Dylan: Lots of Haircuts Coming

HELLO Family and FRIENDS!

Before you exit out of this email, I'll put the exciting news on the top! We had zone conference this week and President Martino was there (not the president of the MTC, but ironically his brother, who is the general Seventy over all of Eastern Europe) and they gave us the exciting news of how the Samara Mission is conjoining with our mission June 30! That's so exciting because our mission will be twice as big and we will have over 60 volunteers, and also I know some awesome missionaries over there that I am excited to work with! So I will have the rare opportunity of having 3 different mission presidents throughout my mission!

STORIES:

So on the way home from Zone Conference I got super pumped and while I was standing and talking to one of the Crimean sisters, in half part English and part Russian, a young man squeezed into the marshrootka and I notice he was paying attention to our conversation so I looked at him and said "Zdrastvooyte" and he said "Hello, how are you? " I got so excited! We started talking in half Russian, half English for the rest of the ride. He is 18 and is very cool and fun guy. I invited him to play ping-pong at the church with us and he was so excited. I even was able to get his number! It was my first contact so I was stoked! I tried calling him and texting him throughout the week, but he never answered. But it's ok He went off on our stop where our apartment is so I have faith we will find him again. 

So on Saturday we went to get a haircut, and I know haircuts are for P-day, but this wasn't for the haircut it was a finding activity! So we got a haircut from this nice lady in her little shop about a week ago and she told us how she had a BOM! So all of our lessons that morning got canceled so we thought it would be a good idea for one of us to get a haircut so we could have a good conversation with her. She cut my hair and the whole time I had no idea what they were talking about, but I knew the conversation wasn't at where we needed, so as we were leaving I said in my very bad Russian if she need help with anything, which got her confused but than reminded her that we were volunteers and that lead to a great discussion about hope and happiness, and Elder Isa even told her she should try reading her BOM. We left, walked all the way to the church, and realized we were so into our conversation we forgot to pay her! We called her right away and told her we were on our way back to pay her, but she insisted that we are fine and the conversation was enough. She even said she could be the volunteer to the volunteers, haha! We are going to drop off a thing of brownies and a nice note at her barbershop though, today or tomorrow, for what she did. She says she is already set in her church, but also says she has no hope in life and she once as happy and always smiled but once she moved to Rostov no one smiled and pretty soon it got to her too. But I am confident that God sent us to her barbershop because she is ready. We just need to soften her heart. We didn't intentionally try to go to her shop in the first place; we tried going to another one, but they were full. So we ended up with her. She is awesome, we are going to all just keep having haircuts at different times so we have an excuse to meet and have a good conversation with her once a week. We are always going to have some sharp hair.

It's always fun here in Russia, saw a few bizarre things on the streets, but you got to love it, never gets old! It's crazy how Russia fulfills all of it's stereotypes. 

Alma 37:6-7  Now ye may say that it is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.

Elder VanBuskirk

Hello family, I use a very sketch computer gamer room to email, and we have a timer on the bottom of our screen, so I never have time to do my President email, group, and all of you, so I’ll copy and paste part of my mission president's email I want to share with you. With other stuff. First off, I love you all so much I think and pray about you every day. Also I need Grandma Wilbur’s email, I don't have it! And also mom if you can send me a list of fun clean young single adult games, because you are creative and you also have the internet ;) This week was awesome! It started out with a zone conference where President Martino ,the general Seventy over all of Eastern Europe spoke with us all day. It was awesome! Except I don't think I'm going to be able to get a better zone conference than that. We had the zone from Crimea (which is just Russian volunteers) and the zone with Sochi and the southern cities of our mission come up so it was a party! 

I am loving this area, the members and investigators we have are great. Ivan has passed his baptismal interview last night and we planned his baptism with him so we are super excited and he is even more excited than we are. He has been through a lot, so I am really glad he has gotten to this stage. Aleeyeca is having a really hard time right now. She is pretty stressed out. I believe she got a new job that she works 2 days on 2 days off. But we went over to her house anyways just to drop them off a thing of brownies with a picture, scriptures and a note. Then we knocked on the door and ran away only to be caught by one of her daughters outside. All 4 of her children showed up to church on Sunday so that was great! She didn't have enough money for her to make it to church though, she only had enough money to get her children there. Urie is also having a bit of a hard time, but he faithfully comes to church every Sunday, and afterwards we always have a lesson with him, where he asks us many questions that he never lets us answer becuase he has to much to say. We are trying to help him that he doesn't need to know the details of all these other things to gain a testimony of the BOM and quite frankly for his salvation. However he has told us how his mother is coming into town and he wants to discuss with her about the gospel, which could be awesome if she looks into it and supports him, because he is getting no support from his family. Alena and Lubea , inctive mother and daughter that we have been working with, showed up to church this week! 

