Dylan: 4 Language Baptism!

I feel like every week is a great week, but this one was pretty sweet! 

Remember how last week when all of our plans went wrong that day, but God had better plans in store? So after all of our plans got cancelled I was feeling pretty frustrated and totally forgot about that experience last week, where God set us up with even better plans. Well as we went to go finding because we had no plans, we got a call from the sisters saying how there was 2 guys at the church who wanted to talk to us. We get over and I realize it was someone who we just passed by on the street. They wanted to know if our church would like to do some play event with them; they wanted to pay a tribute to Jesus and knew that we were a Christian church, They were interesting guys: one was a actor from Moscow and the other was a director, we just gave them the info of our district president, but we ended giving them a BOM. Then we found 2 awesome guys in a grocery store that day, so after all God's plans are always better. 

-Mission President came for our district conference Sat/Sun.

- Saw the Mormaev Korgan ( the huge statue in remembrance of the great WW2 battle). You should check out the history of Volgograd; it is quite remarkable. Our mission president told us about how his mission president fought on that hill for Germany against Russia and they caught him, but since he was a medic they let him go, so he walked the whole way back from Russia to Germany.

- Went to Volshkey this little city over an hour away, to meet with some other members (there branch is so sketchy you would never be able to find it). 

- Went on 2 lessons an hour out to 2 inactive families with the mission president. I learned a ton from him and his wise words. 

- Remonted some women’s house

- Our landlady finally fixed our water which would shock you hard (like all the way to your toe) when you touched it!

- So during our district conference the district President stands up and does the meeting announcements and says that I will play the piano for the meeting that moment and looks at me and I nod my head in agreement, but I totally blanked out and only heard “Elder?” So I nodded my head, and thought “that sounded pretty important I'll have to ask my companion  after the meeting what he wanted us to do”. So when the chorister got up there to start the hymn everyone started to stare at me and I was so confused, until one of the sisters did some playing piano signs with her hands and I got the idea and jumped up there. It's always funny having no idea what is going on. 

- We met with this guy to play ping pong that we found on the street and we ended up giving him a BOM and invited him to learn more. He was cool, he told us about all his crazy traveling stories and how he says that he is probably in most agreement to Buddhism and Hinduism and had an interesting conversation about that and than he told us how he used to be very into drugs and told us about his "spiritual experiences" with magic mushrooms and so fourth. For some reason this guy reminds me of Johan... But I also feel really good about him. It will be very interesting to see what happens.

So the highlight of the week is that we got to see 2 baptisms! We didn't have anything to do with the baptism, as we met them that day, but I felt blessed to be there. They were from Astrahan which is like 6 hours away, but we are also in charge, but not really because it's to far for us to go down. But it was the coolest baptism I've ever gone to. There was a guy and a girl and they were both from this tiny country on the very west of Africa and were in Russia to study. They only speak Portuguese and a little bit of Russian. Their branch president in Astrahan is from Chilie and only knows Spanish, English, and a little bit of Russian. Somehow out of all the cities in Russia they went to one where someone speaks Spanish and understands Portuguese. There are no missionaries down there so he taught them all the lessons in Spanish. They came up here for a conference and got baptized. The baptism was done in Spanish and I had to witness, and I don't know Spanish, but I felt good that it was done correctly. After, when the African who got baptized wanted to give his testimony he would say it in Portuguese and then the branch president would translate it from Portuguese into English and then one of the volunteers would translate it from English to Russian, it was truly an experience! The spirit was so strong, as we had people from all over the world in one small room from Asia, North and South America, Europe, and Africa. The church is so true, the Lord has his hand in all things, his work will always find a way! 

I miss you all have a great week!

Elder VanBuskirk

Mom: What does “Remounted some women’s house” mean?

Dylan:  “Haha, I forgot that is not the same word in English.  I actually forgot the word, but we did some work on her house.  The sink was actually pretty fun, no worries. Sorry, I don’t have a way to send pictures here. Love you.”

