Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Siberia Zone Conference...


Dear Missionary Families,
We are still getting snow quite often but the weather is getting warmer and we are sure spring is coming because the ice is melting! We have recently completed reading the Book of Mormon and underlining references to Jesus Christ.  It has been an interesting and enlightening opportunity that has helped us understand that the Book of Mormon truly is another testament of Jesus Christ.  We are looking forward to general conference in the near future.  We enjoyed our zone conferences and are always happy to spend time with our wonderful missionaries.
We wish you all a joyful Easter. We are grateful for the Savior and all he has done for us.
Love,
Sister Allcott

Siberia Zone Conference (3/12/2010)
  

Monday, March 29, 2010

On the Road (train/bus) Again... Ekat, Tyumen, Kurgan and back to Tyumen...



Hello again,
Well, here it goes again...another short and to the point letter/email with no apologies. It's best that I am too busy to draft a lengthy email/letter.  I've decided that I am no longer going to promise a better/longer letter next week, because it most likely wont happen, besides I am down to my last few weeks so what ever I leave out I will have the chance to share with you in person when I return home!  With that being said, here is this weeks quick run down of events.
Monday, we had a pretty relaxing Pday spending time with the Palmers. I really have enjoyed serving around them, they are the coolest senior couple. I've picked up some pretty crazy sayings from them, for example, "He's got bats in his bellfree", and "he is chasing lizards". I had no idea what these sayings meant until I had the opportunity to spend some time with them taking them to meetings.
Tuesday, we got up at 5am to make our trip to Ekat for our meeting at the Presidents. 
Wednesday, we arrived to Tyumen pretty late.
Thursday, we spent time at the church moving stuff around and putting things together.
Friday, we spent more time at the church putting things together and had some really great meetings as well.
Saturday, we woke up at 5am to make to Kurgan to do a baptismal interview and we are still here but headed back to Tyumen tonight. I have really enjoyed my last few days here in Kurgan it's been awesome. Saying goodbye to everyone here was pretty tough.  I sure love all the people that I have gotten to know here.
Well, I need to run.


Love,
Elder Dewey

Monday, March 22, 2010

Sent Elder Andersen home, New Comp - Elder Ellsworth, Amazing Investigator's, trip to Ekat,


Well, my letter home will have to be cut pretty short this week because I spent too much time trying to figure out how to get my new email account to work so I could send the stats into the office! 


Well, this week really has been a good one with spending the last few days of Elder Andersens mission with him. To be honest, he wasn't too trunky. We had a fun p-day of just kinda doing nothing, but those are always the best ones. We also had two really good meetings before he left. One, with a grandmother of a member who is on a mission. Her grandmother is a good investigator and fed us some amazing home made donuts, but yeah, they weren't too healthy so I had to watch my figure ya know? The next morning was an especially hard work out. haha!  Tuesday, we had another amazing meeting with a members mom who is not a member. She is the best investigator! Honestly, after the lessons I just expect her to tell me that she is already a member and just messin with us or that she is an actress, but she is the real deal! She is an amazing investigator and we really are working hard with her. She prays and reads and she is awesome. Her daughter is a strong member of the church too, so she helps a ton. The best part though, is seeing their faces light up as we teach and see how excited Galya (the member girl) is for her mom! It's amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Hands down some of the best lessons I have been on. The funny thing is though, I am humbled with each and every lesson.  Whenever I go to teach I just get so nervous and I dont want to mess up or say something dumb but it always happens.  I am just grateful that she knows it's coming from the heart and that's all that matters. 
Elder Andersen is now gone. It was kind of sad sending him off, but he has a lot ahead of him in life so its cool. Elder Ellsworth (a young buck) came to me on Wednesday, and we have just been working hard ever since. We have a lot of work ahead of us and things are lookin up. I really like Elder Ellsworth he is a stud and a good missionary. (His mother would be proud!!) Well, let's see, the rest of this week was really good and busy.  AND... I am just soakin up Russia all I can before they kick me out of here. I gotta run! Take it easy. love you all!
Elder Dewey

Monday, March 15, 2010

Last Transfer...staying in Tyumen, Elder Ellsworth new comp, Organ Concert, Zone Conference...


