Giant Snow Book of Mormon

The new year seems just as good as the last with high potential to be even better.  Most of our free time this week was spent on the title of this email.   A week ago revelation was received to build this thing, we built her out of snow and water, block by block until she stands in her majesty about 10 ice blocks high and 3 ice blocks wide.  I will make sure to send a picture.  

​​The giant Book of Mormon seemed absolutely perfect, all we had left to do was paint the outside cover blue and carve in "Книга Мормона".  And this is where everything went wrong.  We painted it and within 30 minutes almost all of it came off creating a huge mess of blue snow all around the base.  We tried a few other methods but that just made it worse.  It became a nightmare of a mess to clean up. Most people just ended up thinking that it was a grave stone, we are going to try to spray paint the "Книга Мормона" letters this week.

Nikolai is still doing awesome!  His baptism will be this Saturday.  Along with him we got a new investigator named R.  He has came to church like 4 times already but he has always been too busy to meet. He just loves sacrament meeting.

Our sacrament meeting was interesting to say the least, it was a fast and testimony meeting and a few people threw out their political views but the spirit was brought back into it at the end.

It is a great blessing to have the Severpuxins serving with us.  We do a mini MTC meeting with them every week.  They are the first senior couple to come out from our mission ever.  

The promises of Sakhalin snow have up to this point been nothing but lies. God is just teaching me to be patient I guess. I have been told that February ALWAYS gets tons of snow.  We'll see.

Hope everyone else had a great start to the new year!

Elder Wilding

 

Russian Thanksgiving

Dear my family and friends,

A lot has happened, it is amazing how much more when I write on Saturdays.  Right after I wrote you, we got a ton of snow!  Everyone was shocked because it is still November and this much doesn't usually come until late December early January.  An American member who has been here 10 years said he hasn't seen this much snow this early ever.  Needless to say I am counting my many blessings.

Then the anticipated trip of the AP's coming.  They arrived on Sunday night and they ended up knocking on our next door neighbor's door instead of ours.  Somehow we forgot to tell them we moved ;).  I was with Crabb on the split and it was just like good old times!  We went to 3 people and by the end of our trip Elder Crabb was wishing he served here on his mission!  He denies it but we are in that place.  I convinced both of them to buy fox pelts before they got on their plane back to Vlad.

My Thanksgiving this year was quite different than last.  I actually celebrated it this year.  The Americans invited us over!  They bought the turkey in Japan and somehow transported it here.  It was massive!  We had everything and more, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, pie and all the goods.  It was a day to be remembered.

At church an inactive member brought in his friend and we are going to be teaching him on Wednesday.  I taught in Elders Quorum.  And we are our branch president's home teaching companions now!  He is an amazing man, the elect are here!​

Love you!  Elder Wilding

 THANKSGIVING RUSSIAN STYLE at the AMERICANS

 Shoveling snow like a boss

 The tree going up

Hello World

My dear family and friends,

To start off, since I am writing this on Saturday this may be significantly shorter because I don't have Sunday to write about.  I'm just joking but it will probably be shorter because of a number of reasons.   But most importantly I still love it out here and am having the time of my life!

We helped a sister and her son in our branch move out of a bad house they were in to a house just across from the church.  Opportunity finally presented itself for me to use those gloves you sent me!  Turns out I didn't need them but I was wearing them on the way to the house looking way nice.

This morning our friend and member who is about a 60 year old Asian man took us out to the cheap market to buy groceries and then to a fish market.  He bought us halibut because he saw my pictures and that we used to catch them in Alaska haha.  Russians are really nice!

We were walking outside of our house to go visit a less active and out of nowhere we hear a "BLAM" and look to our left and see that the snow from of our building fell on a car below.  I don't know how it didn't break the window because it sounded like a gun shot.  They actually put out signs and tape so that people don't walk underneath some of the buildings in town.  The weather here lately has been that it snows at night and then in the morning it heats back up again and the snow starts to melt and hence why the large amounts of snow falling from the skies.

