Week 62 - Ehmin

Interesting Fact #62 - There are such things as milk trucks. Just a truck + tank of milk + spout. They are incredibly rare here in the city but in the smaller cities they are the place to be. No worries. I really only drink Finnish milk here, because it's amazing.

 

So this week, it was pretty kind of funny but also quite frustrating. We got stood up 6 out of 7 planned lessons this weekend. But nonetheless, one thing that I have learned here is how to plan better, and also how to plan at the last second when things change and unexpected things happen. Since I have been here in the city, that's something that I have gotten really good at. Especially on transfer days. Holy smokes! But at any rate, this week was a pretty good week. We had a night set with President Clark to go proselyte with us, and we were totally excited with 3 lessons planned out, 2 new investigators, and none of them worked out that night. We were sitting in the branch waiting for someone to show up, and seeing that no one was picking up there phone, President Clark pointed to this one painting on the wall that a member painted. It's a beautiful painting of Elder Lyman of the 12 Apostles in 1904 dedicating Russia for proselyting work (which took place in the Summer Gardens here in St. Petersburg!). I have it on my camera but I failed to bring it with me today. I will send it some time. It's a beautiful painting. This member, Ahmin, is an inactive member who is incredibly talented. We had been trying to meet with him for months and occasionally he disappears and doesn't answer. President Clark told us to call him. We gave him a ring and finally, at least, he picked up! I explained to him that we wanted to meet and that President Clark was with us. The next thing you know, we were with him at his studio. He has painted so many amazing paintings of the Savior and his ministry. It's incredible. But in the end, we gave him a blessing for comfort and counsel to help him out. He then told us he is coming back. On sunday, we met him in the metro and we went to church together! It was wonderful. Even if those 3 lessons didn't work out, we were still led to help someone else in need.

 

It rained pretty hard a few days ago when we were out on the street. I had just gotten new shoes and I hadn't put the waterproof wax stuff on it and they got pretty messed up that night. Since then I have been taking care of them, polishing, waxing, etc. And somehow they kind of healed. I am not sure how, but things are A OK with them. Oh and my companion tried to diet this week by eating nothing but buckwheat, eggs, and fish. Needless to say, it didn't really work out. In the end, he ended up eating what I was eating, and he is deciding to try round two this week. maybe I can be of good use in helping him? Who knows.

 

We got a new investigator this week! He is actually one of our neighbors. He lives in the same apartment complex, but we didn't know that until after we met with him at the branch building. His name is Andre and he works as a 3D animation film maker, which was pretty interesting to me haha. I guess he works as the graphics leader or something for cartoons? I didn't quite get all what he said. His title was like 10 words long, so I just made that assumption. It was a really cool lesson too. He just had a lot of questions about life, which we answered using the Bible and Book of Mormon. He was really grateful in the end because a lot of his questions were answered that night. He wants to invite us over on Wednesday to meet his family!

 

That's about it this week! and stuff! Oh wait! Last monday we had an incredible finding experience on the streets. We had no meetings set up, so we talked to people in the center of the city. We kind of wondered off somewhere in the city and were going to make our way back home. Looking at the map, it led us to this detour road that no one was one. Maybe 5 minutes later we saw an older gentleman in laborer clothes. We stopped and talked to him and his eyes were red. We thought, "Okay he either was crying, drunk, or on drugs" Luckily only the first two. He struggled to tell us what was wrong, but told us that his brother had died that morning and that he got drunk to ease the pain. We told him that he could see his brother again and that our message can help him. We walked with him because he wanted us to meet his wife. She wasn't terribly happy to see us, but we told her that we can pray for him right then. She agreed, and my companion said an amazing prayer for that man, and he ended up hugging us crying. His wife didn't want to give us his number, but she gave us the number of her sister for some reason, so we are praying to connect with that man when her sisters comes back to the city.

 

Okay. That's all. Ha. Well I love you all! The church is true! It's interesting to see: Christ established His church, and persecution was extreme. They all reacted to his loving example with anger. We can see that today, and that is really proof to me that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ once again restored onto Earth!

 

Love,

Elder Tekulve

Week 61 - Transfer week! And Shokhrookh!

So I really do not have any time this week to write unfornately because of the so many emails I got! So thanks for that! But a few of the highlights this week:

So we got a few new investigators! One is named Shokhrookh from Uzbekistan! I met him on the street a week ago and he makes rings. He is muslim and just wanted to know what we believed in. So we sat down in a park (now that it's warm out) and we talked. He just has the coolest name, so to me it was quite the highlight. We also met with another man named Islam in all actuality. We also taught him a little bit outside the Kazanskay Cathedral. But he is a nice young man who wanted to know who we are.

