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.

Dylan: My Week in Two Pictures

Monday...

Sunday...

Derek: Captain’s Log: Biscocho

So not much happened this week except that the baptism of Rossany, Jose, and Oscar got put back a week because our ward leaders said that we needed to have a cake at the baptism. His point was that a baptism is a very special event that should be remembered forever. So apparently the covenant of baptism and the Spirit you felt isn't enough to remember the moment, but just bring a cake and  now it's a beautiful spiritual experience that will be remembered for a lifetime. That was really the point of the Elders Quorum president and everyone just agreed with it. Another reason he had was that the parents don't know the parents of the kids that were going to be baptized yet. This was a good point but we had already planned with the young women president to pass by their house after that exact meeting we were having Wednesday night. He wanted us to postpone the baptism a week so we talk to the parents even though we only needed like 15 minutes to do it. It sounded to me like they were just pulling reasons out of nowhere to postpone salvation. So for that reason it was easily the worst ward leadership meeting I have yet had. 

Also it was my comp's b-day this week and that was pretty bad. Literally none of our lessons where there. Tragic, but other than that the week was pretty good. We changed their baptism date to this Saturday. But 2 of our investigators were out of town this week so I think that 2 baptisms will have to be changed to next week. Which leaves us with hopefully 4 baptisms this week. And really other than that, and teaching the good word, not much happened. So, later. 

Dylan: Polar Plunge

Hey there, I'm still somewhere in Russsia! 

 Well we got a call from my comp’s parents late at night (they had permission) because someone hacked his email, surprise, surprise, and it got out to some anti-Mormon and he got it out there and made it sound like we were in horrible conditions, and went viral and the church headquarters called his Dad and told them about the situation and how we are in "Direct Danger". We aren’t in danger, I guarantee you mom. But we did have the option to leave our mission if we don't feel safe. Well, we are staying in Russia until the end. The elders are still detained and President is having a surprise mission conference this Friday that we just found out today to talk about the situation, which is crazy because our mission is so spread apart we have never had one since I've been here. Almost every companion has gotten a text from an unknown number saying "Hey my name is Vlad, I hear you have free English clubs or lessons, when and where is it?" as if we are that stupid. It's just scary to know that if the government wants right now, all they have to do is snap their fingers and we will all be out of here. 

Anyways let's talk about this week.

-We have found some cool people, even though there is close to nobody out on the streets I wonder why... But I love the snow and cold!!! Makes me feel so Russian.

-Met this guy and he invited us to his place the next day. He turned out to be a Krishna, which is that religion that believes that God sometimes come in the form of a blue God. His house was way hippied out. We had some fancy herbal tea and played some hippy instruments. 

-FAVORITE MOMENT MAYBE IN RUSSIA- So we are walking along the frozen Volga and we see these pine trees planted in the ice on the river, so we thought that was rather strange and needed some investigating. We came to it and found a hidden pool opening to the frozen river with a ladder going down to it, then a huge fat hairy Russian man came and got buck naked jumped in his speedo, did his exercise, and pre-ritual, then we watched our new friend dunk himself aggressively 6 times in the freezing water. He got out and finished his ritual. I can't explain the pure joy I felt while watching that event. 

-They had a concert on Sunday in this city to celebrate Russia taking Crimea and they had this huge sign saying #Crimea is ours (in Russian). They are such savages here. 

-Also saw a dead guy from a really bad car accident, really sad. 

It's been a good week. We met our branch we are now in charge of which consists of the Branch Pres, another preiesthood holder who is mentally challenged but is a complete sweetheart, 10 bobs (babushkas) and somehow 10 kids! 

Keep Russia in your Prayers,

 Much Love Elder VanBuskirk

Thanks MOM!  I love you!  I guarantee everything is okay here.  We want to be here.  It is safe. The only thing that could happen is they pull us out of Russia, or somehow I also get thrown into prison for a little bit, but if that ever happened, know that I would love it and be safer in there than outside and I would be enjoying every moment. SO nothing to worry about!

