Salvation is Personal

Looks like you guys all had a pretty good Thanksgiving, I'm glad to hear that Aunt Terri and the gang was alright.  I also have to say your cowboy hats were way funny, I didn't know that mom learned how to shoot from a gangster ha. I'm kind of freaking out at how big my baby sisters are getting. вам нельзя быть такими большими!


But yeah, with the days winding down, I'm not trunky don't worry, I'm looking forward to being with you all again for the holidays and finishing my mission strong.


This week was pretty hectic, we were trying to make sure that everything went according to plan and that nobody died, and well we got half of what we wanted accomplished (no one died). Thursday was Thanksgiving, as you're all aware, and throughout the mission missionaries gathered at the mission home, at the homes of senior couples to eat and to celebrate the holiday. Elder Carr and I didn't have that option had so we had our own Thanksgiving! По Русский! I figured, what do we eat on Thanksgiving..?? Meat, Potateos, some kind of vegetables and some deserts. So I figured eh, we can put all that in one big pot so I made борщ and блины :) I'll show you pics when I get home, it was a pretty humble Thanksgiving. Elder Carr and I sat down at the table said a prayer and then shared some stories about Thanksgivings and things that we've had in the past. Then we got all cleaned up and got back to work.


It was an intersting night, we had a few meetings fall through but one man came to the branch. He was from Azrabajan (something like that) and he asked if I could help him. He explained to me in broken russian that his father had a brain tumor and that there was a clinic in London that could help him, but he didn't speak english. I called up President Gibbons an asked for permission (which he gave) and I spent the next 45 minutes on the phone with a woman in London trying to help this man.

That night when we got home from our day, my mind wouldn't stop spinning I ended up just going out and sitting on the couch and thinking about everything in my life, before the mission, on the mission everything. I really do have a lot to be grateful for. I have a wonderful family, I have great friends, I am healthy, I'm not as dumb as I look, I have the Gospel in my life, and most importantly I have a Savior who knows and loves me enough to take upon himself my mistakes, my sins, and willing to help me overcome my obstacles.


It's interesting how for some reason it takes untill you're half way around the world, in Siberia to help you see things that should be so obvious.


The Filipovs returned from the Temple this week which meant for me, I didn't have to speak at sacrament meeting! First time in 8 weeks! It was pretty legit actually, Saturday night we were in charge of the branch activity, we went ice skating! It was a pretty good turn out. Elder Carr wore this helmet and was practicing his areobatics. Ha if pro surfing doesn't work out he can always go figure skater! The cool thing was that after everyone came to the activity most of them all came to church sunday,  it was a good week over all.


Unfortunately, neither of our investigators were baptized this weekend...
One lady asked for a little more time to find out if Jospeh Smith really was a prophet, and the,  other individual, well, she said no. Sometimes it's hard, you learn to love these people so much, and you want only the best for them. But matter how hard we try, no matter what we say, how strong the spirit is present, It all comes down to them and their personal agency. Salvation is a personal thing, but we can all help each other. Our job is to introduce people to the Spirit, who will introduce them to Christ, who will introduce them to the Father.


Well I've gotta get going! We're picking up Christmas presents today! We'll be going to Novo this week and be coming back with Elder Erikson who'll be taking my place here in Kemerovo. We'll be in a three companionship until I go home to help him get adjusted to this part of the vineyard that is KEMEROVO!!

Love you guys!!
liveSTRONG


Старейшина Иборн!


Maddie - Don't worry B. 3 times is enough ;)

Finding, Teaching, Testifying

This week's been another good one! I seem to have a lot of those :) I've been pretty blessed here on my mission and I'm so grateful that I am where I am. With the end getting close, I've had a lot of time to reflect on what the last 2 years of my life have been. The Lord really has blessed us here in Siberia. I'm very grateful for everything the Lord  has done for me here. There really have been miracles everyday. I'm very grateful that he has made me an instrument in his hands.


Last week we picked up Sister Tamara from the вокзал (railway station). She's the first person from Kemerovo to go to the Temple.  She was basically glowing when she got off the train and on to the platform :) She's so sweet; she's almost 80 years old and has had an amazing path which brought her to the church. She was afraid she wouldn't make it to the Temple but we made sure that she got there. She fed us борщ (borscht) don't worry I've learned how to make it and will make you all sorts of Russian stuff when I get home.  She told us how much she loved the Temple.  It was great, after that we had to run and take a bus to Novosibirsk where we had a Zone Conference.

