Week 28 - And the Friscolating Day of Knowledge. PART III

Interesting Fact #28: When a month has a day where it's the 31st in Russia, they have some sort of protest gathering kind of thing... deal. Yeah, it's like the 31st part of their constitution says they have the right to do that, so they do it. And the missionaries can't be anywhere near. For instance, last night (the 31st), there was some sort of demonstration right off of Nyevski Prospekt, which is the main street in St. Petersburg where we get off at a lot to get to the Institute Building. But because of Stradegy 31 (as it is called) we had to take a metro transfer unto another line and get off at another stop. A minor inconvenience. 

Week's are really started to blend together and are starting to go by faster than I can  think. Honestly. That could have felt like the fastest Lake Powell trip I never went to. That's not saying much now is it, because this is the only time in the past 9 or 10 years where I haven't been. But nonetheless, it felt like you were at Lake Powell for a very short period of time. Maybe it was fast to you as well. Well by the looks of it, it still sounded like a blast. I mean, come on. Musical Fire Dances in the cliffs with bugles and pans? Klasno. (As they say in Russian)

Well the language is coming. Just not having anyone to rely on has made me really push myself. I honestly have to do 90 percent of the talking, 100 percent of the phone calls, 85 percent of the teaching or so. I think just that balance right there has helped me more than I could otherwise. I suppose that is the blessing of progressive training program change? Who knows. Well the transfer has 2 weeks left of it. The training program is now 2 transfers long (3 months), so I am going to be with Elder Pace one more transfer here in Center. Like Vyborg, I absolutely love it here. Once the 2nd Transfer starts though, I am gonna get Pace doing some of them phonecalls here. It will kickstart his language skills ten fold. 

Anywho, like I said. I love it here. I think I am bound to love anywhere I go. I will find ways to love it. Right now, I love it, because of the people that we met with. We have an investigator, George, who have asked to be baptized twice, but hasn't accepted... yet. BUT, he loves to meet with us and has come to church twice. He is the fellow we talked to in the street the first week or so here. He hadn't seen the missionaries in about 7 years or so,  and we are the first contact since. He wants to bring his stepson to the meetings and to teach with us too. Really geniune, awesome guy.

We have also been meeting with our new convert, Yegor. He is 18 and was baptized almost 2 months ago. One of the COOLEST kids in this whole mission. So great. We have to teach him the lessons after baptism still, so we have been working with him with that. But he is just so down-to-earth and so outgoing. He had never heard about brownies before, so I found a more international start and bought some for him to eat. He is a HUGE fan. The stuff I bought was almost like the Corner Bakery brownies I used to get with Ryan and Tyler Olpin. Next time though, I am going to make him homemade brownies.

We met with a lot of less actives this last week. One of which is named Vadeem. He is a young guy, English teacher (so he speaks really really really really really good english. Again, another miracle of this transfer). We met with him yesterday, actually, and he invited him to come back to church and he is set on going. He had a lot of questions about prayer but we explained it to him in a very nice, caring, and simple manner. We had a member there from America. He had served here like 7 or so years ago in the St. Petersburg mission, and is back here working and teaching English as well. Anywho he helped us out a LOT. 

Speaking of Americans. We were going to the Hermitage to serve and ran into a huge group from Utah. Well. They saw us and were really happy to see "the elders". They were all in Russia to teach English under this program. They are supposed to teach in Moscow, but for some reason they came to St. Pete for a little vacation until things were ready and set up in Moscow. Well at anyrate, I invited them to come to church with us and to go to FHE. So our congregation was very large this last week. Twas marvelous.

So today is the Day of Knowledge here in Russia, at least that's what the signs said. Today is the first day of school so I saw a lot of kids dressed in suits and school uniforms. I guess we will fit in for once here in The Motherland. 

Well that's all for now. I hope this email was as exciting as the title was. I know what you're thinking... Where's part 1 or 2?......

UNTIL NEXT TIME!

And on that note, I would like to say simply that this Church is true. This is the true church of Jesus Christ. The Atonement is so applicable to everyone, everywhere. Even here. I have seen so many miracles and so many blessings just being here so far, and I want you to know that. I love you all. 

Love,

Elder Tekulve