Derek: The Prophet is Coming Here to Punish Us.

(Derek's ldsmail email wasn't working for several weeks, so he had to open a temporary gmail account just to get a hold of me.  So no letter, but we got to converse for a while.  Hopefully it will get fixed soon.)

Mom, guess what? I will meet the prophet on Saturday!

Yeah, all the missionaries here are scared about it because they think that the seventy that came last week gave a bad report and that the president is coming here to punish us.

I already talked to everyone I could about fixing my email.  I’ll just have to wait.  But can you go to the DHL website right now and see if you can pay for customs on there, because if not I will have to go and claim it for myself.

Hey, I went to the zoo and a chimpanzee started throwing rocks at us.  He also pooed in his hand and ate it.

My guess is that Rhyse is coming here, duh. And see if anyone knows where josh is going yet, please. Wait, Franky’s sister is in boot camp?

How is Dylan?

I just found out that I will be here in this area for probably 6 months.  It called Los Arroyos. It all the area left of the zoo.  Look on Google Earth for the church on the left og the zoo. At the left of the church is my apartment and most of our work gets done right in front of that.  There are a lot of nice houses in that area, but they are impossible to get into so we spend all our time in the slums.

I gotta go.  Love you.

Dylan: Surprise!

хелло friends and family, 

This has been a crazy week, but every week is a crazy week when they send you off to a hostile country and say you can't do missionary work, but expect you to figure out how to do missionary work!

- These guys tried scamming us, to give them a bunch money, which is nothing new, besides they just wouldn't quit.

- We got a call that we had to pick up Elder Williams from the train station, because they had an emergency transfer somewhere else in the mission, so now the young duo is now a trio until Elder Williams finishes his mission in 6 weeks. I love the guy; he was my old zone leader and I always wanted to serve with him, so I'm glad I get the opportunity to kill him off! We are all just having a blast trying to keep all these areas and branches together.

- I'm district leader now.

- We saw a Provaslovic baptism when walked into one of the old temples, so that was interesting.

- We threw a fun picnic for our young adults and potentials and a guy came up to the gate and was videotaping us yelling that he knew who we Mormons are and telling us to leave out of his country and he wouldn't leave. So we just had our picnic while some strange man videotaped and cussed us out the whole time. Haha. Classic.

- My favorite Indian, Stefen, has been devistated because that huge flood which you have all heard about in India is in his home city, but miracoulously his house is like the only place in the city untouched. So keep India in your prayers! 

- Invited some young guys to come play ping pong, and they brought their whole gang of friends to the branch so there was 7 of them and was pretty overwhelming, but we made it work. It was an experience.

- We went over an hour out to Red Army, one of the small branches we watch over, and we went to their game night because we can never go to their branch because we are in charge of our English group to teach and conduct. Their game night is so cute, there are only like 10 active members and they are all like the only members in their families are they are just alone, but they all come to the little branch in a basement of some building every Wednesday! Even the babooshkas and the one child they have there. They were so happy to see us and we had a great time with all of them, they have the most amazing conversion stories. Afterwards we all sat down and had a little dinner, and we gave them a spiritual thought and we all sang a hymn. It was so funny, it was like some soft hymn, but they just sang their hearts out. I was surprised how loud they were for a choir of 10. That was a special place and you could really feel the strong love this little branch of very different people had for each other. 

