Hello Family!
I Got Transferred!!! So Sad!!! I knew it was coming, I just really didn't want it to happen! I'm leaving Penza!! A lot of the members were all mad and said that I should just tell them "no." I really love the members in Penza and I will miss them all soo much! I'll be living in a area called Volvzhki and although I'm sad to be leaving Penza, I'm way excited about this new area! My new companion is Elder Doherty or something... In the MTC, Elder Michaelis and I would call him Gunther because we thought he looked like Gunther from Friends. haha!
So I'm really sad I won't get to see Anya and Cergei and German and Jane get baptized... It's soo sad! They are all so close and I can tell they all are so ready! I love them all and am sad to be leaving. I didn't even get to say goodbye to Anya cuz she wouldn't anwer her dang phone!
Last night on the train an 18 year old kid knocked on our door. He spoke a bit of english and said he heard us speaking in English and he wanted to practice with us. We invited him in to our cabin and spoke a long time with him. He has a prosthetic arm, an earing in his left ear and is hired out by clubs all over Russia as a very popular beatboxer. He is one of the top ten beatboxers in Russia and he's friends with all the world champion beatboxers... and he loves God. He thinks smoking is junk and people who drink are trying to hide their problems from theirselves. We talked with him for a long time and he beat boxed for us... Holy Cow... it was incredible! He sounded like a radio just playing dance club music. haha! I love him already! He was totally up or meeting with missionaries again! I don't think I'll get to teach him, but if he gets baptised, I'd be so happy! Even if he doesn't I'm totally looking him up when I get home! He was really just a really sweet kid who was totally genuine and sincere. Although he was "famous" I guess you could say, he was just a fun normal person.
I love you all! thanks for the addresses! I'm really excited for this next cycle! Elder Brouckdskdkhousin is my Assistant to the President now... yeah!!
Loves, Elder Swartz!
Elder Swartz
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Letter #16 from Russia
Hello Family!!!
So First off, I just want to say that I LOVED the Christmas package that I just got like three days ago! haha! A little late, but it's Russia... haha! And Christmas here isn't until January 7th anyway, so it was almost right on time! haha! I really loved hearing from everyone! It seemed to me like Christy and Matt didn't get the emails I sent them or something! I sent them emails a long time ago, but I don't know if they got them... can you send me their emails so that I have them for sure?
I thoroughly enjoyed the pictures! When I opened them, I was with all the native elders and sisters in a van coming back from Kazakstan, and they all looked at Mary and said "Who is that beautiful girl? That is your sister? Why is everyone in America so beautiful?" It was so funny. Also, mom, when ever I show pictures of youto people, they think you are thirty. haha!
So this week we were meeting with a member and her ex husband, not a member. He went into the the kitchen and we started our lesson with a prayer. However, during the prayer, we heard a dish break in the kitchen and we heard a grunt and someone hit the ground. We ran into the kitchen to find that he was having a Preestoop (Seizure) and we had to hold him down so he didn't hit anything. Needless to say, my medical vocabulary is expanding weekly... haha!
Happy Birthday Steph!
So I didn't even know Christy was in Taiwan! I thought she was in China! That's a big difference! China isn't where some of my friends live! China doesn't have a temple! Cool!! Does she live near the temple? I hope she gets to go to it often, I'm so grateful for the blessings of the temple here in Russia! I don't know what I would do without it!
So this week, Jane came to church and invited her friend. She's a chatter box in sunday school and likes to argue her point a bit... but once we teach her everything... hopefully there will be less contention... haha! She really loves it though! Her friend was a bit less warm to the idea of... well... Mormon. But I was talking to him and Jane said in english (so he wouldn't understand) "He's just uncomfortable right now! We'll keep meeting with him and he'll get baptised for sure!" Again, this is coming from Jane, who up until this point we had not met with other than on a bus and talked to at church. She is so funny and so excited to be baptised! ...We just have to teach her everything first... But She loves the book of Mormon and can't stop talking about how incredible it is that there was such a book and it's not world famous! "It should be as famous as the bible! Maybe more if you look at how it was discovered!"
She could be crazy though.
Hey, I have to go! I love you all and I hope you are all doing well! And I loved the little story about the Shepherd that I got from sister Arnold! Give her a big thanks for me!!
I love you all! Fur Realz.
Loves, Elder Swartz!
So First off, I just want to say that I LOVED the Christmas package that I just got like three days ago! haha! A little late, but it's Russia... haha! And Christmas here isn't until January 7th anyway, so it was almost right on time! haha! I really loved hearing from everyone! It seemed to me like Christy and Matt didn't get the emails I sent them or something! I sent them emails a long time ago, but I don't know if they got them... can you send me their emails so that I have them for sure?