This was my last Zone Conference and almost all the missionaries that were there with the exception of Elder Drasso, Capps, and myself had all started their missions within the last 6 months.  I felt old, Elder Lawrence from the Quorum of the Seventy came and did some presentations it was very good. There was a strong spirit there. That seems to happen when you gather a group of missionaries together. I got a picture with my first companion and my last companion. Talk about a weird feeling. I ended up translating for the Russian sisters the entire conference, and I had the chance to bare my testimony one last time, which felt very good. I'm going to miss this a lot, I've grown to love these people, missionaries, the people of Russia, and it's going to be hard to say goodbye.


We got back into Kemerovo and got things ready for our week, and just worked. Finding, Teaching, Testifying. The things that we do as missionaries. This weekend we're hoping to have 2 baptisms. If all goes well, We're hoping that Heavenly Father will throw a miracle our way. We had a blizzard sunday morning and only had 6 people come to sacrament meeting. But the spirit was there and that's all that matters. It's going to be different seeing a sacrament hall with a lot of people in it after this.


Elder Carr's doing awesome. His Russian is coming a long great, a month or two more and he'll understand everything that is going on around him. I'm proud to say he's my comp. I've learned a lot from him in the last 2.5 months and I'm sure that these last 3 weeks are going to be no different. He's a stud of a missionary and will be even better than I could ever have hoped to be.


I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. Eat a slice of pumpkin pie for me. Elder Carr and I will be alone for Thanksgiving but it's all good :) We're going to learn how to cook some yummy stuff ....if we could only find a turkey... Anyways, I gotta run :) Love you all!


liveSTRONG
Старейшина Иборн!!


Aunt Terri and Uncle Stan - Thank$, from Me I love you and appreciate your support.
Gram, love you too!  thank$

Barbara don't worry about the date thing :) .

Rich Soil

Not gunna lie, slightly freaking out about the whole going home in a month deal. I'm pretty much terrified ha. It's going to be the longest 21 hour flight of my life I'm sure of it.  Sounds like I'll have a pretty busy couple of weeks right after I get home, I guess I'd better be ready to hit the ground running.

Don't worry Mom, I think I got the topic covered for Sunday lol. "Missionary Work in Russia", walk in the park. I've spoken every Sunday in church since arriving in Kemerovo so I don't think another talk will be a big deal.This week we spoke about faith. We had 9 people at church 2 members, 2 missionaries and 5 investigators! :) We may be in the "nethermost part of the vineyard" but the Lord knows what kind of soil to plant us in to help us grow. I always am the last one to speak here just in case there is reason to have to correct some doctrine or in case we have a lot of extra time. Elder Carr's been a champ about talking in church. He prepares a talk every week and then I get up after him and fill in the rest of the time. His Russian is coming along great.

So... This last week was a little more rough than I'd of liked. I kind of have, ok not kind of, I do have a superman complex. I get it from my Mom, I like to make sure that everything is always taken care of that there are no loose ends and that everything is done perfectly. Anyways, sometimes it feels like I've just got a big weight on my shoulders being one of two missionaries in a city of over half a million people. And this week, it was just one thing after another that kept happening. I feel kind of like Satan was just taking swings at my legs as I run this race.

After we had finished English Club up on Tuesday, after a rough day, I open my bag and find that some of my stuff was stolen. My camera was stolen...I was way bummed, the last 3 months of my mission were on there, I hadn't put them on my hard drive yet, and plus, it was the camera strap that Aunt Megan made me (that Libbie and the G' boys gave me :(  was on it :( I seriously was way upset. We got home that night and Elder Carr and I got ready for bed. As I layed there in bed I knew that I wasn't going to fall asleep any time soon so I got out of bed and on my knees and just poured my soul out. It felt very good to just get it all off my shoulders. I need to keep remembering,  that this is His work and that He's really here with us. Don't worry about the camera though, Elder Carr's taking lots of pictures of our adventures and will make me a disc before I fly out of here.

Our investigators are doing well. They're all progressing, We're looking forward to the 26th when Galina and Lena will be getting baptized :) We're stoked! They're so ready it's not even funny! There really needs to be another set of missionaries in this city, we had to tell people that we couldn't meet with them this week because of the fact that we just didn't have time to meet with everyone. Who knows maybe when I leave they'll be able to bring in the big guns and get this city rolling!

Well that's about it for this week I'm thinking... we'll be going to Novo tomorrow for a Zone Confrence so yeah, last one of my mission. I'm not dead yet ha. So I'll keep running.

