qyzee

Sunday, November 27, 2011

week 32-Vyborg

Well please forgive me for my last email, the computer I was on did not work with the photos so this week you'll get a bunch. Since I will being sending a bunch of photos I am not going to have much time to send individual emails! SORRY! I know I said I would today. But, I lied. Well I didn't lie, I just, well circumstances changed. Understandable? OK! GOOD! Here we go.......!!

So this week was awesome! We had a Zone Conference last Thursday and it was the best, I felt the spirit so much. I will also share some things that happened and thoughts about it, later on.

So basically I had a major spiritual experience this week. Let just say I haven't felt like the best missionary ever, and spent some time on my knees. As I was praying and asking for forgiveness, I had the impression to, "Have Patience and Wait." So I knelt in silence for a couple of minutes not receiving any revelation or anything, so I did exactly opposite of what it said and started asking again for forgiveness and why Heavenly Father hasn't answered me yet, again I received the impression, "Have Patience and Wait." So again I waited and didn't think anything or say anything, but after a while my mind started to drift off of the prayer and into worldly things like home, friends, and movies. Yet again I received "Have Patience and Wait." This time is was said with such a calm tone, that I desperately waited, and waited. I don't know how long it was but it was after a while, when suddenly I imagined myself at the throne of our Father in Heaven, immediately I looked away from His face and looked upon His feet, I told Him I wasn't worthy to be in His presence for I have sinned, and asked him sincerely to forgive me and help me be a better person, then all of sudden another pair of feet walked into my view these pair had nail holes in them, I started crying, saying out loud, "No, please don't be here I have caused Thee so much pain I couldn't stand to see the ashamed on Thy face. Please leave me be, please...Help me." Then a hand with nail print came into my view, reaching for mine. I gave Him my hand and he lifted me and I say on his face, the expression of sadness, but not sadness of my sins, but the sadness of me being sad. He then embraced me with one of the biggest hugs and repeated over and over again, "It's okay...It's okay." At that moment I felt the greatest peace to know that He has given me the chance to change, He has and can free me from my sins, He can make it possible for me to look upon my Father and say, "I have done my best, please forgive for me for my faults." And because Jesus will be standing there on my side, saying, "Yes he did, and all of those worldly sins he has done you can put on me." The Father will welcome me with open arms and say, "Good job, I am proud of you."

I can not wait for that moment, I can not wait to see my Fathers face again.

Some things I liked this week: (besides that experience for that truly was the highlight of my week.)

During Zone Conference the President talked about a lot of Charity, and having it with Faith and Hope. He mentioned one talk by Elder Wirthin of the October 2007 conference where he was talking about Charity and God-like love, and in the middle of his talk he started shaking uncontrollably and almost fell over, then right away Elder Neilson stood up and supported him during the rest of his talk. One thing my Mission President knew that most didn't, was that Elder Wirthin was his Stake President once and Elder Neilson was his first councilor, they have always had that love for each other and always have been working with each other. He emphasized that we all need this love on our missions we need to support our investigators at all times and love them how Jesus would love them.

Here is something I wrote the president this week about Thanksgiving:

"With Thanksgiving coming up, I have been thinking of what I am truly thankful for. It all comes down to rain. That might sound weird right now, but everything I am truly thankful for is tied into rain. Some reason I am one of those people that just loves rain, I am even inspired to say that I get happier in the rain or when it rains. Rain has always reminded me of my family, we, every year have a family Reunion. Which family Reunion has all of my extended family which is around 450 people every year. Every year we also gather together and have a camp out for 3-5 days, and every year it rains. That is one of my fondest memories is sleeping with my family in a tent and hearing the rain hit the roof of the tent. It's one of the only places I have the best nights of rest also. Rain also reminds me of hope, all the trees and plants have hope and faith that it will rain so they can live, that is just like us here on earth we all hope and wait for Jesus Christ to come into our lives so we can 'live'. Rain is my family, rain is my friends, rain is faith, rain is hope, rain is Jesus Christ, rain is love. Again, I am thankful for rain more than anything. You understand now why everything comes down to rain, because rain reminds me of everything that is good in life. "

You are all the best! Please be happy this week, receiving emails about everyone fighting doesn't really help, I get worried that the family isn't doing to well. Please look for all the best things in life OK?

BE HAPPY! :D

--

Love Always,

Elder Ky Davis

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week 31-Vyborg

Hey Ya'll, I am so surprised how fast time flies. Months are totally weeks now to me. I was shocked that tanner get's home so soon. I thought he still had half a year or something. But a month? Wow.

