December 15th

So last Monday I bought some camel socks, and some Yak socks. They are really comfortable and warm socks, I want more. I also got a Russian fur hat, it is great, I want more. And then just walking out of the market I saw this super weird looking crazy jacket so I asked how much it was and it was only $20 so I talked to price down to $12 and bought it. We did service for a less active member this week. Painting his kitchen/bathroom. It is straight up whitewash that we painted it with and the fumes from it are probably still affecting my judgment. But then he came to Church on Sunday so all is well. Then the next day we did service for a little old grandma stacking wood for her. It took over 2 hours and was freezing cold, but then she invited us inside and she had made us Borsh, which is a traditional Russian soup, and Plov which is a rice dish from Armenia, it was all really good and we ate a ton. Then as we were leaving she pulled out some candies and told us to fill our pockets. As we were leaving right after stuffing ourselves full of food. Elder Hasebi pulls the candies out of his pocket says, "well... these aren't making it home." and ate them all. It was pretty funny. It was transfer week this week and Elders Basset and Walker stayed with us one night, that was pretty fun in general and there were lots of stories shared. We visited Peter again this week and as we started talking to him he started struggling with his pockets trying to put them back inside his pants like pockets are supposed to be, after a couple minutes he realized his pants were inside out told us to wait a second and just whipped 'em off and put them on right. And also he had shaved only the right side of his face, he was clean shaven halfway and then had a scruffy beard the other half. He is 63 years old. Totally forgot to get a scripture for the plaque again. I will try to do better. I spoke in Sacrament meeting this week and it went pretty well, I wrote out what I wanted to say but kinda just got distracted and ended up saying different stuff.

Russia does have skittles but they are different flavors

Babies is giant snow suits are super cute, they have been dubbed starfish babies because they cannot move their limbs.

December 8th

Today is going to be a great day. Elder Hasebi and I are going to go to the big outdoor market to pick up some шапкы which are the big fuzzy fur hats that are so stereotypically Russian. Also we are going to look for some protein powder because we go hard every morning working out. I already weigh less than I did when I went into the MTC. Last Monday I bought a pull up bar and that has been really useful for working out, I also got some Russian nesting dolls and they are so cool. I want more. It blew Elder Stephesons mind when I opened them all up. I was with Elder Stepheson because we did splits last week. It was a good change up and Elder Stepheson is cool so it was fun. Especially when we were talking to people. We are both fairly new in Russia and definitely not anywhere close to being fluent so there was a time or two were I didn't understand what the Russian person said so I just looked at him and he was looking right back at me. We understand enough to get through a conversation but it is hard to know exactly what people are saying. On Sunday Peter saw somebody run out of the coat room with a bag in his hand stealing it. So Peter (a short and fairly large man) starts chasing him, Elder Hasebi and I go to and we just run down the street following Peter until he gave up. This whole time we are outside in the freezing cold in just our suit jackets. They ended up finding the bag about an hour later and only the phone was missing out of it so nothing too bad. This computer desk is at an awkward height and my right arm is going numb. I have more stories but I feel like I really can't do them justice in text, so they will have to wait for a while. New Years is the big holiday here but they still have Christmas trees and lots of lights and everything, I need to get some pictures of the city at night it is pretty cool. We have started making our own version of sloppy joes. We just take a full (huge) loaf of bread cut it in half then cut it again to make it like a bun, scoop out a bunch of the bread, and fill it with a meaty ketchup kinda meat sauce kinda meat thing. Just in case you were wondering. Totally forgot to think of a different scripture for the plaque this week, my bad. But I did complete the first level of memorizations! Which is just things like the missionary purpose, Doctrine and Covenants Section 4, two baptismal invitations, the ten how to begin teaching points, etc. It really is just a little victory for me because I am reminded every day when trying to talk to people on the street just how much I don't know.

Thanksgiving

So this week was fun of course. We met with a guy in a movie theatre lobby, just because that is where he wanted to meet. Elder Hasebi and I ended up being socially obligated to get some drinks (juice) and that wiped out the last of our money for the month. Like we didn't have enough to even ride a bus. But we ended up just using some of next months rent to get by, and now we have money for December and replaced the rent money. Tuesday and Wednesday were normal and then Thursday was Thanksgiving! It was really great, the missionaries from Angarsk joined us at the Nelson's apartment so we had like 14 people there. The Nelson's are amazing cooks there was so much good food. I think my favorite was the sweet potato pie, it was topped with pecans and marshmallow cream and I ate way too much. Elder Hasebi and I weighed ourselves before and after eating and he won the contest. He gained 3.4 pounds and I only gained 2.8 

The rest of the week was pretty normal except all of our investigators cancelled on us, so that was a bummer. 

