Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them;
and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain,
and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. Jeremiah 16:16

Monday, February 12, 2018

Dylan: Miracles, Bungalows, and Sad Stuff



Dear Fellow Americans (and Johan), 

This week has been insane: some really sad news, crazy miracles, and interesting and fun experiences. 

First the really sad news: So Russia is shutting down the FamilySearch in all of Russia. We have to destroy any FamilySearch computer, and any pamphlet or book or anything that has the logo on it. We also have to destroy and shred a lot of other Liahonas and books and other pamphlets and so fourth. They really want to make sure we don't have anything to hand out to people. The government making FamilySearch unaccessible is more hard on the members than on us; they now will have no way to do genealogy work for the temple, and it will take away one of their inspiring desires to go to the temple, which is already a very challenging task for them. Nevertheless, it is amazing to see that whatever the adversary may do and whatever forces and power it has, it will never stop the work of the Lord. His work will always press forward and He will never abandon these saints in Russia.











SPLITS: I went on splits these week 2 diferent days in 2 different areas. So one of the zone leaders and I went to mid-center town and brought groceries to this poor old woman (who is not all the way there). She lives in a little tiny bungalow or hut that is like handmade and probably a century old. It's the size of a small room and has one moldy toilet with and stove on top and a small moldy fridge. Her house is the most disgusting place I have ever seen; the place is practically rotting, and the stench was so bad it smelt like the was a farm herd of dead cows in there. This woman had a ton of cats and kittens running around. She also had a stroke awhile ago and is physically not able to get out of her house, so she spends her whole life in there which is just heartbreaking. When we took out her trash we noticed there was a tail sticking out. Under her diapers there was a DEAD CAT that has been in her trash bag for over a week!










We went to another bungalow, where this older gentleman has 16 cats. He has one light dwindling lightbulb and no source of heat besides his oven that is heated by firewood. His house is freezing cold, so he crouches down next to the oven for heat. He wants to get baptized but won't commit to paying tithing because he barely has enough to survive as it is. It is really sad to see. 



Fun stuff: We played football (soccer) Saturday morning with some members and a bunch of random kids kept showing up and playing with us. It was just awesome to realize that I was in Russia in the mist and cold, playing in the mud in a sketchy park surrounded by the tall gray buildings. 










We also went to a RUSSIAN BALLET which was actually way cool! It was a classic one and it was amazing! Another thing I found which was sooo weird, is that when Russians applaud they all clap on the same beat, the whole audience! Which sounded so weird cause they have no way of expressing how enthusiastic they are, it's just one rhythm and expression. Their culture is super interesting and like complete opposites of the US. 

Here is a crazy story, kind of long though, but the details are important:
Soooo last Friday on the way home from game night in Center I was having a quiet conversation with Sweeney about what we can do to help our investigators as we were speaking in English/Russian and there was this young woman who came in the marshrootka later and was sitting right across from me. Elder Sweeney and I were sitting by the driver and the marshrootka was really full so a lot of people couldn't reach to him, so they would hand me the money and I would hand it the driver. Anyways, she kept looking at us, so when I was finally about to say something it was her stop. Then instead of her just handing the money to the driver, which would have been just as easy for because of where she was, she handed it to me and told me in English to please pass it up to the driver. I got so excited and tried to say a few things back, and when the driver handed back the money to me to give to her I dropped all the change. In a hurry I tried to pick it up for her and was only able to give her some of it before she had to run off. So I got the change and put in my bag hoping I would see her again. I knew right away that I messed up and God gave me a person to talk to that I didn't even try talking to until it was too late and I knew I messed up, so I prayed all week that if God would give me a second chance I would take the opportunity. And what do you know? Exactly a week later, not even in our part of town, in the huge city of Rostov, out of ALL the marshrootkas and buses we get into a marshrootka after a rather dissapointing day to go to our apartment and I'm standing there and I notice that the same girl with 2 friends is sitting right behind Elder Sweeney in the back! I couldn't believe my eyes I had to examine that it was her because it was so unreal. I got my way to the end of the Marshrootka and as soon as I opened my mouth she laughed and said that she was the same person, and I handed her her change that I had ready to give that whole week, which she and her friends were so surprised that I held it for her thinking I would see her again, and it got us on to a good start and we all had a great conversation. If anything else comes out of that or not, It is just awesome to see first hand how the Lord really does answer prayers and how even if you mess up the Lord is patient with us and gives us many chances. We just have to seek for them.


Elder VanBuskirk



































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