Wednesday, October 28, 2009

HELLO HELLO HELLO!!! Its me again from Russia!!!!

So it has been another GREAT week here in Novosibirsk!!! Mom so you got Danna's facebook add, haha. The other day she wanted to look me up on facebook and so she did and then she added you and Amy I think, I am not sure which Amy Gneiting though haha. Get on my facebook and accept her invite for me so she can look at my page. So Danna is AWESOME and yes her baptism is in 3 days!! We are so excited. Oh and you pronouce her name Donna but In Russian it is spelled данна which in translation is Danna, haha i dont know if that made sence. Well yes she is amaxing and very strong in the church and has a great testimony and so very very ready for baptism. I will send you some pic of it next week, well I guess check her facebook and you will probably see them faster haha.

So mom i asked one of the other sister missionaries here about if she has recieved any packages with food in them and she said her packages always have food and she doesnt think that anything has ever been taken out, so if you still want to send that package i think it will be ok, because those hand warmers sound really nice!!!! So we have snow now. the last week it has been snowing every day. It isnt too cold yet so i havent started wearing my fur coat but i am wearing my fur lined boots. I am excited to see how cold it gets. Danna told me a couple years ago it got down to -50 C , so im not sure what that is in F, but usuallu it is gets around -30. So yeah really cold.

Thanks for all the pics of trent Amy and Mom, he is so cute and funny. I laughed when i saw the pictures. So he is getting to be a big boy, huh? Yeah he will be a sports star some day, train him well!!

Dad thanks for the Yankee update, I got really excited when i read they are in the world series!! Let me know how it goes.

Grandma and Grandpa thanks for the email! Sound like things are going well in Montana, stay warm!! I cant believe you are almost done with your mission. You are awesome, Love ya

Amy I just started reading the BOM and am going to read it all the way through before the end of the year too!! So yes we can totally do it together, I am in 2 Nephi 9, so you need to catch up haha

So i tried to upload some pic to send to you but i dont have the right cord. so i will try to figure that ok and then i will send you some pics!! Oh but the simmons have a blog that they do it is http://simmonsinsiberia.blogspot.com/ i think so you can get on there and they keep it updated.

So we have some other great investigators. Another one name Ula wants to be baptized and we set a date with her to be baptized, but she smokes but she wants to stop, so we need to work through that first before he can be baptized. We are also teaching Galena, Luda, and another Ula who all are very interested in the church. I just LOVE being a missionary and espeacially a missionary in Russian. This place is amazing. I know this is where I am supposed to be and there are people here that the Lord needs me to share the gospel with. The gospel is true and it is the most important thing we have on this world. It can save every single soul on this earth. I want to return to live with God again and I want my fam there too but I also want every child of God there and its only throught the gospel that can be done. The Lord love us so much. It interesting to see how there are so many people here in Russian with out the gospel, but the gospel is getting bigger and bigger here. The Russians are excepting the gospel and we as missionaries are working hard to get it to them. I want you all to know how much I love you and how thankful i am for your love and support. I wish i could sit here longer and type more to you, but there is work to be done. I love you i love you I love you!!!!!

Love,
Sister Mindy Gneiting

P.S Just to let everyone know, i can only write one email which is this one i write to mom. Anyone can email me though and i can include a reply to you in this email. SO i expect a lot of emails next week :) My email is: sistergneiting10@myldsmail.net

Thursday, October 22, 2009

HELLOOOOOO FROM RUSSIA!!!!!!!!
Well today is actually thursday and my pday is wednesday but yesterday we werent able to email, so we are doing it today. Everything is still great! Today we had zone conference and it was really good. President Trejo and his wife spoke a few times, which were really good talks, and the assistants did some workshops. Yeah it was good.

Well today is Thursday which means we have english club tonight. We are meeting with one of our investigators Galena before club and then Donna after. By the way THANK YOU to all that prayed for Donna this last week. 2 days after I sent you that email asking you to pray for her, she came to me and said she wanted to be baptized!!!!! I am so excited and happy for her. She is an amazing girl. I need you to continue praying for her though because she has had baptism dates before and then she was to scared. Her parents dont like the church. She is very strong right now though and she has a strong testimony. Her baptism is this next saturday october 31, so please pray that she will have the comfort and confidence she needs to go through with the baptism.

