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

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Dylan: For Winder



Hola Amigos! 

We found the coolest guy from Peru that is studying here! He is awesome. He was friends with the missionaries 3 years ago in Peru and his uncle and aunt are members. He was planning on getting baptized, I think, but He went to Russia to study, and then a couple weeks ago an Elder talked to him while on splits. He asked if we were Mormons, which always gets us a little worried because Russians have a totally different view of us, but then he said He wanted to go on a mission, and we told him He would have to get baptized to do that, so he said OK. And then we taught him the Plan of Salvation yesterday. Wow just a taste of Winder's mission...it's seems pretty nice to me.

Also found a Mexican! The goal is to make Russia a low-key south America Mission. He only knows Russian and I think it's so weird that we talk to each other in Russian. I feel like we should just be able to talk in Spanish or English, but I can't speak Spanish and he can't speak English.

We are working with this Armenian guy who is not technically an investigator because He is an interesting case, but I'm really excited for him. He is actually reading the BoM and is such a deep thinker. I love him. 
This area has been kind of the dragging in one in our mission, so he is putting a lot of pressure on my comp and I to get it going, and man we are excited!

We have been so blessed with some good people down our paths and I don't know what the problem was, I've been busier than ever. We have been hyping up our activities and making new ones. We had this skit night, and than had our game night in the senior couple’s house and I felt like we were throwing the hottest party on the block; we got 45 people to squeeze into that apartment, and then we started a sports day. I'm stoked for the future here, we are just trying to hype all the other volunteers here that this is the time for Samara, and it seems to be working. I love my comp. He is such a Christlike guy and I learn so much from him.

We went to this animal shelter in the boonies! It was crazy we shoveled a whole courtyard of snow and picked the ice all day. We also got to walk the huge dogs around so that was cool. It was sad to see the living conditions of the animals, all the ears of the dogs fell off because of the cold. 

Some fun adventures this past week, exciting things to come. The BOOK of MORMON is so true. I love it with all my heart and I can never deny it. What an exciting time to be alive. I love you all. 

Elder VanBuskirk





We have 1 investigator, that Peruvian guy. And then we have the Armenian and I think we can get him more serious about the gospel, I just want to get him hooked first. And then we have this guy who left the church and took his name out and he is ready now, but we are waiting on him to forgive some people he is just filled with to much pride right now. But Yeah I'm excited!


(A life-size stand of of the twins for the wedding) –
Hahahah, no you didn’t!!!
But that is cool!
Can I see the picture of it?
HAHAHA that’s going to be so funny!

(A picture of Alex with Nathan’s fiancé Rachel)
Wow, the girl Alex is with is pretty cute! 
Did he take her on a date? When is he going to propose?

You still haven’t heard anything about the package?
YOU GOT THE PACKAGE???
Don’t eat the kopnteek I sent! You have to do it a certain way!!!

Yeah I don't think Grandma and Grandpa Signs’ letters got in there. Was there anyone else I missed? Rachel
haha I could send her one telling her to watch it, you can give it to her for the wedding!
AWWWWWW they are so cute.  They look perfect together.  Im so excited!







Derek: Captain’s Log week 74: Erupcion



So, uhh, I got this gross hand rash and so it hurts too much to type.  So I’m just going to copy and send my comp’s email. P.S. I have not even read it, so good luck.

Buenas Tardes a todos







This week was quite the one indeed. At the beginning of the week, according to the rumors, we assumed that we would both drop 6 months in time serving in the mission. That meant that my companion would go home in a month but as for me, I just thought to myself, "Man, I got so much time left, whether they drop that amount or not. I'm just gonna keep my enthusiasm up about the mission." So as we know now, there were a total of no changes at General Conference in contrast to the about 6 changes that people in my mission thought were going to happen, so we did indeed have a multitude of disappointment around us after the Sunday Afternoon Session of General Conference came to a close. Nevertheless, I was personally a-ok seeing as my perspective of the concept of time has drastically changed since I got into the mission field anyway. But now that that's addressed, I'll get into the other aspects of the week.

So the other day, Elder VanBuskirk and I were walking, and a lady walked by and she was holding a baby. We said our usual greeting as we do when we pass by anyone in the street, which was, "Buenas!" (short for "Buenas Tardes!"). She, then, pointing to the baby, looked at my companion and said, "¿La quieres?" (Do you want her?), to which he quickly replied in Spanish, "No I'm good, thank you very much.", and then she replied something to the effect of, "I don't either, but I mean what can we do?" and then she walked away. Don't worry, she was still holding the baby, she just thought it necessary to make the remark. Now this was a pretty quick exchange between Elder VanBuskirk and a random lady in the street, but I feel like there's so much more to it. She, holding her own product of the beauty of nature, decided in that second that this child was too much work. In two easy words, "La quieres", she was willing to sell the life of her very own child to the very first white guys that she saw in the street.

