2.10.10

Hello everybody!!

Well life has changed a little for me this last week. I am now in a new city called Irkutsk. This is a great city, i already love it here. The people are great and the city is great. I miss Novosibirsk and the people there horribly though and so i am trying to get over my homesickness for Novo. I dont know when i will go back to Novo, of course i will because the mission office and stuff is there, but we dont go all the way to novo for conferences so it might be a while until i get there.

So i traveled on the train here for over 30 hours. There was 4 missionaries on the train, 2 elders and another sister and 1. Sister Colderwood and I shared a cabin. The cabina are these small little rooms with 4 beds and a little table. THe beds are like bunk bed style. It was fun. There were a bunch of other russians in our car and most of them were drunk haha and it was pretty funny. They all wanted to talk to us because we were americans, and actually we were able to talk to alot of them about the gospel and some of them were very interested. Hopefully when they recover from being drunk they will remember. It was an eye opener for us though to remember that everyone is a child of god and deserves to hear the gospel, even if they are drunk. Of course we need to be careful but its something to think about. Well funny story from the train. When on the train sisters and elders arent allowed to go in each others cabins, so sister calderwood and i were standing outside the elders cabin talking to them and one of the drunk guys (maybe in his 40) came over right between Sis C and I, he started talking to all of us and was asking us if we wanted some vodka. Of course we told him no and we didnt drink, but he kept asking and was like "no dont worry its on me and its on russia, just have some...) well we kept telling him no. So anyway sis C and i decided to go back into our cabin to get away from the drunk man, so i started walkin to our cabin and then i stopped to turn around to wait for her and this man he was walking the same direction as me and when i stopped he put he arm on my back and started to lean into kiss me,and i thought "OH NOOOOOO" i was quick though and turned my head right in time and he only kissed my cheek/ear!!! I was like "OH MY GOODNESS" and then just kind of stood there for a second shocked and then hurried into my cabin with sis C right behing me and slammed the door shut and locked it as fast as we could. Then we laughed and laughed and laugh! It was so funny! So i have had my first kiss with a russian!! haha

Well now to the more important info. So Irkutsk is a new city to the gospel. It has only been open for 7 years to missionaries. There is only 1 branch but good amount of active members but also of course a lot of inactives. We have 3 investigators. One of them is Mongolian and she is pregnant and later this week she is leaving for Mongolia to have her baby, and she wont be back til may. So thats sad to see her leave because she is close to baptism, she just has a couple things to work past first. So hopefully she will continue investigating the church either when she gets back or in mongolia. Another invest. is also mongolian but i havent met her yet, so i dont know much about her. There is a group of mongolian girls living here and going to school and 4 of them have been baptized in the last few months and the other friends are our investigators. So thats really cool because they are all supportive of each other. The third invest. is a young girl who wants to be baptised but her dad is very against it, so he are not sure what will happen with that.

We are searching for new investigators right now. I feel the work here is going to be great. Its hard coming to a new city and trying to adjust, but i feel i am basically adjusted and now i can get to work. This work is the most amazing thing ever. This is the lords work and he is putting his trust in us, not just fulltime missionaries but all member. He needs our help. We are so blessed to know that we have a loving heavenly father who has prepared a plan for us to return to him and to recieve eternal joy and happiness. This is all REAL!! God LIVES, his son Jesus Christ LIVES, Christ IS our savior and he DID atone for us. Turn to the Lord and allow him to guide your life, without the Lord there is no point to life!

I love you all so so so much. I hope all is well for all of you and i miss you all!!

Sister Gneiting