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

 

SAKHALIN

Hello!

What a week...  I was taken for the pilot of our plane to Sakhalin when we got off.  I was wearing my way nice winter coat and had my military Russian bag on and apparently I looked legit. 

We had so many flights!  When we went to Zone Conference I stayed at the AP's apartment and had a joyful reunion with Elder Crabb if I have ever seen one.  We got new materials to keep us better organized and more focused on our goals and Zone Conference was of the chain as usual.  While I was in Vlad I had three sharmas which still doesn't seem quite enough. We went to Korea and got three sessions in, a trip to Ashley's, dinner with the senior couple from Brigham City and McDonald's breakfast.  I have never been more effective in Korea in my entire life!  The flights were pretty fun.

After Korea I spent a night in the AP Elder's apartment and had some delicious breakfast cake Elder Hess made at my request and got to know a few of the Elders in the mission I didn't know that well.   Elder Bodily goes home this transfer and then I won't have anyone from my same city in the mission.  We got up at like 4 or 5 in the morning (I don't remember which, it was so early) and took a flight to Sakhalin and landed at 9:35 a.m. and on the island (Sakhalin) church starts at 10.  We rushed to the church and made it for sacrament and I gave my testimony in church.  This branch is huge!  Like 60-70 people and it is three hours long which I haven't had my whole mission.  So many people here speak English.  At least half the branch.  Oh man, it is beautiful here.  I feel like I am in Alaska.  Especially when one of the American families who is here working for Exxon invited us over for dinner and we went into their gated community which literally looks exactly like Alaska and is incredibly nice.  We had such a good dinner there and I kinda of understand now what it is like to serve in a state's mission.  Sakhalin is sick and I know it is going to get better and better!

I love you all!

Have a great week I will send pictures next week!

Elder Wilding

Zone Conference

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Let me start this email with a disclaimer: due to my allergies which have for some reason taken over me today I took a Benadryl which has weakened my capacity to think clear becasue of how tired I am now.  Nevertheless I will strive to write you all a report of what has happened in this past week with as many details as I can remember.

Might as well start of with our amazing zone conference which was presided over by Elder Martino of the 70.  What an outstanding teacher!  He was if not the most powerful teacher I have ever witnessed in person, at least the second.  We learned so much from his teachings on revelation and other important topics.  He opened up the scriptures to us, he encouraged us to be more sincere and to think outside of the box so far that no one has ever tried the approach we choose to take.  I was quite uplifted by his presence.  I have noticed from the general authorities that have come and taught us that their remarks and their general conference talks usually are a part of what they teach to us.  But I don't realize that until after they come when I read their talks.

We also experienced an amazing miracle while looking for service.  We heard that other volunteers have had some success with talking with other churches and serving with them, so we decided to give it  a try.  We first went to the Russian Orthodox church and asked the nice lady in their store outside the temple if we could serve with them.  She kindly told us that in order to serve with them we would need to be baptized in their faith and she even agreed to arrange the whole thing with one of their priests at no charge to us.  Thanks but no.  The next church we went to was the Bible church which was remarkably hard to get to and the entrance to the church was covered with overgrown grape vines and we even thought that maybe it wasn't a church anymore because we saw wet laundry drying on the grounds.  We yelled "allo" and a very nice Korean lady came out and said that yes indeed they are still a church but no indeed they have no service.  2 strikes.  We started our next task of finding the Korean church of the Peace Church.  We asked around and were led down many wrong paths until a large man who we saw earlier that day told us where the Peace Church was.  And this is when the miracle begins.  We walked in and immediately comes a 25-30 year old man down the stairs of the upper building and asked if he could help us.  We told what we wanted and he said follow me.  We went to the back of the church and there was four tables covered with people eating plove (Russian dish with rice and pork) all laughing and enjoying themselves.  We come in and he introduces us and sits us down and offers us food (which we turned down becasue we had just barely eaten) and started asking us a million questions and the whole time everyone was laughing and cracking jokes.  They are the nicest people and as fate would have it they had service planned that exact day in 30 minutes.  We talked to them for a little while longer and then a man who teaches karate to children came and picked us up (me and Staiger with a few members of their church) and we went and washed mats that his students play karate on.  There were endless piles of these mats and we had to leave after about 3 hours and probably didn't even get halfway done.  When people ask about the church and we can't tell them, it's sad because we know this message can change their life.  Like for example the dude that took us to the back when we first got there asked us after learning that we were Mormons how we know that our church is true.  I wanted to testify that moment about the Book of Mormon.  So there are some challenges with the new law but we are actually making better friendships now and before the law there is no way we would have gone to those churches to look for service.  There's good and bad.