We had another interesting encounter while we were walking the other day as well. We get a lot of hissing when we walk, you know, because we're white. If you're not familiar with what hissing is, it's when girls (or guys, but usually guys do it to other girls. It would be kind of weird if we got hissed at by guys) make a loud hissing sound while we walk in the streets to let us know that they see us, and they're interested. It's kind of annoying but it's also a very good self-esteem booster, not gonna lie. So a lot of girls in the streets like to show their appreciation for us. Sometimes they pair the hissing with a little remark like, "Hey gringos, how are you guys doing?", you know, just like the regular cat-call remarks. However, the other day we were walking and we got our all-time favorite cat call. I cannot compare it to any other cat call that I have ever gotten, because it was that much better than all previous ones combined. We were walking, and we got hissed at, and it just so happened to be that the girl hissing at us was directly in front of us, so we were kinda forced to continue to walk in front of her. There wasn't a way to avoid it either, so we continued to walk and just braced ourselves for the cat call. To our pleasant surprise we hear her say, "¡Wow, ustedes comen maíz!" which directly, and without any innuendos translates to, "Wow, you guys eat corn!" There is nothing really left to this experience. I think that I'm just gonna leave this one here for you guys to interpret because I haven't quite figured it out yet.



There's this guy who sells empanadas literally right outside of our house, and they are delicious. When we usually pass by, I just ask him for like a couple chicken empanadas, maybe an egg one, maybe a ham and cheese one if I'm feeling adventurous. However, this last week, we were introduced to something incredible. We saw these people ordering larger empanadas. Made out of 2 dough circles rather than the usual 1. So we asked our empanada guy, "hey man, what's that big sucker you got there?" and he's like, "oh, that boy? That right there is the completo." Now I don't know if any of you know Spanish or not, but "completo" means "complete." So we're like, "Wow, what's the completo?" and he says, "It's full of every last ingredient that I have on this here table." It's important that you all know that I would have bought this thing no matter what price he gave me, but nevertheless, we asked him how much it was and he said it was 60 pesos, which is like a dollar and 20 cents in English. That's actually a really good deal compared to the 25 pesos he does for each individual 1-ingredient empanada, so we went for it. I didn't get a very good picture of it, but as follows is the best I could have done. From this angle, you can see some egg yolk on the right, egg white on the left, some ham, chicken, and cheese in he middle, and other ingredients that are unseen to the naked eye:

Let it be known that that empanada was unbelievable.

Alright, well, as you all know, it's the season for sharing! This past Saturday was the birthday of our Savior Jesus Christ. We know from modern revelation that the real birth date of the Savior was not in fact on December 25th, but instead on April 6th. So in honor of His real day of birth, we celebrated Christmas in April. We invited the other Elders in Pantoja to eat some pancakes with us, and we listened to Christmas music, and we ate, drank, and were merry, every last one of us. We ate pancakes and pineapple, drank chinola juice, and talked joyously. And I have a pic here to prove the feast:


Also if it means anything, we also had hot dogs with the Pantoja boys on Thursday to celebrate the season for sharing. Just thought I would tag that on real quick.

As for Christmas decorations, due to the slowness of mail service from the United States to the Dominican Republic, my companion received his Christmas package pretty recently. We thought it would be a good idea to take the decorations received in the package and get the house all nice for the special occasion. I would love to say that the main reason we decorated was because of "Real Christmas", but I feel like the bigger reason was the overstock of unused Christmas decorations. But let the record show that I feel our intentions were just either way. I also have a couple pictures of our set-up that I would love to share, which I will caption along the way.