I love my companions we are all fun and happy people so we are always having a good time.  We are really having a problem with finding people so we tried to come up with a few activities we can try. We want to have an English game night to try to sell it to the English class we help at that has 4 17-year olds. So we are going to try to figure that out, but we want to make sure it is good. 

Studies are great. I am on track with all my goals. I am going to finish the BOM, Penguin, Sila (probably twice), other scripture marks and studies, flash card system and  few other things by the before the end of training. 

I hope all is well, I love you family and Derek I hope you are enjoying the warm days and the easy language ;)

WOOOOOWWWW I also forgot to tell you!! OUR MISSIONS OUR CONJOINING WITH THE SAMARA MISSION!!! IT IS HAPPENING JUNE 30, AND THE SAMARA IS SUBMERGING INTO OURS SO THE MISSION HOME WILL BE IN ROSTOV STILL. So during my mission I will have 3 Mission Presidents. They said they are going to mix us all over the place so we are excited to hopefully experience some real Russian winters! And they are happy to get to the warmest part of Russia, which isn't that warm haha. They have about 30 missionaries to so we should have just over 60 missionaries when we conjoin. 

Derek: Captin's Log Week 12

 And it came to pass when they were all baptized and had come up out of the water, the Holy Ghost did fall upon them, and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and with fire. (3 Nephi 19:13)

This week has been super great. We had 4 baptisms and confirmations this week! So we ended up not getting permission from the president to go to the temple, but I wasn’t going to let that get me down, because later that day was our baptisms. So we met at of church building here in Villa and we took a whole bus of members and investigators to the baptism with us. It was stressful at first because we went looking for our investigators and we couldn't find them. Then we heard that they where already all on the bus waiting for us. Which was great, but I still walked a ton for no reason. But the bus ride was super fun. We had two investigators come with us that I feel real good about. One is this girl, named Eliangy, that just showed up to church one day with her friend so we got her info and visited her house. I was on exchanges here in Villa for both of those days so my comp didn't even meet this girl until yesterday. Anyways, we showed up to her house yesterday and she was super excited to hear our message so we invited her whole family and some friends there to join our lesson. And as soon as we started, the first thing she told us was that she enjoyed the baptism and asked when she could have her's. Obviously I was super excited. This has been the second time this has happened so that's pretty great. But we told her if she keeps attending church, reads, prays, and gains a testimony, then in time she (and hopefully her family) will get baptized. The other investigator who went was Rafael. We haven’t been able to actually teach him a lesson yet for one reason or another, but he has already been to church twice and seems really interested in our message. We plan to teach him and his family this week.

So the baptism itself was pretty great. Our district had 7 baptisms in total and our area alone had 4 of those. It started with a hymn, prayer short message, a beautiful song sung by my comp and others, then the actual baptisms. So my comp and I didn't physically baptize anybody. That is because the members will stay and we will leave. But, I don't mind because this was about them and not us. The whole baptism went super well and afterwards some of the elders and I celebrated with chimmiys. (which is literally just a hamburger, but just don't tell a Dominican that or they will get upset). The next day we got to watch them receive the Holy Ghost in sacrament meeting. Which is honestly my favorite part, because that’s where they become cleansed, become a member, and most importantly receive the Holy Ghost as a constant companion in there lives.

