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

Russians, Chess, Boots, Parable Plays, and Transfers

Where to start....

Well first off I am writing to you from inside the church on a TV that we hooked a keyboard and a mouse up to.  We start p-day at 8 a.m.. We can finishing shopping in about 30 min. which leaves us with an hour and half of free time that we don't know what to do with.  The library opens at 10 and almost nothing in Russia is open before that besides flower shops (which are open 24/7 for absolutely no reason) and grocery stores.  So we decided that we would just go right to the church.  lt is a lot better idea, we should have been doing this before.  For one it's free and secondly we always have to come here anyways afterwards to send pictures (....I guess not always, sorry mom...).  So here we go.

For some reason we have been meeting so many "interesting" people lately.  I was starting to think that everybody in the city was nuts until Sister Kaprolava who is a native Russian said that before her mission she thought everybody in Russia was normal.  I guess back home I didn't go on the streets everyday trying to find someone, anyone who would listen to me. For example we met this man on the streets who seemed really cool.  We were busy at the time he wanted to meet, so the sisters met with him but we came in on the end of the lesson.  He claimed that he is the Holy Ghost and that in some of us were reptile people and then he proceeded to cast them out of us.  I probably should have thanked him for his service.  He came again on Sunday and wouldn't you believe it that the Sunday School lesson was on the Holy Ghost hahahaha!!  I'm not sure but that has to be ironic.

Also we have been meeting so many good, sincere, cool people!  For example we met S 2-3 weeks ago at a chess club, he speaks English.  When I first met him we played chess, I ended up losing but not doing too bad.  Turns out that he is a chess teacher and was just letting me do alright not to crush my feelings haha.  We went over to his place today to teach him about the plan of salvation.  He had been keeping his commitment though of reading the Book of Mormon and had so many questions about that that we didn't even have any time to teach him about the plan of salvation.  He is smart and asks good questions.  It's cool he will ask a question for example about polygamy or some other things that seem strange to those who are not members of our church, then he will attentively listen to our answer and understand and accept it and then move on to the next question.  And as a bonus after every lesson he teaches us something cool about chess!  This time he had me and Elder Lawrence play each other in chess and he would make comments on our moves whether they were weak or strong and what we could have done that would have been better.  I made a lot of dumb moves but somehow came off the victor.  He didn't make it easy though, I had to kill all his pieces before it was over.

We finally bought a USB adapter that hooks up to our TV and ever since that we have been watching Bible videos and listening to talks every night.  It is actually really really nice but crazy how much faster the time seems to fly.  Also last Monday we went bowling with the sisters.  We ended up playing 3 games.  The first I was rusty and was mediocre, the second I was on fire but ended bad and the third game I shouldn't of even played -  it was awful!  Also something fun the branch put on  production where families in the church dress up and act out parables.  We as a district had the parable of the ungrateful servant, I'll try to send some pictures it was really fun!

My beloved Alaskas (my boots) are ruined.  They are full of holes and have some paint on them from when we painted the Book of Mormon ice sculpture.  I am going to buy new shoes today hopefully for a good price at the market.  It is starting to warm up so I won't buy more boots.  I want a dress shoe that I can zip up so that I don't have to tie them.  We finished the challenge of sewing 35 blankets!  They are now all packed up and ready for delivery.  Nikolai came and helped twice before his trip to the north of Sakhalin to see his family.  He is going to be gone a month.  Transfers are this Thursday and I think I might be leaving so that might be the last time I see him in a long time.  But hey there is always Facebook!

The Argyles had us over for lunch yesterday, we had BACON!!!!  If I leave I am going to deeply miss this place.

Love,

Elder Wilding

 Completed Blankets

 Cool Russian Bible

 My Alaskas (boots)

 Cool Russian

 Car on a roof

Horses

*Moms' Note: I am adding a little excerpt from his former companion Elder King's email because it will be of interest to some of you: 

The top 10 most common words in Russian:

1) и -- particle, it means "and" in most cases. Can also be used for emphasis

2) в (во) -- "in" or "into" (preposition)

3) не -- "not"

4) на -- "on" or "onto" (preposition)

5) я -- "I"

6) он -- "he"

7) что -- "what"

8) с (со) -- "with" or "from/off" (preposition)

9) это -- "this, that, it"

10) быть -- to be (verb)

I'm not going to explain cases. I don't want to open that can of worms.

A Time of Training - A Time of Chess

So, I should be writing home a little bit early now becasue of the new change to our P-day schedule.

Good Week!  We met a lot of new people.  N came to church on Sunday and received the Aaronic priesthood.  I had the privilege of giving him that priesthood.  It was a great experience.  N has a month long vacation and in two days he will be heading up to the north of Sakhalin for about a month.  We are sad that he is leaving but will still keep talking to him on the phone.

