Well last week started exactly where I left off. I left the computer last thursday to go buy groceries. We go to this store called Carousel, but spelt in Russian so the R is rolled and it's great. But anyway, it's the Russian equivalent to a Walmart. It's pretty nice. However, there are on some occasions, usually in the aisle where they sell shirts and ties, it smells like fish. That's just a minor inconvenience, as they say. I bought some cheetos last week because they sold them. I was really exciting to eat them too, because Cheetos are just fantastic. Turns out Cheetos are different too. They kind of taste like those Cheeseballs we got last year for Lake Powell, which Zerrick Russon ended up eating most of. It was just a surprise that's all.
Most of what I talk about is just the summary of each day. I bring my planner with me so I can remember what happened this week, so forgive me if each paragraph seems to be a random thought. So last saturday, it was apparently Elder Hunt's 2 year anniversary since he has been out here in Russia. There is this famous park in Vybourg where we wanted to go and contact in. The problem was, it was pretty far away. So we mapped the fastest route to get there, and this "route" was a literal walk through the woods. It was awesome. We walked down this street that kind of paralleled the Gulf of Finland, and the apartments kept on getting nicer and nicer, until eventually it turned into houses. Like really nice houses. I haven't seen A house let alone nice houses since I have been here. But the road that led to the park was closed and there was a sign which told us to go around through this path. That path was straight through the woods. It was absolutely beautiful. Honestly. And then after we get through there, we end up in this park. It was something from a dream. In the distance is this white castle on this big hill, a few obelisks standing around. We were just in awe. We didn't expect the park to be like this. We were looking around and we also saw this big southern-plantation-esque building far off in the distance. We were just shocked. And to make it even more dreamlike, we could hear a saxophone belting out soft jazz riffs somewhere. That, too, was completely unexpected. We walked a little further and found a wedding that was going on. We walked around alittle bit more in this park and found another memorial site thing where I took a picture in front of. There, there were a bunch of artists sitting there painting. That "adventure" made little, if any sense, at all. Again, I am not sure if I dreamt that, or if that was real.
This Sunday, two investigators came to church this week. That was way exciting. The same Anton came from last week when I had to teach the childrens, and another lady named Katya. Both of them stayed for the 2nd hour as well. We are trying to work with Anton so that he can overcome a few problems he has, but all in all, he is a great guy. Really nice too, and very receptive. We only have a few investigators here, because more than 3/4 of them left, because in Russia, they got things got Dachas, or summer cabins. Kind of annoying at times. We got a new investigator this week named Byegali. He is from Uzbekistan and he is also one of the nicest guys I have ever met. We met him in the street and he has since been meeting with us.
We have another investigator named Vladimir, who is the same one I talked about who can't see well. Well, he didn't listen to the CD, because he thought it was a DVD, and couldn't watch it. We talked to him some more, and found something that really really interested him, and that was family history. He shared a lot of stories (that I couldn't quite understand. At all actually) about his relatives in Ukraine.
The fellow we baptized a few weeks ago, Igor, has only come to church once because of his work schedule. We are trying to meet with him to talk to him about receiving the Aaronic Priesthood, but he is never around in Vybourg. He got a job in Sveta-Gorsk, which is a city north west of here, near Finland. He only comes down a few days every other week or so. We couldn't get the chance to meet with him this week, but we are trying not to lose him. He is a fantastic guy too.
For service this tuesday, it was pretty awesome. Well the later part. Apparently at the castle, the toilets are necessarily working too well right now, so we had to go to the lake and get buckets of water and fill up these barrels in the bathrooms. I didn't quite understand why, I just did. Well afterwards, we had a lot of time left, and they let you just walk around the castle. Well at the Vybourg castle they have this pretty big tower, so we go up there and the view was magnificent. Oh man. It was beautiful. I took a lot of pictures up there, and I messed around with the tilt-shift capability with my camera. When I get to a better computer sometime, I will upload all these pictures, but for right now I cannot. Go search Vybourg Castle in google or something. You will see why it was way cool. We also went into the museum there at the castle and they had a lot of WW2 stuff there. Apparently Vybourg got pretty messed up during WW2 and there were a lot of war artifacts there and war stories at the museum. It was way interesting. They have obviously since reconstructed the city, but it was so strange to see these old pictures of some of the places here in Vybourg just demolished.
(Vybourg Castle Googled)
Well that's what happened this week. I love you all, family. I pray that you will continue to get blessed. Stay awesome and stay strong.
Love your son,
your little brother,
your grandson,
your friend (for those reading that cool blog that my sister is taking care of)
Elder Tekulve
p.s.: It's really hot here.
P.s.s: I succesfully made apple jam. And it was great.
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