Vyborg is awesome! We meet with two families this week, the Demetrivs and the Egnatevs. The demetrivs have 4 daughters and one son, all of them are pretty young. It totally reminded me of home, and all of our fights and silly stuff we did. They totally feel like a mormon family. I already love them. Then the Egnatevs is this old man and women, where the women got baptized about 20 years ago, and had a spiritiual experence where she needed to give a man on the train a Liahona, in short she did, he got baptized and then they got married. It was an awesome story, we will be going back there hopefully this week, they will feed us too! :)

We also had a split with the zone leaders in St. Pete. The elder I was with was in the MTC with me, but left to Russia 6 weeks before me. He is a great elder. We met with a man named, Max. Who knows perfect english, its just with a heavy southern accent. He learned english from all those old western films, John Wanye and stuff. He always referred himself to a cowboy and all these Russians here are indians. It was quite funny. :) He went on about how he actually performs country music here. I thought that was really cool. We taught him the Word of Wisdom, and we asked him to tell us what he learned, because he is quite distracted. He told us, "We'll I can't drink black coffee and can't em Rattlers, because theys bad fer yuh." We didn't mention anything about Rattle Snakes, but it was funny. :) That same Elder I was with introduced me to a band he found a while ago, listened to some of it. After hearing it, I thought you would like it father. They are called Sigur Ros they sing in Icelandic. It's quite peaceful. I like it.

So the weeks are kind of the same, Vyborg is actually smaller than Pskov, people and size. We can walk the entire city end to end in 45-60 minutes. Which is interesting because, here in Vyborg we had 67 people at the branch for sunday. I was kinda shocked in all. But oh well. Experiences, experiences. Oh tell grandma I got her halloween card. Don't have too much time today to write everybody. Maybe next week.

Some answers of your questions:

It's only me and my companion in this city, there were 6 missionaries at a time. There were also 3 branches here too. Until they made a branch building. Yes vyborg is one of the two areas that have their own branch building. Which is really nice. It's getting cold, but has not snowed yet! I don't even know why. Russia does not have Day light Savings i just figured out. So that's quite interesting, i thought the entire world does that. Or maybe that was just America.... Hmmm...

Well my mind is kinda of scattered right now, so I'll end my email here.

I love you all, Tell me all about the shop next week! K?

--

Love Always,

Elder Ky Davis

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week 30-Vyborg

Well it's kind of crazy, but Vyborg is amazing! I found out that Vyborg was one of the first cities to get Missionaryized in Russia. There are so many members this ward totally reminded me of our ward back home. They have a ward mission leader in all too! I was so excited about that. My companion is from Utah, and speaks English, finally. His name is Elder Andersen from Bloomington Hills St. George. (see if grandma and grandpa Lee know them. K?) He also lives right next to that golf course underneath the tower with the flashing lights. I've decided the Lord has a sense of humor, because he loves to bless with me companions who are noisy eaters. Haha, yeah in one of my talks I have read it says something about patience I really like, "If we didn't have annoying people in the world we would never learn to be patient." Vyborg is really small, it's three hours north of St. Petersburg and small, you can walk the entire city in 45 minutes. I don't know if you say any pictures of the castle or anything but this Wednesday we do service there and such, pictures to follow.

Haven't done too much missionary work in the past 4 days, we meet with two members, but the rest of the time we have been cleaning the apartment and area book. (The last elders didn't leave us to a clean apartment, even left a clogged toilet, ugh.) We did all this because, we don't have a plunger and had to call our landlord to fix it. He saw how bad the apartment was, (which wasn't too bad) and got pretty mad. So we've been cleaning! What is great though my companion has OCD, now I feel like I am not always cleaning up after my companions.

OH! Before I forget to say this, thank you so much for the package, I have drunken so much Cocoa I love it.! I am going to try to send the family a christmas package this week, I hope you get it on time, don't expect to much, I am not in St. Petersburg where all the cool stuff is, I might just send candy and such, music (really cheap here, really really cheap) maybe some russian nesting dolls. We'll see. Thank you so much for your letters this week, helped me cheer up. I miss you all so so much. Especially with Christmas coming around, my companion and I are listening to a lot of Christmas music now, I am so in the mood for Christmas! Even if I don't get to celebrate it like we normally do. I feel like November is already over, months fly by so fast. This mission has flown, in two weeks I have been on my mission for 8 months! Crazy! It just doesn't feel right, how fast it is going. It kind of makes me frustrated that I don't know enough Russian already, yet humbled for how much I do. Ether 12:27 Comes to mind, I need to trust the Lord with all my weaknesses, and he will make them strengths if I believe in him.

