Sergay's Mother

We had an amazing week this week! With the exception of the apartment problems that we had concerning our water heater. There had been a leak in the water pipes for the water heater that had been leaking for a month or maybe longing and no one noticed. The problem is that the water heater is behind this built-in closet and I think I opened that cabinet once before, but apparently it had been dripping for a while and caused the downstairs apartments walls to grow mold and become very wet. So we had to call around, and talk to our apartment representative and landlords to take of this problemo. But like the old wisdoms of The Wizard of Oz state, "Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain". I felt like it was just a big distraction

So this week, we had some pretty great new investigators and a lot of teaching opportunities with our investigators. We had some amazing lessons with two of our newer investigators Vladimir and Irina, who we have set baptismal dates for the 17th of November. They are some of my favorite investigators. Vladimir is so receptive and just loves the Book of Mormon. He really wants to quit drinking and so we have been setting baby steps for him like: don't drink for 24 hours, 48 hours, etc. Although I wasn't there, we had an exchange and my companion and another missionary went and taught him the Restoration. The other missionary recited the first vision, and Vladimir was so touched by it that he asked him to repeat it. After the other Elder recited the first vision, Vladimir began to cry. He is an amazing man who wants to make steps to become a disciple and a new creature in Christ. He, too, can be made clean from his addictions. 

We also had another really interesting lesson with a man named Sergay who hadn't been showing any signs of interest or progress, but something happened this last lesson. His mother is very old and dying and had called Sergay saying that she wanted to die the day. I asked if we could talk to her on the phone, and I sat and listened. I tried to discerned what was wrong and tried to teach her the meaning of life and that her personal mission is not over. I think I was on the phone with this old grandmother for maybe 20 minutes trying to encourage her not take her own life that day. By the end, she told me she understood very clearly that she is still needed today. If God wanted her back, she would have already died. It was something that makes so much sense, but it becomes so clouded by depression. Sergay was very touched by this and asked a lot of questions and wanted the scriptures from the Book of Mormon that touched on that subject. On that phone, I completely relied on the Spirit to help guide me to know what to say. It was an amazing experience being an instrument in the hands of the Lord. He really just uses us for His own purposes. It's just so awesome to think! One of the mroe amazing experiences on my mission. Sergay called me later that night to tell me how grateful he was that we helped his mother.

We met with another younger man that has been investigator since this summer. His name is Stepan and he comes to EVERYTHING; every activity, comes to church. But last week he stayed for 8 hours of General Conference. He had never wanted to meet before, but we finally got a meeting with him and got him to understand his own answer to the Book of Mormon. He told us he feels peace when he reads, which he never attribruted to his own actual testimony and answer of its truthfulness. And then another man, Karl, came to church agian this week. Last week I mentioned how we were guided to this random apartment that we had felt that we needed to stop by. He came again to church and thoroughly enjoyed it the second time. He asked a lot of very insightful questions and participated in Gospel Principles and also Elders' Quorum as if he was a member. It was awesome-o!!!

I really love this work, and this opportunity to serve these people. 

A great week this week, and not even a broken water heater could have stopped it. I love being a missionary and I know the Church is true! My testimony grows more and more everyday here in the Pskov, Russia!

Love,

Elder Tekulve

Estooonia, Conference, Carl, and stuff

I am absolutely exhausted today! This morning I had my regular visa trip to Estonia. However, we had organized it so that I didn't have to go to Peter. Pskov is really close to the border; almost an hour away. So we had organized it so that I would leave with the branch president this morning and we would take me to Estonia and back to renew my visa. We left this morning at 6, and I got back around 12:30. While there, we had to wait for abus in a city called Pechoriy which has a famous monastery there. So we stopped by the Monastary and it was beautiful but it felt like Disneyland. It looked similar to the castle there. We got back to some awesome lunch cooked by the Gardiners, the senior couple. And now we are here in this interent cafe! I am just so whipped right now. So if there are a few grammatical mistakes, words or sentences that don't make sense, just please bear with me. 