I bought a miniature dolphin ice globe when we went to that dolphin show with Elder Roosa and I brought it to Vlad to put it in storage but I forgot to take it out of my bag and on the way home it broke and the water inside destroyed my planner.  What are you going to do?

I might take a nap until P-day is over.  Word of advice, never take a Benadryl in the morning.

 

I love you all so much!

Elder Wilding

Area Presidency President Martino.

From President and Sister Perkinson:

Dear Brother and Sister Wilding,

We want to share with you a little bit about our East Zone Conference.

The East Zone met together on Saturday August 27, 2016 with Our new Area Presidency member President and Sister Martino. 

It is always exciting to come together and prepare to exchange ideas and be spiritually uplifted! The counseling comes to each of us especially from the spirit! 

Our topic for this conference was on personal revelation and many were assigned to study and prepare to teach one another. 

It was a wonderful day together with the Volunteers from Sakhalin, Khabarovsk, Ussuriysk, Nakhodka, Artyom and Vladivostok!

We are grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord and His children here. We are grateful for the power that come thru the many prayers in our behalf. We sincerely thank you for your support of love and faith!

Sincerely,

President and Sister Perkinson

Vladivostok Russia

Дорогие семьи и друзья

Дорогие семьи и друзья,

Tell Grandpa Jo I say happy birthday.  

What a week.  Since I basically shaved my head about a month and 1/2 ago I finally had another hair cut last Monday.  They took off the sides only.  It looks much better but I still have to be patient until it grows back to where it was.  Also last Monday we have legit smores and roasted marshmallows!  One of the missionaries who served here and ended his mission about the time I was about 4 months in, came back and we had a campfire with him and some of the members!  He is Russian so I don't know how he got the marshmallows and chocolate and graham crackers or the starbursts but I didn't care it was so delicious.  I think I was actually the one who enjoyed it most out of everyone haha,  Actually most of the members didn't like it and said that it was too sweet. I just felt like I was back home in the backyard roasting mellows.  Speaking of good food, watermelon season has hit Russia!  That reminds me of when I first got in country and me and Elder Lyman would buy at least one every week and absolutely love the watermelon.  They are dirt cheap at the store just across from our house.  Oh yeah, I don't think I ever said, at our new house a grocery store is right across the street an makes shopping fast.  

Vl from Angarsk called me this week haha.  He wanted me to send him pictures and was telling me how Angarsk was and everything.  Haha it was awesome!  We met with this guy this week who called at us in English when we were in Burger King.  He took us to his home and played some songs he wrote by himself.  They weren't that bad, he is pretty talented but I have been thinking of remixes to his songs this whole week.

With the new law, we cannot talk about the gospel or anything of that sort outside of the church.  The only exception is that we are allowed to teach members in their homes.  Until last week, even if we were in the church with a non-member we couldn't talk about the gospel until the person signed a paper noting that they agreed to this and that they were a follower of the church.  But that has been thrown out now and as long as we are in the church we can talk with anyone about gospel topics.  We still can't directly invite non-members to activities in the church but we can let them know what time the activity will be as long as there is no invitation extended.    Lately Elder Staiger and I have been inviting people to a store near the church and then walk with them to the church to play ping pong or some other activity.  I hope that makes sense.  If I forgot to add something or if there are still questions please let me know.

After Institute we played "Book of Mormon bingo".  On the bingo card is Book of Mormon characters names.  I put the names in google translate trying to be more efficient becasue it takes me a long time to type in Russian because I haven't memorized where the letters on the keyboard are.  I thought google would have translated them over exactly how they were in the Book of Mormon for some reason but I was so wrong.  Hagoth the viking ship builder in the Book of Mormon got translated over as Xagoth.  All it changed was the h to an x.  "G" isn't even a Russian letter.  Wherever they pulled out his name they just said viking haha.