We met with Andre Koff again! He is the one that came to the Open House a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. The lessson with him was a bit interesting in teh sense that he was a little quiet. When we committed him to come to church and said a maybe. But sitting there in church, he ended up coming! I was quite happy for him. He also really enjoyed it!

We got a few new missionaries: An Elder Stankoskiy and a Sister Porter.. Both from the US haaha. Elder Stankoskiy I guess has a Polish last name or something. We took them back through the metro to the mission home, which is always a fun day. Wednesday, Transfer day was pretty crazy. We found out that a few elders got exposed to tuburculosis or something and they had to go to the hospital for check ups, just to be told that they are ok. But in the midst of that, we had to go this city Petergof to drop off an elder and pick another one up for his visa trip. Peterhof is the place where they have the famous fountains here in St. Pete! But it's actually a completely different city.

So I had another visa trip to estonia and back. This time it was a lot lighter outside than I am use too, but it was a nice drive there and back I guess. That's all that really happened this week! I love you all the church is true!

Love,

Elder Tekulve

oh and interesting fact will be next week. ! whoops

Week 60 - General Conference Weekend in St. Petersburg

Interesting Fact #60 : Here is a little funny one. Do you remember that Christmas Carol movie where the little piggy brother was always so bundled up everyday, insomuch that he had very little ability to move? Well it's that for all little children here. They bundle them up even more so than Piggy. There were a few times I was really caught off guard. They have these really thick loud winter onepiece outfits that are thicker than trees, and you will see them often in the coatrooms in the branch building. Often you will see them attatched with boots on the bottom, so at first glance it looks like a young child dangling in middair. But all is well with young Russian Piggy, for he has shedded his winter skins.

 

Well with humor aside, this week really was a wonderful week. We didn't have too many teaching appointments, but with the ones we did have, miracles occured! The week started out pretty rocky with nothing really going on. We were helping to organize with members this open house of our church building on Malookhtinskiy Prospect here in Petersburg. We were passing out hundreds and hundreds of open house invitations. Thursday was the day of the open house and there were supposed to be two sessions: One for "VIPs" or those who are I guess "higher up"/"specially invtited" in one way or another. Upon waiting and waiting, only one "VIP" ended up coming... But, the second session for everyone showed much more success. Lots of people came from all over the place, and members brought friends. Even one of our investigators came named Andre Koff! We sat down and talked with him afterwards with President Clark. Andre is a very sincere man here who speaks absolutely perfect English. We is sincerely interested in the Church and called the mission office a few weeks ago wanting to know more. His first time ever coming to church was the District Conference (stake conference) with President Bennett and absolutely LOVED it. We really got to know him and his beliefs and what he expects from meetings with us. We talked about the Book of Mormon and the truthfullness of our message. We set a baptismal date with on May 26th and he said when knows it is true, he will join the church and he was sincere about it. He wants to introduce his children into the church too. Very yes, please.

 

We also met with Jacques again this week with a senior couple here. Upon talking with him, we really got down to the importance of the Book of Mormon and why it's important to read it everyday and pray about it to know if it's true. Elder McCarthur (the senior couple missionary) bore an amazing testimony about the Bible and the Book of Mormon and how powerful they are together. Jacques concern was that we talk too much about Joseph Smith, and not enough about Jesus Christ, but explaining that the Book of Mormon is but another testament of Jesus Christ. We set a baptismal date with him on May 12th!!! He has that goal set and wants to read the Book of Mormon everyday and have me call everyday to talk. Again, very yes!

 

Annnd, one other thing. On Friday, we went out tracting with Egor Sotnikov again (the new convert who has a rocking testimony) and weren't having any success. My companion felt like we should tract this other apartment building down the street. I looked at it and noticed there was just a lot of sunlight on it, and I thought, "might as well! Sun!". So we head on over there. We call the first apartment through the dom-phone on the side. No one answered. We were about to call apartment 11, and this lady comes up to us and asks us what we are doing. We explained that we are missionaries. She told us that she knew our Church. She then explained that her daughter was a Jehovah's Witness, and that her boyfriend is a Mormon. We asked who it was, and she told us it was Viktor Karezkiy... We were in complete shock. Elder Loskutov taught Viktor over a year ago and baptized him, but he suddenly disappeared and went inactive after a month or so. No one could get a hold of him. The lady lived at apartment 11 with her daughter and Viktor. She then invited us in and we went up with her to the apartment and talked with Viktor for a little bit. He wasn't totally happy that we were there, but the fact that the Holy Ghost really led us to that building at that time to find someone who couldn't be found was a complete and a beautiful miracle. If we were there but a minute early or a few seconds too late we would not be there at that moment to know that he lived there.

