Just Like Old Times

Hello everybody!

I feel somewhat lucky I am able to write this letter today. This day has been quite a fiasco. To start off we went to our main place where we always go but for whatever reason "myldsmail.net" would just not load. So after 30 minutes of juggling with that we went to another place in Center which worked for about 47 seconds flat, and then out of nowhere the power went out. We planned on waiting there until the power came on but after 10 minutes of waiting the workers said that they don't know when the power will be back on and that they are closing up the store right now because it will probably be a long time. But all hope was not lost, we knew of a different place about 15 minutes away on bus that we could go to. But, that was closed due to Victory Day, a holiday that will be tomorrow. On our way to the place that was closed, we saw a different internet cafe that none of us have been to before. We went in to try it, but it was a super dark and sketchy place. And to add to that, their computers had no internet. As a last hope we came back to the 2nd place we visited and to our great pleasure the power had been turned back on and now were in business!

This has been a nostalgic week, mainly just because me and Elder De Sandre were on splits and he made pizza. He has a gift! We met up with a man named Ivan who I met at a bus stop a week or two ago. We met near a church and started talking to him and an older guy comes up to us and says "Mormons?" and then tells us he knows a lady that goes to our church. After he left we looked around and Ivan was nowhere in sight. We went searching for him, he simple disappeared. No longer having plans, we decided to go to a soccer field to see if anyone was playing. We went up to about four teenage kids and they said we could play with them. My soccer skills are not up to par.  We were having a great time laughing while we tried to play. After the game we got their numbers and planned to meet up again. 

On Thursday to Saturday I was on splits again but this time with Elder Barr. We had a really good time. His investigator, V, took us to a lighthouse! It was super small, I took some pictures and I will send them next week. He is very interested in the gospel and a really nice guy! And on Friday we had to set up a projector for a "Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration" movie night. It was a lot of what happened today trying to write. Running there and back and then to another place. The activity went good! And on Saturday we had a picnic with the branch! It was a little windy you could say. That is actually a huge understatement. The wind was incredible. Also, it was a miracle because when we started the picnic, the weather was rainy and cold but we decided to hope for the best and have it anyway and despite the wind it was really nice weather.

Another miracle: on our way to the picnic an 18 yr old girl comes up to us and asks, "You're Mormons right?" (now that the coats are off we are getting recognized a lot). We affirmatively responded and she told us that she goes to the ДВФУ (the college in Vlad) and is studying Mormons. She told us that there is a lot of negative info about us and wants to do a report showing that we are good normal people. What? This never happens! She was way cool too! 

Well, it has been a fast week. I have been getting a lot of sun and my arms are feeling it. 

Have a fantastic Victory Day! 

Elder Wilding

Spring is Almost Here

What a fast week. 

Things are starting to warm up. You can walk outside without a coat and feel pretty safe that a babushka won't yell at you for not dressing warm enough. Mornings are still cold though so I still go out with a coat. 

Sorry for not sending photos.  At the place which we email it is a little hard to send them but I should have a lot for you coming next week.

We are starting to get a feel of the work now. We meet with an old investigator from our phone (who I actually met a year ago while on splits in Vlad) and just walked around the city with him and talked. He has been investigating for several years now. Our meeting went pretty good. We agreed that we would read the Book of Mormon together and then play chess after. I am on the lookout for a chess club in Vlad. We met S from that in Sakhalin and it is a great place to meet people. The only catch is that when you play chess you usually think more and talk less. V (a friend we met at family night) is a complete master at the piano. He has memorized so many classical music songs from the great composers like Mozart and Bach and Beethoven. We met with him this week, we were hoping that he would be interested in hearing about what we believe but after talking to him it seems like no. It's too bad he is a great kid.

I gave a talk in church. My topic was the Holy Ghost. I told of story where we were removing bushes out of the yard and Dad had a feeling to tell Taylor to move from where he was and then when we started and the chain came untied and flew to the place that Taylor was at just seconds earlier. My talk went well!

On Saturday night Elder Barr and Elder De Sandre performed a concert in the church. They played a lot of different stuff like Imagine Dragons and Mumford and Sons and stuff like that. We had like 70 people show up! They did great performing! I was really impressed. They had a a few other people help them out. They had a violin, a piano, drums and a guitar. Me and Elder Bacon made banana bread for it. A group of 16-19 olds showed up at the end. They were nice.  Whenever they would talk about something and want to say that it is cool they would say "that is a beautiful topic" haha. It was a good way to meet people.  It almost makes me wish that I knew how to play an instrument... almost.

Zone Conference is on my birthday. I hope you all have a great week!

Love

Elder Wilding