Father do not apologize for your last letter, I needed it. I needed some back handing. I'm kidding. It was back handing maybe small little thumps on my forehead :) But, it was needed I have not been frugal with my money. I have been spending on things that I really don't need. Things I can't return, things I have wasted money on. Yeah, it's true.

Well I can't think of anything else to write about, other then talking in English is a wonderful blessing and relief. I'll send some pictures of last week in Pskov and this week in Vyborg. Love you all!

Oh P.S. I'll send you a family email each week now and if you feel like it should be put on my blog, you can go ahead and put it on there also. Also if you want to you can put the pictures I have sent on there also. Friends tell my there isn't any on there and they would like to see some.

Love Always,

Elder Ky Davis

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Wednesday, November 9, 2011

week 29-Vyborg

Love Always,

Elder Ky Davis

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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Week 28-Pskov

Happy Halloween everyone!

Please send pictures of Mason's minecraft costume. Sorry I don't have a lot of time to write today, we are helping the branch with Halloween here, which we wont be here for because we leave for Petersburg tomorrow. I am being transfered. :( more of that later.

Well your request is not a problem. I understand that also, and today if I have time for the other email for my blog I will write it. But, that's later and of course that's important. And about Taelor, it's wasn't really chatting I happened to be at the interenet and she emailed me, and we emailed back and forth a couple times. Which was strange because she was up at 1 in the morning to do that. The mission president hasn't really made any rules for that, but I made a personal one that I can only write one friend once a week. Because after that little, "chat" I was way too distracted. That is not good at all. I will let you know when I recieve your packages, tell Aunt Chris that I am recieving her emails. Also thank grandma for her emails too. I love you all, and miss all of you so much. I hope all of you are doing great, how I read your email, it sounds like everyone is a little sad. Why is that? There is no reason to be sad, like I told one of the members here that, often, never smiles. You have the greatest reason in the world to smile, you know that Jesus and Heavenly Father love you! That's enough to get me happy. It helped me out this week, I have been a little down this week. Missions are hard. You have people you hate you on the street, before they even meet one. Friends back home forget you. Have no friends on the mission, yeah you have members but they forget you once you leave the area. In short of writting, all of that got to me. I was just down, and just thought Well I have one friend that will always support and love me and that Jesus. He is such an amazing person, it amazes me how much he has done for all of us.

Thank you for telling about the money dad, I am not offended. I actually miss getting lectured as funny as that sounds. Yes at the start of my mission I was not being froogle with my money. Now I have learned, and also if you check my bank account. I don't use my card, I have to withdrawl everything. But that doesn't mean I have spent everything. That last 500 $ I withdrawled around 400$ of it. 15000 rubles, I have only spent 4000, 3000 on a winter coat and 1000 for a hat and gloves. I know I need to make a sacrifice, this mission isn't for me to buy 500 ties. It's to baptize someone, bring people to christ.

So about transfers, I am going to be in Vyborg pronounced, Voo'eburg. That's the best I can translate it into english, it's really hard to switch some letters into English from Russian. I am actually kinda sad about that, I love Pskov, it's like my homeward right now. I feel like yesterday was my farewell and I went on a mission again. I really hope a helped someone here, even though I can't see it and don't see any success from being here 4 1/2 months maybe I helped someone, I don't know. I pray often that I have. Again missions are hard. But, worth it. I look back and think what I would be doing if I wasn't on the mission and seriously can't think of anything. School maybe? I have no idea.

Every sunday I usually feel bad, because I forget my family and then remember that I need to write you the next day. I don't know if that's a good thing that I am getting incompased with the work or not.

I love you all so so so so much, pray for all of you all the time.

--

Love Always,

Elder Ky Davis

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Week 27-Pskov

First off I am on week 31 I think, I'll do the math later. It is really crazy how fast time flies. This email is actually earlier because, we are going to a different city called Peeshori, apparently it's very beautiful because all Pskovites talk about and say if you been in Pskov and haven't been in Peeshori you really haven't been in Pskov. So we will take their claim to test. Pictures will come next week of it.