The spin trimmer was taken by President Zag and that which was broken is now fixed!  The blade on the end that was no where near the center is now centered which stops the problem that we had where it shakes until your hands bleed.  We cut for a couple of hours at the "green island" and got a good chunk of the field cut down to size.  It only died once on us and it was somewhat of a miracle.  If I haven't said it before I will say it now, at least one person gets married in Ussuriysk or at least that is what it seems like.  They put flowers and ribbons on their cars and drive around the city honking as they drive past you.  Anyways we had brought a soccer ball with us and we see a woman in a wedding dress and a small group of people with her.  They come over and ask if they can use our ball for their wedding pictures (he was in the goal and the bride pretended to kick the ball).  We happily told them yes. If only I would have brought my camera with me I would have had some great pictures.  Their friend afterwards said that he plays basketball more than soccer and Elder Staiger told him I was from America and play basketball too and the guy freaked out when he heard we spoke English and that I was from America - he loved it.  He started talking to us in English that he learned in school and invited us over to his house as guests!  And throughout the rest of the night he kept on calling us haha.

Well, I hope that feels you in on what happened. Looking forward to another good week!  Hopefully we can find some more service.  If anyone has any suggestions on what we could do I would love to hear them.  Zone Conference is next week and Elder Martino of the 70 comes.  He replaced Kl as the 1st counselor for our region.

Much Love

Elder Wilding

An American, a German, and a Russia walk in to a ba...... Church

My Dearest Family,

Quite a week I have had.  The sun seems to be focusing all of it's energy on Russia judging by how hot it is.  The Russian seems to be falling into place.  Of a truth, whenever I learn a new word I hear it everywhere with everyone with whom I conversate.  And I always am amazed how I never heard it before.   Be diligent and persistent is so so important in learning a language.  Some things I could study for hours and never understand and then one day for some weird reason I hear something and it all clicks and it is stuck in my brain forever.  But that never happens if you stop.

Update on the new apartment:  The moisture in the air has been thinning and we have been removing the gross sometimes moldy pillows and other items out and it is smelling and feeling better!  It actually is a really nice place once you clean it up!  

Yesterday in church we had 3 speakers planned to speak.  All 3 showed up and gave fantastic talks.  The only thing was that they were a little too short and seeing that we had 16 minutes left on the clock I stood up once again and gave a talk before the congregation without foreknowledge of the event.  And it went so well!  I gave my memorized "restoration lesson" lesson and turned it into a talk.  I said the first vision over the pulpit and it was sweet!  When I was talking about prophets, V comes in and yells "I'm a prophet" haha.  Next time though I am probably making Elder Staiger give one becasue it seems like it is always me.  Or maybe Sister Blonkquist!  (it is her second week)

The Testaments was the movie we decided to share at movie night.  We bought a huge block of ice cream (they come in a bag) for the film.  Not a big turn out so the people that were there got loads of ice cream each!  Sad thing was that a sister in the ward showed up about 15 minutes late or so and all the ice cream was gone but she saw our empty dishes.  But I guess as the saying goes, the early bird eats the ice cream.

We had a sick lesson with the other elders old investigator Zh on the 10 commandments!  We taught him the signs you can make with your hands in order to remember.  And also created a Book of Mormon Characters bingo!  Every week after we'll be playing!  Sister P made some dang good blini and the stuff we put on it was egg whites and sugar blended together.  I don't remember what it is called I only remember how it tastes.  как нельзя лучше.

We took the sacrament to this sweet babushka who has a little problem with her memory and is so funny!  Most times she tells us the same life stories she has told us a lot of times and this week she found out that Elder Staiger is from Germany.  She raised her arm and shouted "Heil Hitler" a few times haha.  She always does something like that which makes all of us laugh!

We went and played soccer at locomotive field with the Russians that President Z. works with.  They are good!  But this time I didn't do too shabby and Elder Staiger was showing all of them how Germans*** play.  

Fun week!  The second half goes quicker than the first unfortunately!

Love Elder Wilding

 With the prophet

Our old apartment

Without flash - with flash

One time I swept our old apartment

Purple tie

Calling

Moving Day, Branch Presidency, and Shopka in the Summer

Hello and welcome one and all!

