One year down...

Year Mark ...  December 5, 2011

 Dear Family and Friends,

So there was alot of things that happened this week. so first off, i have now been on my mission for over a year. It is crazy to think how fast it has flown by. So on the year mark The 3 of us elders that were in the MTC together all went out to chilis, it was really fun. i always love being with just them 2. Then also this week we had a culture night. so we got tickets to go to an operreta, whatever that meens. So we went there and the title was the Bat. So it wasnt bad. . . if you understood everything. They were singing in opera style and i couldnt understand it. it was boring at some parts but it was pretty good. Also this week we were able to set a baptismal date with a lady that was taught a long time ago but came back from a long trip in canada and we met with her and set a baptismal date for the 14th of january. So we are excited for that. Me and my comp are hoping we will stay together another transfer but he has been in the area for 6 transfers now. So we will see. everything else seems to be going good. Church has gone pretty well, i am in a smaller branch and we only have 2 hours of church. besides that not to much going on. I hope all of you are having a good week. i love you

 

Love Jordan

Thanksgiving (November 28, 2011)

Dear family and friends,

I hope everyone had a great thanks giving. I know i did. My district was able to go to presidents house and spend the day there. It was great we played a game or two and then we drew letters and we went around and had to say what we were thankful for that started with that letter. so my letter was H, so i said i was thankful for a home because we just got kicked out of ours. it made everyone laughed. We all had to bring something to eat also so my comp and i decided to make no bake cookies, well we didnt have tin foil so we decided to make a no bake cake. We also triple sized the batch and just put it in a pan. That thing weighed over 10 pounds. it was so heavy. i called it the brick when i brought it to presidents house.  Everything else this week has been a little slow. We have been calling people and trying to meet with people but they dont answer or just cant meet. I Did happen to find the old olympic swimming pool here in moscow. Its one metro stop away from where i live and i really wanted to go swimming. Hope everything for everyone is going good. i love you all.

Love Jordan

Thrown out...(November 21, 2011)

Hey Family and Friends,

This week was pretty crazy. so we had some good lessons and hoping some good things out of it. But we had to move out of our apartment this week and so we packed most of our stuff and moved it out we only had a few things left to pack and take to our new apartment. So we were heading back to our apartment after we had interveiws with president and come home and find most of our stuff out in the hall way. We open up the door and there is our land lady yelling at the office elders and then starts yelling at us. I think i got lucky that my head was hurting pretty bad so i didnt start talking back to her. she was way mad because she said we were suppose to be moved out but we werent when really we paid for the apartment till the end of the month. So it was a big mess and she started making us clean her dishes that we already cleaned and everything it was crazy. We finally got all our stuff and it was about 10:30 at night and then we had a lot of stuff to carry over a mile away. but luckly about 3 minutes after we started carrying everything we found a random shopping cart so we were able to put everything in there and push that to our new apartment. That was a big blessing just finding that cart to push everything. Now we are in our new apartment it is alot nicer and way more convenient for us. I hope everything is going great for all of you and that you all have a good thanks giving. i love you all and thank you for everything.

Love Jordan

It's Dine (November 13, 2011)

Hello Family and Friends,

Not to much exciting here happend this week we had some good meetings and i have been speaking alot more russian which i enjoy. We have this one girl that loves to come to english club and speak english. She isnt the best at it but she tries and she comes to family nights and everything. So before i came she was taught the 1st lesson so we met with her and wanted to teach her the 2nd lesson and she was weirded out that we wanted to have a meeting with her and she said she read stuff on the internet and i was like ok what did you read? and she brought up all the things that are possible to read bad about us. so i spent and hour trying to answer every one of her questions the best i could in russian. and she seemed like she was some what fine with what we had to say but then met with some other missionaries and i guess did the same thing and freaked out a little bit on them. Then she said she was going to come to church but she didnt come so we are a little bummed about it. So last week our english club was cancelled until further notice because a girl called president and said that one of the missionaries was trying to rape a girl at english club but actually they told a girl to go hide so they could have a meeting with her once this other girl left but the one girl flipped out and then some not nice things were said so they cancelled it for a while. it sucks but there is nothing we can do. Well that is about it for thiss week i hope all of you have a good week and a good thanksgiving. i love you all.