Amy yeah I know Elder Taylor haha thats so crazy you know his brother and yes his aunt gave us pizza in Moscow. He is a great elder. Also I wanted to personally thank you for praying for Donna every night, you dont know how much that means to me and I know she felt yours and everyone elses prayers. It sounds like yo are having a fun time doing alot of fun stuff from you email!! Keep being amazing!! love ya

Mom, dad, and Rhiana thanks for your emails, i love you so much. Mom yes we can listen to music, well only MoTab, EFY, and classical music and as for garments i will let yo know what size i am next week because we are in an internet cafe and i dont think it would be good to look right now to see what size i am! Dad thanks for the Yankee update, that is so exciting. Let me know if they get to the world series. So Rhiana about the picture about the sidewalk, you are just going to have to ask Katie Checketts about that, but yes we did . . . haha . . . Katie, Rhiana has my old phone and she asked me about the pictures about what happened to us on the sidewalk after the clue game on campus. Yes remember it was really funny and we SAT there laughing for ALONG time!!! haha good times

Scott and Amy mom sent me pics of Craigos in Provo. It looks super nice!! I WANT SOME PIZZA!!!!! haha and she sent me a pic of Trent and he always looks different in evey pic i see of him but he is a cutie.

Hollie and Cam thankgiving at your place?! Fun!!!! Think of me while you all eat yummy food.

Well I 'm sorry this isnt very long, we only had 30 mins today cuz we have a meeting with Galena soon. Well i love you all so so so so much. Thanks for everything. Keep being amazing and doing what the Lord needs of you.

Love always
Sister Gneiting

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Hello Family and Friends,

Everything is great here in Russia. HUH where to start? I love it here is Novo, I am getting to know all the member a lot better and they all are great. My companion and I serve in the 3rd branch here. We have only been able to attend sacarment meeting once at our branch because last week we watched conference. When we did go to the branch there was about 40 to 50 people there but there are a lot more members who are inactive.So along with working with our investigators we also have a big job with the inactive members. We have about 6 investigators right now that we are working with but acouple of them we havent meet yet because the other sisters in novo were working with them but those sisters arent assigned to 3 branch anymore.

Donna, our investigator that i told you about last week is awesome. She is soooooo close to being baptized but her parents dont believe in god and think that we are a cult or something. So it is hard for her and she is scared. I have no doubt though that will be baptized soon. I feel though that people here are giving up on her and it makes me really sad. For everyone that is reading this I need you to pray for her.PLEASE PLEASE. Pray that she will have the courage to be baptized and that she will know that the Lord will comfort her and help her with her family after she is baptized and pray that her parents hearts will be softened to the gospel. Thank you!

So I am trying to remember the questions you wanted me to answer. So Novosibirsk is a pretty big city. Between a million and 2 million people live here. Everyone lives in apartment building, there are no houses. Eveything is pretty old here, people still live in buildings that were made in like the 40s or 50s. We ride the subway and buses everyday, which is fun. I havent really eaten anything that is to weird yet but i am sure i will haha. Oh and it is so true that the Russian people are beautiful and the very fashionable. I was thinking yesterday that I think Hollie would like to live here because of the way the women here dress. There are alot of really cute boots here Hollie, you would like that, oh and coats!! haha And everyone is so skinny here, i think it is becuase there isnt fast food places here, which is good.

Mom I told President that you are from Tucson, he was excited about that and he said his uncle was a bishop and stake president there and that his uncle has a bunch of sons, so i think that is the one guy you thought was you bishop. Small world. I dont see President and his wife much because they are traveling alot to the other city which some take a few days to get to. This mission is the biggest mission or openned prosiliting area in the world and it is suppossed to be the coldest mission too. It is basically the BEST mission too!! haha

So yes I did get the money back for traveling over here, i actually only used $50 and then i changed some into russian money. Today we are going to go get the rest of the warm clothes I need. Oh and yes they have nice stores here too. I went into a mall once to go to the grocery store there and they had stores that we have in america like pac sun, adiddas, and i cant remember what else haha.

So yeah we got to watch conference this last weekend. In russia we watch it a week after you watch it in america. It was sooooo good. Love and the holy ghost were brought up alot, it was great. Mom I love how you put Elder Scotts quote in that email to me, that was one of my favorite talks, so good. So i was so excited for Elder Hollands talk after I read in you email last week that it was super good and OH MAN it was AMAZING. I was so into it that I couldnt get myself to write any notes because i was scared I would miss something. It really was a very good talk.

Scott and Amy I am excited about the new restaurant in Provo opening this weekened! UHHHHH i miss craigos pizza, send me a take and bake please haha. Little Trent is looking great, Mom sent me new picture of him. Oh and Hollie I really like your dark hair, very cute. Cam was is up, hows work going? Rhiana thanks for your email, I started laughing really hard in the library while i was reading it and my zone leader looked at me and was laughing at me! GREAT TIMES! Amy mom sent me me a couple pictures of you and you look really good and your hair is really cute and I think my pants i gave must me working pretty good for you. Mom and Dad I just love you SO much, thanks for being the best parents. You have done so much for me even though i probably dont deserve most of it. I love yo so much. Mom good job with school, thats totally awesome!!! Dad how are the Yankees doing? OH I just love you all so much. I have the best family ever!

