Easter!!!

Happy Easter! 

Russia celebrated this marvelous holiday on the same day that you all did in America, which is a rarity. We celebrated the holiday in remembrance of the Savior and His resurrection. The members brought us boiled eggs and candies and even cupcakes which were gladly received. They have a special greeting in Russia that I talked about last year where you say, Jesus is risen and the person you say it to responds with, truly He is risen. It is a great tradition they bring with them from their Orthodox church. Although I heard it a lot less this year than last. We are lucky to have knowledge of the Savior and his atoning sacrifice and have the hope that that brings! 

We live like 40 min. away from the center of the town where we usually meet with people and don't make it home for dinner a lot so we have been eating out a lot. The "burritos" food stand is a favorite for dinner, where they sell Sharma. I haven't had Chum Chum in the longest time because at the grocery store where we shop they don't have any of the sauce packets. I have been eating good lately though....he senior couple fed us right after a lesson we had at their house.

On Saturday we had a picnic on Russian Island! We played Frisbee and roasted hot dogs and explored the place we were at. It was a good activity! Me and Elder Bacon had to leave before the activity ended to make it to a piano recital of one of our friends. He is a talented man.  He said he practices (based on how he feels), like 2-6 hours everyday. He did well and at the end this funny Korean man ran up and gave him flowers.

We met with a new man named D that was just in our phone and we finally got a hold of him. He didn't smoke or drink and was a really tall nice man. The day after we meet with him though he texted us that he is moving back to his home town way far away that very day at 5:30 and then after that he was going to work on the sea for a year. It is too bad, but he brought one of his friends who we can meet with in the future!

Church in the Hyundai went great again! We had the huge room this time and it is really really nice.

It was another fast week! We have the commandments for our good, to keep us from regrets and sorrow! The more I am out here the more and more that becomes clearer.

Love,

Elder Wilding

Sunny Days

March is already behind us with less madness than in previous years. April Fools came and went without many pranks even though they celebrate it here.  I should have done something but I kinda forgot about it. Transfers are this Thursday and I am about 99% positive that I am staying. I could see me moving to a different apartment with a different companion but I would be surprised if I left Vladivostok. We still haven't seen conference, we will watch it in the Hyundai Hotel next week. But with that let's get into what happened last week:

On Monday we had family night with a great couple who recently got married.  For the majority of the night they were just making blini. I can't complain though, Prussians make really good blini. After our spiritual thought we played Farkle and they liked it more than I thought they would which is good! Then on Tuesday it was our turn to be in charge of Culinary Night. Sister Crookston of the office couple gave us a really good recipe to make called "Dutch Oatmeal Cake".  It was super tasty and everyone got a ton because we had, lets say, less than we expected.  

We made it out to Russian Island on Wednesday to meet up with a member that I knew in Ussuriysk who was our Russian practice teacher. The Campus is amazing! It is very nice and new and has a lot of foreigners that attend. We saw one of our friends there (that we meet at Burger King) who is from India (if you saw him you would guess that he is from Africa) who is studying to become a doctor. In Russia it is only 5-6 years of study. But he doesn't speak Russian so I don't know how his studies work out. Anyways, Russian practice was good as ever but she gave us a ton of homework that we have to do before next meeting next week... It was pretty simple stuff but it is so many assignments.  Russians hold true to their saying, "Repetition is the mother of learning".

Like I said we have been playing a lot of basketball lately, honestly maybe too much but we are trying to find new ways to use our talents to find people. We found a nice free place where we can play and we have meet some cool people. Not only have we had the opportunity to play but we also got to go and watch "Spartak", the professional team of Vladivostok, play! They have a player on their team from America who is a potential investigator. They were down the first 3 quarters and most of the 4th, but came up big at the end and won with a big lead. They had this one guy that was absolutely awful until the last 4 minutes but he came out to be the hero and he was giving signatures after the game.

We were able to go an splits with the Elders in center and I got to go to their apartment. Talk about a view, they are on the 9th floor I think and they look over the bay and it is beautiful. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ to their investigator who is close to baptism. The lesson was good.  The gospel really is true, and the meek and humble of the earth will find it.

Also a big part of this last transfer has been us moving the church out of itself. We will be moving to a temporary new location (the Hyundai Hotel), which caused us to box up everything in the church and move the chairs and whatever else was there, up to a different room that they rented. Part of this moving involved us taking down the projector screen. It seemed simple enough, unscrew the screws and it would come off but when we took them off it stayed where it was about 10-15 feet in the air.  We left to go do something else when a member goes and tries to work with it and all of a sudden it crashes to the ground, bringing part of the ceiling with it haha.  Fortunately nobody got hurt!

I love you all! I love to be out here!

Elder Wilding