So, this week we had a cool experience of listening to the Spirit. We walked past this apartment building and we saw a light on upstairs in one of the apartments, but for some reason it had something really spiritually distinct about it. That apartment just stood out from the rest of them; not physically, but something was telling us that we need to talk to that person that lived there. So we decided to follow that feeling, so we get to where his apartment stairwell could possibly be, but we couldn't find it. A man politely that was close by asked us to leave, so we did. It was weird that we were led to a place to where a man told us to leave. Later that night, we talked to another man from whcih we got the complete opposite feeling, as in "get out of here", but we didn't listen to it. Even though it seemed even more clear than the previous feeling we had. He invited us over and it turned out that he was a Satanist or something crazy like that, and with that we left just with a weird feeling of fear a little bit. So we got home and judged both situations and discussed and decided to drop by the first man that we had felt needed our message. So the next time, we stopped by his apartment. We knocked on the door and waited. An older man came and opened the door. He seemed to know a lot about the true and wasn't terribly interested in listening to our message. but nonetheless we invited him to conference. Almost forgetting about it, Sunday comes around for Conference. This man, Carl, came in a suit, had read the brochure that we had given him, and came to church to watch conference. He felt a little skeptical at first but during Elder Holland's talk about Our Savior's conversation with Peter, Carl too began to cry. The Spirit was just so strong there during conference and he really began to open up after the conference. He is really interested to know more about the Book of Mormon, and mostly about the Church.It was a really cool lesson about listening to the Spirit, because it can really guide you to prepared people. We are hopefully going to meet this week with him.

Another investigator of ours, Stepan, who has been investtigating since July, came not only to conference, but all EIGHT hours of conference, on both days. He really enjoyed it. The really awesome thing this weekend was that we all watched it as a branch famiy. Between sessions we had two awesome lunchs and we all just ate like a family. I really love Pskov. This might be my favorite branch and area. I just absolutely love these people. I learned a lot from conference this weekend as it was my last conference. I watched it entirely in Russian this year around and I absolutely loved it. It was interesting to hear it go though another speaker, because there were times when the translator would be touched by something he had translated and he too even got emotional at some points. It just goes to show that you can feel the same Spirit even though a translation and even through the fact that some information gets lost in translation.

This week was awesome. We found a lot of great people to work with, had some good (and some bad) lessons and teaching experiences. But all in all, this week was great. I love being here! And I am exhausted right now. That's all for now.

I love you all

Love,

Elder Tekulve

P.S. - Congratulations Sammy!!!!! That's awesome news!!! Tell Benji Rasmussen that even after you two are married, I still got to make sure he is A-OK in the books. I am sure he is. He's a Rasmus! An Elder Rasmussen was my favorite companion! Anywho, CONGRATULATIONS SAMWISE GAMJ!!! :) I'm Happy for ya

Train Station Insanity

This is going to be a shorter letter this week because I have to print out a lot of stuff for Zone Leader stuff and also my voting ballot things. So bear with me!

Anyway, this week kind of took us out of our area for a long time. We were in Saint Petersburg for a majority of this week. I am really tired of taking busses and trains to and fro and I just want to stay and focus in my area haha. So we didn't have too much time in our area unfortunately. But with the few days that we had, we have found 2 new investigators, and got our new convert who was falling into less-activity, Byacheslav, back to church and he fulfilled his calling yesterday! He came early to missionary coordination meeting yesterday and helped us coordinate our missionary work with the branch here in Pskov. He also taught gospel principles and did an awesome job. He was in a situation with someone that was forcing him not to go to church, so he didn't for a few weeks. But he decided that he needed to go and he came back. It was awesome! I was way happy. 

Some other news about Pskov. We just got sister missionaries here! Finally! For a long period of time, like 3 or 4 years it has been just one set of elders in this little city. But this past year, there have been two sets of Elders here. And then this week, we moved out one of the companionships of Elders and moved in a companionship of Sisters into their new apartment. It's Sister Schlant and Sister Kafalas. We have given them a lot to work with since there is a lot of women in the branch who Elders can't meet with without the help of another male. So came in to a full area and they are excited.