I thoroughly enjoyed the pictures! When I opened them, I was with all the native elders and sisters in a van coming back from Kazakstan, and they all looked at Mary and said "Who is that beautiful girl? That is your sister? Why is everyone in America so beautiful?" It was so funny. Also, mom, when ever I show pictures of youto people, they think you are thirty. haha!
So this week we were meeting with a member and her ex husband, not a member. He went into the the kitchen and we started our lesson with a prayer. However, during the prayer, we heard a dish break in the kitchen and we heard a grunt and someone hit the ground. We ran into the kitchen to find that he was having a Preestoop (Seizure) and we had to hold him down so he didn't hit anything. Needless to say, my medical vocabulary is expanding weekly... haha!
Happy Birthday Steph!
So I didn't even know Christy was in Taiwan! I thought she was in China! That's a big difference! China isn't where some of my friends live! China doesn't have a temple! Cool!! Does she live near the temple? I hope she gets to go to it often, I'm so grateful for the blessings of the temple here in Russia! I don't know what I would do without it!
So this week, Jane came to church and invited her friend. She's a chatter box in sunday school and likes to argue her point a bit... but once we teach her everything... hopefully there will be less contention... haha! She really loves it though! Her friend was a bit less warm to the idea of... well... Mormon. But I was talking to him and Jane said in english (so he wouldn't understand) "He's just uncomfortable right now! We'll keep meeting with him and he'll get baptised for sure!" Again, this is coming from Jane, who up until this point we had not met with other than on a bus and talked to at church. She is so funny and so excited to be baptised! ...We just have to teach her everything first... But She loves the book of Mormon and can't stop talking about how incredible it is that there was such a book and it's not world famous! "It should be as famous as the bible! Maybe more if you look at how it was discovered!"
She could be crazy though.
Hey, I have to go! I love you all and I hope you are all doing well! And I loved the little story about the Shepherd that I got from sister Arnold! Give her a big thanks for me!!
I love you all! Fur Realz.
Loves, Elder Swartz!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Letter #15 From Russia
Hello Family!
So I should be back to the regular email schedule... So please don't procrastinate your emails if you want me to read them in time. The last two weeks were just odd circumstances. Mother, thank you so much for the stories you sent! They were so great to read! I've already used a few of them in my lessons! The spirit is really strong when I am able to relay to them an experience that affected someone I know personally, instead of just me telling them a principle and hoping they can understand how it could apply. SEND MORE! I am always looking for them! Tell Grandma and all the aunts and uncles to send me stuff! I would love to hear from them and their experiences that may have strengthed their testimonies! That goes for any friends who are reading this as well!
So Everything is going well with my companion! We get along really well, and even tough we are really different, we are both pretty chill about stuff, so we never have arguments or anything! Which I really like. haha! He still can't eat human food... But he's been getting more creative with what he can eat. I have as well actually, which has been fun. Mother, please send me recipes! Chicken Broccolli Casserole sounds really good, and your soups! Hamburger, broccolli, chicken noodle! Missionary work has definitely picked back up! My companion can walk long distances again, so we are excited about that. We can go tracting again!! I love it! I don't know why people don't like tracting... I do it all the time! Contacting outside is fun and all, but nothing beats getting invited inside to someone's christmas party and them trying to force you to drink vodka and then them getting all interested when you say you don't drink. I really love it!
So the other day, Penza had this big youth conference for youth all over the mission! It was really cool to see different youth all finding strength in each other's example! So cool! I met one kid from Moscow who asked me if I knew Robbie Olsen, Mark Harris, and Andrew Wadsworth. I kind of got really excited and we just talked about how they were all doing. haha!
Jane is doing well! She's been in the hospital for the past two weeks... Russians and their hospital vacations... She's been reading the Book of Mormon though and she says she's loving it! So hopefully she'll be getting baptised this month! Anya is such a pain! I love her, but she just will not come to church! I really am praying she doesn't turn into an eternal investigator... Sergei is wonderful, but he's been an eternal investigator for some time now, so it is really difficult to get him moving... but I really feel like he is moving closer to baptism! I'm really falling in love with Penza. Especially the investigators. At first, I felt that I probably loved them, but I didn't feel like I felt the same way that RM's say they loved their investigators... well now I do! I have really been blessed with a love for these people and what they have to bring! You can see such potential in every person, even when they can't see it in themselves because they feel their is no hope for them! I never want to leave Penza! I know that if the Lord wants me to go, obviously that is what I should want too... but I don't!!