I bought my winter boots!  "Alaskas" is what they are called, they come up to my mid calf and are super warm.  Only cost 1100 rubles.  And that is crazy because off of Sakhalin you can buy them for 700.  Everything is more expensive here.

We had dinner at the orphanage that we served at a month or so ago. Only of the guys we meet there invited us to come with him.  We ended up having hot dogs which is something I haven't had for a while.  And we talked to the owners of it .  They are the Harrison's and are from Australia.  We had a great talk with them and might start to volunteer and help them finish the house.   They moved to Russian 11 years ago when they were 34 and 33.  Pretty amazing people.  Said that they felt that God called them.  Hopefully they will become interested in the church!

I love you all!  

Elder Wilding

Pik Chekova

Hello one and all,

Oh man, I put this off to the end again, sorry!  Even more snow has gathered on the ground since the last time I wrote you.  My winter clothes from last year.  I just need boots and I'll be set.

A few church members took us hiking to Pik Chekova, a famous mountain on Sakhalin.  I for one reason or another did not bring enough warm clothes on the hike and everyone looked at me like I was crazy.  One of the members was nice enough to lend me his scarf.  It was pretty warm most of the hike considering there was snow all around us.  The only part that was bad was when we got to the top and it felt like we were on Everest -  the wind was blowing so fast.  We didn't stay there too long fortunately, and I still have all my fingers and toes.

During Russian Practice S our teacher told us a little about the history of Russia.  It sounded a whole lot like what happened in the Book of Mormon to me.  A lot of people denying the throne but instead of judges, imposters took power.

There was a representative of the institute program who visited and we have a conference with him.  Despite the meetings we played Floorball which is street hockey in a multi purpose room and we went bowling.

We had some more home teaching and had an awesome lesson with a member we went to last night.  He has had many experiences of when it was obvious that God's hand was in his life.  It really does seem that when people live righteous lives they end up having some really amazing things happen to them.

Good week!  I am still loving it!!!

Love Elder Wilding

Hike to Pik Chekova

 

You Could Say That It's Cold

Good Day Everyone!

It has been another successful and fun week.  I'm so glad I am still in Angarsk.  The language it still a struggle but it is coming!  Thanks everyone for the letters, it is a delight to read them all!

This week we had some sick elders.  On Monday Elder De Sandre got sick.  On Tuesday Elder Sumner got sick.  And on Wednesday Elder Lyman got sick.  Luckily, actually by the grace and mercy of God I was spared from the sickness.  Just like I was in the MTC when everyone got sick who was in my room.  Heavenly Father has truly blessed me with good health like I was promised.  It's a huge testimony builder for me and a miracle.  Even with everyone sick I only had to stay in on Monday.  That was okay though because it was only for 3 hours that we would have been proselyting and I got a lot of Russian studies in.  I went out with Elder Lyman on Tuesday and it just like the old days.  On Wednesday Elder De Sandre was healthy again so we went out when the other elders recovered.  Everyone is healthy now and going to work.

I don't know it was kinda weird this week we talked with so many Jehovah Witnesses.  I have been surprised by how many I have met in Russia.  We were walking home with a member and I asked them if they have fallen this winter and it was like magic, right when I said that the member fell haha.  

The temperature dial right before we left the house was between -38 and -39.  When I go out my shopka and scarf just freeze up way bad and I'll try to take a picture and send it next week because it is pretty cool looking.  About every time I go out this week my eye lashes have froze.  It is a really cool feeling.  But right when we go inside everything melts.  My guess is that it got -40 Celsius in the night and that is actually -40 Fahrenheit as well.  It's good though.  I can say I know what cold is.  But honestly when we layer up we are perfectly warm.  We just have to go in stores or others places every once in while.

We had a really good lesson with Egor this week.  He came to the church and we simply read a chapter of the Book of Mormon and bore our testimony of the truthfulness and expounded on the chapter a little bit.  He told us he would read everyday.  He is a really special guy going through some hard things right now and could use the good news of the gospel.  We are lucky to be teaching him.

OK, I know I said this last week but I am actually going to send a ton of pictures this week!