On Friday, when we were all moving back down to Pskov, we ran into those kind of "everything that could go wrong went wrong" kind of days. Me and my new companion, Elder Sherman, the two new sisters, and the Senior Couple here all woke up early at 5 to take a train back. We were supposed to knock on the sisters apartment door and  help them move their suitcases to the train station. But we got there, but no one was picking up, and it turned out that they were in another apartment closer to where we came from. So we sent the Senior Couple, Elder and Sister Gardiner to go buy tickets, while we helped the sisters. We get there at their place at around 6:20 and they had accidentally left a suitcase in an elevator before the door closed and they couldn't get it. So we had to retrieve it and left around 6:30. Our train was to leave at 7:25. So we tried to race to the metro with these HEAVIER THAN WHALES suitcases that they had. I don't care what someone can pack that causes such a bag to weight that much. It didn't help that one of them wasn't a rolly suitcase and had to be attatched to a smaller one. We finally get to the metro at about 6:45 and it usually takes about 40 minutes to get to the stop we need to get to the train station. We got there at 7:10 just in time. The Gardiners has saved spots so it was fine. But I accidentally tooked the cramped sit with no leg room. Whoops. But we finally get there to Pskov. We leave the train and then the train leaves and Sister Gardiner realizes that she left her scriptures on the train but it left already. She goes and runs after it, but it was too late. Her husband, Elder Gardiner kind of just stood there, but we got him on a taxi and told the taxi driver to wait. So Elder Sherman and I went to go find Sister Gardiner and try to arrange with the Train Station about the last item, but we couldn't find her. After about 5 minutes walking back and forth in side the station, we found her and somehow she took care of it and they told her to come back at 5. She doesn't know Russian, but somehow she got that all figured out. It was kind of a miracle. So we get back to find the taxi, but the taxi driver left.... And we needed to get the Gardiners to the Sisters apartment to unlock it, but Sister Gardner had the keys. We finally just get on a bus and leave to help the sisters move and Elder Gardiner had to wait inside the stairwell for about 30 minutes. It was rather fun... haha. The awsome thing is that Sister Gardiner got her scriptures back! She came back to the train station and found them right where she left them. So the story ends well, but it was a very very tiring day haha.

The two new investigators we found this week is this man and his wife, Vladimir and Irina. We had talked to Vladimir right before we left on Tuesday to SPB and he wants to quit drinking and change his life. We stopped by on Saturday but they weren't home, so we decided to stop by the address last night and had a wonderful lesson. It really felt like that we started out the lesson really strongly with a strong prayer in the beginning. Vladimir was crying when we spoke about Christ and his Atonement. Those were the highlights of this week. 

I am really excited to be working with Elder Sherman this transfer and we are already seeing some cool stuff!

I gotta go!!

Love,

Elder Tekulve

Back to Novgorod and Mr. Fyodor and TRANSFERS!

Interesting Fact - I am not sure if I told you this one already, but you have to buy your plastic bags. You don't just get plastic bags free for your groceries. You have to tell them how many you want. The grocery store we shop at has awesome plastic bags for 8 rubles, which is maybe 20 cents. We use them as trashbags. Industriousness!

I heard the news. Grandpa and Grandma will be in my prayers, but I am happy that they are safe and in awesome hands, or in other words, under the care of my mom and uncle. Everything will be alright and will work out. I actually learned a new word this morning that means that. Oboidyotsya. It must mean that everything will indeed by okay. Faith in Jesus Christ can heal any wounded soul.

So this week, we had a few exciting things happen. I went on an exchange with another Elder, an Elder Starostin from the city of Penza, Russia. I really enjoy serving with Russian speakers because you just speak Russian all day and all night long. I really find it enjoyable. We met with a few interesting people that day who just love to talk. We met with an older man named Gennady Borisovich on a bench and I think we taught maybe just one principle. I really am not sure, but I just remember we sat quietly and listened to this man tell story after story. He used to serve on a submarine back in the day. Afterwards, we helped the branch help out a less-active member in need and then had an hour and a half to find people. We have a mission standard of talking to at least 10 people a day and inviting them to hear more. It's not terribly difficult, but we had service that morning, so we didnt have much to find people. We had an hour and a half to talk to 10 people, EACH. It was a great teaching moment because he kept on doubting, but I was persistent that we were going to achieve that. It was a very action packed 90 minutes, going to person to person and trying to start a conversation or share our message. Of course there were rejectors, but in the end, at 8:55, 5 minutes for the end of the night, we received our 10 contacts for the night.