Derek: Captain’s log week 50: El don le leon

This week has been full of the miracles and gifts of God. We learn in the scriptures that miracles don't ever brake the laws of nature, but are done with a higher celestial law that we as humans can not understand while we are here on this Earth. So, I would like to share a few miracles that happened this week.

The Miracles 30 Minutes Before Church

So yesterday we showed up to church about 30 minutes early, so at about 7:30. As we walk up to the church to unlock it we hear someone yell from across the street

saying, " ¡Bambooski! (me) I came early so that wouldn't miss a thing." I turned around and saw our investigator Ramon on the other side of the street looking as though he has been there for some time. He is an older gent of about 70 years, and we have had been teaching him for about 3 months already and though he has a lot of faith and wanted to be baptized since the first lesson we had with him, he has never until that day walked into one of our church buildings. This is do to the fact that literally every single weekend he he has been in the hospital for diabetes and other reasons or because he has had deaths in the family. But here he was, the first Sunday in which he was able to come to church he showed up before everyone else. He really enjoyed it and has long sense had a testimony in The Book of Mormon, so we will probably be baptizing him not this Saturday but the next. In fact if everything works out well we should be having 4 baptism this Saturday and 2 more that next Saturday, so cross your fingers.

The Tender Mercy of the SD Card

So last week my comp, after leaving the internet center he "misplaced" his SD card for his camera. So we tore up the house that night but quickly came to the conclusion that his SD card holding all his mission pictures was not there. So we started making planes on when we would go to find him a new SD card, because all hope was gone. But Saturday afternoon as all of our lessons fell and we spent the whole day walking in the sun we were called by some guy. "¡Americanos!" hey yelled he quickly showed my comp a picture of him self with our MTC president on his phone. He explained that we must have left it in his store on P-day as we were shopping. My comp was super happy to have all of his mission pictures back with him, and to not have to spend more money on a new card.

The Two Sticks of Gold

Also Saturday as we were walking home from our last lesson when we remembered that we really needed 2 sticks of butter to make syrup for the pancakes we were going to have that next Saturday, but because we were serving our loud all day, by the time we got out of our last lesson all the bigger shops were closed and we had only a little time to find these precious sticks of butter or we would be eating our weekly pancakes with out any source of syrup. But we were walking past a colmado, a Dominican corner store that is just big enough to walk inside and ask the guy at the counter for sugar of a soda or something, anyway while walking by I felt the impression to walk inside. I went straight to the little fridge that was there to cool the sodas and there salami, and as I opened the fridge I saw to my surprise 2 sticks of butter sitting between some salami. Now it is really hard to find real butter in this country especially in a store like this. I feel as my brother Nephi who was blessed for serving The Lord, and though he did not know before hand what he should have done he was blessed for his faith and he obtained the bronze plates. So even though the sticks of butter had the strong scent of cheese I was happy for this tender mercy.

The Gift of the Lion. 

Wednesday we were sitting in this tiny little park thing with like 3 benches as I decided to sit in the shade for a second and make some necessary phone calls. As soon as I finish this guy named Ramon, different Ramon, walks up to us. He is this shorter guy who seemed to be in his early 20s. He where a button up  blue shirt and was holding a stick with a bunch of bags of delicious looking bread for sell. He began to introduce him self as Ramon, the evangelist, apostle, and Prophet. He proceeded to explained in this happy energetic voice that he has prayed and fasted many days to gain special "gifts from God. He said that because of his fasting and prayer The Lord gave him the gift of the lion, to share the word. Then out of nowhere he grabbed his neck in a weird way and proceeded to make Lion noises. And between every growl he would say, in a few octaves lower, a few things relating to The Creator for example, "Only the word of God can save us, *growl, we must live the word of God *growl, we must become the word of God *growl, we must not eat pork*growl." And like that he went on for a minute. I thought to my self this must really be the words of The Lord given to him as a gift and didn't sound at all satanic. So after a minute or two when I could tell the little guy needed a brake I stopped him and said, "Look Ramon, that is super cool. I'm not going to lie, but there are many more gifts out there then you can imagine." Well he seemed to just ignore my sales pitch and just tried to sale us some bread in his happy energetic normal voice. I politely declined because I was fasting in which he replayed by saying," Oh so you're in the battle then." Then just as quick as he came this angle of The Lord was gone to continue to preach the word and sale bread.

