Week 45 - White Christmas! Hazzah!

Interesting Fact 45 - Russians celebrate Christmas on January 7th! I get to have two Christmasi!

Merry Christmas everyone! It was so nice to talk to all of you on the telephone! Definitely the best Christmas present was to hear them voices of yours. First Christmas here in Russia was quite the treat too. Well to first state, this week was absolutely crazy with Elders coming and going in and out of Petersburg. They all were staying at our apartment to. We had 2 big Christmas activities that we had to organize, of which we also had to organize when they would come and how (via airplane, bus, train). It was quite tricky. On top of that, we had two visa trip groups going our to renew their visas, so they had to come in for that. So basically, we had people with us all week. On Saturday and Sunday, we had the Elders from Petrozavodsk (that 7 hour train ride city) stay with us. We all opened packages Christmas morning. On Saturday night, (I already told you about this), we went caroling down on Nyevski Prospect by the Lady Kazan Cathedral. We got a lot of people stopping by and talking to us. 

We also tried something new this week called Signboarding. It's doable here, but no one has ever done it, so Elder Hill and I went out with a makeshift sign that says What is Happiness and hit the busy streets. I have never seen so many people smile here so far on my mission. It was so cool. People would come up to us, (rather than us to them) and talk to us. A lot of people had various ideas of happiness, ranging from families, to money, to moms, to smiles. It was so much fun. Because of the snow and the rain slush stuff, it completely destroyed our sign, but it was quite a successful night. 

This week, we really didn't have much time to work a lot and teach people, but it was still a great week nonetheless. We did a lot of finding this week at night after our activities and such. Today, before I came to the library to write this, we stopped by a place to eat. On our way, we talked to a few men from Africa here. We gave them an invitation, and we went our ways. A man nearby saw us, and called me over to him and wanted to know what we were doing. I explained to him that we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and that we had a message about Jesus Christ. I asked him if he believed in him, and he said that did but just was never baptized. I asked him if he wants to be baptized, and he said, "Of course I want to." That happened maybe 2 hours ago or so. It was so awesome to see. We exchanged phone numbers. He wants us to call this weekend so I hope all goes well with that. 

I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to talk to everyone this Christmas. This Christmas definitely is a tad different, but I know it's a Christmas I will never forget. Being out here has really strengthened my understanding of the true meaning of Christmas. As we celebrate the birth of the Savior, it's important to recognize his humble beginnings, but also his Glorious Atonement. I am so blessed to know that Jesus Christ is our Savior of the World, and we are here to do his work, to bring souls unto Him.

That's it for this week! I love you all! 
Love,
Elder Tekulve

Week 44 - Busy-ness, Business, Bees Knees

Interesting Fact # 44 - When you go to a grocery store, plastic bags are not free. You have to tell them how many you want and they scan them in and you pay a little extra for them. They are not much. Maybe 3 rubles a piece, which is a little less than a dime.

Well goodness gracious. Busy week! On Wednesday was transfer, so I had to pack up all of my bags (which is getting hard to pack now because of the stuff I have been accumulating), and went off to the mission office. Normally, on transfer day, you take all your bags with you, meet at the mission office, and then you take your bags and take them across the city, or across the mission, to your area. Luckily, my apartment is right next to the mission office, so it really felt like a one trip stop. Twas nice. Well nonetheless, as soon as Wednesday rolled around, I was running around doing all sorts of stuff. We had to figure out all of this cell phone stuff for missionaries, figuring out plane tickets for those going to Kaliningrad, dentist bills, and all sorts of random stuff in one day. So my new responsibilities now are sometimes a giant random to do list. But that's not really what we are here for, to be someone's patsy and running around. We are here to lead the mission along with the president. So, that part I am exciting for.

My new companion is Elder Hill. I mentioned a little bit about it him last email, but an interesting thing about him is that he was at BYU at the same time as me. Not only that, he was in the same Dorm Building, and in the same Hallway in Budge, but in the opposite wing, with a mezzanine separating us. We have several mutual friends and it's been awesome working with him. He is hilarious and wants to work hard. A great companion right there! He is from the Sacramento area, but before BYU, he lived in Slovenia for a year because his dad was a mission president there. We both have visions to transform our area because for the past howsoever-long, this area has been neglected because of some of the random busy work we have to do. We hope to change that and get this area blooming with investigators and baptisms. We are here to find, teach, and baptize. I shall do just that! 