We got a call the next day from our mission president, saying that we had to go back down to Novgorod because of an emergency. It is part of my district but it is still 4 hours away (I was so hoping not having to go back there because of the intense bumpy bus ride back). There are two elders who are being bothered by this man on the street regularly. President Clark wanted us four in Pskov to go down and do an emergency transfer of Elders and do 3 there and 3 here. An Elder Sherman from Colorado is serving here in Pskov and he got called to serve in Novgorod in a threesome down there. The great thing is he is quite the buff guy, so President sent him to Novgorod to get that guy to stop bothering the missionaries. So we get to Novgorod, ate a McDonalds, and turned around back home. 

So right now it is a threesome here in Pskov. Elder Barrett and Elder Starostin. It is a pretty hilarious dynamic trio. On Saturday, we got our transfer calls and I am staying here in Pskov and my companion will be Elder Sherman! What do you know! There is a lot of new organizational changes in the mission now that there is a Stake here in St. Pete. There are going to be more missionaries outside of the city, so they organized 3 more zones to prepare for more missionaries to be sent here to this mission. They made Pskov and Novgorod it's own zone (Zone is bigger than a district. District invovles about 4-6 missionaries and there is one District leader. A zone involves anywhere from 12-25 missionaries and involves multiple districts). So I got called... again. to be a zone leader. Haha, I thought I was done, but I guess not. So I am going to be a zone leader with Elder Sherman, but I am still a District Leader in Pskov. So we will see what happens haha. I am excited and looking forward to my next few transfers here. I love Pskov!

That is about it for this week. I am going to email my Grandpa because he is my hero and I love him.

Love,

Elder Tekulve

Novgorod and the World's bumpiest bus!

Interesting Fact - Russia's oldest cathedral is located in a city called Valikiy Novgorod. On Saturday it turned 1150 years old. The city name literally translates to "The Great New City". It is way new! Not reallY!

So this week I was on a lot of exchanges. Elder Barrett and I went down to Novgorod which is about 4 hours east of Pskov. I will first tell you about the road to that great city. There is at least an hour and a half stretch of just straight pot holes and bumps. We are probably going about 10 miles per hour over this deep pot holes. The bus was bouncing so much that you can't read anything, you can't sleep, and can't really think. It was a whole load of fun. haha. But we get there and Novgorod is this pretty big awesome city. I think it is about twice the size of Pskov there and they even have a McDonald's. But we get there and start our exchanges there. We had a service project in the Kremlin there. (Yes Novgorod has a Kremlin, and so does Pskov, and Moscow, and also Kiev. More or less all of the old cities in Russia have kremlins. It was pretty cool serving there. We first we moving tables and chairs because they were preparing for this big celebration on Saturday. We were there on Wednesday and Thursday. Apparently President Putin was coming to town that day, which is pretty exciting for a little (littler) city like Novgorod seeing how Russia is forever and a half enourmous. We then raked up inside the Kremlin. The Kremlin there is a lot nicer and prettier inside with old meeting halls and small fields around inside. We met with a few great families and investigators there in Novgorod on the exchange. There are two Elders there and two Sisters. Elder Branham from St. Louis just recently got called to be the Branch President there in Novgorod because they don't have enough members to find a branch president. That branch is even smaller than ours here in Pskov. Can you imagine that! He is 20 years old and is more or less a bishop. 