Our Christmas Tree made of streamers:

Our real fake small christmas tree which has under it 2 wrapped copies of El Libro de Mormón: Otro Testamento de Jesucristo:

And that concludes this segment of pictures with E'K

Actually I do have one more picture, but it has a story to it first. So my companion has had this super weird rash growing on his arm pretty recently. It wouldn't have been super bad, but one part kept getting scratched and stuff, so it turned out pretty bad, and looked infected. We decided to call our leaders in the mission so they could help out, but none of them answered, and ultimately we decided to go to one of our favorite members, Hermana Castillo. She's a retired nurse, so we went over to see what she could do about it. She said it looked infected and proceeded to start poking the crap out of my companions already-hurting rashes, and then continued to rub alcohol on them up the wazoo followed by some antibiotics. Looked pretty dang painful, but logic says that what she did probably helped. And while he was in pain, I took the liberty to get the camera out and take a quick picture of Hermana Castillo just poking a needle right into the rash. You are all very welcome for the imagery:



Alright I'm gonna get into just a quick spiritual experience we had from the week so that this email isn't entirely just rashes, getting hissed at and getting a baby offered to us. So we loved conference a whole lot. I, as many could probably relate to, never appreciated General Conference as much as I could have before I came out and decided to serve a mission. At first, I thought I was beginning to love it because of the excitement of changes that our new beloved Prophet Russell M. Nelson has been making. But seeing as this conference had no changes involved, and I held onto my excitement about hearing from those called of God to speak to us this last weekend, it seems as though my appreciation has just grown regardless of what changes in the church are made during the 5 sessions. I loved all of the talks which were given. Of the talks, I personally felt like the words of Elder Holland and those of Elder Bednar just resounded with me the most. I probably resonated with Elder Bednar's talk so much just because I love the Temple so dang much. I've had such an appreciation for it since I was able to enter with a full-use recommend and receive my Endowments. I love the encouragement that was given to us as endowed members to, in a sacred and humble manner, be more open about the nature of the House of the Lord. By doing so, we can surely excite other friends of ours to receive the same things as we have, which are so necessary to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. That being said, I would invite everyone to get excited about the Temple. It's not meant to be seen as something to be nervous about. In contrast, and it's meant to be something to look forward to, and be excited about. And that's essentially what I got out of Elder Bednar's talk, and why I loved it so much.

Speaking of General Conference, between sessions, we got ourselves a sweet dinner appointment with one of our good ward friends, Khenry. He found us after the second session on Saturday, and invited us to come over and make empanadas with him. So we were super excited about that being as empanadas are delicious. I already mentioned above our experience with the ultimate empanada. So we went over there, and before Khenry started the actual empanadas, he gave us this test empanada thing, which was just made out of the empanada dough. He just about burnt it, so I decided to take the reigns in the kitchen, and I had him put the ingredients in the empanadas while I went and fried them at a better temperature. In the end, it turned out to be a delicious empanada night, and we got to hang out with Khenry and the other Pantoja Elders before trying to go back and do Priesthood session. Long story short, we did not get to watch Priesthood session until Sunday because our leaders didn't want us getting home late, but it's all good, everything turned out just alright anyway. And to end the email, I'll add the picture from the empanada night with the boys.



This one is titled, "Me, in what looks like what could be a picture in the next edition of the 'Adjusting to Missionary Life' pamphlet":

And that should just about do it for the week. I love you all, and I will talk you next week. E'K out.




Hey I’m on rn, but I can’t stay long because I have to go to the hospital to get a rash checked out. Love you.

Hey, is there any way you could get Mrs. Jonathan to do a recommendation for me at BYU? I think her position and great spirit could help. And I know that she hasn't thought about me since 5th grade, but she seems to have a good outside view of us and the family.
Plus, I started my BYU application and put most of the essays in already, but I need the transcripts, and if you could help edit my essays, too.
Gotta go. Talk to you tonight. Love u.

Hey, I’m back.
I’m good, but the doctor says it herpes.
Freak, I don’t know if it’s the same thing.
I'm fine.  Don’t worry. I got the medicine I need.

Gotta go. Love you.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Dylan: I Remember Moroni


Addressed to my fellow comrades,

This week has been a busy rollercoaster. I got really sad or discouraged for a day or two in there, which I try not to do. But sometimes the thoughts of the adversary come and try to destroy me mentally. This mission is more of a mental challenge than anything, I think, for some obvious reasons that I don't feel like explaining. But when I feel down or like I am doing nothing, I remember Moroni and his example and promises. He has become one of my greatest heroes while serving on  a mission and I have grown an appreciation for what he had gone through for the Lord's cause.

2 ...the Nephites who had escaped into the country southward were hunted by the Lamanites, until they were all destroyed.
And my father also was killed by them, and I even remain aloneto write the sad tale of the destruction of my people. But behold, they are gone, and I fulfil the commandment of my father. And whether they will slay me, I know not.