Marvelous week in Ussuriysk with many ups and downs!  Namely, President Z, who thinks I look like John Kennedy made us borsch and I have gained 15 pounds.  I haven't gained 15 pounds in the year I have been out here, I gained it all in the last 2 months.  I don't know where all this weight is because it isn't visible but I think I know where it is coming from.  Since the establishment of our companionship me and Elder Staiger have been eating mass amounts of a glorious even heavenly food-chum chum.  Which was supposedly healthy considering that all it contains is rice, veggies, chicken and 2 sauce packets.  But to my surprise and awful dismay we discovered just this week that chum chum contains so much fat.  I was so sad to find the news.  It is the best thing I know how to make myself and it is turning me into a mess.  Of a sad truth, the more unhealthier the food is the better the taste and it's the same if you switch it around.  To battle this startling weight gain me and Elder Staiger hit the streets and went running.  I have never had more respect for mom...after only like 20 minutes I was dying and couldn't keep on going.  Oh well, some much for chum chum 3 times a week.

S (speaks English) had me proof read his college paper that was filled with a ton of huge words I don't even know and he was asking me if it is correct to use them in this context.  Haha I hope I helped him out but I was guessing on half of it.   Our spin trimmer has been turning out to be more of a nightmare than we hoped for.  Before it shook you to the core but now it won't even cut.  Whenever we try to get it started it goes and dies.  President Z took it from us yesterday and is going to take it into his shop to fix it.  Hope everything works out.

We moved out of my home for 6 months and somehow made it to our other apartment with all our things after a few taxi rides.  I wore my shopka when we moved just so that I didn't have to pack it and when I walked out of the house all eyes where on me.  I don't blame them though because anyone who would wear one of those in this heat is absolutely nuts!  I was dying of heat until I took it off.  Our new apartment is somehow always wet and humid.  I sleep on a pull out extension of the couch, not because my bed is bad but because for some weird reason I sleep like a baby on that couch. 

The new sisters that came are Sister Merrill (I was in the MTC with her) and Sister Blonquist (who knows a girl I went to high school with and one of Taylor's friends).  District Meeting was fun and we will have a fun District!  In church this week all the missionaries just got put in callings because of the new law and I am the acting First Counselor in the branch.  Me and A (the secretary) did a lot of work after church on MLS and LCR working with the finances and trying to get me into the branch, the latter with no success.  It's an amazing opportunity to be learning how these computer programs work.  Not many missions in the world have the opportunities that we have.

I will end this email with a  quote I memorized at the request of Elder Staiger.

"Being blessed with hope, let us, as disciples, reach out to all who, for whatever reason have moved away from the hope of the gospel.  Let us reach to lift those hands which hang hopelessly down"  - Neal A. Maxwell 

Love you all and pray that all is well with you!

Elder Wilding

Change is in the Wind

Дорогая моя семья и друзья

It is good to write to you again!  Many exciting things and changes have taken place this week.  As for the Siberian tiger watch, none have yet been spotted, and we are starting to believe they are not out here.  I was informed last week that America celebrated Shark Week, to all those who were able to watch that consider yourselves lucky.   

A few facts were learned this week as well:

1) My hair should not be cut to 1/2 inch

2) Some German chocolate contains alcohol

3) President Zagorpodnee is an Italian at heart

4) It is possible to sneeze all your energy away

5) Hair takes a lot longer to grow back than I thought

We played some soccer with a bunch of big Russians.  By the velocity of their voice and the look on their faces you would have thought they all hated each other.  That is how they show their love for each other I guess.  After the game we met one of their brothers who lived in Illinois for a year as an exchange student.  He said when he first got there everybody thought he was and because he wasn't always smiling.  Haha completely different cultures.  We got his number and planned to go take a tour of the fire station in town with him.  Turns out it is not allowed so we didn't end up going.  

Me and Elder Hess were on splits on Tuesday.  We made it over to K's.  He has the nicest and was wearing way nice flannel.  He always has some kind of idea of how we can grow the church.  Then he pulled out his accordion and went to work!  He didn't really know how to play but we loved watching him.  

I had a cool experience while teaching a lady who wants to quit smoking and drinking.  Her name is O.  Previous to this experience I was reading about light and how people can see it in your eyes and we talked a little bit about it at zone conference.  I heard tons of stories about other missionaries having people saying that they see light in their eyes.  But that has never happened to me.  And then when we were teaching her she told us she didn't know what it was but we just have something in our eyes.  It was a big testimony builder to me that the church is true and people can see our light.

On Saturday we played soccer and my allergies overtook me and I couldn't stop sneezing the whole time.  It got so bad that my face was covered in sweat and tears.  Sweat from the soccer and tears from the allergies.   I couldn't do anything about it, it was awful.  I think i am going to get rid of my allergies when I get home even if that means I have to get a ton of shots.

