Dylan: I am a Spoon

Hello comrades.

So first, this probably only pertains to my mom, but they are only receiving packages that they have a tracking number for, so send the tracking number to me or the mission office.

-We had ZC in Volgograd (the city where I serve) so everyone came down a day early so they could see the huge WWII Memorial statue, always sweet. 

-President Ottesen explained how he wants us to completely change how we do missionary work here. He was studying the scriptures and came across the story of Ammon and felt very impressed that we need to change or missionary work and to do what he did. So He asked us to don't even bring up the church at all when we talk to them, besides if they ask we say we are our volunteers for our church, and then say its name, and say that we do service for our members and anyone else that we can, and then to bring the convo off us and back on them. And if we meet them to not even talk about the church at all but to just have deep conversations just about them and to gain their trust. He also gave us a plan to bump up our service to the members. I have been struggling for a long time on how we can improve the work here with all these obstacles ahead, and I feel very strongly that what he taught us and told us to do is divine revelation for our mission. They have just been getting stricter and stricter on the law and we need to back off even more. But I feel that this is what God wants us to do, and that it will be more effective and do more good for the church. 

- Bap date!!!! It's been the first bap date I've had in months (and the other ones didn't work out),  I'm so excited for her! Her name is Irena. Her husband is a recent convert from Africa. It is truly amazing how ready she is; we really haven't done anything, God has done all the work, we really are just spoons, or at least that's how I feel.

-I might have gotten baptized in the Provaslavnic church. There is no way of knowing for sure.

I was reading Ammon’s great missionary story this week, and I love Ammon’s attitude. I love how when bad things happen, instead of doing what many would do and be afraid as if all is doomed, he gets excited because he realizes it as a missionary opportunity and an opportunity where he can show the great power of God. I feel like so many times "bad things" or inconvenient things happen, but if we could have the faith and attitude as Ammon, we can make those experiences into great missionary moments. 

This week, while on splits, we had the opportunity to serve the branch president help build the foundation wall of his house he is building. It was a miracle how we got there though, we only had a marshrrotka(van) number and his address to go by. They lived in a different city and we had no map of it and had no idea how to get there. We somehow saw the marshrrotka at the first bus stop we tried (not knowing which one it stops at) and we got into to the city, and no one in the van knew where that street was or what stop to get off at, so we just decided that we would get off at the next one, we did. We looked across the street and thought we would ask this guy talking to his friend. He somewhat knew and was kind enough to walk us a portion of the way there, and than roughly explained the rest of the way, we overshot the road, and was lost in this little village. We asked everyone we saw on the dirt roads which wasn't much, but nobody knew where that address was. We somehow found our way on the right street, and had a wonderful service opportunity and put some walls up. I also got to use the century old outhouse!

Elder VanB

Mom!  I love you so much!  Sorry that I haven’t been able to send any pictures or voice recordings.  I thgouht I mentioned it to you that I have no access to downloading pictures while I’ here in this area because we don’t have access to the church computers and we don’t have a place to download at this computer club.  I have taken pictures though.  I lost my really cheap camera, but I have my gopro, so I have taken some pics, but I don’t like to take it with me everywhere because I don’t want to lose it.  So can I buy a new camera or if you are sending another package soon, have you send one?  I’m sorry about the pictures.  I’ll probably leave this area after another transfer.  I love you so much.  Thank you for what you do fe me and for excessively caring for me.  You are the best!  Love, Elder VanBuskirk

Derek: Captain's Log week 48: A Shooting.

Happy Columbus day!!! 

So this week a lot happened: my comp goes home, I got transfers, General Conference, and a shooting.

 So yeah, starting Monday night the gangs in my area have been busy. Apparently five gangsters have died and on Friday night literally 40 police officers where on the streets looking for them. It has gone down and isn't a problem right now and all of it happens late at night when we are home. But it totally wrecked the activity that we had on Friday night, literally the whole branch was gonna come but everyone is scared of the police, even more then they are of the gangsters.

As you a well know conference was super great, so you should watch it. 

And we got transfers too. I am going to stay here with a companion from Guatemala.  I haven’t heard a lot of good things about him, but I’m gonna try to make the most of it. Also my president of the mission has been sick and in Utah a week, so let’s see what happens with that. 

Anyway, I’m am excited for next transfer and am ready to work a lot harder and see more success.

Dylan: Surprise Weekend Trip to Astrahan

HEY!

Crazy Week! I don't even remember what we did at the beginning and middle of the week, but we have been running since Friday.