I love being a missionary and I love being a missionary in Russia! The gospel is exploding here and its amazing to see a country new to the gospel fullfilling the prophecies that the gospel will go to every nation. i love that talk that was given in conference about Russia and how 20 or 30 years ago no one would have even though missionaries would be here. Well Russia is opened and the people are coming unto Christ its amazing to see the work going forth here. We need your prayers though. The gospel is true and the Lord lives and the time is coming when he will come again and we need to prepare the world and Gods children. I love you all and cant wait to hear from you all.

Love always,
Sister Gneiting

PS. you can send any mail to the mission home address or you can use the pouch, either one!

MINDYS POUCH MAIL ADDRESS TO RUSSIA
Sister Mindy L. Gneiting
Russia Novosibirsk Mission
POB 30150
Salt Lake City, UT. 84130-0150
USA

IMPORTANT:
To prevent possible fines or discontinuation of pouch service to Russia, please only send postcards and letters that are single sheet, folded into three panels, and taped at the top only (no envelopes may be sent through the pouch.)
Thanks!!

MISSION HOME ADDRESS: (Packages and letters in envelopes need to be mailed here)
Sister Mindy L. Gneiting
Russia Novosibirsk Mission
46 Kirova Street
Novosibirsk
Novosibirskaya oblast', 630102
RUSSIA

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

YES I'M ALIVE AND I'M IN RUSSIA!!!!!!!

HELLO HELLO HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm in RUSSIA and loving every moment of it. It is different then i thought it would be. Oh man where to start. Well I am serving in Novosibirsk and my companion is Sister Kiselyova, she is Russian. She is from St petersburg. She speaks pretty good english so we are able to communicate, sometimes though we have to use a Russian/English dictionaries to look up words when we dont know what each other are saying. Well then ofcourse I dont even know what anyone is saying in the first place because they all are speaking Russian, huh who would of thought that. haha but i am studying Russian everyday and hopefully someday i will understand people better. Everyone is really nice though. The first few days i was here i didnt talk much to the Russians because i didnt know what anyone was saying and i did know how to say what i want to say, but then i just decided to jump in and get my feet wet. So know i try to talk to people sometimes i do a good job and sometimes we end up laughing at me because of what i say, ok nevermind usually they always laugh at me but i have learned to use that to my advantage. When we are on the street contracting i can talk to tons of people because I am american and am trying to hard to talk to them so they will stop and listen. My companion always laughs at me because when i go up to someone on the street and they at first dont want to talk to me and they start walking away i just walk with them and they cant get away and then i try to speak Russian and they start smiling and then they start talking to me. HAHA they love it. So Novosibirsk is great, i have fallen in love with the city and the people. It is a big city about 1.5 or so million people. We ride the subway everyday. The mission office and home are located here. The city its self is pretty dirty and everyone smokes, and it doesnt smell very good. Alot of weird smells but i think i am getting use to it. There a 4 branches here and i am serving in the 3rd branch. It is one of the biggest branches, on sunday there was about 40 people maybe. I am getting to know the members and they all are great and very nice, they love missionaries. We have some great investigators that we are working on to be baptized. One of them is name is Donna and she is 21 and her and I have become great friends. She has been an investigator for about a year and a half but she hasnt been baptized yet because of her parents and I think she is a little scared. So we are working with her, she is ready to be baptized but she just needs to make the decision and follow through with it. So every tuesday and thursday we have english class were we teach english, oh I LOVE THAT. WE had it yesterday and during the week we have cards about englidh classs that we pass out on the street, subway, buses, and whereever else and last night a lady i had talked with came, which is really good because we get alot of our investigators from english class. Anyway she came and then we set up a time to meet with her on thursday and teach her about the gospel. So english class it great, oh and there are people there that actually know english so i can talk to them and not have to worry about my russian not being very good. So my goal is to get as many new investigators as i can from english class.
Well it is not cold here yet, it is in th fall months. So i still wear my jacket but it will soon get colder. Oh by the way a got a free heavy winter coat from my companion, it use to be the old mission presidents wife coat and it is way nice with real fur and leather. So it will way warm and better yet now i dont have to pay $200 for a new coat.
Well I have to get going, my time was cut short for emailing this week because we have to go with the senior couples and the APs to do some shopping for our new apartment that we just moved into and it need alot of things. Anway next weds (my pday) I will have an hour to email. Well I love you all, oh any yes i was able to look at the pictures you attached, Trent is such a cutie. Ok I love you and eveything is great here and I love being a missionary.

Love Always,
Sister Gneiting