Letter #30 from Russia

Hello Family! I quite enjoyed hearing about that big dinner you all had! It made me look forward when I would get to join you all for it! Everyone in Penza says I've lost weight... That's not really what I want, but at least I'm not getting fat. I've been eating healthy, increasingly healthy every cycle, and my food has been getting better tasting each cycle as well. haha! My companion loves to cook and he's good at it too. His name is Elder Strebee (spellcheck?) and he is from Arizona. He is really quiet, really respectable and really kind. He is in his third cycle and he speaks better than I do. haha! Not really, but his grammar is better than mine... haha! But he's motivated me to work even harder on my grammar. He reminds me of a mix between Jeff Lebaron and Mikey and Johnny Ruesch (spell check) all put together except he's like 200 pounds of muscle. It's awesome to back in penza! I'm loving it. There are still a few members I have yet to see, so I'm getting after them for not coming to church! It's interesting to be back because I had gotten aaccustomed to the culture of Saratov, so now being back here feels weird because I used to feel natural here, but now I have to get used to it again. It's better than going to some random city that I've never known before though. It's also frustrating because I remember having so much to do and so many people to meet with when I was here, and now I feel like there is no one to meet with in our area. We are doing a lot of finding. Which is great, I love talking to people and knocking and stuff, but I would so much rather be in teaching situations more often. I heard Peter Fox in a grocery store! I found out that one of my favortire members started drinking again. He's always had a hard time keeping himself sober, but he was doing so well last time I was here. I'm hoping to be able to meet with him soon and that we'll be able to get him rolling again and help him clean up his act. This week I met a bank robber, and two former Mafia members. (I'm pretty sure one, if not both of them are still involved in it) The bank robber said he wasn't interested, but the two "former" bandits came to an activity and want to meet with us more. I met another guy who was twenty five and SUPER rich. I asked him where he got all his money and he said from Money Laundering, is that what it's called? Essentially, he said from tax evasion and some other terrible stuff and now he's super rich. He doesn't do it any more, but that was where he got his start. Most people here say that that's just how life works here. If you want to have a good life, you need money. And if you want money, you need to pull some strings. Even government people and cops and stuff say that's just how things work here. It's probably really tempting for people here because they live in such desperate situations. Also, I totally saw Putin when I was in Saratov. I forgot to tell you all like two weeks ago when it happened. There (New president of Russia) were cops lining the streets everywhere and we asked a member why and he said that Putin was in Saratov. We got all excited and thought how cool it would be to see him, but knew obviously that our chances were like... nothing. Saratov is one of the bigger cities in Russia. But then, suddenly all the policemen's walky talkies went crazy and they cleared off all the cars on the road and then this huge chain of police cars drove by and in the middle were all these black vans and Putin totally waved to us!! Just kidding. he didn't wave. We couldn't even see in his car. But he was totally in the car. You could just feel it. Hey, I love you all! I'm having an awesome time and I am loving the Mission! I really feel like I have changed a ton, and my sense of humor has probably died, but I'm loving what Christ has made me into! Loves, Elder Skvortz!