One of things that we have to organize now, which has been quite tricky this week, are all those visa trips that happen every 3 months (those are the trips that we sometimes have to take to Estonia to renew our visas). But basically we have to organize when people have to come to the city and stay at our apartment for those. We had one this week, and we have 2 more coming up this week which has proved rather difficult and tricky to organize since ALL of them that have to go on the trip do not live in the city. We have to organize the two Christmas activities coming up for the missionaries. The past few days have been a lot of organizing and planning, but we have been spending a lot of time finding as well.

In this mission, there are some laws that limit our use of tracting. But we decided to try to follow those laws and try to tract. Its pretty funny. I am 10 months in my mission and I am now beginning to tract, a usual practice in most missions. I went tracting once for a little bit a while ago. OH! I forgot to mention. I am back in Center branch! I am in the same branch that I was in a few months ago, but it has been combined and now it is a huge solid branch preparing to become a ward to support a stake. But, at any rate, we went tracting last night and it was SO FUN! We would call through the domaphone/apartment telephone thing and would share our message through it. Occasionally we would get let inside the stairwells where the doors for the apartments are located. We found one lady whose name is Lydmila who we talked to for a while. She explained to us her trials and tragedies and she was so grateful for our Christmas message that we shared with her, insomuch that she cried a little bit. We gave her a Book of Mormon and we explained that it was from God and that it was Holy Scripture. Soon thereafter, she kissed the cover. She is a nice little lady who has been living a hard life but was touched by our message. We hope to come back soon to teach her. On a funnier note, a man opened the door and he was missing pants. It was a bit alarming, but he was one of the more nicer men we spoked to that night. 

This week, we are planning to Signboard in the busier parts of the city. It will be quite a blast. Elder Hill and I have a lot of cool ideas and we are going to try them out this week. Christmas is coming up! Oh, and because of the visa trips, we will be having about 6 elders over at our apartment for their visa trip the next morning. So it is going to be a big Christmas Calling family party! Yay! I found a lot of Root Beer extract in the apartment and we are going to make home made rootbeer floats. Grandiouse it shall be. 

Well that's it for this week! I love you all. I can't wait to talk to you so soon!

Love,

Elder Tekulve

Week 43 - The White Return to Vyborg

Interesting Fact #43 - I can honestly say I have drinken more tea in the past 10 months than I have in my life. Of course, it's herbal tea, red tea, or fruit tea, all a-okay. Russians love tea. Their favorite past time is to talk and drink tea together. I have become quite the big fan of tea, to be honest. There is this one raspberry herbal tea that I absolutely love called Summer Bouquet. Quite an apt description.

So this week, as the subject can so easily describe, I went back to Vyborg! It was only for a short time, but it was so great. It was weird going back to there, because I finally could understand the signs that I saw, and there was snow everywhere. I left Vyborg when it was steaming hot and super bright, so it was so strange for me to come back and it's dark, cold, and snowy. But it made me love Vyborg even more. We met with the elders there, one of which is quite the cook. Made some potato cheese broccoli soup and some beef stroganoff, a Russian dish! Pretty tasty. We got to met with one of my old investigators there, Leonid! It was a pretty cool lesson with him, and he has committed to go to church after the new year. He has a lot of fears leaving the apartment, but loves to meet with the missionaries. Maybe you remember him?

This week, we also had transfer calls. This was the fastest 6 weeks ever. I was incredibly busy travelling all over the place this transfer. But President Clark has called me to be his new assistant with Elder Hill, which left me in complete shock. I am most likely going to be there for a while too. But that was probably the most shocking thing this week, but I feel like I am ready to continue to help out this mission. To put it simply, I am really excited. Yeah, I am going to miss all the cool travelling that I did here as a zone leader, but I get to help out the whole mission, and not just my zone. But I am just so humbled to know that the Lord has trusted me to be in such a position, and I will continue to honor my calling as a Missionary.

In terms of our actually investigator work, it can be deemed as a slow one, but this week as also so busy with travelling and zone leader meetings. We had an 8 long meeting with all the zone leaders, the assistants, and the mission president to discuss the needs of the mission, and how to continue to help lead this mission. In the beginning of this year, we had a goal to double baptisms from last year, with a goal of 120. Unforunately, we fell short of that goal here in this mission, and we reset another goal to have an additional 30 which would put the total goal for 70 this year. We again, have fallen short, which has been a disappointment, but we have reavaluated our goals and have set another goal to have 3 additional baptisms per zone the end of this year. We just had one this Saturday, which we weren't able to attend. It was a lady named Margarita, who is the sister of a member here in the Shuvalovo branch. She is from the Crimean Sea area, but is in the city to visit and also to go under surgery. She got baptized by her brother and law, and then got confirmed the next day in the hospital, which was awesome to hear. She had to go in for surgery the day after her baptism. She is quite the dedicated lady.