Okay, one last story before I go! So I was talking to some missionaries and they that said in one of our branches here about a year ago or something, these missionaries had the craziest miracle. So apparently, thirty five years ago asked this guy for a cigarette and he gave her a whole pack to be nice and walked away. She opened it up and instead of finding cigarettes, she found these little pieces of paper rolled up to look like cigarettes. The papers were the account of Joseph Smith and the first vision. The spirit bore testimony of the truth of the little papers and she kept it a secret that this is what she believed for thirty five years. Well a year a ago, a member invited her to come to church, and for the thousandth time, the woman said "Trust me, what you and I believe is very different!" The member asked her to just tell her what she actually believed, so the woman decided to tell her as long as she didn't tell anyone. People would think she was crazy! The woman told the member the story about the cigarettes and the first vision. Obiously the member was like "Lady... you have to come to one of our church meetings..." and the woman was baptized two weeks later. Crazy! I don't know if that is just a legend floating around every mission, or if it's true to our mission... but I thought it was cool!
Got to go! Love you all!
Elder Swartz!
So I should be back to the regular email schedule... So please don't procrastinate your emails if you want me to read them in time. The last two weeks were just odd circumstances. Mother, thank you so much for the stories you sent! They were so great to read! I've already used a few of them in my lessons! The spirit is really strong when I am able to relay to them an experience that affected someone I know personally, instead of just me telling them a principle and hoping they can understand how it could apply. SEND MORE! I am always looking for them! Tell Grandma and all the aunts and uncles to send me stuff! I would love to hear from them and their experiences that may have strengthed their testimonies! That goes for any friends who are reading this as well!
So Everything is going well with my companion! We get along really well, and even tough we are really different, we are both pretty chill about stuff, so we never have arguments or anything! Which I really like. haha! He still can't eat human food... But he's been getting more creative with what he can eat. I have as well actually, which has been fun. Mother, please send me recipes! Chicken Broccolli Casserole sounds really good, and your soups! Hamburger, broccolli, chicken noodle! Missionary work has definitely picked back up! My companion can walk long distances again, so we are excited about that. We can go tracting again!! I love it! I don't know why people don't like tracting... I do it all the time! Contacting outside is fun and all, but nothing beats getting invited inside to someone's christmas party and them trying to force you to drink vodka and then them getting all interested when you say you don't drink. I really love it!
So the other day, Penza had this big youth conference for youth all over the mission! It was really cool to see different youth all finding strength in each other's example! So cool! I met one kid from Moscow who asked me if I knew Robbie Olsen, Mark Harris, and Andrew Wadsworth. I kind of got really excited and we just talked about how they were all doing. haha!
Jane is doing well! She's been in the hospital for the past two weeks... Russians and their hospital vacations... She's been reading the Book of Mormon though and she says she's loving it! So hopefully she'll be getting baptised this month! Anya is such a pain! I love her, but she just will not come to church! I really am praying she doesn't turn into an eternal investigator... Sergei is wonderful, but he's been an eternal investigator for some time now, so it is really difficult to get him moving... but I really feel like he is moving closer to baptism! I'm really falling in love with Penza. Especially the investigators. At first, I felt that I probably loved them, but I didn't feel like I felt the same way that RM's say they loved their investigators... well now I do! I have really been blessed with a love for these people and what they have to bring! You can see such potential in every person, even when they can't see it in themselves because they feel their is no hope for them! I never want to leave Penza! I know that if the Lord wants me to go, obviously that is what I should want too... but I don't!!
Okay, one last story before I go! So I was talking to some missionaries and they that said in one of our branches here about a year ago or something, these missionaries had the craziest miracle. So apparently, thirty five years ago asked this guy for a cigarette and he gave her a whole pack to be nice and walked away. She opened it up and instead of finding cigarettes, she found these little pieces of paper rolled up to look like cigarettes. The papers were the account of Joseph Smith and the first vision. The spirit bore testimony of the truth of the little papers and she kept it a secret that this is what she believed for thirty five years. Well a year a ago, a member invited her to come to church, and for the thousandth time, the woman said "Trust me, what you and I believe is very different!" The member asked her to just tell her what she actually believed, so the woman decided to tell her as long as she didn't tell anyone. People would think she was crazy! The woman told the member the story about the cigarettes and the first vision. Obiously the member was like "Lady... you have to come to one of our church meetings..." and the woman was baptized two weeks later. Crazy! I don't know if that is just a legend floating around every mission, or if it's true to our mission... but I thought it was cool!
Got to go! Love you all!
Elder Swartz!
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Letter #14 from Russia
Zdrasvstvuite!
So this week has been really interesting! My coompanion is out of the hospital and doing fine, but he has all these crazy rules he has to follow so that nothing bad happens to him and he can heal properly, and as missionaries, we have to be exactly obedient... so we have to follow all the dumb rules... haha! He can only eat vegetables, non acidic fruits, and pasta. He can eat bread if it is soggier than water and that's pretty much it. No salt, pepper, spices, sugar, dairy... pretty much nothing. He's lost weight. haha! He's not allowed to bend over, and he isn't allowed to walk very much. We probably are disobedient on that one, we don't know how to help that one... We've pretty much eliminated our contacting, maybe an hour a day if he hasn't walked very much... it's pretty much been a lot of area book work and making phone calls. If we could just get meetings, it would be a lot easier! But because our meetings keep falling through, we can't really do anything else... haha! SSOOO Frustrating! I feel like we're being disobedient because I don't feel like we're working as hard as we should be! But really, we're probably already working MORE than what we should be doing...
