SNOW HAS FINALLY COME

What's Up Everybody,

This has been if not the best, then one of the best weeks of my whole mission and quite possibly my life.  It started off being really really cold that provided the perfect environment for us to re-paint the Ice Book of Mormon. It froze on almost immediately after we applied it.  We finished it and I'll send pictures.  

Then after many miracles N was baptized!!!  His service was spiritual and uplifting and he told us that whole day after his baptism he felt indescribably happy.  One of the miracles we saw teaching him was the 21st of December when we committed him to quit smoking.  He would of been baptized in the past except for the fact that he just couldn't quit. On his way home after our lesson somebody asked him for a cigarette and he just gave him the whole box.  From that day he hasn't smoked.  We see how God prepared him becasue he said that this time it was easy to quit. Prayer and fasting really does work.  Then he got the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday, but he scared us to death because he showed up 20 minutes late and his phone wasn't working.  Everything worked out in the end though.

We finally got our first blizzard, honestly probably still less than you but the snow hasn't stopped yet and we'll see where that takes us.  I have so many pictures I need to send. I hope that makes up for the shortness of this letter.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Love 

Elder Wilding  

BAPTISM!!!

Stages of Ice Book of Mormon

Final product!!!

BLIZZARD!

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

 

Merry Christmas!!

С Рождеством!

It was awesome to see you and talk to you on Skype!  Crazy to think that next Christmas I will be there.  I honestly don't want to leave. I was planning on telling you how we are in Russia and didn't even have a white Christmas but today the snow picked up and we are in the middle of mini blizzard right now.  Who knows maybe we will end up with a foot before it ends just like you.  My Alaska's (my boots) have hardly had any tests this whole winter, but I think these would be warm even in Siberia when it is -40.  Hopefully snow won't stop until Russian Christmas (7 January).  

As I mentioned in my Skype call we have our investigator Nikolai on date to be baptized on the 14th of January.  We found him in the area book, his chart looked great and for who knows why the elders stopped meeting with him.  He looks a lot like Putin and Harry Potter mixed.  Ever since we committed him to baptism he has stopped smoking.  He has tried in the past with no success but he said this time it is easy for him. Prayers have been answered every day and he is on his 5th day already!

We went sledding on what seemed to me like a pretty lousy hill with some branch members but it turned out to be super fun!  We bought sleds for 70 rubles a piece (they tried to charge us 346 for one, but we caught it, it was a problem with a price tag) and those babies flew!  

The Severukins were in our district meeting and we also held a mini MTC for them since them just started their mission 2 weeks ago and didn't have anything like it.  It went well, we have plans to go serve at a orphanage and maybe a few other places.  Actually we took about half a day with the sisters and just walked around town from building to building asking if we could serve.  Most people told us that they had nothing for us to do then we went to a Japanese museum and were met with the same kind of talk, we persisted and the manger lady came down and told us that we could and gave us free tickets to the museum right on the spot!  It was a miracle!  

Thanks for all that you all do!  New Years has a lot more celebrators in Russian and I haven't heard yet but we will probably go home early on New Year's eve.  The branch is having an activity but we can go.  Have a Happy New Year!

Love you all!

Elder Wilding

 Christmas tree making

I was a wiseman

Sledding

Christmas Party

 SKYPE!!!!

 With Elder Lawrence

Week 37? I don't even know...

Hello my beloved family and friends!

Where to start.  I guess where I left off.  So after emailing you all last Monday we as a district went bowling.  I personally prefer the curve approach and was able to get a strike or 2 with that approach but mostly gutter-balls.  It was fun though.  It is 1000 rubles for a lane for an hour.  It pretty cheap when you separate it between 4 people.

We again taught Vo this week.  He was a little sick so he had so trouble reading.  But at the end of the lesson he prayed after some persuasion.  He is still progressing along but couldn't make it on Sunday because his condition worsened I guess.

And V.  We had a baptismal date for him in 2 weeks.  And as Satan always does when people have baptismal dates he made his life go crazy.  We retaught him the restoration and had a great powerful lesson and he told us that he knew it was true.  And as a branch we watched the face to face with Elder Holland and he came (everyone said the translation was bad) and we thought everything was good.  But on Sunday we were walking home to have dinner and we saw him on the street and started to talk to him.  He told us that we couldn't meet anymore.  He said his parents told him that we were a cult and if he meets with us again than he is no longer their son.  So that was sad but he still believes it and we pray that one day his parents hearts will be softened.

We got a new investigator named E.  He only has one eye.  He isn't too interested in the gospel but he comes to English practice and game night.  He is a good guy.  He has been through a lot.

Oh yeah, Elder Lyman called me this past week and told me that Egor was baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And Elder De Sandre baptized him!  It was so amazing to hear that!  He is the best and so special!  It so cool  to see that a person that I found entered the waters of baptism.  It is amazing to be a instrument in the hands of the Lord.  I hope so much that I will have the opportunity to make it back to Angarsk one day and talk to him again.  The work works!

At K's for our weekly service activity we rolled seeds mixed in dirt into little balls so that when he throws them on his field that the birds won't eat them.  And we chopped wood for him.  I really like chopping wood.  It is so satisfying!  I will send a picture of his hut thing that he calls a Mormon center haha.  He also made a oven out of bricks and mud and whatever he could find.

We called Va.  He lives in the coldest city on earth, at least that is what I hear.  He lives in Ya-kootsk.  We usually call him about once a week and meet with him over the phone.  He is trying to do missionary work down there.  I love him!  We were teaching a lesson and then Elder Crabb passed me the phone and I started to talk and he yelled "wilding hello" I couldn't help but laugh a little considering he doesn't know English.  Who knows, maybe one day we will get to go visit him or get a branch organized down there.

Spent quite a lot of time at a doctor's office.  We went following Presidents direction of finding someone who has the profession we want to become.  Well, we went to the building and waited for the surgeon but he was really busy and had no time to talk with us so we have to go back another time.  I didn't mind waiting though, the chairs in that place were so soft.  I could have sat there forever.

This gospel is becoming so much more of me now.  It helps me see what is really important and I know that this work which we are engaged in is true.  Whenever doubt or confusion hit me I always go back to the Book of Mormon.  It's true.  It's the word of God.  No man could write such a book except he be inspired of God.  It is just too much for a man to do by himself.  But he did have God's help and he translated it in such a short period of time.  But without that book.  Without that evidence, I don't know if I would still be a member of this church.  I always go back to it and it is such a source of comfort and power.  I love the Book of Mormon and know that it is truly God's words. How lucky I am to have an hour every single day  to study it's teachings and ponder it's words.  I know it's true.

Thanks everyone for all the letters and the support.  They make a difference.

Love Elder Wilding

 Bowling

 K's thing

 His oven ↓