I think that is great you became a Psych fan dad, it is quite hilarious. Probably has a lot of 70's and 80's references that you know of. If I remember correctly, it's also quite clean. I don't remember hearing any swear words in it. Well don't spoil it for me too. That's one series I want to continue to watch after my mission. The address with the Backwards R, will always be the best. In fact don't even use the other one. I am excited when I will recieve it finally, patience is a virture ain't it?

It's is quite cold here actually. We were in St. Petersburg last week for 3 days, (did not recieve the package yet, but I learned packages take quite a while) and one of the days it snowed for 25 minutes! On Monday Pskov got to 32 degrees! It was quite cold, I have a picture I sent of what I used on that day, I was quite shocked that I used that kind of stuff in October! There isn't much in this letter for a couple of reasons, one I am tired. Ha. Two, we spent most of last week in St. Pete. Also sorry that I didn't write everyone back this week don't have much time today, since we are leaving for Peeshori soon, and need to shop also. The Split with the Zone Leaders was kinda cool, in fact my first companion Elder Loskotov is my Zone Leader right now. It was good to see him again, he is kinda of depressed I am not sure why, I think it's because he is training again, training a Russian too. Who has his own ideas about the mission and argues with Elder Loskotov a lot. It was good for him to see me again, it was good for me also. I went contacting with his companion in a park for two hours, it was great! I was surprised on how he contacts. Basically Bold and straight forward, if someone says they aren't interested, he asks why, unlike how I learned to just not petster people into talking, because that doesn't leave a great impression. It was fun to get out of my cage of Pskov. Next week is Transfer Calls, to be honest I actually want to stay here in Pskov. I love it here.

Well that's about it this week, In the package you send me, I would love one of those cookie scoopers you use mom. :)

And Dad, a member asked me what is the best Anti-Virus program for Windows? I told him you would know, he want's to know both free and pay for. Thanks!

--

Love Always,

Elder Ky Davis

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Week 26-Pskov

Well to first answer your question, this transfer is actually 7 weeks long because the new missionaries don't come in two weeks from Wednesday. It's kinda of important to have a transfer with them here. Also I recieve grandmas letters each week, they are much enjoyed. Maybe someday I will have time to write her back, maybe today. I don't know. We will see.

This past weekend was awesome. We had the mission president with us, what was interesting was that he came without the AP's and I had to translate for two meetings he was in. It made me realize how much Russian I know, and how much I don't know. But, thank goodness that we had a return missionary that learned a lot of english on his mission (ilya) because if he wasn't here, I would have to translate for their talks during church, and that would be extremely hard for me. I speak understandable Russian, but not grammatically correct Russian, and many members here in Pskov like to shove that in my face. Like sometimes I put that accent in the wrong spot, and they act like they completely don't understand me, and I am speaking entirely different language. Oh well humbling moments are loved by missionaries right?

I like what you said dad about not doing anything stupid, it reminded me of President Hinkley, he once gave an address to the MTC, and he straight up said, "I can only give you bit of advice, Don't do anything stupid." It was funny hearing it from the prophet. This week is going to be hecktic, we are in St. Petersburg for 4 days from Tuesday to Friday, my companion has a visa trip, then right after that we have a split with the zone leaders. After that the week is almost already done. I am interested to see how things go, maybe my package is there, maybe not. I called the office elders and they said to ask you which address you sent it to. The one with the a/(backwards R) because that's the one that is best to send anything to. Because if I am not in St. Petersburg to pick up the other one which I have to pick up personnaly, after a month the russian post office needs to send it back, but that costs too much, so they just open it and take what they want.

I am doing great here, I love Pskov. I gave up fighting within myself for change. Pskov is an amazing place, I asked the President if I could stay here my entire mission, probably a little prideful, but I was joking a little bit, just trying to let him know I love it here in Pskov and the people here are amazing, the members also.

Well this week I want to share to what I eat normally each week, you are going to be shocked. I have at least 20 eggs, 2 gallons of milk, 2 loafs of bread or more. That's the normal. Some reason I jut like eggs. Eggs I like. Like I eggs. (the girls will remember that. ;) I love the food here, I haven't eaten anything I haven't liked yet. Which isn't a shock, because I eat everything.

For Christmas: Ok don't send me your vanilla, but send me some vanilla extract. Also a big bottle of vitamin pills from cosco, because they are quite expensive here maybe 10-15 dollars for 25 pills. Also because the president recommends it. Also some more Emergence-C I loved those things and finished them in the MTC. After that, everything doesn't matter what you send me.

Well I love you, always be happy! Be strong! Read the book of mormon in the morning together in the morning!

--

Love Always,

Elder Ky Davis

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