I love this mission of mine!

Love Elder Wilding

Your son at Lake Baikal

Welcome to the throne

Hotel in Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal

Beautiful Blue Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal

Beautiful blue Lake Baikal and my way nice hat

Lake Baikal

Me just loving Baikal

Me and Elder Lyman at Lake Baikal

Just a taste of what it gets like getting gains in the frozen tundra

In center or в центр

In center or в центр

Approaching Santa's ice sleigh reindeer from the front and frozen trees

Tell Bryce I say, "peace"...

New Years

Our way nice set up

Nesting dolls

Week 3 of Training

Hello everyone and С Рождестом

This week has been another fun one!  So yes mom, I did buy that shopka from the old AP.  I was with him when he bought it off the Renik and he let me wear it because I had nothing and I was cold.  I don't know it just kinda grew on me and now I am so glad I bought it.  Speaking of AP's we have none.  I heard we are the only mission in the world like that.  I think president was sick of people aspiring to be called to leadership positions so he got rid of them.  We still have all the other things though, just not AP's.  It is basically the same without them I think.  Who knows how long we will be without them.  Doesn't really matter I guess.  I like how president does things.  I am really lucky to be called to this mission at this time.  President Perkinson is huge on goal setting and accomplishing the goals we have set and that is something I have always wanted to be good at.  I know he will have a huge impact on my life.

One of the fun things about training is planning.  I underestimated the amount of time it took us to get to the church from the Krishna Kitchen so we had to run.  It doesn't matter how cold outside it is.  When you have a huge coat on and start moving, it gets really hot.  But I am learning a lot.  I have a really big desire to get better at this language so for the next few weeks, at least until Christmas, or probably after, me and Elder De Sandre will only be speaking in Russian.  Except for our hour of companion study and after 9:30.  I have realized that the only way I am going to make any real improvement in Russian is if I speak it almost all the time.  This next few weeks will be interesting but I need to do this hard thing now so that I can better help these people.

I bought my boots on the Renik this past week!  I got a steal for them.  Well, first off the guys keep on bringing me the wrong size of shoe so they already wasted a lot of time with me.  He put the boots on my feet and asked for 3500 rubles.  I told him I could only go 2000.  After a lot of negotiating and me attempting to leave, I got them for 2000.  They are big and have fur lining the whole inside.  I love them because now I can walk anywhere I want without getting cold feet or wet socks.  I have heard from older missionaries that Angarsk has the best Renik.  The only catch is that it is closed on Mondays.  We have to go during dinner hours if we ever want to buy something there.  The Renik is indoors and it is HUGE.  It seems like a football stadium when we walk in because the building is huge and is domed shaped.  

The living situation I am in is very fortunate.  I live with Elder De Sandre and Lyman and Sumner.  All 3 are great guys and it is a blast to live with them.  I think I said this already but Elder Sumner and Elder Lyman went to high school together and now he is training him.  I wonder if that will happen for me?  That would be cool.

We went to an investigator's house last night.  His name is G and he is the first person Elder De Sandre and I talked to when we got back to Angarsk.  We miraculously found his house because all the buildings look the same and are covered in snow and it was night time.  We got there and were greeted by his family.  He lives with his mother, his wife and his daughter.  He is from Armenia.  They brought out apples and this Russian candy and tried really hard to get us to take coffee and tea but we resisted.  We started teaching him the first lesson and how our message can help him in his life.  We had him read the first vision.  It was very amazing when he was reading Prophet Joseph's account.  He got to the part that reads, "This is my beloved son, hear him"  When he got there he got all quiet and read it really slowly, then paused and read it again.  It was amazing to see the power of those words and how much they touched him.  The Restoration really happened.  I know the prophet Joseph Smith saw what he said he saw.  This is Christ's restored gospel.  I know it.

It is good to read all of your letters!  On the 17th it will be my 6 month mark.  Where has the time gone?  I am grateful to be here.  I love you all!  

Elder Wilding

 Merry Christmas

My boots

Ice sculptures holding up signs

 Ice Sculptures