. And if feels like you just did a really hard workout and now you just feel satisfied with what you have done. And I think there is no greater joy that seeing somebody truly change their life and come unto Christ and to know that you played a part in that. So it is well worth it.

Ok that's all I got. Love you mom.

Elder Topham

First is us and the sister missionaries at a members house. We gave her a blessing and she made us a little food.

 Me with a member and investigator. That is in the garage where they are working on building an ATV. That is where we taught the last lesson.



Me with Chubirashka and Crocadile Ghena. They are two famous Soviet cartoon characters.