Nellie got baptized this weekend too!! The baptismal service was for the both of them (Nellie and Margarita)! My previous companion Elder Pace baptized her, and the new elder in that area, Elder Byington baptized Natalie 2 weeks ago. They are so happy! I was unable to make it to Nellie's baptism, but I had the chance to help a member in a wheelchair get to the service, and there I saw both Natalie and Nellie and they were just both so happy.

Seeing their happiness has really made me just so happy to see a family be more united like that. Families are such an integral part of our church, and it's amazing to see a faithful mother and daughter enter into the covenant of baptism. Words really can't describe just the joy you feel when you have someone you teach get baptized. It really is an amazing thing. And I am so blessed to have that feeling for both them two, Edward Arsyonov, and Igor Shevchenko. I can't imagine the joy Heavenly Father feels when his OWN children come back to him. I get the oppurtunity to just feel a fraction of that joy, and at times it seems overwhelming.

It really just convinces me more and more that this is the work of the Lord that I am doing, and this Church is the true church of Jesus Christ.

Well I don't have much time, but I love you all!

Love,

Your son, you friend, your brother,

Elder Tekulve

Week 42 - Sawing Wood in Petrozavodsk

Interesting Fact #42 - Train food is actually pretty good. Definitely tops airplane food, that's for sure. I wonder what the food is like on the train where Tyler Olpin works at? 

So yes. I went to Petrozavodsk this week. I bet you are wondering where the heck that is, or how to even say it. I took a 7 hour long train north to Petrozavodsk to go on an exchange with the missionaries there. It was a nice little Russian Winter Wonderland there. It was so cool. So we get to the train station, got on the train at platform 9, and not 9 and 3/4. It was kind of an older train, but it was just Elder Sherbina and I in the wagon. They fed us this stuff called Plov and some chicken. Plov is basically just rice, but it's way tasty. We finally get there at 11:30 and we took our nice little walk to the other elders. The next, we go to this little Corrillian Cabin that was pretty far away, and we performed some service there. One Elder and I sawed some wood into small planks and repaired a fence. The other elders cut some wood into firewood. This was all in the snow. So much fun. Probably my favorite service project we have done so far.

Afterwoods, I went with Elder Rasmussen, who is more or less my other half in terms of interests before mission, and we taught their investigaor named Vladimir. He is this little Moses man with a big beard. He has the bible pretty much memorized, and didn't seem the point of the Book of Mormon. Elder Rasmussen, from St. George, bore this awesome testimony about the Book of Mormon and closed with a powerful prayer that left Vlad a little speechless. We left to go back, and had to wait for a bus.  The busses there are a lot different. They are just a lot older, and about to fall apart kind of thing. So it was a nice little exciting bus ride back home. The next day, we all go back on the train to go back. All of the elders there left with us back to St. Petersburg. So it was 6 of us all together. 4 Americans and 2 Ukranians. The Americans, we just played Uno for 6 hours and made up our own little rules. Another nice train ride. 

We also went to a place called Sestraetsk which is a 30 minute taxi ride northwest of St. Petersburg. That place was gorgeous. It's a nice small town on the bay front. I have a few cool pictures that I haven't been able to send via email effectively, yet. One day I will have it figured out. 

This weekend, we had a mission conference as well as a special District conference with Elder Bennett from the Seventy. President Clark, who holds all the keys for the St. Petersburg area as a Stake President, has reorganized the St. Petersburg District to make it a prepitory district to soon become a stake. We are so close to getting a stake here, and it was so awesome to see the support of the members here. After President Clark spoke, everyone stood up to support him. Out of the blue, we all sang Love One Another in Russian. It was so cool to see. The members here are ready, and soon there will be a stake. I hope I am still here in Russian when the day comes. We also had another Mission Conference with Elder Bennett. He was once mission president in Samara, Russia and he helped transform that mission to a very successful one. It was a really cool Mission Conference, and he spoke a lot about change. I learned that there are still things I need to change within myself to be a better successful missionary. We should never be stagnant. We should always change, repent, and do better. Always progress. And most importantly, always love! 

That has been my week. It was quite the busy one with a lot of travelling, as was last week. This week I am going back to Vyborg and also doing another exchange with another set of elders in Peter. So my time in my own area will, again, be rather limited. Ha. Well that's about it. I love you family! Thanks for your support and love, and your everythings. 

Love,

Your son,

Elder Tekulve