It got cold this week. You learn a lot when it gets really cold though, mostly that being cold is awful. Elder Hasebi and I ran into a member and we asked him to check what temperature it was on his phone. It said that it was -22 C but that with the wind chill the "RealFeel" was -43. When the wind gusts it just sucks the heat out of you. When we got home that night Elder Hasebi's eyelashes had frozen and my breath had frozen in layers on my coat so much that I couldn't unzip it, and it has stayed at about -20 for the past three days. So today we are going to go looking for some of the camel hair socks that old ladies sell on the streets, as well as other whatsits to keep us warm. Interesting little thing that happened this week, so Elder Hasebi and I cook German pancakes a lot for lunch, and our stove is super sketchy and theres no handle on the gas flow valve thingy. So this resulted in Elder Hasebi accidently turning the stuff down to very low flame instead of turning it off. When we got back into our apartment for dinner hours later as soon as I opened the door we both started to step inside and stopped, sniffed a bit, smelled gas, looked at each other, took a deep breath, and ran inside. I turned the oven off and he opened up the door to the balcony and we opened up all the windows and got it taken care of. But I felt like a firefighter or something it was neat. 

Now other little things that happened this week; I accidently started talking to a police chief on the street (super sketchy because the police here are super sketchy)

We saw a highway patrol car, it even said "call 911" "highway patrol" and other things on it in English

and we were on a tram when it stopped suddenly and Elder Hasebi fell onto an old lady and mule kicked me in the leg.

It was a fun week can't wait for more of them!

November 24th

I'll start off with a story. I was talking to a member about how I had strep throat (or whatever it is) and he told me all this stuff about how he deals with sickness and whatnot. But then at the end he added in, you know how I dealt with being sick before I was a member? A bottle of vodka, it didn't help the sickness at all it just changed my attitude about it... I didn't care! 

Russians are the best.

I think my favorite scripture is 1st Corinthians 5:6 it is actually a really good analogy and I have started quoting it a lot. 

Other than that it was pretty much a normal week. here are some interesting things that happened though

Met a British dude from Bristol traveling through Russia, he was harder to understand than the Russians and he was speaking English

The crazy old lady in the hospital with Peter asked us to bring back Communism (I think she is hard to understand)

Elders Stepheson, Lusk, and I all have the same first name. That's 3 out of 4 of the Elders in Irkutsk.

And I ate at Subway

 

Just some more answered questions from the Bushman's, thought they might be interesting for everyone.

The members rarely if ever ask us to come over for dinner, and I have heard stories of awful and scary food when it does happen.

It is hard to tract here because everybody lives in apartments and you have to have a code/key to get into the building to even get to peoples' doors.

We do work with less active members and we have some investigators, not any that are progressing though.

We find people to teach by walking the streets talking to everyone we see.

The senior couple here host lots of activities and just try to help out wherever they can. They don't speak Russian though.

Russians don't mess around when it comes to snow, as soon as it hits the ground they are shoveling it into dump trucks and hauling it out of the city. They have tons of street sweepers and tons of city employees that sweep and shovel snow.

 

 The branch here in Irkutsk has about 45 people every Sunday and the building is just as big as ours in Davenport, maybe bigger. Except the sacrament hall is smaller I think. It isn't a church building it is just the second floor of a business building on the main street of the city. There is a Subway on the first floor so it smells like sandwiches a lot. We are going to go to the senior couples apartment for Thanksgiving so it should be good. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Week of November 17th

I Got this email of questions from grandma and grandpa Bushman I thought it might be nice for the blog. 

If you have space, we’d be interested to know –

How many branches or wards in your city?

There is one branch in Irkutsk.

How many members usually attend your branch/ward?

We have anywhere from 45 to 55 members each week on Sunday.

How many Melchizedek priesthood holders attend your branch/ward?

There are about 10-15 active or semi-active Melchizedek priesthood holders.

What is the level of commitment/energy of the bishopric or branch presidency?

Our branch president and the second counselor are wonderful they put in a lot of effort into leading the branch and we are blessed to have them.

How many missionaries serve in your city?

There are 8 missionaries including the senior couple

How many lessons do you teach a week?

The standard of excellence for lessons a week is 15 but there was a change in the "definition" of what a lesson is which made them harder to have, so we have had around 10 the past couple weeks.

Do you know the ratio of new investigators to baptisms in your mission?  (In our mission, it is 16:1.  That is, for every 16 investigators, we reap one baptism.) 

 I do not know that ratio but I know that the ratio of baptismal dates to actual baptsims is 7 to 1.

You said you walk a lot.  Do you have at least two pairs of boots to wear, so you can trade them off each day?

I have two pairs of boots but only one pair of insoles and I have been being lazy and not switching every day.

So something great to get in a package would be just a bunch of the cheese packets out of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Just need that cheese sauce. And then maybe like sour patch kids watermelon things or candy corn, you know whatever. Oh and there's no licorice here in Russia. I have searched, there is no licorice in Siberia. Its sad. 