New years was great! We went to sleep at like nine! It was the best new years ever! We weren't allowed to go outside after 3:00 in the afternoon for like three days because everyone and their baby was filled to their necks with Vodka! Our mission president essentially gave us a three day long P-day. it was pretty relaxing I guess, I would have rather worked... I've been sitting too much anyway this past week!
Fun Fact: So on the windows of buses, they are designed so that when they get frosty, the frost freezes into patterns and designs! Typically flowers or stuff! So cool!
Family! Could you get me Matt and Chris's Mission addresses? I want to be able to write them!
So Anya finally quit her job! Once she starts coming to church, she's totally baptized! I really hope that it works out that I'm here when it happens! I found her my (essentially) first day in Russia! I would be so happy if I could be the one to have guided her through the whole process!
Also, we found this half African girl named Jane. She's really friendly and she came to church and loved it! After the first meeting, she came up to me and asked if she could get a standard works. A member said that we don't have those yet, but will be getting them soon, but even then, she'd have to become a member to get one because they've waited so long for them! haha! I gave her a book of mormon and said that would work just fine. She said "So how do I become a member?" and we told her through baptism. "Well how can I get baptized?" The perfect question. haha! We explained to her the process of faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost and enduring to the end. She was very intrigued and said she felt like God really prepared her for this and said she wanted to get baptised this month. When she found out that she could get baptized and become clean and happy and recieve the gift of the holy ghost and stuff, she threw her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek... I was obviously in a state of shock and the members burst out laughing after she skipped away. She's kind of eccentric, but way sincere and honestly... I'm just not used to that kind of person any more... People in Russia aren't like that...
I love you! I have to go! Happy new Year!
Elder Swartz!
So this week has been really interesting! My coompanion is out of the hospital and doing fine, but he has all these crazy rules he has to follow so that nothing bad happens to him and he can heal properly, and as missionaries, we have to be exactly obedient... so we have to follow all the dumb rules... haha! He can only eat vegetables, non acidic fruits, and pasta. He can eat bread if it is soggier than water and that's pretty much it. No salt, pepper, spices, sugar, dairy... pretty much nothing. He's lost weight. haha! He's not allowed to bend over, and he isn't allowed to walk very much. We probably are disobedient on that one, we don't know how to help that one... We've pretty much eliminated our contacting, maybe an hour a day if he hasn't walked very much... it's pretty much been a lot of area book work and making phone calls. If we could just get meetings, it would be a lot easier! But because our meetings keep falling through, we can't really do anything else... haha! SSOOO Frustrating! I feel like we're being disobedient because I don't feel like we're working as hard as we should be! But really, we're probably already working MORE than what we should be doing...
New years was great! We went to sleep at like nine! It was the best new years ever! We weren't allowed to go outside after 3:00 in the afternoon for like three days because everyone and their baby was filled to their necks with Vodka! Our mission president essentially gave us a three day long P-day. it was pretty relaxing I guess, I would have rather worked... I've been sitting too much anyway this past week!
Fun Fact: So on the windows of buses, they are designed so that when they get frosty, the frost freezes into patterns and designs! Typically flowers or stuff! So cool!
Family! Could you get me Matt and Chris's Mission addresses? I want to be able to write them!
So Anya finally quit her job! Once she starts coming to church, she's totally baptized! I really hope that it works out that I'm here when it happens! I found her my (essentially) first day in Russia! I would be so happy if I could be the one to have guided her through the whole process!
Also, we found this half African girl named Jane. She's really friendly and she came to church and loved it! After the first meeting, she came up to me and asked if she could get a standard works. A member said that we don't have those yet, but will be getting them soon, but even then, she'd have to become a member to get one because they've waited so long for them! haha! I gave her a book of mormon and said that would work just fine. She said "So how do I become a member?" and we told her through baptism. "Well how can I get baptized?" The perfect question. haha! We explained to her the process of faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost and enduring to the end. She was very intrigued and said she felt like God really prepared her for this and said she wanted to get baptised this month. When she found out that she could get baptized and become clean and happy and recieve the gift of the holy ghost and stuff, she threw her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek... I was obviously in a state of shock and the members burst out laughing after she skipped away. She's kind of eccentric, but way sincere and honestly... I'm just not used to that kind of person any more... People in Russia aren't like that...
I love you! I have to go! Happy new Year!
Elder Swartz!
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