Week 48 - Finding new Phones

Interesting Fact #48 - Well this is more of an observation. I noticed that in the U.S., Nokia phones weren't that big there. At least when I left. But here, they are the bee's knees. I think everyone has some sort of model of a Nokia phone. Good stuff.

We got an interesting assignment this week to find new phones for a group of elders. They are two areas south of the city which do District Meetings once a week over a conference call. The are about 4 hours away from each other, but they are one district. The problem is that their phones are pretty shoddy, and one of which doesn't even do speaker phone. So in solution, President Clark wanted us to go find some phones for them! That explains the fact of the week, which, by the way, are becoming more and more difficult to do every week. I will probably end them soon. But anyway, so we had to go to several phone stores looking for some phones. Found a few people interested in English Conversation Group along the way. 

So this week we only had a few teaching appointments. Still trying out new things in our finding efforts. We have been trying everything; tracting, signboarding, contacting, and even surveying. It unfortunately wasn't as successful as we had liked it to have been. I think partially it was because we started conducting it in front of a mall where there was just a lot of women. We are trying to look for men to teach. We soon replanned to find another place to do it and we then went to our favorite spot off of Nyevski Prospect in front of the Lady Kazan Cathedral. Only in the busy parts of the city (which are MANY) can signboarding and surveying actually  be really effective. Elder Hill and I introduced the idea to the mission as we went and tried it out a few weeks ago with a lot of success. There were a group of Elders who are serving in my old area that tried it out and find a man to teach. The miracle behind it all is that he is getting baptized on Saturday, and he has been taught everything and is ready to go. He saw their signboard asking "Where do we all come from? Why are we here? Where are going after this life?". Viktor was really interested as to why two young men were holding such a board and ended up talking with them. Miracles are found with faith, hope, and effort!

There is another miracle that happened recently within the mission. A few weeks ago, Elder Hill and I had to visit some injured elders in the hospital. They were walking out of their apartment when suddenly a piece of wood landed on their heads, knocking both of them down. There were people repairing the ceiliing of their apartment building and threw some wood off the side and it landed right on them. So they got raced to the hospital where we met them. The doctors said it would be a month to a 2 month recovery for them both. The whole mission prayed for them, and they both got blessings, and in a week and a half they recovered 100 percent and working full days in their area. In fact, they have a baptism as well this Saturday, despite their injury. The really interesting and cool thing about this incident, is that those two elders were in unity. They shared the blow. They were walking together in unity, and if they hadn't one of them would have gotten the full impact of that fall. Blessings and protection in unity!

Well needless to say, I am fine and A-OKAY, as I would say. And most importantly, so are those two elders. The new assignments that we get are always really interesting, whether it be to find phones, are support a few injured Elders. Either way, to lead is to serve, and that's what I have been learning, and it couldn't be any better. I love it here.

Well I love you all! This Church is true! The Holy Ghost is indeed our comforter and protector! Faith can go MILES further than professional care. I have seen that here, and I have seen it before. The Priesthood is real, and it is such a priveledge to have this Priesthood here on the Earth, never to be lost!

Love,
Elder Tekulve

P.S.: I just got an email from another Elder Tekulve in Cape Town! Just a little hello to my cousin down south where it's nice and warm! I hope things are awesome down there, Bren!

Week 47 - Tracting and various Fruits.

Interesting Fact #47 - So here in Russia, we got the Julian and the Gregorian Calenders going on simultaneously. I just had my 2nd Christmas here, and that also means I am going to have my 2nd New Year here soon. It's called the Old New Year. And then there are plenty of Chinese here too, so then we got the Chinese New Year on the 23rd. I just called my friend Fu up last night and seems quite excited. 3 New Years!

So every Preperation Day, Elder Hill and I find an interesting fruit in the exotic fruit section in the grocery store. We try one out every week. The first week, we ate something called a pomelo or something. Then we had dragonfruit. We had some weird fruit called a Kiwaia or something. It had spikes on it and there was this green slime pod stuff inside. It was pretty good too. Last week we had starfruit, which was eh. But it's been fun trying out all these new fruits and such. Russian supermarkets got an awesome produce selection and stuffs.

Well this week, we have found that there is more success is in tracting doors than contacting in the street. There was this big rumor throughout the mission kind of that tracting was a no go here. We decided to judge for ourselves, and we have found some solid investigators through it. This week, in particular, we found a man named Alexiy. He has a super awesome family and he is just such a cool guy. We tracted him last Tuesday after our preperation day ended. (By the way, the Hermitage was AWESOME! More about that later). We were just way surprised. We called a random apartment through the domaphone on the outside of the complex. We told him who we are and he let us right in, which is very rare. He, himself, is part of some other church, of which I can't remember the name to. But he is just a stud. He knows the Bible very well and we talked to him a little bit about the Restoration. His son, who is maybe 11 or so, brought out some raspberry tea and some cake. It was awesome. It was pretty interesting too. We had to organize our training for the Zone Leaders the next day and President Clark told us that we could go in early to plan. We decided to stay and find one last person, and that's when we found Alexiy. Blessings come with faith. This last Sunday, he came to church as well! He was really interested in the Book of Mormon and we gave him up and set up a follow up appointment. 

