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