As most of you have probably already heard, Russia just passed a new law that makes it illegal to talk about the gospel outside of the church building.  We received instruction from President to get as many new investigators as we can before the 20th when it becomes official law.  But besides that we don't know what we are going to do.  Me and Elder Staiger think we will go around serving people like crazy and play soccer with a ton of people and then somehow try to get them in the church so that we can talk about the gospel.  Basically my whole mission as I knew it is going to change I think.  But I am excited!  It has got to be the better path or else the Lord wouldn't have let this happen.  We'll see how this goes but until then pray for the members over here so that they can stay strong.  Russia in general could really use your prayers.

I am going to buy a new suit today! I don't know what color yet but I'm think gray or blue.   Love you all,

Elder Wilding

Letter from Pres. Perkinson:

Dear Loved Ones,

As we continue to assist the Lord in his Work and Hastening, I request your assistance as follows as it relates to your support of the young and valiant volunteers from your families who are here in Far East Russia.

GOING FORWARD:

In ALL of your correspondence please refer to your sons, daughters, grandchildren, friends, nieces, nephews and cousins as a VOLUNTEER. That designation will be their full time assignment until the end of their service when they return home to you. This also applies to all of your Social Media involvement including private Blogs. Again, remember VOLUNTEER! Volunteer Service, Volunteer Efforts. They will be designated as a Volunteer so please refer to them as a Volunteer, which is different than you have referred to them to this point. Please eliminate Missionary and Proselyting from your methods of communications and posts.

Please, as I have requested before with limited success. Be only positive in your posts in social media and your communication. The Russian People are wonderful, and your sons daughters and loved ones are doing every thing possible to serve and help them in their Volunteer services.

All will be Well! The Lord is in Charge. You should all be proud of your sons and daughters. We love serving with them and love them dearly. Please encourage them to be obedient with exactness.
There is no need for fear, we will bring to pass great miracles through our faith, diligence and hard work!

Sincerely,
John William Perkinson, Vladivostok President

Happy Fathers Day or in Russia Ascension Day

Good Monday everyone!  I'm staying in Ussuriysk!!! Elder Roosa Is bouncing to the west like a Siberian tiger and is companions with Elder Butler who served here.  Every elder who serves here either goes to Vlad or Irkutsk, it has it has been that way ever since I arrived in the mission and even a little before.  And there are no exceptions either.  It's nuts!

My life just got cooler by not having an American comp!  His name is Elder Staiger and he was born and raised in Germany.  He has been on the mission one transfer less than me and speaks good English.  It should be a outstanding transfer coming up!

I have memorized a "pushkin" poem thanks to K our Russian teacher.  He is the best poet Russia has ever known and they love him for it.  They just finished a statue of him and put it on the corner of a street named after him.  It should help us gain some respect from these people.

Mr. W is still pushing away and reading and loving the gospel like anyone could ever wish for but is in China for 1/2 a month.  That means no contact, not even phone calls until he gets back.  He is going to the church there and ask them some questions about the Book of Mormon so we pray that everything will be well with him.

I started on writing my letter home at least a month ago and still haven't got to finishing it.  The paper I choose is so huge I never realized until I got started so I need to do something so I can get it sent this week.  Also went to a dolphin show which was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  He rode the dolphins like a surfboard! And that wasn't even the coolest thing.

For my year mark we burned a white shirt.  It was one of the ones that I came in with with the way huge neck.  I was happy to get rid of it!  It was fun to burn and think about all the good times.  I really have had some good good times!  We had sushi to celebrate and it was better this time than last time I ate it so maybe one day I will come to love it.  Elder Sieboch bought me a delicious chocolate cake!

President Perkinson came to the branch on Sunday by surprise.  It is always good to talk to him.  He somehow always inspires us by just talking to us and not even saying things that I would say to get people inspired.  We are lucky to have him!

Well that's all for this week.  I am going to Korea next week on Monday so I might write a little early next week.  I only went 6 weeks ago but they are trying to get us all on the same schedule.  

Love you all, have a good week!

Elder Wilding

Some tidbits from McKay's companion's letter:

-We took a taxi ride and the driver gave us some free lighters as a promotion. We bought a million incense sticks and lit a bunch of them on fire at once to make a very nice smelling torch. We also burnt Elder Wilding's shirt on his one year mark. We didn't have a great place to do it so we went out on the balcony and put it inside of a pot. Elder Wilding kept holding onto the shirt forever and i thought he was gonna burn himself, but he was able to get it into the pot at the last minute. Overall it was nice to have a little campfire, no matter how strange the circumstances. The lighter finally ran out and I think I will avoid buying more.

