The Work Goes On

Transfers came and I'm staying in Vlad! Home of the best Sharma I have ever tasted. Me and Elder Bacon will be serving together once more. This transfer was weird, almost everything stayed the same, and the only change in our district is that one of our sisters is leaving. Plus 2 other sisters are coming.  And the work goes on as it always seems to do.

I still have not yet watched conference in English. I have watched all the sessions except for the priesthood session in Russia, and from what I got out of it we had a really awesome general conference! It was great to hear the words of our living prophet and his invitation to read the Book of Mormon everyday. One of our investigators who we met with after asked us what the Prophet said, we of course excitedly told him!

We have officially moved out of our old church building and are in the Hyundai Hotel, a 5 star hotel. It is a really nice place. The first time I walked in it I heard the obviously not Russian people all speaking English to each other which is not a common site in Russia. We have two fairly same rooms constantly that we have if we need to teach lessons or hold district meeting or other stuff like that, but on Sundays we have a large hall that holds 250 people (way more that we need) for 5 hours.  So it turns out that sacrament meeting will be in the big hall and then after that the primary and other groups will go to the two smaller rooms and have their classes there while the rest of us stay in the large hall.  We watched conference there last Sunday as a branch and it went well! 

We went to our Branch President's house and brought dinner with us and ate with them. They are a hilarious family and we were laughing the whole night!  This was our first time going there and we got on a bus at a non ideal spot and we road the bus for 1:30 before we made it to our destination. And I forgot a book to read on the way! Now that I have been on my mission this long I have come to appreciate long buses. 

We had a fantastic Russian practice with one of our members who works at the large university on Russian Island and teaches Russian to foreigners. She is teaching us Russian the way the schools do it and I think I like the way I did it better.  Too much homework.  I'm on a mission, I don't got time for that!  But the lessons are fun and she can answer all of our questions.

Still on the lookout for new people to teach. We found a place designed for street basketball that was actually pretty cool! We played some basketball and made some friends. We are on the look for the elect and trying to find natural ways to meet them.

Thanks for all you do!

Love,

Elder Wilding

The Aquarium

 The City (Vlad)

 The hair cutting process

 Russian Basketball

Churikinhood Living

At the start of this week I said all of my goodbyes and wrote in a few members transfer journals.  We went over to a sweet families house on Monday for FHE and gave them one of my name-tags.  The mother has a tree that she made out of name-tags with probably already around 20-30 names.  I was honored to leave it there.  That leaves me down to my last and final name-tag that is magnetic.  I don't know what happened to my others, but maybe they will turn up one day.  Then the next day we taught R the Plan of Salvation (which went good) and ended up going to another family's house for dinner.  I played one of the kids in chess that almost feels like a little brother to me and he beat me, it wasn't even close.  I beat him last time and was planning on leaving with that winning streak but he insisted we played.  Serving with Elder Lawrence these last 2 transfers I consider some of the funnest of my whole mission.  It never really hit me that I was leaving until I was already gone.  I really miss Sakhalin.  

We flew in to Artyom on Wednesday day and traveled to Vlad to try and meet with a man that Elder Lawrence met on his plane to Russia.  He wasn't there unfortunately but we had Sharma so I was happy.  Then we flew to Korea the next morning and were able to get into two sessions and perform baptisms and confirmations. Actually, that was the first time I have ever baptized anyone. It was excellent being in the temple. It always gets me ready for what is coming next.  It is a great feeling.  The next morning the Nielsons (senior missionaries there who are from Brigham City) took us up to a little outside work out area.  It was a great trip!

We made it back the next day to the motherland safe and sound.  We finally made it to our apartment Thursday night.  We are in the area of Churkin also now as Churkinhood.  It is a good place.  Kinda away from the center of town.  It takes 40 min. by bus to drive to the church. The city is HUGE.  We take a lot of buses and a lot of our money goes to those bus drivers.  The city is super hilly and extremely windy.  I get sore just from walking around and it is much colder than Sakhalin.  The branch is amazing!  So many cool and nice people live here.  Apparently the activities we have get huge attendance.  I have heard a lot about his city and whether or not they are true only time will tell.  I'm happy to be here.  Being whitewashed is a little bit of a struggle.  We don't know any of the members or investigators and sometimes when we call they are a little confused.  Getting to know the city is a fun adventure.  We haven't got lost yet! Elder Bacon is great!  He is from Arizona and has been on the mission a little over a year.  He is a wiz with directions and only needs to be somewhere once in order to know how to get there again.  It is 100% thanks to him that we haven't got lost yet.

