Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Subject: First Real Week In Kazakhstan!

Well I have to start out by saying thank you all so much for the letters! They honestly help me so much and make me want to get out there and work that much harder! They make me miss home, but they give me more inspiration as well! so thank you so much!!

I have a lot to talk about but I will start out by just telling you about how things go here in Kazakhstan..
Kazak people look chinese, Ancestors are from Turkey, and speak both Kazak and Russian. They are much more receptive than Russian people, but their culture is crazy. In Kazakhstan the weather is about like Utah, I love it compared to Russia and feel blessed to be serving here during the winter!! Whenever we go in anyones home, including our own, we always take off our shoes. Places is Kazakhstan and Russia are all apartments, there are millions and are stacked very high! Lol yes mom there are sidewalks.. most places at least. The only american restaurant that I have found here is a Pizza Hut and it is actually pretty good. I have not seen many local restaurant place but we did eat at one last night that we found. But, at the restaurant we were pumped because it said they had milkshakes so we ordered one.. milkshakes are literally just that.. milk with whip cream lol. Disappointing. The apartments are a lot like in Russia, they were built in the WW2 era and look like they are about to fall over! But inside the house is quite nice, Elder Nutt and I have the nicest shower and we usually always have warm water.

Here is a little background church wise of where I am at. The church has been present here for about ten years but the missionaries have only been aloud in for about eight years. A family named the Pipers pretty much started the Church growth here, they moved here and people could just tell that they were different and wanted to know why.. so now we have a large Branch here! I think there are about 140 members but active members we have 50. INTERESTING FACT: I just found this out but Kazakhstan and the area where I am at right now is the single area in which the Church and missionaries are present where the prominent religion in Muslim!! Where I am at right now is the bridge leading into Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and countries like that! I feel so blessed to be apart of that! I am one of 50 missionaries in the world who have gotten this special experience!! Talk about pressure eh... Muslims are hard to teach because Muslim is a culture not a religion, most don't even really know what they believe.. they just know that they are Kazak so they are Muslim. NOT COOL!

Now I have to talk about the crazy food here! The national dish is Horse Meat and the national drink is Horse Milk. I have not eaten horse meat but I hear it is good, but horse milk is like sour milk! NASTY! Kazaks descend from Nomads so they treasure the fat of the meat.. it is customary to give they head of the celebration whenever you are eating all the meat with the most fat.. nasty again. Elder Nutt and I ate at our Landladies house the other night and I couldn't handle it.. They love to drink this drink we call gas water which is strait carbonation, but you cannot refuse food when it is put in front of you so you have to eat it. When we ate there they would not stop feeding us!! We ate pelini which is noodles stuffed with meat, which is good, these tortilla things which they say they eat to praise allah, bread, weird soup, apples, kiwis, pickled peppers or something like that, and then this casserole salad thing which was so nasty that I almost threw up all over my plate.. it have some purple bluish stuff on top with raw fish and eggs and weird potato things and a ton of mayonnaise.. it was just weird and nasty! Then you had to wash it down with the nasty gas water! Kazaks and Russians love mayonnaise and sour cream!! THEY EAT IT ON EVERYTHING! It is also customary whenever you go to someones house they have to feed you.. aka I would like to avoid going to homes for anything at all!! Mostly we just teach investigators at the branch building.

Tracting in Kazakhstan and Russia is funny I think. You picture tracting and walking to homes and knocking on doors.. well there are no homes only apartments.. I have only gone tracting once but this is how is goes. To get into apartments you have to have a key to the entrance, a code, or you can call an apartment on the little keypad. So how we tract is we just go up to the keypad and type in an apartment number and just call and talk to as many people as we can to see if they want to hear our message lol it is easy! But it is rarely effective here... everyone once an awhile it works though. So that is tracting in Russia and Kazakhstan.

Alright now I will just talk about things that we did this past week. To start out the week one of the elder's investigators was murdered.. he was beaten and stabbed 10 times.. so the police came looking for us to question us because they found our number in his cell phone. That was kind of crazy but everything is fine no worries :) I am safe! They just had to go to court and answer questions and everything was worked out just fine. We taught a lot of lessons this week and I will talk about our investigators later. That is our goal as a mission is to just schedule lesson after lesson and just keep teaching. Church was great! Kazakhstan is much larger than Kalooga is! It is still small compared to Utah obviously, but being here has just made me realize how much I took for granted back home. I don't think any of us really realize how blessed we are to live in the country we do and to be apart of such an amazing church! This has been the biggest eye opener for me out in the field.. we are spoiled and people dream and pray every night just to have a chance to visit where we live!! Last night was a very interesting and cool experience! today is the Russian Orthodox Christmas.. so we got permission from the President to go to Midnight Mass and the Orthodox Temple last night! It was crazy! The building is beautiful! The service was insane... there are no seats, you stand and just watch as priests and crazy people just walk around up front and chant and swing their incense around. It is weird because the language that they speak in the chants and the words all over the walls in the temples almost no one understands anymore.. it is really really ancient Russian. People repeat phrases and prayers and chants when they don't even know what they are saying!! It was just a crazy and interesting experience! Everyone was chanting and bowing their heads and doing the little cross thing on their chests.. lol it was so packed and just funny. They also pass around a little things where people can pay money and then the money goes to the leader of that temple or church or whatever. These experiences just strengthen my testimony even more! Our Church truly is the one true church on the face of the Earth and at it's head stands Jesus Christ leading us and directing us. We know the truth, that is such a significant statement that I don't think I will ever look at the same again. This is the true Church.

Well Christmas here lasts a month I swear! First e celebrate American Christmas, then New Years, then Russian Christmas on the 7th, and next come Kazak Christmas on like the 14th I think. Maybe we will get to go to the mosque on that one! :) that would be awesome!

Now the language.. ya it is not easy! I can understand missionaries but can only pick out word and phrases of native speakers. It is tough! And now I am trying to learn some Kazak as well as russian because Kazak people really open up to you and love you when you are trying to learn their language1 so, I am trying and working hard but I need your prayers and any ideas on the best way to study the language! My new Comp is great! He is amazing with the language! So I am just trying to get tips from him.. I still can't talk about the gospel yet so that is limiting me to talk to people too because that is what I know in this language!!

Now our investigators.. Katrena is our golden investigator and we are planning on baptizing her and the end of this month when President comes to visit. Nona is an old grandma who grew up in Soviet times and was forced her whole like to be atheist, so this gospel is really difficult for her to accept. Can you imagine growing up your whole life being forced to be one way and now all of the sudden in your old age having the freedom to find out for yourself.. So now she is just confused and doesn't know what to do because she wants concrete proof that this is the truth. She is tough! Those are our main investigators that I want to talk about, we have many others who we are teaching english, the piano, and which are members but need help with some problems. So we are always teaching! and with our piano and english investigators we are trying to lead them into the gospel slowly!!

Well that was my week and is my life now! Thank you all for your support! I love you and miss you so much! Remember who you are and remember how lucky you are! :)