So those were the miracles of the week and I hope you all enjoyed them. Anyway this week we got emergence transfers and and most of my friends in this zone got moved to a different one halfway though the transfer and nobody even knows why. And I also had my first interview with the Mission President in the last 6 months. So that was cool.

Hey, real quick, I’m trying to get a suit made, and it will cost like 80 bucks, so I don’t know if I already have that in my account or if I’ll need it. Sorry and thanks love you.

Dylan: I Need to Stop Saying Things Can’t Possibly Get Worse

WELL I'm sure you have seen the news, my boys in NOVO are getting quite famous among the American and russian news articles. Well things are going down right now in our mission, I can't say all what is going on on here but let's just say we have 2 elders still in Russian custody and we still don't know how much longer they will keep them there, some high people (Apostles and others) making some calls. 

We were on the nice beaches of Sochi Monday Morning, as I thought things couldn't be better than right now, I've got a great compnion, great area, it's beautiful, we finally have some work starting to come up, life is good. We ate at our branch Presidents house that night and during dinner we had a call from the APs that we need to back our bags and the apartment and leave that next morning. It was a very emotional experiance for us and President's family. They give everything they have for the church and now they knew withought our help would be a giant load, also they treated us like their sons. Predident gave us both blessings and we gave him one, it was a moving experiance. He went to our house and we stayed up all night packing our apartment and movin git to his. President Martino (Eastern Europe) called for all the missionaries in the moust southern cities of Russia to leave and go North. Which is tragic because they are literally the most progressing areas of the mission. Well we got Permision to go visit Tuapse one last time with our BP. So we left Early Tuesday morning with all of our stuff and drove 3 hours to Tuapse and had a last Hurrah with President Denice. We gave someone a bap date and a new investigator all in this tiny town and we met with some INactive family. It was all an adventure one that I can't describe here. Denice dropped us off on the train late that night and we woke up in Rostov (mission headquarters). We spent the next few days with the APs and helped them out since they were running the mission now , since our President was down south visiting the Elders in Custody every day and figuring out the court stuff.

We had half the mission in Rostov and it was crazy, the mission is a mess right now so many differnty things were going on and than we had a a call from President telling us some bad news that I can't talk about here. But things are going down in our mission, but I am praying it will all go back to normal soon. President moved us up North to Samara to go help this little branch of like 20 babooshkas and only 2 priesthood holders, but we live in Samara right by the main branch and have to go over an hour to this other small city at least  twice a week. Besides that we are just going to hype up the other Elder and Their work and find and find because we have nothing else to do.

-In Rostov I found these guys and invited them to our gamenight so I gave their numbers to the ZLs because I don't have a phone, and they caught me getting some other guys number later and they called the Zls and said they were coming to game night and bringing the cops because they know who we are. Well under the circumstances in our mission all the missionaries were freaking out, I tried texting and calling them but they never responded, I called the bluff though and they didn't show. 

-My old comp and I both got pulled out of the south and were in Rostov, so we decided to go to my first area because we served their together, so we wnt and met with some members and an old investigator. It was a crazy trip, we met with good ole Ganadi and he hasn't changed a bit. Their can't be a man with crazier driving He was drifing and speeding around in his ghetto mobile and he just goes around a line at a red light and cut in front of all of them and he realized there was a cop car in there, so the siren went on and pulled him over with us in it, He told the police he worked for them a while ago and his wife worked for them and to be honest I'm pretty sure it was a lie but they some how let us go with nothing and he came in and told us the Lord was with us because we were there.... Oh Ganadi. Well he showed us his house that we helped build that was now complete and it was gorgeous. 

-We got to Samara so much snow! and we had to split taxis because we had so much luggage, my comp had the phone this time and I went in with my maybe a little buzzed taxi driver and the airport is maybe and hour from the city and in the middle of nowhere the taxi breaks down, I'm just out here in a snowstorm with my boy Vlad and he tries his vodka in the engine or whatever they do and after 30 min we get some other taxi to find us and I dip to our apartment. 