I love you guys!  

Elder Wilding

***The photos below are from McKay's Mission President's wife along with this note:

Here is our new Vladivostok District: Chapman, Gee, Barr, Carlson, Jameson, Wilding, DeSandre, Williams, Burningham and Bacon. 

We want to thank you for your part in preparing Elder Wilding to serve the Lord here with us! 

He is a good Elder and is now serving as the District Leader here. 

We thank you for your many prayers in our behalf! 

*(2nd photo)-Saturday we discovered a little secret! Several Vladivostok Priesthood Brethren were gathered at the church doing 

some secret crafts! We are not sure what they are for, but we have a hunch because in Russia "Women's Day" is soon!

Sincerely,
President and Sister Perkinson
Vladivostok Russia

These are from McKay: 

*I had to crop out the Russian

Goodbye Sakhalin

Hate to say it but I am leaving the island.  I have enjoyed every second of my time here and would have liked to stay longer but it seemed like a transfer was imminent and I wasn't wrong.  I guess all good things must come to an end, at least in this life. I'm going to miss the mountains. I will be now serving in Vladivostok, the big city, the city the mission was named after.  My new companion is Elder Bacon who came in the same time as Elder Roosa, I've met him when he first got in and maybe once after that.  I looking forward to serve in Vlad.  I may go broke very quickly though because of the Sharma.  I was already there for 3 weeks over a year ago and enjoyed my time.  I am going to be serving in Churkin or as I hear people call it Churkin hood.  We are going to be whitewashed in, which just means that neither I or Elder Bacon has served there.  He is coming from Irkutsk and I from here.  I will be flying there on Wednesday and then to Korea and the temple and by Friday evening I should be in my new apartment.

On Saturday our investigator and also chess teacher S agreed to come to the church and teach our members which were interested who to improve their chess game.  He is an absolute genius when it comes to chess and loves the game.  Two  of our young men came and it was a good activity!  One of our young men plays really good and it was interesting to watch him play against S.  He plans to come back every Saturday and do the same kind of activity, hopefully more people will come and so that he can meet some more members.  I have a good feeling about Sergei, I think he'll find that this is the true church.

At just about exactly the same time I am leaving so is an American couple that has been here for 10 years.  The Severukins have left to continue their mission in a new city and a different American couple is leaving in about a month.  The branch is losing so many people so rapidly!  There was a going away party for the Jones and for part of it, me and Sister Kaprolova (who is also leaving) had to go up and do some game where they would say a normal object and we would relate it to the gospel. We had a friend of ours come.  Either this week or last we had an awesome miracle!  We had an activity going on at the church and a lady walks in who used to come to things.  She had moved away because of work and just got back.  We got her number and she asked us to invite her to activities!  

We had our last mini MTC and district meeting with the Severukins, like I said before they and now serving in a different city and will not return for 10 months.  They are awesome!  I am going to miss them, but there is a chance that I will serve with them again if I stay in Vlad for the rest of my mission.  They are planning to serve there in approximately 4 months.

I gave my parting testimony and said all my goodbyes on Sunday.  These are good people, I will miss them.  I made a ton of good memories here.  The future looks bright though! 

Love,

Elder Wilding

Sakhalin: Transfer 3

Добрый День  

I'M STAYING!!!  Elder Lawrence from St. George is flying here after zone conference with me and our sisters.  Sister Arrington is staying and Sister Kapralova who is Russian!! is coming.  And also serving on Sakhalin is a senior couple named the Severookin's who are also Russian!  They will start their mission in a few weeks in the eastern half of our mission.  They live here and I have already known them for a while.  So that means that district meetings are going to be held in Russian!!  How exciting and that a lot of papers are going to have to be translated from the advanced English of our leaders into Russian.  I'm excited!

I don't know why and I don't know how, but we haven't gone grocery shopping for like 2 weeks maybe 3 now and we still have food.  We should probably go today but we'll make it even if we don't.  We are leaving Monday (hence why I am writing today) and are returning Thursday night.  9 volunteers are going home on the 7th. This zone conference a ton of time is going to have to be devoted to departing testimonies.  Elder Crabb who I served with in Ussirysk is one of those returning, when we were together he had a little more then I have right now.  Life's crazy.