 

This weekend was our general conference weekend! I learned so much. Lots of answers to my questions and prayers as I continue to try to grow as a missionary, friend, sibling, member, and Priesthood holder. I really loved Deiter F. Uchtdorf's talk about being able to forgive others. That really is one of our biggest faults is our ability to forgive others and even ourselves. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk was also an amazing one on how we shouldn't be jealous about another's success. Why should we be angry or covetious when God was being nice and blessed someone else? Don't judge those who get the work at the 11th hour but get the same day's pay, like Jesus' parable teaches us. Just be good and be happy. Love others.

 

Well I got some pictures! I hope it works this time.

 

I love you all and the Church is true!

Love,

Elder Tekulve

 

1. A really beautiful stained glass window in St. Isaac's Cathedral

2. Fancy Chinese Restaurant on a preperation day.

3. Jacques! He gave him some awesome traditional African clothes.

4. Yup.

5. Elder Loskutov and I with President Bennett from the Quorom of the Seventy

                                       6. St. Isaac's

                                     7. St. Isaac's

 

Week 59 - Christ has Risen!

Interesting Fact 59 - Well it is actually two. Ever since I have been here in Russia, I have been forced to take really good care of my shoes. Taking care of your shoes is a big thing here. If your shoes got dirt on them, that's nay-okay. Everyday I have to really scrub them off and shine them a little bit. Keeping your shoes shiny is good stuff! Second fact is that Russian Easter is actually next Sunday! And a  tradition they have is they tell everyone they see, "Christ has Risen!" and in response you say, "Indeed he has Risen!" It's pretty neat.

Well this week was a good one as usual. I unfortunately don't have much time to write today, because the computers here are slow and a half. But I will try as fast as I can! Pardon my not understandable language! Bear with me here. I am going to try to send some pictures too by and by.

It's getting warmer! The river right outside my window has officially melted. But the weird thing is that it still gets cold occasionally. Like last night and Saturday. The winds were so intensely strong. But today it's beautiful, calm, bright, and hot. 40 to me is hot now.

We had another pretty awesome miracle this week. On Wednesday, the sister missionaries in our branch set up a meeting for us with this man named Artyom at our institute building. He gave him a call and he was set on meeting and wanted to talk. We get there and we end up waiting for 15 minutes and he never shows up and he wouldn't answer his phone. So, kind of bummed, we left to go find. The first person we talked to right outside the building was this man named Alexander. We asked if he had some time to sit down a talk. He agreed, so we went back inside with this man and shared with him the message of the Restoration. He actually knew the Bible really well and understood that there were some parts missing. We asked him to be baptized on May 12th by someone holding the proper authority of God, and he agreed under the condition that we help him quit smoking. Well of course we will. So being stunned that Alexander more or less landed in our laps to work with, the next day, it was about 8:55 pm and we were right outside our apartment ready to go inside, but I wanted to talk to one last person because we had 5 more minutes. So the first person I talk to is this young man. I asked him if he knew or seen missionaries like us and told us that the Sisters met with him recently and he had a meeting set up on Wednesday that he couldn't go to. It turns out it was Artyom! I was again in shock and we exchanged our numbers and he was really eager to meet again and apologized about the previous meeting. Not only do we have Artyom to work with now, but also Alexcander. It was just a miracle!

So we had a Zone Leader Council this last Thursday as well. One of the most spiritually strong councils we had. We had to talk about Standards of Excellence (our mission goals every week and what they mean). The mission is having a hard time acheiving those weekly goals and we had a very awesome council about them. It basically came down to keeping them and learning how to achieve them, or to change them. THe Spirit was strong, and in the end we got down on our knees in prayer to have  Heavenly Father guide is in our answer. The answer that we all unimanously got was that we need to keep our standards of excellence. We need to learn how to acheive them, and to acheive the goals we set. "If you lower your expectations, you lower your effectiveness and your desire to be successful!"

Easter Sunday was great. We had a few speakers from our branch speak and their talks were amazing. It's weird that a year ago that I could hardly understand the most basic Russian. Because of Heavenly Father's help, I can understand this crazy language. The Spirit was definitely strong as well during Sacrament meeting. One of the talks caused all the babooshki to cry.

I gotta get going as always. Got lots of stuff to do! We are discussing with President Clark this week about transfers and organizing the mission some more. I can't believe it's another transfer. Time is really just flying by, I can't believe it.

Well, I love you all! 