-Went on the wrong bus when we were late to the game night we were hosting already and led us to a stop a ridiculous distance away and it was raining and we had all our luggage for our week trip, but we had to run hard to try to set up to our game night that we ended up being way late too

-Left early from game night to go to the train station to leave to Astrahan. That overnight train took 12 hours to get there

-Read last paragraph to know how that trip went, but it was crazy! We went there to run church on Sunday because the BP left on a temple trip. I was running back in forth from playing hymns, to prayer, to passing the sacrament, to talk, to lesson. It was fun. 

-We had to stay in the little branch building on the 2nd floor of an office building on the tile floor and i also left my blanket in the train so all I had was my sweater as a pillow, good times good times... And at 10:20pm someone started knocking at the door and we probably weren't supposed to be there so we said a prayer and right when I was about to open the door and woman opened it from the other side and gave a scream and a 4 foot jump, but I was just relieved it was a nice lady, she said we could stay for the night but was locking up the building. 

-A guy walked into to the building during church when I was on the podium and was like "HELLO EVERYONE" all loud, and said that he thought it started at 11 but we told him that we already started and he was welcome to sit down, but he just left. None of the members knew who he was...

-We got home late last night and early this morning we got a call to help a member move. We got there and this guy’s apartment was full of junk (literally trash that he found in the dumpster and collected because some people do that here) that went waist high. It was one of the most grim apartments I've seen, and I've seen some bad apartments. It was a good time though. When we got there an old guy came up to us and with a growl in his voice stated how he didn't like our faces. I thought I had gotten that remark after plenty of dates from back home, but this guy thought he should jump on that train of people who don't like my face too. 

We had some good finding experiences this week. Waiting at a stoplight I saw a brother from Africa and gave him a brother's nod, he then acknowledged the nod with a nod in return, I then gave the shaking of the head to let him know that we were cool, he did the same. So I then knew I had the right of passage to move in. I moved in and was able to inquire the number of my now dear friend. He also happened to be a friend of one of the African members. 
It was really evident how God had his hand in the work when we were in Astrahan this week, or more that God did everything and we just allowed him to move us freely. We have been going through the area books for Astrahan and calling members and old investigators every night this week so we could make the most out of the Lord's time and the money for train tickets. We got there Saturday morning and got straight to the church and had a lesson with Alex, a 28 bright investigator, he wanted to know how he could be baptized as he now finished the BOM and testified to us that he knew it was true. It was an amazing experience to meet with him. We then had 3 hours until our next lesson so we went around the city just trying to pick up conversations with people and ended up walking around having a great conversation with a man from Zambia and a man from Afghanistan, at first I don't think that the one from Afghanistan was to happy to hear we were from the US, but by the end of our walk he asked to take a picture with us, and was very glad to meet us. It was a great experience to be able to help this individual have a better view on the church and the US after our talk. It is amazing for me to see how people really are the same everywhere you go, and how we have a lot more in common than differences. We had a lesson with an old investigator from Morocco who spoke 5 languages. We had a meeting with him and invited him to read the BOM again; he was very impressed when we took out a BOM in every language he spoke! We had another meeting with someone who we called who agreed to meet with us, and he was very kind but not interested sadly. We then thought we’d give the branch a deep cleaning with the rest of our night. We were able to meet with a recent convert before church and met with another inactive after church and than met with 5 Africans , but they only spoke Portuguese, so one of them was able to translate for us. We were very busy and were able to do as much as we could and I feel that the Lord really did everything in having all those meeting go through, and we felt well satisfied with work.  

-Sorry, I got to go, some other jolly banter happened this week, but I love you all.

Elder VanBuskirk

Derek: Transgression

Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they wash not their hands   when they eat bread. (Matthew 15:2) 

So I found out that it is a transgression not to wash your hands before eating. So don't tell me you study the scriptures if you don’t find things like that. 

Honestly, not much happened. We taught some good lessons and my comp is getting ready to go home. Also, today we went and played ping pong with some elders at a church building. We also last week had a service activity. We helped in this kitchen for a hotel for sports camps. So I got to dry dishes, peel potatoes, prepare food and roll bread. So that was a cool experience. Sorry but really nothing else happened see y’all later.

Question. Can you send me a bunch of easy freaky food recipes?  It’s for a party.

Dylan: Settling In

Hello Boys and Girls,

-Dropped off Elder Williams at the train station to send him home.

- Helped the Jaussi's (new senior couple) settle into Volgograd.

- My new companion Elder Hays showed up and we got him settled in. He's grew up in Utah but lived in Alaska for a year so he claims he's from Alaska. He is 2 transfers ahead of me and is truly a speciman. He thought he was district leader when he came in, and President later confirmed that I was again, so he was pretty weird and upset about that. I realized that this will probably be my hardest time with a companion, but I haven't had any problems with companians yet, and I'm sure we can build a good relationship.