I got my hair cut.  She told me she was going to try something new and I really had no say... and now I have find of a fo-hawk. 

 As you could see in the pictures when the construction crew was constructing that massive Christmas tree, one of their trucks popped on its side haha, besides that I haven't heard of any other accidents.

We met with an most interesting man - Ки.  His name was in our phone so we gave him a call and finally got to meet.  He was just in Moscow and had a meeting with Putin.  He showed us pictures.  He works in politics and is a very funny guy. 

Last night was the going away party for Sister Bouwhiss and Elder King, talk about a try out!  The place was packed with people.  My sisters that I came in with are in the group that is going home.  Luckily they go early and me late!  

The snow keeps on coming down!  The future looks good.

Elder Wilding

 The tree going up

Haircut

Snow Is Upon Us

Dearest family and friends,

Snow is on the ground!  And that means that we are just that much closer until it is covering the cars.  We talked to a woman today that said you can go to sleep with not much snow out and then wake up and open your front door and only see white.  And then she proceeded to do swimming motions showing how see gets to work when it's that bad.

Transfers came and went without any changes on our end.  Me and the King are together another six.  I was nothing but glad.  I don't really have any desire to leave this place and am hoping to spend as much time here as possible.  The sisters stayed as well.  

We took a hike on Monday in a thick fog.  We didn't have much of a view when we reached the top.  You could say we were in the clouds.  I wish I would have had a jar on me to catch a cloud in.  I've always wanted to do that ever since I was a little kid.  We climbed to see an old crashed USSR airplane which everyone had heard about but no one had seen.  That remains the same to this day.  We couldn't find the thing.  It was a shame but alas, we had a good time.

In the coming week we may be participating in an English club at our local library.  We'll see where that goes, we might have to make some kind of power point.  I don't know. Anyways, my sisters that where in the MTC with me go home at the end of this transfer.  Talk about time flying.

A large part of our week was spent working on less active work and making lists and seeing who we can go visit and whose info is correct and whose isn't and so forth.  We got into 2 houses with positive people inside.  We are hoping to bring them back to the fold and I think we have a really good chance with one of them.  The work of this next week will be largely spent on going out to more people.

I taught priesthood in church.  We had a home teaching appointment.  We made a huge batch of chum chum that lasted us more than half the week.  President has us send him every night a miracle we saw that day.  We are truly blessed.   I would invite you do do the same.  Expect and record the miracles you see.  If you don't expect them they won't happen consistently.

Life is good!  I love the members and love it here.  

Elder Wilding

King's coat inside out

With statue of Lennin

That says Utah smoke, Soback

What a beauty - Sakhalin temple

What we built, smile rock, fog

 

Sakhalin Island

Dear one and all,

Another awesome week on the island!  I love it here!  It is so beautiful and the members are so great and it just feels good to serve here.  We were busy this week running around getting to know members and doing other tasks.  In church due to the American families, we have a translator.  I got to translate during gospel doctrine class which was quite interesting but I really like it because it is sometimes fun explaining what they said without using the exact words.  I mostly just translate it in Russian grammar to English so it sounds funny a lot!

We went hiking on a mountain about 20 minutes from the church with two members of the church.  It was a beautiful hike and we saw Sakhalin from above.  The trees and bushes were in reds and browns and oranges and it all was really pretty.  We had to hike up first a quarry where they have sand and other materials and it really just looks like a big construction sight. On the way we picked berries and had a great time!  One of the members made a pie out of the berries we picked and that was delicious!

We served at the Hari Krishna kitchen like I used to do in Angarsk and prepared food for the homeless.  It always feels good to serve!  On Sakhalin they also have Russian practice and our teacher knows English amazing!  

We taught a member's daughter who is eight but is going to have the missionary lessons first before she gets baptized,.  We taught the plan of salvation and it is amazing how much kids know! 

At sports night we played ultimate Frisbee and a sister and member collided and fell on the Frisbee and broke it.  Luckily we had another.

Sorry this is so short and scatterbrained.  I will write this letter first next time.

Love Elder Wilding

 The Hike

Scenery on the hike

The hike

Vlad

Vlad

Tiny dancing robots they had in the Korean airport