Letter #29 from Russia

So Privyet everyone! So this week has been such a whirlwind! First I want to say... I'm going back to Penza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am SOSOOSOSOOOSOSOOOOO Excited!!! I love Penza so much!!! I'm going to be with an elder Named Elder Streebee (spell check?) I haven't met him yet... all I know is that he' quiet or something... haha! Anyway! I am so excited to go back to the Golden City! As much as I loved Saratov cough I am excited for the clean streets and the less threatening environment! This past week, Elder Dougherty and I were knocking and this guy answers the door with this super serious/annoyed look on his face and also... he had no pants. That was distracting. haha! His shirt was long enough, so who knows but it was still weird. But I just started talking to him like normal and he just seemed like he wanted to kill me... then I noticed that he was holding a gun pointed at my leg. That was odd... but I wan't nervous for some reason. Guns here are illegal, but I didn't really know what to do... haha! He looked with pretty cold eyes and said "Are you Mormon?" "Yep." "Are you American?" "Sure am." "...Good luck." He then put down the gun and shook my hand and took an invitation and shut the door. Elder dougherty said he was freaking out and had his hand on speed dial for the Zone leaders and was ready to run, but for whatever reason I just didn't care. haha! Then the next day, we were talking to this guy and this mentally unstable guy walks up to us and tells us to get out of here. We ignored him and kept talking to the other guy, but then the crazy guy pulls a switch blade on us and tells us if we want to live we'll leave. Again, elder Dougherty jumps back, ready to run. But for some reason I just thought it was funny. I just ignored him and kept talking to the guy, and the crazy guy walked away. haha! Pretty interesting. I don't know if it was the spirit of the Lord keeping me calm or I'm just stupid, but everything worked out for the best. So I'm really going to miss Elder Dougherty! He is seriously my favorite companion I've had so far! There was never even a moment of tension between us! Never a hint of frustration, even though at times we disagreed with how to teach an investigator or how to handle a situation, we simply humbled ourselves and solved it by listening to the spirit and worked out a plan that we both felt good about. I hope that I am able to work that well with most of my companionships. Normally you at least have a time or two where you are frustrated with each other or your pride gets in the way, but not once with Elder Dougherty! So great! I would love to serve with him again! I hope you all enjoyed the pictures! I'll hopefully send new ones again soon! Also, it's about that time that we need to organize our phone call again! So weird that it's already time again! Mother's day is May 13th I think? We can do it excactly how we did it before! I want to do it through Chris's computer again, because that one worked way better! So make sure Chris and rachel are there! Also David and Amber too! I want to see them this year at least! let me know some times that would be best for you. I can do it the day before, the day of or the day after. Just let me know! It's getting pretty hot here. We're all in short sleeve shirts now. It's incredible how fast the weather changed! I love you all so much! I'm having a blast and I am so worn out! I love you all!! Elder Skvortz!

Letter #28 from Russia

Hello Everyone!!! So this week has been SUCH a trial for us! It's been awesome, but we have really had a hard time with the work. It's just been really slow this week. The Lord certainly knows how to try his children, that's for sure. I still feel like the language is just a big brick wall. My vocabulary is just fine, So no problem there. Grammar though... that's a different story. I've noticed that I'm falling behind other missionaries with my grammar. It's just not clicking for me! So weird! I've never had problems with grammar in any language that I've been learning, so this is really frustrating! In opening up the verb conjugation book, every verb has has (at least) two translations into Russian. The average verb has 46 different ways it can translate depending on... well... everything. So that's difficult. Every noun has 40 different ways to conjugate it as well... including names. Plus there are a billion different exceptions to the rules on conjugation nouns. And on top of that there are at least 20 different ways to conjugate adjectives. My companion is like, perfect at it... which is dumb... xa xa! It's just frustrating because I'm at the point where if you gave me a test, I could write it all out and get most of it correct. But when I'm speaking, the speed of it all just doesn't give me enough time to compute it all in my mind. I know it all theoretically, but it doesn't come out of my mouth when in an actual speaking situation. With time, it will all come... but it is just annoying. xa xa! So hearing about everyone's weeks made me quite jealous. Mary waking up and seeing the sunrise over the Peruvian Jungle and like, thirty more baptisms. That is awesome. Rachel and Chris in Hawaii right on the beach... Mom and Dad at a resort with the family... You guys will be so jealous to hear my side! xa xa! We woke up this morning at 5:00 to drunk people shouting and stuff. So beautiful. The weather turned from Snow up to our heads, to lakes up to our knees, to 25 C (70-80 F) within about three days. So crazy. It's summer here suddenly! Unfortunately the amount of drunk people went from a lot to like... 80% Last night, there was not a place you could go with out being surrounded by drunk people. The warm weather hit, and suddenly it was like a zombie apocalypse of drunkards. Pretty interesting... but I can see why the city I'm in has the highest incident rates in All of Russia. I haven't been yelled "go home yankee" as much as I had yesterday for my entire mission. One guy told us that he was going to call the cops on us and they were going to take us to jail and... do bad things to us... This mission is not making me any more innocent of a person... that's for sure. I LOVE IT! Xa xa! Honestly. I would not trade my life for anything else! Our Cold water got shut off this week for a day... that was weird. Showers were super painful and we had to flush the toilets with buckets of hot water... xaxa! Also, our Electricity in the kitchen stopped working for a week, which is also where our washing machine is... so that's been interesting. We got everything fixed, but it was definitely an adventure. Seriously, I cannot think of any other place that I would be having more fun! I'm in Russia and the weather is PERFECT outside and our members are angels and our investigators are studs! We have the best mission president and the best leaders! Russia is such an amazing place with such a curious people. But in the end of it all, we all just want the same things. We all want to be loved. We all want to be safe. We all want to be accepted. We all want to be wanted. We all want to be happy. That's why I'm here! To help people figure out how they can make that all happen. So many people here think they will be happy if they just move to America or if they make a lot of money. There is so much more than that in Life. I'm so glad that I've found it. And there's nothing that hurts more when someone tells you to your face that it is not true. That our doctrines are false and deceiving. That Christ was nothing more than a skazska (fairytale) I have to go. I love you all! I know this gospel is true! I know that God wants me here for a reason! I know that our way isn't just "a" way. It's "the" way. I'm excited for what the Lord has in store for me next! Loves! Elder Skvortz (that's what everyone calls me here... so that's kind of what I go by now... haha! Svortz is just too hard to say for Russians... xa xa!)

