Interesting Fact - There is no Black Friday here in Russia, obviously, due to the fact that they do not celebrate Thanksgiving. It is also due to the fact the unwritten American rule that you can't play Christmas music or even THINK about Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving does not exist. So, hence, no Black Fridays.
This week actually was a very great week. To start, you are probably wondering "well what did Elder Tekulve do on Thanksgiving in Pskov, Russia?" . As the title so clearly states, yes, we did eat borscht. I actually haven't made it in a long time, but this was by far the best borscht I have ever made. Maybe because it was to replace the longing of turkey, who knows, but nonetheless it was fantastic. The great thing about it too is that there are still left overs, which I do plan on eating today after emails. :) That day was a lot of fun as well because we had no meetings set up so instead we went and street contacted most of the day. We asked everyone what they were grateful for, and most of the responded families. Families are indeed, the best.
We also had an interesting moment with our phone getting stolen this last week. It is actually kind of a hilarious story because we still have our sim card, but the phone is gone. It all starts out on a cold Monday evening on a cold wet bridge in the small city of Pskov, Russia. We contacted a man who was very interested in our message and wanted to meet the following day. "Of Course!" we thought. So we set up a meeting, and he comes to our branch saying that he has 8 people going to be coming. "Excellent!" we then thought. But the problem was that his phone just broke and that he needed to use ours, so he switches out the sim card, puts in his, uses his, calls his friends, takes out his simcard and gives us back the phone. He then left to go meet his friends. He seemed really excited too so we thought nothing of it. He comes back to use the phone a 2nd time, switches the sim cards back out, gives the phone back and leaves. He comes back a third time, and this time we had set up chairs, we had gotten hymn books out, we had been discussing what we are going to talk about, and he says he is going to be right back with the phone. Yeah, we should have left with him, but we were caught in the excitement that we disregarded the notion. But we waited for him... And waited... and waited..., and he never came back. We were bummed that we had gotten tricked, but laughed about it 10 minutes after it. I was more worried about him and his problems than I was about a cheap cell phone. I really didn't care for it, but I just wanted to teach him and help him feel the blessings of the Atonement. Interesting burglary story!
Also, this week, we had a great service project/visa trip. Here in Pskov, we live a lot closer to the border, so we had organized it so that we don't have to drive up to St.Petersburg, get into a bigger group of missionaries, go down to the border of Estonia, came back up to St. Pete, and then back down again to Pskov. You are looking at 20 hours of bus and travel time when we live an hour from the border... So we organized it with the branch so that the few missionaries that needed new visas go across the border, while I wait (my companion needed a new visa) with members from the branch in the car. We then drove back to Pskov and then a little bit further to a city called Karamishcheva where a less active brother lives. We went there and organized his shed which had built up with books. It was almost entirely filled with Bibles, interpretations of the bible, and religious literature. It's interesting to think that we can have sheds full of various understandings and various interpretations of the Bible and yet not contain the fullness of the truth that the Bible and Book of Mormon contain together. I also got a Hebrew Bible out of this project. :)
Anywho, I love being a missionary! In fact, I am incredibly eternally grateful for this experience.
Love,
Elder Tekulve
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