Goodbye Surgut...back to Kurgan...

Hello Everyone,

I will have to make this quick, because I just arrived at the Mission Office in Yekaterinburg and will need to leave soon for Kurgan. It was a twenty-four hour train ride from Surgut, so I am feeling like a straight bum.

If you recall, in my last weeks email, I mentioned that my new companion will be Elder Otis, however, he along with others or stuck in Sweden. There are a few problems with renewing visas. The visa issues seem to be a real problem for the church, hopefully things will be straightened out. One nice thing comes out of it, is that the missionaries are able to get in a lot of sessions at the Temple, which is awesome.

I will be going back to Kurgan with Elder Mizin from Saint Petersburg! And guess what… he doesn’t speak any English… how amazing is that! I am so excited, its going to be awesome! I will be able to speak my favorite language 24/7. I am excited to learn all I can from him while we are companions.

Here is a quick run down of last week…it was a great and productive week;

Monday, we did our usual…emailed, groceries and then went sight seeing for a while to Old Surgut, which was a bunch of old buildings.

Tuesday, we went contacting and then on to English Club., which went really great. We had a discussion on American and Russian Holidays. I felt that they really enjoyed it. It was funny, because Dima said that we should bring textbooks to help teach them. I laughed, and then further explained that it was against the law, and even if we could, I probably wouldn’t do a very good job. Then after English Dima wanted to stay and talk about the Gospel. I really wanted to spend some good quality time with him that evening, but Elder S and I had a lesson with Angelina right after English. We didn’t want that to discourage him so we spent about fifteen minutes with him and answered some of his questions. I believe he has a lot of potential and I hope he will continue his interest and meet with the new Elders that will be transferring here to Surgut next week. Dima is a great person and would make a great member.

We had our lesson with Angelina, and it went amazing too! Holy cow…she had a question about how in the Bible it say’s "that Adam became as Us", she thought that this meant that there was more than one God. We explained to her the about the pre Earth life and how we all lived with God before and existed as spirits and that Jesus Christ was with God at that time before he came to Earth. This discussion ended up opening some huge windows for her! It was amazing.

Wednesday, we went contacting most of the day and then went to institute where Alonia taught a great lesson. Afterwards we told her that we were both leaving the coming Monday. She was really sad to see us go and took it pretty hard.

Thursday, was a crazy day! We had planning, cleaned the apartment, and then went out to an area forty-five minutes away to deliver some homemade brownies and have one lesson. Then we stopped by a members and they invited us in and said we set up a meeting with them at 7:30, and then we said, “no we don’t believe we did because we have a meeting at 8 and we cant meet then. Somehow, they got us to sit down and have a lesson. Need less to say, we were thirty minutes late for our next appointment. It all worked out, and both meetings turned out to be pretty dang GREAT! It was a busy, but a fantastic day!

Friday, we had mutual with the youth. We played some crazy animal noise game, ate watermelon, and took some great pictures.

Saturday, we finished cleaning the apartment, and had another amazing English Club. They brought a cake for us and we had a Tea Party! (yeah…I am now going to Tea Parties…haha) We took some great pictures! It was a ton of fun.

Sunday, at church was pretty sad, because members were saying their good-byes, they were emotional, and there were a lot of tears shed. I kind of felt as if I was at a funeral.

AND…Monday, the day we said our final good-bye as we climbed abroad the train. Alonia, Lucia, and another Alonia came to see us off. It was really hard. Alonia was really sad. I am really going to miss Surgut a lot!!! I hope I will have the opportunity to serve in Surgut again. I loved it! It was the strangest thing, because for some reason the Russian Language just all of sudden clicked when I arrived there. I hope the language will stick with me. So, it’s hard to leave another city. I HATE LEAVIG! Honestly, I get so attached to people that it makes it hard to say good-bye. I am so glad I am here in Russia because I have the most amazing opportunity to work with these great Russian people. I love them!

Well, I am off to kurgan in a few. I love you all!
Elder Dewey.