-My comp and I have both never been to this city, we are legit white washing with nothing, no list of anyone and nothing to do but make something to do, It will be fun, it will be an adventure.

We won't be going back to Sochi anytime soon, and it makes me sad to think that they members down there won't have any volunteers for a long time, but I know it's all in the Lord's hands and He knows what he is doing even when we may not see why. We are excited to see how we can help bless the people here. thanks for the prayers, seriously.

Elder VAnBuskirk

It feels like my 3^rd year in Russia.  I had a winter, left ode 6 weeks in Sochi, and went back to winter…

Derek: Captain’s Log: A Los Cielos Abiertos

Happy Dominican Independence Day everybody who cares!!

So Wednesday we had a cool activity at the church to celebrate the Republic that is Dominican. We ate, we talked, we danced (Well, they danced. We obviously didn't). We had a great time. So it started with a few presentations about this beautiful country and it's history then after that the youth performed a few dances. It was pretty good but the best dance was when Natalie, some girl I baptized, and Nicole, her step sister, preformed a super cool dance that made all the other primary kids super jealous. I was high key impressed to be honest. Then after that we ate the Dominican food that was prepared. Because of where I'm at, there wasn't any really big parties in the streets like last year. So leading up to Wednesday I kept explaining that to my comp that Independence Day is super crazy here, but when it arrived my comp was super disappointed because no one was in the streets. 

Also yesterday we finally got Christen to receive the Holy Ghost after not being able to go to church the last few weeks. So that was great. We also should have 4 baptisms the next Saturday but anything can happen so cross your fingers. But 3 of them have passed their baptismal interview so they should be all right. Also last Sunday we showed up to church and we received 6 new people to teach and they all seem to be progressing well, so we will see how that goes. 3 of them are a family, a mother and two daughters, who are what we call dry members. Which means that they go to church a lot and know everything but just aren't baptized yet. In their case the reason for that is because the mother lives with a dude who she is not married to. The family has 2 years meeting with the missionaries already and know everything, but the husband thought that if he gets married it means that he then needs to get baptized. But she explained that that isn't the case. He likes the church and goes every Sunday but doesn't really feel sure about it yet. But he is now willing to get married, so we'll see. So they lived in another ward but just moved into ours, and when we visited them we walked in to this beautiful house where she played hymns that she had on a CD, made us quesadillas and a smoothie. And her two angel-like children of 11 and 9 were there and were paying good attention and asked really good questions. But they pretty much already knew everything we taught them. We felt as if we were in heaven. Anyway we got to talk to her husband for a sec at church and we will come by this week to talk more about their wedding and baptism because they have waited long enough.

Last Monday we invited some of the missionaries over and we made pancakes with some homemade buttermilk syrup on top, and we played a lot of dominoes. On Tuesday we had to go to the capital so my comp could do some legal paperwork so while he did that I got to hang out with some of my really good mission friends who had to be there as well. One of them goes home this month so it was nice to catch up before that happened. Also this week the Mission President’s wife and the office Elders came to our house to do inspections. And we were out working when they got to our house, so we walked in and Hermana Santos, the president’s wife welcomed us by saying, "Welcome to your dirty house." Now disclaimer, the house was actually pretty clean, what she was referring to was that the house itself sucks. It has like 20 years in the mission and because we have gone so long without water it was nearly impossible to mop or anything. But apparently they are starting to look for a new house for us so that's great.

So from Monday to Wednesday night this week we were blessed to have had the Evaneglical church rent out the baseball field about a quarter mile from my house. They were having an event called "A Los Cielos Abiertos" or  To The Open Heavens, in which they would scream and sing until a little past 10:30 every night. So at first it was alright when they were yelling and screaming about Jesus, but then they just ditched the whole Jesus thing and just stared screaming literal nonsense. And even though they where pretty far way we could still hear them super loud anyways. 

Elder VanBuskirkcito

French flag at the DR Independence party

my area

Pancakes with the boys