So then we take a bus back to Pskov.... On the way back it was about 3 straight hours of intense bumps. The sits in front of me were literally shaken out of place and they didn't remain in place. Aside the terrible bus ride, we get back and continue doing our missionary thing here in Pskov. We went tracting in some small houses out in the outer part of the city of Pskov. I really felt like that that was the REAL Russia. It was in these small dusty streets amongst small cottage looking houses (called Dachas in Russian). I really love this place. I had a moment when I just loved Russia like that a few weeks ago when I had to pick up a few packages for the Pskov branch. I walk into this old building which I think once acted as a Soviet services building, but inside were these run down hallways where there were small businesses. For some reason, inside that old Soviet building, I fell in love with Russia. I love these people. haha I can't really explain why I had that feeling, but it comes once in a while at random times. These are my people! 

This week, we had a lot going on with our investigators and we found 3 new investigators with another kind of in limbo right now as we were unable to set up a return appointment. One of the new investigators was a man named Alexander, who, upon our first visit, took control of the appointment and showed and talked about random stuff and about poetry. He is a very nice and smart man, but a little unfocused. But our second lesson with him started the same way, but I felt like I grabbed (with the Spirit) the lesson by the ears and shook it around. He really couldn't argue with or question my testimony. It was really interesting because he said you can find answers about the book by asking the question and turning to any random page and read any sentence. He asked, "What is The Book Of Mormon", and he turned right to, "Repent, Repent all ye ends of the Earth end be baptized in My name". The Book of Mormon really is the best tool to declare repentence, for us to change, and it helps us come closer to God "by abiding by its precepts more than any other book". But the Spirit was incredibly strong and he was touched in the lesson and we got him to pray at the end and it was one of the most sincere prayers ever. Once we brought in the Spirit, it had already been 40 minutes, we committed him to read and come to chuch and left. I really realized there at that lesson that that was truly teaching PEOPLE and not lessons. Its okay that we didn't teach the whole lesson but just a few points, but the Spirit was there and he was touched.

We have another investigator that we found last week named Andre who is just amazing. He had completely changed his life about 17 years ago and believes and just knows without a doubt that God lives. We had a very powerful lesson with him where he accepted a baptismal date and sincerely desired to become even better and become closer to Heavenly Father. One problem is that he smokes, and we are getting him to commit to take the new Addiction Recovery Program that the Church has. The Senior Couple in Pskov, the Gardiners are actually specialists with this program and have been working with it with others for years. We are going to get started on the program and prepare him for Baptism. He is a professional mushroom hunter. Mushroom hunting here is a PASSION. When it is fall time, it means "WOODS TIME" and search mushrooms like the Hobbits of Old.

Well this week was great. I really am grateful to be a missionary. I am so happy to be here and I love these my people here in Russia. 

Love,

Staryeshina Tekoolviy

Ya tak blagadarin za to shto ya zdec' b Rossiyi. Eta moya lyobimaya strana i eta nye vazhno shto I delyok ot doma siechas. I lyublyu etu rabotu i Gospoda i etikh lyudyei

First Cold in the Field! Yay!

Interesting Fact of Pskov - Every Sunday night, at the statue of Pushkin in the downtown of the city, there is always a gathering of seniors and older couples and they square dance/slow dance. Every sunday. One day, I walked past the riotous group on my way to a meeting, and they were actually listening to some kind of techno, but yet they were still dancing 1940s style. It was tenders.

So this past week, I got sick my first time! Don't worry, it was just a cold. It was my first time getting sick in the field so far in my mission. I got ill once in the MTC, but the MTC and the Field are two COMPLETELY different parts of your mission. But yeah, the cold here in Russia is the same cold back in the U.S., allbeit there is a little more Bear and Siberia in the fact that it's a RUSSIAN cold. 

We tracted a different part of our area this past week that we have been too. We didn't find any cool new investigators that way, but on the way home, we ended up finding a really amazing man who really is prepared; but the problem is that night he is going to Switzerland for 2 months and will be back after that time. He was really interested in our message, and also the Book of Mormon. We gave him one to read in the the travelling time which he gladly accepted. I think it is funny that the Lord will lead you to places at the right time. Maybe you think, Ok, I want to go here to tract/knock on doors, but you were to knock for just enough time to talk to some one else walking the opposite direction on your way back home/somewhere else. The timing of everything is just amazing. Heavenly Father always perfectly sets it up as long as we are ready, prepared, and worthy for such a miracle. God is a God of miracles.