He was in the absolute worst conditions.  Everyone he knew had been killed.  He would not give up serving the Lord even when he knew it was hopeless for the people.  But he knew the power and mercy  of God and His great plan.  He could never deny Him.  I find it most powerful how he didn’t work hard for the people because they were absolutely wicked, but he didn’t let that discourage him.  He didn’t let the acts of others affect his faith and faith in God’s plan.  His faith was independent from what he was as we would see his own nation fall into wickedness.  He didn’t that that was over; that God’s work had to stop.

22 For the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled.

You would think someone who was the last righteous man of his kind might say otherwise, but he didn't need to see it to believe. His faith and diligence was only between the Lord and himself. 

26 And no one need say they shall not come, for they surely shall, for the Lord hath spoken it; for out of the earth shall they come, by the hand of the Lord, and none can stay it; and it shall come in a day when it shall be said that miracles are done away; and it shall come even as if one should speak from the dead.
34 Behold, the Lord hath shown unto me great and marvelous things concerning that which must shortly come, at that day when these things shall come forth among you.
35 Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.

Because of his great Faith the Lord has shown him our day, and he knows, because now his faith has become knowledge that our day, the day in Russia where they say that miracles are no more, is the day when great and marvelous things will come fourth. Even as sometimes it may seem that I am just wandering around Russia hopelessly, I know that Moroni was looking forward to our day with excitement. I have no idea how long I or the people here will have to wait, but I know they will come, and I will do all that I can in my small, but humble, power to serve to prepare the way for the Lord's miracles. And with that in mind, how can I get discouraged or feel bad for myself, or complain, when all of time has looked forward for these days? When Moroni, in way worse conditions, was optimistic about the work of the Lord? Because he knows that today is the days of miracles, and as I read some of the words of Paul this week that the Lord uses the weak things of the Earth to do his work, and I have learned over and over again that I most definitely fit the descriptions of the weak things of the Earth, and I am so grateful to be a part of the Lord's heroic underdog story here in Russia.


This week: 
-We had to stay at a hotel because I had problems with my registration, so we went hard and got a ton of cheeseburgers!
-Spent all Tuesday for 7 hours going though all the people, active and inactive, in the ward with the branch president and made a plan for each of them!
-Had the most humbling experience with this old man with out any legs who lived in the worst living conditions. He had such a powerful testimony.
-Went on a day trip to a little city tried to meet with some inactives, but they weren't there. The roommate of a babooshka opened the door and she looked disgusted at the sight of us. When she asked if we had anything to pass on to her friend, we whipped out a chocolate bar and her face lit up. It was so cute.
-Went early in the morning all the way up the coast for almost 3 hours with our branch President to go visit a tiny group in this city called Tuapce.  They usually have 3 at church, but they had a record when we came and had 9!!! There group is under our branch and the Pres wanted us to go with him as back-up because he was trying to put some things in order. We met with some bobs after, and they fed us a ton of food. I'm still full. We than went to this little family with a grandma and her daughter and her 3 children who lived in this tiny shack. We gave each of them blessings and we did it right in time before the drunk husband came in. We were able to buy them a lot of baby supplies. Those children had nothing, but they were so happy.  It was a very moving experience and we had a long drive home and got home at midnight. 

Elder VanBuskirk







Here is our new mission president and his family!  I am so excited.  He is so young and Russian. I think 4 out of the 6 mission presidents here are Russsian and the other haven’t finished yet.  So I think that is very interesting.

Monday, April 1, 2019

Derek: 73 Oreos



So not much happened this week, but I'll get straight to it. So Monday we invited the boys over and had a district activity in which we just brought a bunch of random things and deep fried it all. It was pretty good, but my stomach did not agree. I already knew that deep fried Oreos were good, but I had no clue deep fried Milkyways would taste amazing.

So Sunday we had a carnival pass though the town. We saw them prepare for the parade, but we had to leave before we really even saw something. But it was cool to see the Dominicans in their natural habitat: a street party. So the point is that while getting out of a carrito, the Dominican transportation system, I must have lost my phone because we looked everywhere but we couldn't find it. Anyway Tuesday morning I thought I was bleeding internally, but I didn't have a phone. So I walked to the other missionaries’ house to use their phone to call the doctor, but they had no cell coverage. But after a bit of conversation with the guys I came to the conclusion that I wasn't internally bleeding but that only I ate way too many Oreos. True story. Now so my comp and I are just sitting there in our P-day clothes, because we went there before personal study. But anyway, the APs walk in right then. That was hard to explain. They told us that none of the phones where working in the whole mission. They gave me a package (thanks mom and dad) and my new phone (but it still didn't work for 2 days straight). So they showed up to send Elder Silvestre to a different area even though he only has 2 weeks in this area. So yeah, that's the story on why I am not a district leader this transfer. 