After going finding for a long while on Tuesday, not finding anyone who had any interest in talking with us, we decided to take an off road where we found ourselves talking to this university student "asking him where we can play football". Anyways we got his number. We found out we had to pick up Elder Williams and the day when we were planning on going on the day trip to meet with some members in Volshkey (other city) we got a phone call and to cancel all of our meetings for the day because we had to stay in the church all day so they could take Elder Williams passport so they could register him. So we immediately tried to plan out our day and decided to try to call Andre (they guy we met the other day) and he was able to meet. We played ping pong and then introduced him to the Book of Mormon. I have never met a more prepared person, who is mentally stable, like he was on my mission. He was so sincere and so grateful to talk to us. He told us how he always wanted to be baptized, so I'm glad he came to the right church!!! The craziest part is that he was leaving to his home city for a few weeks in a hour after our meeting, and won't be back until a couple weeks! And than we realized if Elder Williams would have never come we would have never had to do his registration and would be all the way in Volshkey and when we would have tried to meet with him any later than we did it would have been to late, and he probably would have long forgotten us when he returned. It is crazy to see how the Lord works and how we really need to take a look back on those days when all plans seem to go wrong and try to see what does the Lord need me to see or do here, because His plans are always better than ours.

I was reading about Abinadi this week, and his story struck at me. He didn't give up and he never saw his success, but because of him Alma had a change of heart, became converted, taught and baptized many people, and organized the church among the Nephites, and his descendents led and converted thousands including many of the Lamanites and prepared them for the coming of Christ. If  Abinadi would have counted his success off of what he saw for himself, he would of probably considered himself  as a complete failure. However to him none of that mattered. He had been called by God and he didn't worry if he would see his success or not. He knew that God was on his side and that he had a work for him to do. He might have died not seeing any of the amazing outcomes that his sacrifice brought forth, but it was never about his will, but God's. And God's great plan is greater than we can comprehend, so we have to remember to trust God and to not count our success by what we see, but by the feeling of peace of God's will and our own will being synched as one. 

I love you all! Elder VanBuskirk

Dylan: This is Going to be a Fun Transfer…

This is going to be a fun transfer! I am with Elder Johnson. He is a 6 weeks younger on the mish than me, so we are both going to make a lot of mistakes and grow together this transfer. For also being the youngest on the mish, besides the 2 new trainees, we have the most area and responsibilities. Our aarea used to be a zone and had 4 elders, but because they’ve been trying to shrick our mission, we are the only elders and in charge of 4 different branches and 4 cities.  Once of them is 7 hours away.  It is crazy to be in charge of the missionary work for literally a chunk of the world, haha.  Well, other things: our main branch we are at is Volgograd.  I love the branch already!  Except we have to work on getting the branch to love us, because it seems that the branch lost some trust with the missionaries because they don’t think we work hard or something.  The branch president also took the keys away to the only computer in the branch which is tough because with the new law we really need it to do the work.  But im not worries. We will win the heart of the branch and the branch president like Ammon did with King Lamoni!

This city has a had a hard time for quite a while for finding, but we are determined to turn that around and make it the most popping city in the mission. I found that even though I am not very good with the language, God has blessed me with the ability to find and get peoples numbers with the law change, which is really humbling because my Russian is horrendous, so I don't kmow how he does it, but He truly amazes me. I am trying to share that with all the others missionaries here so we can use this law for our benifit in building his kingdom. 

So 3 min before church starts the branch president comes up to me without any previous notice and tells me that I will be gining a 30 min talk today in church and would be the first to speak after sacrament! WHAT?! hahaah so I pulled something about recieving revelation and becoming truly converted through the Holy Ghost. So that was an experience the grammer was ot correct and I feel bad for those poor members ears, but I was understrandable and got the point across and made it though the whole time. After our 2 hour church we have another 2 hour church for a group it consist of like 16 members and we run all of it. We conduct the sacrament and give talks almost every week and we teach sunday school, and play the piano, and more. It's a lot of work but also a lot of great experience we are entusted with. I love this group, it;s an english group and it consist of university studentsd from all over the worl who came to Russia to become Doctors, and Engineers but little did they know that they really came to be intraduced to the gospel. We have a guy from India, Vietnam, a few from Ghana (helping my brother Elder Mcrae out) and a investigator from the US and other countries from Africa nad around the world. It is really a cool and precious enviorment! Also the person who was suppose to bring the bread didn't show, so all we had was some store bought bannana chocholate chip cookies to use for sacrament. So just know that when you are having your sacrament in your large congregatios on Sundays there is a group of 10 people from around the world with 2 Elders trying to get their act together and conduct the sacrament as we humbly pass out our store bought cookies...