Hey everyone,
I am down to my last transfer which means there will only be a few more emails home.  It's hard to believe.  I try not to think about coming home too often, however with killing off Elder Anderson this coming Thursday it's difficult not to think about it once in a while. 
I was hoping to make this email a little more exciting than the last few I've sent, however I forgot my letter i wrote out earlier so once again, this is going to be off the top of my head. Well, I will start out with the most important news...I received news about transfers on Friday and found out that I will be spending my last transfer here in Tyumen with Elder Ellsworth joining me,  which means Elder Ellsworth will be the one to kill me...awesome! He is a super cool Elder! 
So here is a run down of the past week -  
We had a great start of the week with a pretty great pday on Monday.  We were going to brave ice skating as a district then my companion and I wussed out because I realized that I have two left feet out on the skating rink and would only make a fool of myself.  By the way, Russians are like all champion ice skaters.  So instead of ice skating we went home and cleaned and went grocery shopping.   Monday night we had a really good meeting with a member and her investigator mother. It went pretty well and we will continue to meet with them.
We had another good day on Tuesday. We had English club and two other meetings with some members of the church. It was cool meeting with one active family who just had a baby girl a few months ago so the baby would be the same age as my niece Piper. It made me really happy and excited to think that I will be able to see Piper for the first time when I return home next month. 
On Wednesday we had district meeting and Sister Palmer made some really great food as usual. She even left the meat on the side for me!  haha...bless her heart!  We were able to help them get their printer fixed. Later, we went to a store called "Metro" it's like the Russian version of Costco, it was amazing! You can get awesome stuff there like peanut butter and Tabascos sauce! It's so cool.
On Thursday, Elder Anderson and I were able to pull something off that hasn't been pulled off in our zone for the past year or longer.  We had a "zone culture day"!!!!!!! It was pretty cool, we were able to pull it off because they had to come into the city for Zone Conference anyway, so we all went to a Organ concert. it was pretty cool, the music was even good enough to put Elder Palmer to sleep after the first 5 minutes... haha! Gotta love Elder Palmer, he is hilarious! Later, we went to some pretty good pizza place, but the only pizza they had without meat was potato and mushroom...  weird!
We had a really good Zone Conference as usual. I really love zone conference and seeing all the missionaries from the different cities, It's a blast to have them all stay the night at our house.
On Saturday, we went on little mini splits with the Assistants and had a good time contacting. Later, we had a meeting before English club with our cool vegetarian investigator haha!  It was pretty funny because they were trying to convince me that it was a sin to eat meat.  However, I know that is not the case, oh well.  After English, we cleaned up the church.  We had a great Sunday as usual. I felt pretty beat at the end of this week...but hey, it's p-day, so I can get a few minuets of rest...yay!
Okay, so I know this is another short less than informative email, but you know what they say about missionaries that are a few weeks from coming home...the letters/emails become shorter and shorter, I'm just going along with the norm...haha!


Well I love yall and I hope you are all doing well.
See ya Love you!
Elder Chad Dewey

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Long Train Ride (too much time to think) , Great Meeting with past investigator...,