Talking to Russian people they have all said it is super warm here for this time of the year. But the wind, the wind never stops. So this week was fun. We did service for a lady who was moving apartments and we were taking the old wallpaper off the walls. There were like 14 layers of it and as you took the last layer off cockroaches fell out of the walls onto you, yay! Elder Hasebi and I have been experimenting a lot with eating different food. We tried to make pancakes a couple days ago but we didn't have any buttermilk. So it said to substitute it with regular milk and Vinegar. Well when Elder Hasebi was adding the vinegar he noticed that it said 70% concentrate, danger of death if not diluted. So that was a bad sign. Long story short the pancakes just tasted like straight vinegar. But we made chocolate syrup to put on them which was really good so I still ate 3. I am kind of proud of us we took a vanilla syrup recipe which was gross and figured out how to make delicious cinnamon and chocolate syrup.

There is a recent convert named Peter who is like 65 and a little crazy and just kinda weird. Well we visited him and a friend in a hospital (more of a nursing home) and it was super cold outside as we were walking there, but Peter just has a shirt on with a coat unzipped and a beannie pretty much just sitting on top of his head. We asked Peter aren't you cold? and he says of course not I'm wearing a coat, and then chuckles. There was this older lady on the other bed in the room in the hospital. Her phone started ringing and at about the 5th ring she realized it was hers, picked it up, held it in front of her face about a foot away, and yelled "allo? allo?" while it is still ringing. It was so funny we both started busting up laughing. Then Peter went to help her out and she was so amazed that she was actually talking to someone over the phone. Old Russian people are the best. 

November 10th

So interesting news this week. I have strep throat. Which has pretty much changed nothing about my life except my throat hurts and I no longer look forward to eating as much as before. I am taking Amoksocillin (I don't know how to spell it in English) right now and I just don't think it's real enough. That's a reference to an Eminem song for those of you who aren't thug enough to understand it. So I think my interesting story of the week is that we were walking through the park talking to people and we start talking to this normal looking dude (normal is rare here) he wasn't that interested but he kept talking to us, he kept offering us cigarettes really forcefully. Like classic "temptation" scenario. Come on take a cigarette it'll be cool. He was cool but only wanted to talk about America and our girlfriends there, he just assumed that we had girlfriends, so we said we had to go. But then he invited us to go have a drink with him and put his arms around us and started walking towards the bar, we insisted that we wouldn't drink so he was like alright lets go talk to those girls sitting on the bench then. It was super funny he kept trying to lead us around and do stuff with him. He stopped somebody walking by and had them take a picture of him and us together. Then asked us if we had Facebook, Twitter, etc. He was super funny and did not understand why we didn't want a cigarette. It was the most I have laughed in a long time. As for missionary work its pretty much the same, talking to people, meeting with people, talking to more people. I have never walked this much in my life. I really need a pedometer. I have started writing everything in cursive, in Russian and English. Russian cursive is really difficult and doesn't work as well as English, but it looks cool so I am going to figure it out. I have been working on my posture a lot and I have started to notice A difference, so I am going to stick with that and have good posture when I come home. 

Couple random things from Russia: The yogurt is realy good, the juice is really good, the thirty cent ice cream cones you can buy on the street are addicting, little kids speaking Russian is super cute, really really old Russian guys wearing shapkas and shooby (fur hats and fur coats) are so wonderfully stereotypical, and almost every single guy on the street is walking around with a European man purse, including me. Embrace the culture.

November 3rd

A pedometer would be an awesome gift in a package. Because I walk like... all day. It is over a mile just from my apartment to the church if we walk through the park. Which we do 90% of the time. So our investigator did get baptized this week. Elder Hasebi and I got some ice cream from one of the stands on the street to celebrate. The cheap ice cream cones are interesting they cost about 30 cents and they aren't really ice cream. Because ice cream melts. And this stuff doesn't. So learning Russian is going well. I am understanding a lot more of what people say, and this last week the assistants to the president came out to Irkutsk for a day and one of them came on splits with Elder Hasebi and I. We started talking to an old guy and Elder Hasebi got surrounded by girls with their faces painted for Halloween trying to take a picture with him (cuz he's a good lookin' elder) and the assistant to the President got distracted by that so I was just talking to this crazy old Muslim guy alone for a while, it went well. He wasn't interested of course, but then the AP asked me how long I had been out and when I told him he was said, "oh wow you speak really well" so that was my moment of pride this week. Don't worry I have humbled myself since then. I forgot my camera this week so no pictures, but I am going to buy some boots this week and then I will be all ready for Winter.

A few interesting things from this week: saw a dog with shoes on that squeaked when he walked, the first thing Elder Hasebi wants to eat when he gets home is a corndog, there was an earthquake, and I started talking to a guy but he only spoke chinese but I was bored and there was no one on the street so I just kept talking to him in Russian and he kept replying in Chinese.