Letter #27 from Russia

Hello Family!! So this week has been a good one I would say... but not super successful. The flu was going around and I caught it, so that hindered the work all week. This week, we got to go to a Russian Opera called Yevgennii Onnegin. It was really good, but all I understood was pretty much the bare bones of the story line. It was very difficult to understand. haha! Also, we were in a Marshootka the other day, (minivan taxi) and I heard tengo la camisa negro on the radio and I kind of freaked out to myself. So we have been working with this guy named Makcim and he is really cool... but he randomly stopped answering our calls and stuff and we couldn't get a hold of him for a month! We thought that he probably just heard dumb things about us and was avoiding us, but we kept calling anyway every once in a while. Well, we finally got a hold of him. Turns out he got shot in the back twice and had to get a kidney transplant and other operations and will probably be in the hospital for a month or two longer. We were so happy to learn he still wanted to meet, but it's kind of a bummer our investigator got shot... He had a sketchy job, but we didn't think it was that sketchy. Mary! That is Crazy that you are training and opening a new area in your third cycle! I want to know are you whitewashing (re-opening a formerly closed area), or completely opening it fresh? That would be crazy if you were doing it fresh! Man, you are so lucky slash unlucky! of course you would though! I think that's weird that you're only in your third cycle... I'm already in my 5th, almost 6th cycle. And I'm coming up on my year mark in two months! I've been out for 10 months already... Wow, time really is short here. I was thrilled to learn about Matt going to Russia! I think that is insane that missionaries used to get so many baptisms! The people were just so thirsty for religion back then... So lucky! At this point it's pretty established that Pravaslavnie religion is what's cool. The church is still growing, but 50 baptisms? Our leaders have said that we can get 1 a month. And I believe them, but it doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a miracle if it happened. It is so difficult to get people to make commitments. Other than actual baptism, it's easy to get them to be a member. Too many people would rather just join it as a club rather than a religion. So I was thinking about Jesus Christ this morning and read in Mark 10: 33-34. they mocked him, scourged him, spat upon him, and killed him, but on the third day he did rise again. It really hit me today when I was thinking about that. Jesus Christ didn't let anything stop him from completing his mission. Not the entire forces of Satan. Not death. Not anything! When ever I am tired, I just need to remember what Jesus Christ probably felt like after three days of being DEAD... yet he got up and got to work. Yeah... I can definitely keep working. Sticks and stones may break his bones, but death will never stop him. I have to go! I love you all! Elder Svortz!

Letter #26 from Russia

Hello family!! I loved the picture! Haha! That's so funny! I'm really longing for spring right now. I mean, yeah it's coming... but so slow! It keeps wobbling back and forth between below freezing and... not below freezing. There are giant lakes everywhere because, well... there was so much snow... Speaking of which!!!! I was walking with my companion last week, coming home from writing emails and this giant icicle fell from a building and landed literally 3 feet in front of me!! The icicle was about as big as a car, people die from icicles everyday here in Russia, kstaty (by the way) and it was almost me!!! It even took out the roof guard that's supposed to protect from those things. Seriously it was huge! There was just debris everywhere after it fell! I thought about it and there was this guy in a car that I stopped by to give him a little brochure about twenty seconds before it happened, and I thought about not doing it because it was P-day and I wanted to get home, but if I hadn't done it, I would have died. haha! Awesome! I'm glad I was doing the Lord's work! We had a little Beatles concert here ourselves, actually! Okay, well, it was just a branch talent night, and they wanted us as missionaries to sing Michelle my belle, but then we didn't because it was inappropriate for us to sing as missionaries... so some other guys sang it, and they did a great job! I had a dream about Cade going on his mission spanish speaking just a few weeks ago! Cool! So I got this letter from Sister Arnold that I really enjoyed (She sends the best letters!) And it had a thought that I've really been thinking about lately. It was a quote from a girl who is serving people in Africa and it says "We aren't really called to save the world, not even to save one person; Jesus does that. We are just called to love with abandon. We are called to enter into our neighbor's sufferings and love them right there." I thought that was incredible and then I realized that I was doing the exact same thing... it was a strange realization to think that I gave up everything that I had to do that very thing, the thing that every kind of humanitarian person would want to do, but I get to do it a step further! I get to not only improve their lives for the better here on Earth, but change the outcome of the eternities personally for that person... wow... I bet the Girl would be jealous if she could hear my story. haha! I love you all so much! I have to go now though! I had a dream Christy was here and she got drunk! I was so disappointed in her! Then I woke up and was not disappointed in her. haha! i love you all! Bye! Elder Svortz!