One of the sisters had to go home unexpectedly so we had to help them move out. We went to their apartment late at night to carry all of their luggage to the train station, and when we got them on the train, we walked all the way to our apartment and right when we got to the door we realized they didn't give us back their keys and that their train left in less than 10 minutes. So we dropped everything and sprinted back through the center of town at 11 at night and sprinted to the train faster than I ever had before, we got the keys and the train left seconds after we got it.

-         

This week has been an interesting one with getting Elder Williams ready to go home, helping Elder Hays get settled in, helping the sisters leave, and mostly helping the Jaussi's settle in. So it's been a fun week and we have seen the Lord's hand many times this week. So this week I was having not a hard time with my new companion, but it took some adjusting to. He wanted to come back to the apartment to eat dinner everyday but I don't like doing that because food can wait, and I am just use to having a snack when I get home at 9 and that's all I need for the day. He insisted that we go back to our apartment to eat some dinner, but I wanted to keep finding, so I would try to talk to people along the way, and he got a little impatient with me. We have a few differences, but I know that my mission presidents have always put me with the person I need to be with, in the place I need to be with. And we tried to find things we had in common and we did and we are doing good now. I'm excited to work with Elder Hays. I have already learned so many things from him; he's a great missionary. And I realized I was not being fair, that we are allowed to eat and if he wants to eat we can eat. So it's been great to see how the Lord has it all in his hands and knows what are who is best for me.

My last night with Elder Williams on the way home that night, he stopped a guy walking by and we was very kind, we talked with him and he even came to game night later that week and brought 2 of his friends, so I'm sure Elder Williams will be happy to hear how well that went. 

Sorry, got to go,

Elder VanBuskirk

I Love you DAD! He is the best! I appreciate all that he does for me and I pray for him every night and morning.

Caleb! That is awesome! You are a stud, but don't get cocky, try to be humble with how good you are with friends and everyone else, besides dad and me, I always knew that if you are really good at something you never need to brag about yourself because other people will do it for you and they will know that you are really good. Make sure you work as a team too; you can only go so far by yourself. My senior year team was all pretty new to the game, and I knew that we couldn't win CIF with just Derek and I alone, so I would work really hard with my teammates. I would show them everything I knew and gave them advice and tricks and help teach them what they did right and wrong, and then I would try to trust them during games. And when we were able to work together, then we were able to win. So work the hardest in the pool, but do everything you can to help your teammates and push them and encourage them. Great job at your wrestling tournament! I can't wait to wrestle you when I get back even if you are 50 lbs fatter than me ;) and I don't care how good you got I'm not going to give you an easy fight! I love you. Make sure you spend time with Luke, it's important that you grow a strong relationship with him. And thanks for emailing me. 

SHADOW SHADOW SHADOW!!!!!

 Love you mom! Have a great week!

Derek: Captain's log ? : Kicked Out of the Zoo

So this week was super good. First off I got to go on exchanges with one of my really good friends in the mission named Elder Slaughter. He was in the MTC with me. Anyways, that was super fun and we worked hard.

Also we had a zone conference this week too. It was good, but nothing super exciting happened. Then on Saturday we had a service project at the zoo here. Well it got cancelled last minute so the missionaries and I just raked the leaves up until the kicked us out. We also had he zoo's chimpanze, Maria, throw rocks and wood at us. Super cool.

Then that night we had a baptism. Her name is Sara but everyone calls her Shakira. Don't ask way. She is 13 years old and lives with here member cousins. Her mom lives out of town and is always at work so she sent her here so she wont be at home alone. But her mom comes down every weekend and we have really gotten to know her. She even went to the baptism and to church yesterday too. Anyway, we first thought that maybe her baptism wasn't really going to work out because before she moved she was taking this class on Sundays to become a nurse and her mom wanted her to finish taking it. But we found out last minute that they could actually change the class to Saturdays so she can go to church and take the sacrament. This was great because we were asking for a while if they could do it a different day and they looked around but apparently until now they were all on Sundays. Just an example of the Lord’s hand in the work. 

Also I found out a while ago that this husband and wife who were my investigators that I found got baptized in my first area about 4 months after I left. So that’s super cool.

Elder VanBuskirk

Im so jealous of Johan and Elder Bassett looks good.

Dylan: More Rules & Visa Trip to Kazahkstsan!

HEY! 

Well crazy week, not as in missionary work though...