I love you guys :) Thanks for everything you do for me!


liveSTRONG
Старейшина Иборн!!

Mom & Dad - No worries about the money thing, we actually went with Ulia shopping ---I got some some stuff because if you see it and you want it you buy it or you'll never see it again. I think I'm almost done, within a week or two I should be good to go.

Sounds like a plan for school and stuff, I'm glad I will  be busy when I get back. Oh hey, the Friday night when I get home let's not plan on anything big ... I owe someone a date ;)

The Lords Angels - Last Visa Trip

So I get back from Finland and I see that I've got a few messages from some people in Kemerovo and one of them was raving on about my families Halloween Costumes.  LOL They were pretty excited. I just called them after I saw the pictures and said, "oh yeah, that's my family!" looks like you guys had a pretty legit halloween party! I loved that Maddie was a gypsy.  I may not have told you but there are many gypsies here in Russia, so it made me smile. I can't wait to have some good ol' parties with ya'll when I get back!

This week has been pretty interesting, with a 3 day trip to Finland and back. I've decided that after living in Russia for 2 years traveling anywhere else in the world isn't going to be too hard. There was an American couple in Moscow that we talked to and helped with some translation and they were all, "aren't you terrified to travel by yourselves in Russia?!" It's just become second nature for me I guess.

ANYWAYS... Visa trip went well, because it was our last time going we got permission to go into Moscow and take a walk around Red Square and we even hit up McDonalds :) yum. It was pretty legit I'll send pics next week or just wait until I get home to show them to you. We got into Finland and took a train to our stop and as we sat down a man got on the bus. He came up to us and just broke down into tears. He started to speak to us in English (cause most Finns speak English) and told us how he needed help. He went on to tell us about everything that had happened to him the the last few months and how he felt his soul was dying. He then looked at our nametags and said, "Is that Russian?" We said "yes", we're from Siberia. At that point, asks he us what it means and we explained who we are and what we do and he started crying again. "Help me" he pleaded. We got his number and passed it on to the Missionaries in Helsinki. It's interesting, He couldn't read our name tags but he knew we could help him, the Lord does hear our prayers.

The next day we had a chance to go through the Temple--- it was amazing. I was a little sad that it was my last time to be in the Finland Temple. I did the session in Russian and I learned a lot. I guess teaching the Temple prep class is a good thing.

While sitting in the Celestial room, the four of us just sat down and had some personal pondering/prayer time. After a few moments a lady came in and sat down by herself. it was us four and her in the room for a peaceful time. We all got up and left.  This Lady got up and ran after us. She yelled something at us in Finnish, and I said по-русский или English please? She asked us who we were, and we said "Elders from Siberia". She told us how she had been feeling very alone and came to the Temple to feel some peace and when she'd walked into the room she could feel the presence of hundreds of angels, standing around the room, and that when we got up to leave they all left with us.

She got all teary eyed and said, "I've met a lot of missionaries, but the Lord's sent angels to bear you up." Humbling.

We made it back to Novo and all is well, we took a bus to Kemerovo which was the worst thing ever. I was so tired. 36 hours of traveling takes it out of you. Yesterday, at Sacrament...we had 3 investigators and the 2 of us. The Filapov's and Tamara went to Keiv to the temple :) so I'm presiding for the next few weeks until they get back,  Humbling.

Its been fun, I'm glad to be back in Kemerovo though. I just want to run as hard as I can until I hit the finish line of this race! I love you guys! Have a great week!

liveSTRONG
Старейшина Иборн!



Mom & Dad - LOL, no worries I won't bring anything back. I will donate my stuff to those in need here. I bought a new pair of underclothing (ha) that I'm not going to wear until the ride home.Washing machine's here change anything white to a nice grey... so I'll have a nice pair to come home in ;)  Mom, you are so funny! I won't get a hair cut until I get home no worries. However, what's up with me not knowing about my cousins having babies and getting married earlier? (Josh/Garrett?) I am feeling way out of the loop. I guess I will catch up in a month or so.

Do I need to do anything for school in January?
Just curious. I love you, thanks for everything.

Megan Shea! - I love ya sister! I don't know if I've gotten taller but I think I've lost some weight. but no worries I am still me! :) We will have a lot of fun when I get back no worries there...

Maddie B- Way to go on the Reflections contest B! you rock! go play in the snow with my puppy for me will ya?

Tanner - Dude, I totally am digging your sword...