-We met a guy who's job is just to spammed instagram with useless information to try and break down the site, kind of like a DDOS attack I think. I'm not sure why someone was paying him to do this but he acted like it was a completely normal job.

-We were teaching a guy and he was complaining about how many drunks there are in Russia. I tried to say "That's not just in Russia, that's in America, in the whole world" but he thought I said "America is the whole world". He got a bit offended but my buddy Elder Wilding was able to explain it before he got too mad.

Letter from his mission President and wife (with photos):
Today is Sunday, and if we were in the United States we would be celebrating "Father's Day. So Happy Father's Day to you. So today we met at the Ussuryisk Branch and enjoyed a wonderful Sacrament meeting with these great missionaries.

Elder Wilding led the music. Elder Roosa and Elder Seibach gave beautiful testimonies of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And Elder Hess sang a beautiful solo, "Abide With Me 'Tis Eventide" that he had pre recorded of himself accompanying. 

We had 36 in attendance at Church. Three branch members spoke about the blessings of the Temple, Charity and the Law of Chastity. Then President Perkinson had the missionaries stand and recite the Vladivostok Mission Statement, which the branch enjoyed very much. 

Sometimes the members have a mixed emotions about transfer week, because some of their current missionaries are being transferred to other cities. Above all, the Ussuriysk Branch members are grateful for the service of these fine missionaries! 

Thank you for your support, your prayers and your testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Thank you for doing your part to share the "good word" there at home.

Sincerely,

President and Sister Perkinson

Vladivostok Russia Mission

Shaurma and a Taxi, plus Boris

Dear Dad, Mom bros and everybody else,

It has probably been our most effective week together.  Lessons were lining up and we were having fun having a good time living life in Russia preaching the gospel teaching new investigators, even eating some apple pie. I love being out here!  Russia has been good to us this last week!  And also how could I forget I even got some wood!

So to start off this past week we had a good P-day when I cut Elder Hess's hair.  I think I did a pretty good job!  Then after that we had family night and played Yahtzee card style and the ward enjoyed it and B came who showed up on church the day before and he loved the game and then we had an awesome lesson with B after with Sister P!  

On Tuesday we went to service at K's and cut a ton of wood!  And then headed down to Vlad to be on splits with the APs.  We slept there and had a really good time with them!  The next day I was with my hometown missionary Elder Bodily and we had a great day where I finally got a Bible in Russian, got some more stuff out of storage and had a lesson with a girl named H who is progressing great! I ate two Shaurma's and was in heaven. I traded my tie to Elder Gray for his.  We then went home on a way nice bus for like an hour and a half.  Buses are super fun!  The next day we had district meeting and painted a room in a kindergarten school place!  I got paint all over my hands trying to paint behind this coat rack type thing. Then we met again with B and found out that he works everyday besides Monday through Friday so it will be hard for him to come to church again.  But it was still a good lesson! Our taxi driver was cool on the way over and he gave us his number and we met with him the next day and he brought his girlfriend.  He isn't super interested in the gospel right now but he is really nice.  He took us to a hill over the town and we overlooked Ussuriysk.

On Saturday we had sports night and I got to throw around a football which is something I haven't done for a long time.  It was great!  We played soccer and again I tried to cross it and it went in the goal!

Then on Sunday we went over to S's and he made us a homemade apple pie!  And we met with this guy who came in the church whose name is O.

Love,

Elder Wilding

Doing splits with my hometown boy Elder Bodily

Russia

Dinner

 

Dear family and friends,

I've got my salmon colored tie on with a red pen in my shirt pocket and am ready to write this thing.

To increase my effectiveness in the mornings and nights I made a schedule of all the things I would do in that set time and set the time of how long they would all take and I planned it out perfectly.  They first test that came was the next morning when I woke up and completely didn't follow the schedule at all.  Well at least I tried but by the second day it is as if I never made one.  Planning is fun and easy, but doing that is much harder.  