We mostly focused on finding this past week since most of our investigators have disappeared. So we have to kind of start from square one all over again, with the exception of a few investigators we are still working with. As disppointing as it originally was, we have realized that there are still more prepared people in this city of 250,000 people, who will be ready to accept the message and to act on it. We also realized that we did all that we possibly could and right now those people are in the Lord's hands. We did find some really awesome people this week, though. We found a man named Andre and is a mushroom hunter and he invited us over so we could share our message with him, which is very rare here. It was one of the greatest lessons that I have in my mission, where the Spirit was just so strong, and it felt like we understood and were edified with one another. 

Well the work continues here in Pskov and I know things are always going to grow. Of course in a mission, as well as in life, we have those ups and downs, but I always remember that things can and will get better. Prayer is a mighty tool for our benefit; a holy connection that we have with Our Father in Heaven, who knows us perfectly and knows what will and what can happen if we chose the way He wants. This Church is true and this is the Work of the Lord. I am so grateful that I am a missionary that I can represent the Savior in all that I do and say. It is a blessing and a priveledge in itself. I love it here, I love Russia, and I love these people with all my heart.

Oh, and of course I love you guys too! 

Love,

Elder Tekulve

THE SAINT PETERSBURG STAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see in the title of this email something REALLY awesome happened this week. Since my last email, we went back up to St. Petersburg for a special District Conference with Elder Nelson from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He had come by assignment to establish a Stake of Zion in St. Petersburg, Russia. He came with President Lawrance, the Area President, and Elder Senkans from the Seventy. On September 9th, 2012, the first St. Petersburg Russian Stake was created. This really is a historic day. This is the second stake here in Russia, but it will soon be one of MANY stakes here in this awesome country. They had called a new Stake President (the previous acting stake President being President Clark, the Mission President) with his councellors, and they called 6 new Bishops (previously being branch presidents before), called a  new stake high council, high priests, and a Stake Patriarch. They is this new spiritual strength here now in St. Petersburg. It really was an amazing experience. When they were announcing this at the conference, the Spirit was incredibly strong. It was almsot electrifying. I can't really explain it, because no words can really experience the spiritual strength that was felt. 

Many many many prayers were answered this day. Thousands of prayers from thousands of Russian members, from missionaries, and from mission presidents. The next step in this whole process now is preparing and building a temple. I can't describe how happy I am to be part of this growth in the Church in this part of the world. The difference of a district and a stake is enormous. Now there is a high council of high priests. There is a stake patriarch so now they don't need to wait for a year for the area patriarch to fly in from SLC. There is a Stake President who isn't preoccupied trying to lead an army of missionaries, or so to speak. But now we can see what it means now for this mission. President Clark has more time now to focus on the missionaries and the mission. He handed over the keys to the new Stake President, President Andrei Klimash, and now President Clark is only in charge of missionaries and 4 mission branches: Petrozavodsk, Novgorod, Kaliningrad, and Pskov. Pretty much all of the far branches that take forever and a half to travel to. There is this new fire that is unquenchable here now. 

WE GOT A STAKE!!!!!!! Elder Nelson said it is Stake number 2980. Ah goodness. I don't really know what else to say. The Church is true. This is Jesus Christ's church and he is leading this chuch through His servants, the Prophets and Apostles. There is no doubt that this Church will just grow here in Russia. This place is thirsting for the truth as they had been kept from the truth, or even knowledge about God, for such a long time. Elder Nelson also explained the story on how the Church got recognition in the USSR, back in 1990. It was a miracle story that involved missionaries baptizing the Russian people in Hungary, Finland, and other countries, all of who just so happened to be a part of the government district in Leningrad, USSR (or today, St. Petersburg, Russia), and because they had enough people, the USSR recognized the Church as a religious organization. And because of that, missionaries were able to come to this beautiful land to teach these beautiful people. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!

Today is an incredibly awesome day. That's all I really gotta say today haha.

I love you all! The Church is true!!

Love,

Elder Tekulve