Also this week I went on two more exchanges, which means I have 5 in total which is a ton for only one transfer. I spent a day with my Zone Leader, Elder Lopez, from Guatemala. He only spoke Spanish so it was kinda hard, but we still got to talk and we were able to understand what each other was saying. Then the next day I took this other elder, Elder Smith, who hasn't even finished his training yet either, back to Villa. We actually did pretty well for not knowing too much Spanish and I had to teach a lot of each lesson myself, which was good practice. This week I also ran out of money. We have this thing called an apoyo, which is like an allowance, that we are supposed to get every 2 weeks, but It's been more then two and a half. So I had to use some of my personal money, which isn't good. So I am currently out of my apoyo money right now but I'm just glad we booked dinner appointments this week. So I'm just hoping that gets in here soon. 

I also just found out that Nathan is going to BYU Hawaii with me, so that’s super exciting, but that’s still two years away though.

Our investigators that were baptized on Saturday are the 4 kids in the middle standing in front of the Church sign. The two guys under them are the members who did the baptisms.

Here is a pic of me and a frozen pig head. I also tried slaughtering a chicken for an investigator last week, but it didn't work out. And I’m not going to explain either story.

Dylan: A Realization

Дорогие семья и друзья

Second week out in the field, and I've come to a realization of just how challenging it is here to find people to teach, because first it's Russia and mostly the law really makes it difficult. Many of the missionaries have lost hope in finding people to teach. My trainers haven't had much success at all throughtout their missions on finding, but I wasn't going to fail the people of Russia that are waiting for us to bring them back home that easily so I really pushed my trainers that we were going to try extra hard to be obedient and talk to everyone we can and be intune to the spirit so the that we can have some success. I promised them that if we tried our hardest we would see miracles take place. Well they got excited and we gave an extra push to try to talk to everyone we could find and hopefully have a normal conversation that could lead to us explaing how we are volunteers for our church and try to gain curiosity in them to want to have a lesson to learn more in the church building. Well this is a very difficult task, and to our suprise absolutely nothing happened, we couldn't get a single conversation far enough to get anywhere, any contacts or anything. That sunday after church we were studying while one of my trainers was doing some things for our branch since he was the branch secretary. I was just reflecting on the week and was getting so discouraged on how we tried so hard and put all our hope that we could at least get a conversation towards the gospel and how my whole mission could be like this.

All of a sudden a 30ish year old man knocked on the door. I just assumed it was just some member froma different brach but my trainors waived to me that they had no idea who he was. I jumped out of my chair to greet him and he insisted he sit down and for us to teach him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. We were't about to tell him no, so we sat the man down and taught him the restoration. Apparently many years ago a missionary handed him a BOM but he wasn't interested in God are religion at the time so he just put it somewhere in his house, but now he is ready to learn about God and he realized he had a BOM so he thought he'dstart there and find a church. We were all completely shocked the whole time! We couldn't believe this was happening. He agreed to come to church on Sunday. Whether anything happens or not, that beside the point. I learned many lessons this past week about patience, hope,faith, dilligence, and many other things. God has prepared people who are ready for His word and blessings everywhere, some places are harder to find than others, but they are out there. It is all in the Lord's time and hands, not ours. He expects us to try our hardest and to always have faith and hope no matter how many times we get discouraged or turned down, because He needs to see that even through the bad or good, we have faith and hope in Him and his work. And then He will trust us with his beloved children who are needing to hear of His gospel and love for them. I know that God won't just put everyone on our church doorstep on a silver platter, but that he won't ever abandon us, that is work is real and the fields are ready to harvest even if we are blind and can't find them on our own, but with our most dilligent effort ,faith, and his help He will lead us to them.

Another amazing moment this week. We had a lesson in a inactive member's small apartment, the size of a tiny bedroom where a single mother and daughter live, with everything they owned.They are truly amazing people and I love them dearly. It was our last lesson of the night and it has been snowing all week, so the daughter insited that we had snowball fight outside like always. So we had an awesome snowball fight and right across the street a bunch of boys started lighting a ton of fireworks while we were having a snowbal fight, it was just one of those awesome picture perfect mission moments I will always remember.

I love you all, and my little timer on the bottomof my screen is about to come to an end.

Искренне ваш, ст. ВанБускирк

Derek: Captian's log week 11: Leer, Meditar, Orar.