One of our new investigators who actually is a chess teacher taught us a thing or two.  I was amazed by the amount of strategy that goes into that game.  He was showing us how we should start a game and what to do if on the board is only kings and a pawn and most importantly how to put some poor fellow in checkmate in two moves.

The branch is in the process of sewing blankets (35 to be exact) for those in need.  It is a big project and we have been able to help a little.  Besides all the new investigators, most of our other lessons have revolved around teaching the members the new goals that the area presidency put out.

The gospel is true. I am blessed to be out here.  Thanks for all your prayers!

Elder Wilding

4 Elders!

The AP's came down this week. Having 4 in one apartment makes everything more fun! It is was like I was back in Angarsk again!  They arrived Wednesday morning and left Sunday after church.  They came to have a conference with us where we watched a new training for all volunteers.  The conference was pretty great and now we finally have our new schedule.  The major changes are that now we have more time on P-days (3 hours!!!!) and we plan in the morning instead of the night. 

We went to a chess club and got a nice old man's number, his name is S and he is going to teach me how to play chess better.  He is a Baptist and I think would be open to our message.  We almost had service at the zoo but when we called back they said that it wouldn't work out because we need some special license or something to be around live animals.

We went over to a member who is from the Netherlands and had really good dinner!  And a 8 year old girl just got baptized on Saturday by her dad!

They was basically my week (according to my memory) .  Sorry that it is kinda small. Thanks for all the support!

Elder Wilding

Russian Rappers and Breaking Tombs

Aloha!

Fun week, we got some more snow and did some fun service.  Our friend max showed us the parts that he bought for his computer that he is making himself and he bought all the most expensive parts he could.  This world was completely foreign to me but Lawrence seemed to understand what he was talking about.  We got fed twice this week. I honestly can't think of a Russian who has fed me who isn't a great cook.... everything I have got so far has been magically delicious.

We had to take down the Book of Mormon this week.  All the paint melted off and left his eerie blue ghost color on it and most people that passed thought it was a tomb stone.  It was a labor of love when we made it and it was sad to see her go down after all the hard work that we put into her.  We basically just javelened our ice breakers and shovels into her until she broke at the bottom and then a bigger problem started when all the surrounding snow was covered with blue paint. We had to shovel it all out and hope that a big snow plow comes and takes it away.  

One of our members brought her friends to game night. He is 16 years old and an aspiring rapper.  He showed us some of his stuff and despite the fact that I understood nothing that was said, it was pretty good.  Apparently rap is taking over Russia right now.  But in Russian you don't rap rap, you read rap.

I took part in an interesting service, we showed up at a cross country ski race thinking we could help by giving out medals or something but we ended up wearing huge animal costumes and they just wanted us to go around dancing and take pictures with people.  I'll try to send a picture!  I was a hedgehog, it was fun!

Well, that about does it for this week, I hear some big changes are coming up for use related to our schedule.  Hope you all have a fantastic week!  

Love

Elder Wilding

I'm the hedgehog with the big glasses, the head didn't come off unfortunately.

Picture with both of the constructors... Elder Wilding and Elder Lawrence

 

2 Russians, 2 Americans

Good day family!

Good first week of the transfer!  A lot of area book work and trying to find new investigators.  We have a good maybe 10-15 potentials we could try to work with.  All the rest in the area book were either tried in the past and aren't interested or не доступен (means not available and is an awful plague of Russia).  Hopefully some of these people will be interested.

We are thinking about taking the Book of Mormon this week.  In her full glory she only lasted about 2 days.  The paint started to melt off and the letters went with it.  Without the letters most people assume it is a tombstone.  We had a lot of people ask us about it when we were making it and gave a guy a number because of it but besides that we haven't got any interested people from it, at least not yet.  But despite all that, making it was way worth it!  We actually were planning on making a Bible right next to it to show that we believe in both, but it is just too hot here. ***

We received a new Russian sister to our mission, not only to our mission but to Sakhalin.  Considering that we have a Russian couple already serving here and that Sister Kapralova is staying, we are out numbered by the Russians.  And it's awesome!  This is going to do wonders for my language.  The sister is from Moscow and seems really smart.  We have a great district.

The Argyles (American family) had us over for lunch yesterday.  That was so tasty! They had BBQ sauce which I don't think I have had since the MTC. Speaking of food we made a nice batch of chum chum this week it it lasted us probably 4 days.  I might have to buy mass amounts of that sauce and fill my suit cases with it and bring it home.  If not I will have large withdrawals.

We haven't got much snow since last email.  The city has been going around and knocking down huge icicles.  They set barriers around big buildings on the main roads because it would ruin your day if one of those fell on you.      

Thanks for all your supports and love!

Elder Wilding

***Note from Mom - the current weather there is 14 below -  a heat wave!

)

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!