Armenia!
I
will be quick! Had a visa trip to the great country of Armenia - trip of a
lifetime. Shout out to Elder Vonpahkdy saving souls out there! So we have to do
a visa trip every 2 transfers or 3 months. We also us 2 different passports and
we already look way suspicious, as it is as 3 Americans who go to Armenia and
than switch passports and come back to Russia. So this time was a lot of fun;
on the way back to Russia the border patrol had me go aside and then took my
companion aside and a man wearing normal clothes who turned out to be a Russian
detective interrogated us for 30 minutes. He was getting annoyed by our answers
and another one came too. We were the only ones there in the back of the
building. They ended up getting our numbers, address, and taking photos of our
passports so if I end up on Russia's most wanted you know why mom. I thought it
was quite fun, it's just terrifying because you can't answer them wrong because
you literally have the whole church in Russia in jeopardy; they just try to get
us to say something we shouldn't but we know what to say to keep safe.
We
went to Fifa Fan Fest on PDay, and there were a ton of people there. It was a
Russian match, so everyone was going insane. Also Russia won yesterday against
Spain, which is a HUGE deal, and we found out on the bus and everyone was going
wild. It was so funny.
Well
it's my first week in the new area, I love my comp Elder Beidler. He has helped
me so much with Russian; I've learned so much this past week alone. And I help
him get excited to do missionary work again, because he has had a hard mission
and hasn't been able to do it for 5 transfers really. So we make a great team,
we are really hoping this will be the turning point on our missions for
us.
Our
mission officially conjoined with the Samara mission, so that is very exciting!
But 13 of their missionaries will be leaving next transfer from their side, and
we will only have just over 50 missionaries in both for our whole mission. Most
of the new ones coming in are from other countries in Europe because the Area
Presidency requests that half the missionaries not be from the US in case
something happens... I am in the same area as the Mission Home, so I have got
the chance to meet and help President Otteson already, and he is such a great
man. I am so excited to have him, He's also from California so it's going to be
great.
Zapdney,
my new area is great! The branch is one of the strongest in the mission. We had
a whopping 40 people at church on Sunday. Also, we went to a really nice inactive’s
house. He is 60 but his wife died and afterwards he had a baby with a literal
mental woman 20 years younger than him out of wedlock, but she is in a nut
house so he has custody of the child who is now 7. I feel bad for the kid for
his horrible living condition. It was really terrifying though visiting him,
because the kid would come into the room and cuss his dad out and us out (I
learned so many cuss words that day) and he would slam the door insanely hard,
he did that the whole time, he also flipped me off when I waved at him.
A bunch of other fun stuff and jolly
banter, but I'll maybe hit it next week. Love you all. Be grateful for all the
Lord has given you.
Elder
VanBuskirk
call
it what you want
3am
Sunrise (because the sun barely goes to sleep)
Fan
Fest!!!
A
totally real pic by the real Don River for the ladies ;)
RUSSIA
Russia
Armenia
from heavens view
President
Otteson is form Cali by Poway. I love my mission president so much. I had my interview with him today, and
he is just the one I need as the mission president for the majority of my
mission. He has 5 sons and we
talked about surfing and he is such a great guy. I really think this could be
the turning point on my mission. I
have the right companion for it, so we hope we will grow a lot this transfer.
Love
you.
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