Other than that, everything went really normal this week and I'm excited to see general conference this weekend as well.

Dylan: Feeling Positive


Here are some pics. It's been a great week, I have a new companion, Elder McMurray is from Salt Lake City. He is the greatest guy there is. I am very positive about this transfer I think there will be some of the greatest miracles of my mission. 
Have a great week! 


Elder VanBuskirk












Monday, March 25, 2019

Derek: Captain's Log: Iguana



So, Friday night at like ten-ish we get this knock at the door. I open it to find some dude in his 30s just kinda chillen’ there. Then we had an interesting conversation that went a little like this.
Me- ¿Hey what's up?
Jose- I'm good, thanks. But I have a question.
Me- Ok, sure.
Jose- Ok. ¿Do you have a lizard thing?
Me- ¿Like a snake?
Jose- no no, just a really big lizard.
Me- ¡Oh, like an Iguana!
-¡Exactly!
-No man, I don't have one.
-¿Really? Someone said that the Mormons had one.
-I wish.
-¿So, you don't have one?
-¿I'm positive, but are you looking to buy an iguana or something?
-No, I don't want to buy one because I already have an iguana.
-That is super cool.
-Yeah, It's like this big.
-¡Wow! That's a pretty big Iguana.
-¿Yeah, but are sure you don't have one?
-I think I would have noticed a lizard about that size in the house.
-...
-...
-...
-¿So, brother what's your name?
-Oh I'm Jose. I live like right there.
-Well nice to meet you, Jose. I'm Elder VanBuskirk
-¿Elden What?
-Elder VanBuskirk. It's my last name.
-cool.
-...
-...
-...
-Ok well good night
-Alright, good night Jose.




Pretty great. But I'll just leave the analysis to you guys.

So Monday after using the computer to write and call home for an amount of time that seemed good according to my judgment. We went to the house of Deilin and her family to give them a cake we made for her and her sister's birthday. We are teaching her and her mom, and have already baptized her sister. But as we were teaching the mother she told us that they didn't have enough money to do anything for her birthday. So my comp and I put money together and made them a cake. It wasn't super good, but as our ward mission leader said, you can't remember the special days with out cake. Anyway I was cool and they were super grateful. But It was kinda sad when the now 9-year-old girl Deilin told me that she received a full 2 dollars as her only birthday gift. And she seemed to be really happy about it. It was just humbling to think about how good we have it at times, when we complain about not having it all when there are some people out there who find a way to be really happy with the little they have.



Speaking of cake, this week we had 4 baptisms. The 4 of them were really excited and seemed to really enjoy it. My comp even got to do his first ever baptisms, so that was super cool. We even had so many people there, but, sadly there wasn't any cake so I wouldn't doubt if they forgot about the whole thing by next week.

Also this week we had exchanges. I took a few pics with a machete and transfers came so I’ll be here for 6 more weeks with this same comps.


She is not 59. Just one turned 5 and the other turned 9.



Spot the difference?






Dylan: Mission Conference (First and Last)


Hey I'll be quick - gotta go.
- Elders got out of Jail almost 3 weeks later! 
- We had a mission conference (1st and last) 
- Counting everyone: senior couples, and mission President and his wife we have 56 volunteers for our mission! I love it though. We are all so tight with each other. I don't think there is a mission more close than ours.
-They opened back up the south and my comp was going to go back down to Sochi and train, but Americans aren't allowed down south at the moment, so we had to do some changes. I'm just moving to the other elders’ in Samara and they will combine us.
- Had some great moving experiences this week, but time is short.
- I love you all

 Elder VanBUSKIRK








Here’s a picture of the whole mission.

I’m good.  I’m so ready to go hard this next transfer.  I’m staying in Samara which was the other mission’s old headquarters.

We should do something when I get home.  Yeah, let’s go down the Cali coast on our bikes!  I’m so down.  Get Dadn and you and Derek and anyone else and we can go from like LA to San Diego and camp on the beaches.  Make it a motivation for Dad to get into shape by then!

You Look beautiful!! What is that text about?
That was so funny to read. He is such an idiot haahh, what is he doing hanging out with girls even I didn't hang out with girls?!

Johan is far out!

We had an investigator come to church for the first time and he wanted to take photos of us.  I thought you would think they were funny.

Thanks.  I love you.