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. ( Moroni 10: 3-5)

I had to start with this scripture because no matter how many times I have my investigators read this, and I explain it, They never seem to try it. So I am going to make this simple. If you do your part by reading The Book of Mormon every day, then pray to Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, and ask if what you read is true, you will receive an answer though the Holy Ghost. It's very simple. This applies to everyone, no matter if you have been a faithful member your whole life, or if you have never even read the Book of Mormon before. This is the only way you can truly know for yourself that the gospel is true. Because if the Book of Mormon is true, then everything that comes along with it is true. Like that Joseph Smith was a prophet, the priesthood is restored, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true church in our day. The reason I bring this up is because 4 of our 8 baptism dates for this Saturday dropped out. They told me they needed more time because they wanted to know if this was the true church before they joined. So then I asked if they were reading and praying every night to know if our message is true. And of course they said no. Which was really obvious because if they were reading and praying they would know that this is the true church. I was a extremely disappointed for their sakes, because they where literally holding their key to salvation in their hands, but still would not read it. But I kept my chill and invited them to read and pray every day this week then to also come together as a family to feast and read the scriptures and to also prayer together. I told them that if they were to do this with a sincere heart, meaning that they will act on the prompting they receive, that they will receive an answer. I literally carried 36 copies of The Book of Mormon from the capital to my little house in Villa. We now have more copies of The Book of Mormon in my area then the whole district combined. So trust me when I say I wouldn't have done that unless I have gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon for myself.

Anyways, this is the run down of my progressing investigators.

With baptism dates: Juan Luise, Elias, Kati, and Karen will be baptized this saturday. Then Gabrialla and Celiangy (mother and daughter) who didn’t read but are still willing to take lessons and to eventually prepare for baptism, Germany (the daughters friend) wants to get baptized but is going to wait until her friend is ready, then Yelianny she wants to get baptized, passed the interview, and got her mom’s signature, but then last minute her mom said she couldn't. We haven't been able to talk to her about it yet, but if her mom does end up letting her get baptized, it can’t be this week.

This week has definately been my hardest so far. I literlly broke my glasses. Well I mean a sister did at the MTC here this week, but I think that’s worse. We were there so we could meet up with other missionaries so I could pee in a cup and stuff for my visa. And while we were waiting, I decided to play some soccer. That was a mistake. This sister from Utah, who is going to my mission totally ran into me and destroyed my glasses. Anyways, that was a total bummer because my backup pair sucks. But, I told the AP and everyone else to give her crap when she gets here. I also literally travelled everyday this week, except Tuesday, for district meeting, exchanges, president interviews, and my four week training program, which was fun because I got to see my friends from the MTC. The Interview went well, we talked about how to work with less-actives, because I found out my ward has over 500 less actives. That got me really excited to work with the bishop and ward leaders to bring them back. Then afterwards my comp and I went out to lunch with the APs. So, I guess you can say we are pretty tight. 

So just to finish off I would just like to say to my 3 friends reading this, that I challenge you to read, ponder, and pray about the Book of Mormon to know if it is true. Even if you already know that it is true. I know that if you do this, and are willing to act on the prompting , you will receive an answer from the Holy Ghost. I know that God loves us, and because he loves us he truly made it super easy to know for our selves how to return to him. 


I spent the day in the capital. And its weird because it could literally be downtown San Diego or something and you almost forget you are in a third world country. They even had a KrispyKream.


My broken glasses. Featuring some random kid from the MTC. They are actually worse in the front.



My copies of The Book of Mormon that you should read.

There were a ton of horses in the street because of a huge festival in my town that we can’t go to.

That's pretty much it.

Tell Caleb I’m proud of him and his choice to keep the Sabbath day holy.

I broke my glasses. I have an extra pair, but they are ugly. And now I don't have a back-up pair anymore. They are totally scratched; lenses, frame, and all.

Sweet. I got your package and the fudge got everywhere. It’s ok, but the same thing happened with the hot cocoa. So maybe you can just bag everything next time. It was great though, thank you Mom.