Love,

Elder Tekulve

Week 58 - Office Elders.. Don't Get Eliminated!

Interesting Fact #58 - Onomatopoeia in Russian is completely different than in English. A good example: Knock-knock-knock in Russian is Stook-stook-stook. Dogs: gav-gav-gav. And my personal favorite; Pig: khryoo-khryoo instead of the good ol' oink-oink. Even our hit sounds are completely different, meaning the sound we make we someone punches another. In fact it's impossible to describe in words of phonetics, but the difference is definitely there. Cat meows are the same.

This week went by incredibly fast. I can't believe it is already April, and another preparation day.  It's beginning to become more difficult as the weeks go by to remember what happened this week. We did a lot of finding this past week and really just opening our mouths to everyone we see. It's kind of funny to put it in a bigger picture; here is this 20 year old guy walking around this big city talking to everyone he sees. The general aspect of it seems strange to me too, but opening our mouths is but a fraction of the work, but sometimes it can be the hardest for some people. I am glad I overcame that hurdle a while ago.

At any rate, Jacques is doing alright. Unfortunately he couldn't meet this work, nor did he go to church, which was a bit of a bummer. I still call him every night and we talk and read the Book of Mormon. He was so set on coming to church this Sunday, but the problem he faces is that he works Saturday nights from 8 pm to 10 am Sunday morning, all night. By the time he is back, he is absolutely wiped out. He got a hold of anti-mormon material on accident, but talking to him about it, I found out that he doesn't buy it. Meaning, he doesn't believe what they say, because he has been talking to us for several months and he knows that we aren't what the other people say we are. It was actually pretty cool to hear that from him because he was going off on how they were wrong and that we ware good people. Talking to him last night as well, he wants us to come over tonight and he wants to feed us. I had to tell him no to the food, which wasn't easy (hahaha), because I know that he is a starving student here and that he really should feed himself, not us. But we are planning to come over to his dorm again tonight. There is a member in a our branch who is African and speaks French who really wants to help. I think I might have mentioned that before, but I hope he can help Jacques which his testimony and to bring him to church.

This week, we went contacting and signboarding with Yegor Sotnikov!! You probably do not remember that name among the flood of hard-to-read-in-English Russian names that I write each week. He is a new convert that got baptized last summer in the Center branch right before I got transferred there. I had the privilege to teach him the lessons after baptism. He is one of the most solid members in our branch. He is 19 and planning to serve a mission. He also just got the Melkezideck Priesthood and wants to help anyway he can with the missionaries. We went contacting and signboarding with him two separate times down Nevski Prospect. That it in itself was a lot of fun. There something about working with members in missionary work that invites this wonderful Spirit to the work. It makes it a lot more enjoyable and in a lot of instances, fun stuffs! 

Oh yeah, this week, as the title so cleverly states, we got rid of the Office Missionaries in our mission. They just got transferred to another area. So our mission doesn't have Office Elders anymore, and now we are putting them up to some real missionary work, and not organizing closets, and keeping track of mail and packages. So, this week, it was a lot of readjusting without the office elders there. So we had a few new duties added to us, but nothing too much of a hassle. 

Miracle Story!: So we got this list of phone numbers of men in the sisters' area book. So we took some time to call a few with no success; either the number didn't work, or they didn't pick up. We got hold of one and we tell him who we are. He asks again we we were, and we thought that he was going to hang up right after he heard the word "missionary", but we told him again anyway. He then asked, "are you Mormon?". We responded, "Yes." And then he replied, "I love Mormons!" so we ended up talking for a long time with on the phone. Apparently 7 years ago, he was 15 and wanted to get baptized but his mother wouldn't give him permission. We talked with him some more and he told us he really wanted to meet, and so we did with President Clark. He has since changed his views and believes and is an active member of another church, but it was a miracle nonetheless. It's not an everyday thing to hear someone so happy that you called them and wanting to meet. 

We were also calling former investigators and found this one man named Vladislav who was taught by missionaries exactly a year ago. He too also wanted to meet and we met on Saturday and talked with him. He is a very sincere guy that wants to know more about us. Again, the Spirit was really strong during the whole thing and he wants to meet more. He had never seen the branch building; he had only met at the institute building on Fontanka, but he was stunned by the size of the church building here. The unfortunate thing is that he is a sailor and he is going on a 5 month voyage to Argentina. He really wants me to call him in August. I wrote it in my calender to remind me haha.

I gotta get going here. But I love you all! The more I feel the Spirit in my work here, the more I realize how blessed I really am to serve a mission. The church is still true!

Love,

Elder Tekulve