This week started with me seeing the beautiful streak of lightning across the sky.  Marking my first lightning seeing in the large kingdom of Russia and also the quickest rain storm in all of history.  It was awesome! I just had told Sister P the day earlier that I wished it would thunder and lightning here because it never does and then was blessed with that.  But it did end amazingly quick.  We went out with our heaviest coats and then regretted the decision 5 minutes later.  We played basketball again with Ev and his friend from China came this time.  A, our neighbor, and the other Elder's investigator is going to a boat show in Vlad soon.  Apparently there are going to be boats from all around the world.

We had an outstanding lesson with G.  I met him with Elder Crabb but it has been hard meeting with him so this was our first official lesson with him.  We taught the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It was great! Sister P was on it and she really helped us out so much.  That lesson was completely changed by the fact that she was there.  Members are so great!  We had some good conversations with people on the streets in the short time we were able to be on the streets.  I saw a girl that looked just like a girl I went to high school with just a little more Russian.  

At C's house we didn't get to do any service because he took us around his green fields and showed us this little pond and this big tree that we all climbed on.  Unfortunately we had to leave a little early because we had lessons to go to.  He just got a fresh load of logs just waiting to be cut.  Next week!

Sports Night began this last week.  We planned on having a ton of people show but we ended up only having about 8.  But that was ok because me and Elder Sieboch went and played soccer with Muslims from many different countries who spoke many different dialects.  I don't know about he others, but one of them spoke 7 languages including English.  He was from Kazakhstan.  They were pretty good and some were wearing Real Madrid jerseys.  I had the ball one time and tried to do a cross to my fellow team mates for them to head it in but the ball just ended up going through the goal instead haha!  

Church was good.  A couple of our speakers showed up late.  So you know what that means.  Yep you guessed it that means that the missionaries get to speak.  Elder Hess got up first and gave a talk on humility.  I thought I was safe because I was the farthest Elder away from the stand and that distance gave me comfort.  But after Elder Hess's remarks we sang a hymn and I am the branch's conductor.  So I come up and conduct the song and then on the way back to my seat I see that it would be difficult to make it back so I sit on one of the empty chairs on the 2nd row.  Big mistake.  Elder Hess then gets up and announces that I would be the next speaker.  I had about 3 seconds from the time I found out I was to speak and the actual speaking part.  I decided to speak on service.  It went a lot better than expected and I think I took about 10 minutes or so.  I was amazed how most of the Russian seems to come out.  So all in all it was a great experience.  I was actually thinking the other day that something like this hasn't happened to me on my mission yet and then it happened.

Me and Elder Roosa were taking the trash out of the church and on our way to the trash can we heard and saw this little red thing hit the ground.  Somebody threw a strawberry at us and failed to hit their target.  We looked up and saw somebody draw away from the window.  Me and Elder Roosa both wish that it would have hit us and that it would have been more than one strawberry, but what do you do?

At home in our kitchen the stove that we have is an elements stove which means it doesn't have an open flame, it's like Grandpa and Grandma Jo's.  Well Saturday morning that element stove top became a fire burning stove.  I woke up and went and threw some eggs on the frying pan and made way nice eggs  I took the pan off the stove to wash it and I hear the sound of a flame.  I look behind me and the stove top is on fire.  The flame is about as tall as 2 or 3 pencils stacked on each other.  Luckily, it went out super quick but I was prepared, I got a wet rag and threw it over the stove.  Elder Roosa made french fries the night before and I didn't even realize that there was still oil all over the stove.  Crisis averted.  

Last story, my allergies have been going off like never before on my mission.  I sneezed probably 200 times in one day or more and it was awful.  At game night a sister in the ward asked if she could help me.  I wasn't sure what to expect but said yes.  She put her hand on my shoulder and starred at me in the eyes and as I started to walk away after a little bit, she took her and off and said that soon I would be better.  Haha it has been a pretty crazy week!

Love,

Elder Wilding

Service at C's

My study socks - my study face

Eternal Flame, Circus, Russia,  ?

I taped the brethren on the wall and the 1st presidency on the TV

Temple at night

Different Companion. Same Apartment.

Hello everyone!  Happy General Conference!  I can't wait to watch it!  General conferences out here are amazing!  