 Another week has gone by pretty fast. I first would like to start out with a big congratulations to all those Women out there in the world. It's "Ladies Day" in Russia!  It's a pretty big holiday, it compares to our version of Valentines Day or Mothers Day combined into one holiday celebration. To be honest, I was not  thrilled that this holiday fell on a P-day! We had to walk around forever looking for a place to do Internet and finally found one.
This past week was a great week. I was a bit sick on Tuesday, but there was no time to think about it, we continued on with English Club and our meeting. It was funny because everyone at English was flippin out that I was sick. They told me to go home and gave me some pretty crazy ideas of ways to get cure the flu/cold. For example putting garlic cloves in my nose or putting boiled eggs up against my nose would help and also drinking warm jello. It was pretty funny.  I just ended up going home and drank a ton of orange juice and tried to rest. The oranges here are nothing like what we have in Arizona, especially the oranges at Chases or Blake's place.  
We had a really great district meeting on Wednesday.  Sister Palmer made an amazing pizza for us.  We worked out some plans for our district here in Tyumen,  After district meeting we left for Surgut.  We were going up there to do splits.  The Palmer's also went to do some branch business. It was a lot of fun on the train for about the first two hours or so, but the next 14 hours not so much...haha! It just is a long ride. We talked, played phase ten, but mostly I spent some time pondering about life.  It's weird when you have that long to just think about things. I thought about all that I've experienced and the people I've had the chance to meet and get to know, and way's that I've changed, and how weird it is to see all this come to an end soon. I try not to think about it, but when you are on a train for hours it's a bit hard not to have those thoughts.
I spent Thursday with Elder Stoops up in Surgut. It was so cool to have a meeting with someone we met with when I was up there more than a year ago.  It was a really cool investigator who remembered how poorly I spoke Russian and was so surprised how well I speak now.  It was pretty fun, we just joked about it a lot. We had an amazing lesson with him and talked about how many times he prayed for an answer and he said two maybe three and I told him maybe that is why he hasn't received an answer because the process can sometimes be a lot longer process than only praying two or three times.  We talked about how it has been a real struggle and it takes searching for the truth and not just wait until we receive some sign.  Often times it is a strong impression or feeling that we receive and we have to listen to the spirit.
Friday morning we left Surgut and had another one of those fantastic train rides...haha.  This one once again filled with endless hours of deep thinking.  Luckily, I was able to sleep a little.  I missed a great English Club on Saturday, I had to translate for a different meeting. Later, we had a terrific FHE at the Palmer's...a great time!
I have decided that I am going vegetarian for the entire month. There are a lot of vegetarian's who come to English and even some in the branch and they would like me to try it in order for me to understand their point of view. I've decided to give it a try. Plus it might help me throw those extra 5 kilos I need to get rid of.
Well, I need to run.
I love you all. Have a great week!
Love, 
Elder Dewey

Monday, March 1, 2010

Last Visa Trip to Finland...


Hello Everyone,

Well this week was another one of those crazy but great weeks here in Russia. I have not been in Tyumen a whole week since this transfer has started. Every week I have had some traveling to do. Although it's been crazy it's been great at the same time. This past week was my last visa trip to Helsinki Finland.  It was really cool to see my whole group together for the last time until we head home in two months.  But now let me rewind for a second.   On Tuesday we had a district meeting before I left and Sister Palmer made some really good hamburgers and a delicious cake for my late birthday party. Later, they took me to the train station to send me off to Ekat.  I spent most of the train ride thinking about the last two years and how Russia has really changed me in so many ways.  I arrived in Ekat at 7pm and stopped by Subway with some of the other Elders. We obviously didn't get much sleep that night and stayed up talking. It was funny though because I fell asleep but they said I kept adding stupid comments to the conversation.  We woke up at about 2 am to shower and wait for the car to take us to the airport. The trip to Helsinki was pretty good besides the rough flight from Ekat to St Pete's.  I also didn't get much sleep the last few days because for some reason I've had too much on my mind and had a hard time shutting off my brain. Once we arrived to Helsinki we got a bite to eat and did a Temple session which was really good. It was a great way to kick off the last two months of my mission. It was a pretty emotional experience. After the Temple session we hopped back in the taxi and started the journey home. It was a pretty good trip on the way back but once again I couldn't sleep. I did the math and I figured that I've slept a total of about 6 hours the last few days  (disclaimer it's my own dang fault). 
Well,  this week has been a pretty emotional one seeing everyone for the last time before our group meets at the Presidents headed for home. Its been really cool to see the progress of those in my group. When we get together we all click really well and talk about the progress  each of us made since those MTC days of just sitting in the same room for three solid months going nuts...haha. It's really interesting to see everyone's growth and its nice to have people to share this progress with.  I hope I keep growing at this same pace when I return home.
I know this email is another short one, but we have a busy day so I need to get going. I love you all.  Thanks for all your love and support.
Elder Chad Dewey