Who was the elder who signed the little black reference book? Was it Dad’s from his mission? Tell Dad I love it and I’m studying it right now

Dylan: An Amazing Mission

Матушка Россия

Dear family and friends,

Well I have finally entered the Motherland! Our plane ride to Russia was quite the experience, I was sitting next to a very Jewish man from Israel who only spoke Hebrew, but I tried to have a decent conversation with him by pointing at my bible maps and using his translator. But there was a Babushka sitting by my companion so we talked to her for practically the whole flight from NY to Moscow and we were able to bring the discussion over to the gospel, and we tried giving her a BOM. She was interested but wouldn't take it, but I might've slipped a little mormon.org card with a note in her bag. At Moscow we drove through the city to the American embassy; it was quite the experiance. It was so cold and windy and I didn't have a coat yet, but I was so excited it didn't matter. Russia is even cooler than I imagined, all the buildings are so tall and gray, and everyone drives so crazy (like our bus just started drifting today and nobody was phased) and everything is so dirty and depressing, and so cold and humid that it pierces your clothes, and the winds are insane!

We got to Rostov and met our mission President and his wife. I love them. They are great! The next day I met my trainers, I have 2 trainers. One has been here for less than a year and is from Pennsylvania. He's awesome. His name is Elder Sweeney! My other trainer is a Russian! He is the coolest person ever and he is super friendly and fun. He is 25 and he is also engaged, haha. His fiancee is also on a mission and he baptized her. Missionaries met his mom on the streets when he was 2 years old. This is his last transfer but I'm so lucky to have him. I love both of my companions so much!

I am seving in East Rostov, the city is really big. Our apartment is on the top floor of a typical Russian apartment building. We are on a hill and have an awesome view of the city. People light fireworks ALL the time, and it's always the loud ones, so we always have a show. The best part though is that all the cars have alarms, and they all get set off at the same time, it's so funny. There are also a ton of stray cats and dogs all over the place. And the dogs bark all night. We walk or do public transportation. We usually take the thing called a Marshrootka, which is like a  super ghetto van that is stuffed with people to the max, and they drive crazy. It's really fun. It's so true that nobody smiles are talks, unless they are asking for a cigarette or change, but I still always say hi to everyone and try to say a little convo or phrase in Russian. It smells like sewer and is really muddy. Nobody takes care of anything, and the water tastes like dirt here. And in case your wondering, people do wear the fur hats here and all the babushkas practically wear a bear. The winter is finally starting up in Rostov; there was few days with good snow, but it's really starting to pick up today. 

The members here are amazing! Our little branch has a little over 20 active members. They are all converts, and they are all so faithful. The branch president and his councilor both have 2 little children. I've found that Russian children are the cutest there is, the woman are beautiful, and the men are tough and scary looking. On Sunday I gave my first talk and introduced myself to the ward. My trainors already built up a good trust with the ward, so that's helpful. We also had 7 investigators at church so that was awesome! We have 6 investigators with baptismal date! We are currently teaching an amazing single mom with 4 children who are all over 8, they are the golden investigator family who always goes to church. They are all planning to get baptized. This is quite a miracle because baptisms are first quite rare in Russia as you can imagine, and when somebody gets baptized, they are usually the only one in their family. So the fact that there is a whole family is miraculous. Our other investigator is a older man. He was suppose to get baptized this Saturday but he hasn't gone to church since my trainers have been here so we are pushing it back. He is amazing though, he is the most loving man. He has been talking to the missionaries for a while but his wife wouldn't let him get baptized and thinks he is foolish. His wife died a month ago and after that he threw his BOM out and was done, but something happened very recently where he came back to the missionaries and now wants to be baptized. We have another investigator who is an English teacher, so we talk quite a lot, but he tries to question everything. But he always shows up to church, but we are working with him, I love him and I know that he knows these things are true but he won't come to it. I think he is afraid. We actually had 15 lessons this past week which is the most my trainers have ever had, we usually only get 8-10, so we never had any time to do any finding yet, besides starting up conversations on the bus. It's really hard to find here. No one really knows what to do since you can't just talk to people about the church, so we have to be creative and invite people to play ping pong with us at the church or so fourth, I'm still not so sure but I can promise you we will come up with some ways how to do it, because with God's help we will find the people he has prepared and bring them home. 

This is an amazing mission. I love it here. It is quite an adventure. You can see the difference of happiness between the people with the gospel and without. I love the people; they are so great. (they have found all of the 12 tribes just in all mission alone, it's crazy!) God's work will press forward no matter the obstacle, it is truly amazing to see it here in its full work and glory. God doesn't abandon any of his children.

старейшина ВанБускирк