Elder VanBuskirk: Dylan: Gotta Love Russia

Well hello again brethren and sisters of the vineyard,

First, Happy Birthday to my Dad today! My Aunt Lisa yesterday! And my twin, the better Elder VanBuskirk, in the great land of the D.R., tomorrow! You have all been such great examples to me and I love you all so much!

So remember that video I sent last week of us going insane and cracking eggs on our heads and stuff to get us stoked for this week? Well this was probably one of the most disappointing weeks with a lot of heartbreaks, but I don't really feal like talking about any of that stuff so I will just say the funny things that happened! So we were going finding and I see a bunch of teens playing cards under a shelter in the rain, and my companion was like “you won't ask to play with them”, so of course I did and I asked if I can play, and there was like 8 of them, and they all just started cussing me out in English and German. They were just saying the wackest stuff. I thought it was so funny.

We also took a stop by good ole Yurie, an inactive that was branch president like 10 years ago, and you can watch the video on the link it pretty much sums up my mission! But for those who doesn't speak Russian he says that he won't see us for 2 months because apparently I made him feel unworthy and than he says he will do anything he can to avoid me. Hahaha. Good ole jolly banter.

My favorite part of the week is when Ivan the Legend sang the national Anthem with me because, for some reason, he knew all of the words. It's true comedy (that's also on the link).

Click hearer vids and voice messages

Saturday was way sick. We did service all day, which I love because service is the best! So we moved 2 gigantic piles of dirt and we cut down branches off a tree. But in Russia they do things with no health or safety in mind, so I would be holding the bottom of the ladder, also holding the cord for the chainsaw, and I would unplug it whenever to turn it on or off because it that's the only way to do it, while the legend Ganadie would be on the very tip top of the ladder and he would just cut the branches and the would fall straight on us, so we would also have to try to catch or move them out of the way. I just love how they do things here!

We also helped my fave babooshka tear down her old wallpaper and her 40 year old son who doesn't have a job and moved into her tiny apartment was helping also. He started yelling at her and he wouldn't stop, going off on how this wasn't going to work and so on. I wanted so badly to tell the guy off but we were all carrying big knives and I didn't trust this guys mental stability, and my comp and I both looked at each other and just knew that we shouldn't do anything at the moment. So we just comforted her while he went out to take a smoke. That just made me so mad. I hate when people don't respect their moms or wives and raise their voices at them.

Anyways, practically everyone in this mission is depressed and I’m getting annoyed by it because they are all superstar missionaries. I'm tired of everyone making excuses and complaining, like that's going to do anything. If God wanted to take out the law he would today, but maybe it's also because he knows that it could be a blessing for us and that we can be more effective with those restrictions if we have the right attitude for it and try to use it for our good. This isn't your average mission, and it's sad that it's not the mission that you imagined, because it's definitly not what I imagined. But it's not about us. And we should be grateful that God trusted us with this challenge and unique mission and not just feel sorry for ourselves because it's harder than we thought or not what we were expecting. Anyways, I went on a rant, but it's my 7 month mark this week, and my birthday, and there is nothing I want more than to go harder than I have before!

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