So yeah, it's going to be a fun transfer. Also our apartment is awesome it's crazy old and has had missionaries in it since the biggining of their stay in Russia, and also probably hasn't been cleaned are organized since those 30 years also...so don't worry mom we have taken that task among ourselves. We even made a gym from all thye gym equipment that has been collected from all the old Elder apartments in the zone. We are in a computer lab and have very little time left so fyi. 

This Church is so True, and I love this work with all my heart!

Elder VanBuskirk

Thanks momma!  I love you! Keep up the good work, and keep helping them.  Their lives are being affected for the batter even if you don’t see it.  Thanks for being a great example to me for that, for looking out for others, and always being a good example of charity!!!  Love you tons!!!

Derek: Captain’s Log Week 39: Churros y Dios

So This week was definitely  better than last week.  So last week we accidently found our way to some less actives’ homes and started talking. We shared a short message and invited her to church on Sunday, but didn’t think much of it.  Then that Sunday she came to church with her nonmember husband and kids. And it was so cool because after the first hour of church he went out and took a picture with his family in front of the church sign, even though it was the first time inside a Mormon church in his life. That doesn’t happen! So we taught him a few lessons this week but his wife said she can’t go on Sunday because she had to go out of town so we thought that he wouldn’t go.  But we were wrong. He showed up with his three little kids without his wife.  So now we know that he is really into it. I also found out that some girl that was in the MTC with me is from my branch and that the mom of that same family that we are working with is her sister. Coincidence? I think not.  We are now teaching three different people from that area and I think we can get some good success.

We also had a baptism this week for a kid named Luis. It was super good except we had some difficulties. And so we had to keep changing the time from 6pm to 3pm then back to 6.  So the membores didn't like that. But he got baptized. I also went on exchanges with the MTC kids, which is cool because it helped me realize how good my Spanish was. Because I had to teach all of lesson 1 and 2 by myself, and he kind of just said a half-Spanish prayer.

Dylan: Bomb shelter, Transfer Calls, & Other Juicy Stuff...

 WW2 Bomb shelter 007 

Hola mis queridos amigos y familia,

Not much time, but first we got transfer calls. I am unexpectedly moving only after being here for one transfer to Volgograd! It was a zone with different nearby cities having areas, but know because of less amount of missionaries we have it is now just a district with sisters and us. So we will be in charge of a couple areas, just to check up on every once in a while. I will also be the older companion, but not really Elder Johnson who is only a transfer behind me is one of my favorites from the MTC! I was actually suppose to go to Kazan which is higher up than Moscow, but because of some laws and stuff, elders from our mission can't go there until like December, but I am very excited to move out and work hard in Volgograd. The city is famous because it is where WW2 ended are the turning point for Russia. 

The WW2 bomb shelters were insane! I wish I could show you all the pictures. The old man working there was a legend and let us go in the tanks and let us move the canons. The place was way far out and nobody knows about it. We then explored the shelters which went on for miles! Definitely the coolest P-day. 

Also, our one and only recent convert is on the run from the cops and running back to Mexico so that was an interesting event. Love the guy though. 

We found some awesome potentials this week, one is an awesome photographer! And the other is a cool volleyball coach. We worked hard here in Zapadney and they should have a great next transfer! 

Miss you all, Love Elder VanBuskirk

Cute gift from a wonderful potential 

 no explanation

Our boy is now in Mexico!

  

trying to find a way out of the bomb shelter

circus

 when president asks us to call people to give talks on Sundays

The BOOK of Mormon Musical 2 in Russia!

Rostov Zone Album cover

Lighting the Darkness with THE POWER OF THE BEST BOOK KNOWN TO MAN

This guy wasn't there when we took the picture...

What we use to go pick up our inactivates to go to church

Just some cute door knocking posing for the newest Liahona