-So our mission president has informed us that we now longer can just give people who come to the branch a BOM and show them a church video, and invite them to learn more even if they are inside the branch building, because now that counts as proselytizing. So we can't teach or give them anything unless they ask about it themselves. I had a feeling that something like this would be coming up soon, because I feel like it's been a while since they tried cracking down on us some more. Right when we started to figure it out. But I know that the Lord has His hand in this work and I believe He knows what is best. It will really count on us to listen to the guidance of the Holy Ghost and it will really really teach us to call for Him in prayer. It reminds me of this story in the Old Testament. In Judges 7 it tells about Gideon and his men, how they had 32,000 men but the Lord wanted them to know that it was God who would deliver Israel not the men, so they kept cutting down the men and went with only 300 of their bravest men, there were at least 135,000 enemy troops against Gideon’s 300 soldiers. But of course in the end God was victorious and won in a miraculous way and showed the great power of God to those who have faith in Him. Sometimes I feel like we are a lot like that here in Russia, I look around and see that Satan has such a grasp on this country and how they seem to be cutting down the volunteers and putting more rules and laws on the members and volunteers but the Lord’s small army will come off conqueror at the end. I am confident in it, no matter what else may come in the future. The members had a conference this week and talked about how the temple is already here, that the prophet had announced it, so the Lord sees the temple here, but the members just have to prepare themselves so that the temple can be built physically. It still amazes me how the prophet got that revelation the night before and announced it, not even the Eastern Europe General Authority President knew about it until GC. I don't know how it will be done it seems impossible living here, but I know that nothing is impossible when you are in the 300 army of God. 

-Went on a night train to Astrahan a city by Kazahkstan that took over 10 hours to get there. So I they bought me out 4 beds so I had this whole compartment to myself, because I was by myself, and the church started buying out the whole room so some wack strangers don't have a chance of sleeping in the same train room with you. SO the conductors thought I looked very suspicious, because I'm from America, my Russian sucks, and I just bought out a whole room to go to a random city in Russia. When they finally let me in, this military officer for transport safety or something like that came into my room and started interrogating me, but I knew this guy was only a few years older than me and I thought I would interrogate him to see if he would be ready for eternal salvation (well not really because that is totally illegal to talk about the church  or religion at all) but I started shooting some jolly banter at the military officer, and in minutes he put away his serious face and we started having a good time, I even got his number! He came in later to talk to me and I took some pictures with the guy and made a video for my twin Elder VanBuskirk of the land of Dominican Republic. So that was a way funny experience. 

-The visa trip was sweet once we got to the city. We got in a van with some of the other elders from our zone and some guy drove us to the border and back, the countryside was wild. We had to go through 3 checkpoints on each side, and the military officers would come into the vans with their big guns which looked so old I doubt they even work, and started going though all of our bags, and they found the Book of Mormon, and would look so confused. They would be going through all the pages, and be like “who is Mormon?” hahaha. And of course out of all the volunteers they decided to stop me and be yelling and asking me like why are we here? I mean I have to give it to them, it's a van full of Americans who go to some little side border in the middle of no where. The whole time I was just thinking “what even is life?” Well Kazakshtan was fun as it lasted, the officers had us take 3 steps into their country and said we could come back haha. Well as we were crossing the bridge and as the last guards I thought I could pull a quick one and take a quick pic of them because they looked so cool and intimidating over the river, so I took a quick pic as we were driving away, and apparently they saw because they started yelling and chasing after our van, telling us to stop, and I was like ohhhh nooo, not today! So I deleted the photo so fast and when they got on the van and commanded us to delete the photo, so you better believe that I told him I already did. 

-Well we had an extra 9 hours in Astrahan so we saw a sweet cremlin, like a Russian fort, and walked around the city. It sucks that there were no missionaries there because we felt like we were useless and just wasted a missionary day, because it's not like we can just go finding on the streets and try to pass out BOM are anything. Well we got back to the train way late at night and I was really glad I had 3 sisters with me so they could protect me because there was a lot of sketchy people and they would bang on our door and try to get us to open it.

-Well my companion hasn't come yet, but he should come any day now, so I've been with Elder Williams and we will send him off home tomorrow! And besides that we have been trying to figure out all the apartments and stuff for the new senior couple coming and new set of Elders, so we really haven't got a ton of work, but we got some good finding time and lessons where we could.

-Played cricket with some random Indians.

-Some some more guys fighting and wrestling with some bad technique on the street, while a girl screaming out on the top of a limo drove by...where even am I?

Sorry I haven't been able to send any pics. Got some crazy ones but someone sent me this so here you go mom;) 

Awe man, I’m way jealous of Johan surfing in Indonesia!

Thanks mom!  I love you so much!  I feel to be doing fine, it’s always har, but it helps me grow closer to my Savior.  I don’t really know what I could ask advice for, but I’ll keep it in mind!  I had a harder time earlier and I still have hard times, but now I just want to work hard, so I’m fine.  Don’t worry about me.  But Derek’s email was awesome, I’m so jealous; that is such a cool experience.  Love you!  And I can’t believe Schryver got engaged!

Gosh, I love elder Bassett, He’s my favorite!