We met with one of those men that wanted to be baptized and the lesson didn't fold out as planned. He got fairly upset about a few things and it was kind of a bummer. BUT! Another cool miracle came out it. That day that we were going to meet with him, we were waiting at the metro exit for him but he never showed up. We ended up talking to a SIM card seller named Pasha who was standing next to us. We talked to him for a while and gave him a broshure with our phone number on it. We left because our investigator never showed up. Andre, the investigator, calls us up late  and we eventually meet up with him. We finish the lesson with Andre with little success, and then Pasha called and we met with right after and taught the Restoration, and it went a lot  better than the lesson with Andre. Pasha accepted everything so well. He unfortunately didn't make it to church, but is really eager to meet again. He has read a little bit from the Book of Mormon and is super interested still. I hope good things will come from our hard work in finding! Next it's teaching, and then baptizing! 

So yeah it's getting a bit nippy here, but you can easily do well with a hat, gloves, and a scarf, and a nice coat. But, it's definitely looking like what I expected Russia to be like. It just happened a lot later than expected. That's all. But at any rate. I love it, and I love these people here too. 

Well I love you all too! I pray for you everyday. 

Love,

Elder Tekulve

P.S.: Oh yeah almost forgot. Yeah. So the Hermitage. Amazing. I never seen a more beautiful interior/art. There are quite a few Lionardo Da Vinci originals and a few other good ones. We didnt' have much time, but I made sure I went inside the Winter Palace. I went in few of the rooms that little miss Anastasia danced it. The palace is a lot better in real life. It was so cool. Hermitage is really a treasure here in St. Petersburg. 

Week 46 - A New Year, an Empty Street, and a Thanskgiving Turkey

Interesting Fact #46 - New Years is by far the biggest holiday here in Russia. Moreso than Christmas, Victory Day, and the rest of their various many holidays. They celebrate with cartloads of fireworks, which indeed woke me up in the middle of the night. 

Well we had an interesting week, that's for sure. Still a lot of finding here in this area. We have a lot less time than the rest of the missionaries because of some of the stuff we have to do, but at the same time, it's still usual missionary work. We had only a few meetings this week with our investigators. One of which, I talked to on the metro a few weeks ago. He was a really nice man who was really sincerely interested in our message. I got his number a while ago and I called he was really eager to meet. We met in the center of the city, by all the sights, and we took a nice walk with him around the city in the more quiet parts. He is one of the nicest guys I have met here in the city. Cares a lot about his family, absolutely loves them, and absolutely loves his work as a art historian. The thing is he grew up being told that God didn't exist. He honestly expresses such genuine interest, and I am excited to teach him some more. 

We met with another one of our investigators this week named Igor (a very common name here. I am sure you have lost track of all the Igors I am talking about). We met at the branch building and he is just the opposite than the other man in terms of beliefs. He is a genuine guy and really polite but he lives and breaths Russian Orthodox because that is the only thing he was taught. So it's interesting seeing the contrast of beliefs here. But all in all, it makes it much more exciting. His meeting was an awesome one. We taught him the first lesson and answered a lot of his questions. He read a little bit of the Book of Mormon and has very genuine questions about it, which really shows he is interested. A really solid guy. I am excited to work with him some more.

This weekend, because of the New Years, we had to be inside during the celebrations. On Saturday, we had to go in early for the night because of the celebrations in the street. So we got back and I attempted to make Stuffing with a lot of success. On New Years Day, we usually weren't allowed out of our apartment, but President Clark didn't want for us to waste a whole day. So we just had to be back in by 3:30 after church. So Elder Hill and I, curious, set off to go find some people in the morning. We went to Nevskiy Prospect. It was almost empty. A few people here and there, but it was almost something off the Road. All that was really left were small piles of trash and bottles. Sure evidence of a Russian celebration. The night before, I woke up to fireworks that sounded like they were right outside my apartment. I got up and looked out the window (which has an AMAZING view of the river dividing the east part of Petersburg with the Center part) and all I could see were fireworks going off everyway. It was quite the sight. I think they were going off until about 3 or something like that. 

After church, Elder Hill and I met up with the Elders who serve in the Mission Office and we made a turkey. I have never attempted such a feat, but somehow, after 3 and a half hours of sweating labor, out came an amazing, juicy, perfectly cooked turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes. So needless to say, I guess I celebrated Thanksgiving 2 months later. After I pulled out the turkey, I splured out the words, "Elder Hill! I'm only 20 years old and I made a turkey!". Good times they were. Good times they are.

Well I hope that the coming of the new year has put some things into your perspective. The New Year is always a great way to start on something new, or to change something that already existed, or to improve on something that lacked. I have set some goals this new years to help me develop into the missionary that I want to be, and also to help and further love those whom I teach, with whom I serve, and to grow a deeper love for the Lord and His work that is before me. I hope that this new year will provide everyone with blessings for a better life! I love you all.

Love,

Elder Tekulve

P.S.: I wrote this on a computer inside the Hermitage. In 20 minutes, I get to go through my first time! My dream! 

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