May 15, 2011

Well, it is good to be back in Tomsk. We just arrived back this evening after church in Novosibirsk and a 4 1/2 hour bus ride, after 3 other plane rides. So our wee little apartment looks large tonight! In the last 12 days we've been on 9 plane rides and 2 bus rides in 3 countries. So our bed will feel like heaven. This may be short tonight, but we did want to report our top 3 events.
#3 Our city of Tomsk was able to receive one more set of elders this week. We must rise to this occasion and utilize this strength. Our good zone leaders came over a bit ago to report that they set 2 baptismal dates and progressed with many of the investigators while we were gone. We are glad to be back to rub shoulders with great them. .. missionaries ROCK!
#2 We were able to go to some CES training with 17 other couples from the Europe South East Area. This covered many countries from Bulgaria, to missions in Russia and many points in between. Our wonderful, inspired leaders clearly gave us a vision about what we are to do to further teaching the young adult pioneers here. A sister spoke in stake conference in France a few weeks ago and it was so typical of our mission, I must share. She asked all of the congregation that was 1st generation converts to stand. and about 85-90% of them stood up. Then she asked those that were the only members of their families to remain standing and the others sit down. Hardly anyone sat down. In our mission, it is the same. The youth from 18 - 30 years of age are IT for the strength of the future here, so we have a lot of work to do to teach them. And we feel better equipped to do it now. By the way, our meeting place was in Kusadasi, Turkey. . . where else is a central meeting place? Our area director was raised in East Germany behind the iron curtain and has tales to tell. His assistant was from Samara Russia and also had an incredible conversion story. These are giants of leaders planted here in Russia now to help us all grow.
#1 On one of the afternoons, we were able to go to Ephesus, as in where THE Ephesians lived and where Paul served for over 2 years and also from where he wrote the letters to the Corinthians. It was quite the beautiful city in its day. Paul wasn't too popular when he denounced the worshipping of their goddess Diana or Artimus because this put a lot of silversmiths out of business when he warned the people against pagan statue worship. And what a great work he commenced from there. Pretty awesome he was! People today still know of him and his impact upon this part of the world. Now we just need to fill them all in with a few redeeming details of who and where to worship. However, the church is not yet recognized yet in Turkey, so hopefully that can come about soon. They are doing some humanitarian work there, so our foot's in the door.