Letter #25 from Russia

Hey Family!

So this week has been great! We had an awesome Zone Conference on my Birthday this past week and I thought I had gotten off safe, until everyone stopped in the middle of it and sang me happy birthday and gave me cookies... haha! It was really cool/embarrassing! It made my day though. Also, in Zone conferences, usually the Zone leaders, Assistants, President and his wife teach things things called "Break outs" essentially two hour lessons/practices with the missionaries, but this time, my companion and I were assigned to do one too for some reason. They've never that before and I thought it was just because my companion was district leader, but none of the other district leaders did it... So that was weird. My comp didn't really want to do it, so I had to do a lot of the planning and get him fired up for it! haha! It was pretty exciting! We did a lesson about Faith Hope and Attitude! If no one in that room got anything out of it, we did at least!
So last week, I was all frustrated at a girl because she called my language bad, but this week the president of our branch told me I should translate more because I speak better than everyone else and my companion was told by another girl that he couldn't speak at all, while she had no problem understanding me... haha! I've come to accept the fact that even to the end of my mission, there will be people who have no idea what I am saying and will tell me speak terribly, and there will be others who say I speak like a native. I've learned I need to ignore all of that because if you're teaching by the spirit, what's coming out of your mouth won't make a difference what language it's in. I think I came out with that in mind, but as I've learned the language, I really have tried to really too much on it.
I'm having a great time! I'm not being blessed with a hundred baptisms like those in PERU!!! But... I'm doing the Lord's work and I know that what I'm doing here will be a force for Good and a devastating force against Satan. I didn't come out here to just to be the Lord's tool, I came out here to be unusually effective in the Lord's hand, to do the things that only I can do.

I've got to go! I love you all!

Elder Svortz!

Letter #24 From Russia

Hello Everyone!

So life is going well! I'm enjoying my mission very much so. First off I want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOTHER!! I meant to say that last week, but I was seriously in such a hurry I forgot to mention it! Thank you for all your birthday wishes that I have received! They have been much appreciated! So really this week has been a roller coaster of emotions! Like every week... First off, my whole mission I've felt totally fine about the language, but ever since we've been meeting with a certain investigator, I've felt so inadequate! She speaks so quickly and uses such big words, I can barely understand what she's saying. My companion is very good at the language so they communicate just fine, but whenever I talk, she just looks around as if wondering if anyone else is noticing how bad I'm speaking, or she'll try super hard not to burst out laughing when I speak because my grammar isn't perfect. After an outburst of laughter from her last night I asked her why she kept doing that and she said that it seemed I was just trying so hard to prove that I could speak well when in reality I couldn't speak the language at all. I wanted to punch her in the face. After that, I couldn't speak at all around her without stumbling because she kept putting her hand up to her mouth to keep from laughing. Man! People like that just irritate me! Then later we were walking her home she asked if she could link arms with me because it was slippery. I told her I had no idea what she said and turned and started talking to our member who was with us. What a punk.
haha! I still have a lot of growing to do.
Also the other way we were contacting outside and we asked this lady how she was doing. She raised her eyebrows in this manner like "This mere mortal dares speak with me?" And then she said "Vui yesho Zheevoi? Co Bcyem Uzhastna..." Which means "You two are still living...? That is simply disgusting..." and she walked away, totally serious. We just kept shouting blessings of health and love and joy to her as she walked down the block. I find it interesting how the Lord doesn't really let that bother us even though it's probably the most threatening thing I've heard in this city. It's important to keep your attitude up while people are tearing it down. There is such a big contrast in my fruitfulness as a missionary when I let things bounce off me like that rather than if I let them get to me, like with the girl who kept laughing at me. Missionary work is so much easier when you are in a better mood and your confidence is high...

My time is up... haha!

I love you all!

Loves, Elder Svortz!