With transfers comes change.  And 2 of the members of our district left. Elders Memmott and Crabb.  And to celebrate the great time we had this past 6 weeks, we went bowling.  We bought 2 lanes.  And then the 4 of us just kept on switching back from lane to lane and I think by the end we got in something like 5 games in in a hour.  After bowling we went to dinner at the nice restaurant "Skaska".  I got a pork steak.  Pretty Good.  The place was fancy.  We ordered off of iPads.  I felt like a state missionary for a second haha.  I thought it would be cooler than it was.  I think I just prefer a regular menu.  Then to end the night 3 people in our branch had birthdays all on the same day.  And 2 of them were exactly the same age.  What are the chances?  We had a family night/party for them.  

Russian practice has now moved to 10 am.  And it is now at our teacher's house.  She got a new job and she doesn't have that much time so we will be doing that form now on.  

It rained!  Twice!  It was beautiful.  I hear it rains in Ussuriysk a lot.  Unfortunately one of the days Elder Roosa forgot his coat and got a little wet because it was coming down hard.  век живи век учись (Live and Learn).  That is one of my favorite Russian phrases.  I think my all time favorite though is как нельзя лучше which means "couldn't be better". I found out that Russian Easter is on May 1.  I get 2!

Me and Elder Crabb took a bus to Vladivostok.  And then slept in Elder Lyman's apartment there.  Then we woke up the next morning and there was just something different in the air.  The new elders had arrived.  We took a bus and then walked up the hill to President's house.  We arrived to the smiling faces of President and Sister Perkinson as well as Elder Bacon (not Kevin), Baugh, and Roosa.  They all looked about a 100 percent different the picture we saw of them.  We had a little conference and Sister Perkinson made us an amazing breakfast!  It was so good.  Then we talked and had a discussion from about 9:30 to 1:30.  I learned a lot even though it was for the new missionaries.  Then right after that we made our way to district meeting in Vlad.  On the way there we were contacting and I was shocked Elder Roosa knows Russian fantastically.  He speaks so much better than I did when I first got out of the MTC.  I couldn't understand anything and everyone thought I was speaking English to them when I was speaking in Russian.  But that isn't a problem for him.  I am lucky to be training such a great Elder!  He is from Parker, Colorado.  Loves to ski and actually worked at a little place called Aspen as a lift worker.  I really like him.  I have been blessed with great companions my whole mission.

On Saturday we met with Sister P.  And we planned to talk about preparing for general conference and asking questions but the spirit took it a different way and we ended up talking about miracles and her conversion story.  She said that she was working in this little store when two boys in white shirts and nametags came in and needed to buy something but were in a hurry.  She was interested because you don't see that everyday so she told them to stop and she wanted to talk.  But they were on their way somewhere and didn't have the time so they got her number.  Later they called her and said let's meet.  At that time she didn't really want to but she did anyways.  They met in a bus station and did the first lesson.  When they got to the first vision she said the elder pulled out the photo of Joseph Smith and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and she was drawn to it.  See didn't know why.  And when he related the first vision to her in Joseph's words she said that her heart burned so hot inside of her.  And she was scared and told them that she had to go because she didn't understand it and thought that maybe it was hypnotizing or some magic thing and she was scared because she had never felt like that before.  And she left.  Lucky the Elders were persistent and got to meet with her again and to make a long story short...she was baptized.  It was a very powerful lesson.  I shared the miracle of E.  (He got baptized the same time as Eg).  And how when me and Elder Lyman found him he hated life and had nothing and was smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day.  But now that he has the gospel he loves life and has a job and a phone and he told us, "Ever since I have been meeting with you I just don't want to smoke."  He met with Elders for a week and in that time he went down from 2 packs a day to only 2 a day.  And now he has finally quit.  Conversion is a miracle and watching it in someone's life is truly amazing!

I love it out here!  Thanks for all the letters!  They mean a lot!  I love you!

Elder Wilding

Sister Perkinson sent us these photos and a letter (at bottom).

Training meeting with Pres. Perkinson

With Elder Roosa (new comp)

With Elder Lyman

Dear Brother and Sister Wilding,
It is always good to report on what has been going on in our mission. We sent home seven missionaries and received three new Elders straight from the MTC yesterday. Today we invited three Elders to come to the Mission Home for breakfast and a few hours of training prior to sending them out on the streets to actually start their mission.

We are grateful for their training service today!

I think they are ready to hit the streets! 

Thank you for your prayers in behalf of this mission! We love your son and we feel grateful for the many hours of 

at home preparation for this time in his life. The gospel is true and changes lives for good! 

Warmly,
Sister Verna Rae Perkinson
Vladivostok Russia