Love Jordan

Night in Kiev (November 7, 2011)

Dear Family and Friends,

So this week has been kind of crazy. so i got transfered on thursday and spent the night not in my apartment and then friday i met up with elder wininger and goddard becaus we had to stay at the office elders because we flew out saturday morning to go to kiev for our visa trip. So we were on the plane and were flying when they said that they couldnt land in kiev so they had to turn down to a city called donyetsk. so we flew down there and had to wait there for a few hours while they figured everything out. us three were so excited we thought we were going to get to stay in that city and go see a different city of ukraine. but then they flew us back to kiev. so we get to kiev and we were trying to make our flight back to moscow and the gates were closed when we got there so we had to go find another flight but they didnt have any that night. so we called our office elders and they found us a flight for sunday morning so we had to find a hotel. So we found a hotel and it was my first ever hotel rental ever and i didnt even have to be over 21. so we got our room and then went and got some food because we hadnt eaten all day. then we got on the plane sunday morning and tried to make it back to the first ever stake conference in the moscow stake. the took us to the office and we saw the last half of conference and all the area presidency was there and we hadnt saved in a few days so all of us had some facial hair and probably didnt look the cleanest for the area presidency. but it was fun. So tomorrow will be my first day in my new area and i am really excited for that. i got a new companion named elder whitimore he is from texas. i like him alot. well i hope you guys have a good week. i love you all

Love Jordan

клин  (October 31,  2011)

Family and friends, this week was a good week. So i went on a split with elder palmer and we went to a city and hour outside of the city we are in so we were 2 hours outside of moscow, its called kleen. It was really fun we went and spent the day there and we had a kid take us around and show us some sites and showed us around. Then he left and we decided to walk around and contact a little bit before we needed to go back and i had to go to the bathroom really bad, so palmer was like we could probably find some trees over that way so we started walking that way and we see a guy and he is moving a rock so palmer asks him if he needs help and he was like no what orginazation are you with? and we say the church and he asks us where we are from and we say america and he starts speeking to us in english and we got to know him a little bit and he gave us his number and invited us over when we go back there. it was way cool to find him because i just had to go to the bathroom. then earlier up there we were walking on the train tracks and they police saw us and came and told us to come over to them and and they say let us see your passport and documents. so i decided to play dumb and act like i know 0 russian and we just acted like idiots and they just got fed up with us and and told us to leave. it was way funny. We have transfers this week and i will be getting trasnfered. i am going to miss this area i love the ward. there are alot of cool people up here too. well i think that is about it for the week. it was a good week. i hope everything is good with you guys and hope you have a good week.

Love Jordan

MRI (October 24, 2011)

Hello Family and Friends, it wasnt to long ago since i wrote you but i got a story for you guys. so thursday there is a guy that is doing a remodle for a members apartment and we were able to go help him and then we asked him if we could come talk to him again some time and he was like sure. so we went over and talked to him on thursday and opened up to us alot. he wants to stop smoking but is addicted. But we talked a little about why we are here and asked him if he would be interested in listening and we can try to help him stop smoking. he said yeah call me anytime. so that was good we now have someone we can meet with and talk with.

Ok so everyone knows i have been having headaches and i have had them for about 3 weeks now. So they sad that i needed to get an MRI. so saturday i went in to get my MRI and it was an experience. so first the gave me a hospital dress. which i really wanted to keep i tried to take it after i used it but they wouldnt let me. But the laid me down on the bed and then got me situated then put like a Halo mask on me and lifted me up and slip me back in. but as they were sliding me back, turns out my shoulders were a little bit so i was packed into the MRI. I had no idea ho long i was going to be in there for but i was in there for over an hour and i couldnt move or do anything. But i found out that everything is good inside my head but we still dont know why i am having headaches. so i have more test this week. That is about it i guess. i hope all of you have a good week. i love you

Love Jordan

Change (October 19, 2011)

Family and Friends.

This week was a little crazy, we didnt really have very many meetings but we ended up doing alot of service. we are helping everyone get ready for the winter. So we piled wood and clean up around their place and fix things, it has been fun. We have been having alot of problem with our shower and our land lady calls us mad saying that we need to do something about it or not shower. I guess water leaks to the people underneath us. They should have fixed it when they redid our whole apartment. We had a mission conference yesterday and they decided to change our p-day, so i will be writing on mondays now. So next monday i will be on. they decided it would be better so that we work all week working towards sunday and getting people there on sundays. so we will see how it goes. Crazy things happen around our apartment this week. One night our phone didnt really work and we work at midnight because we heard what we thought were gun shots, but turns out they were fireworks, and then our phone said that we missed about 20 calls and after the fireworks we heard people racing in their cars close to our place and then some people yelling and screaming. kind of crazy things like that have been happening almost everynight. Well i hope all of you are having a good week. for some reason i am way excited for halloween, i just want to do something for it. have a good week i love you

Love Jordan

Conference (October 12, 2011)

Family and Friends,

Another week gone and as of yesterday we are back into our apartment! I havent slept on a real bed for over 2 weeks. The apartment looks alot better but is still pretty ghetto. So this last weekend we got to watch conference which was really good. the missionaries in my area all went to the branch building and watched it together, so it was pretty good. That took up alot of our time this weekend though. The girl who was just baptized told the sisters that all her friends want to come to church now. so that is awesome that through her maybe many more will be brought into the church. The rest of the week not much else happened i did go bargaining for some winter boots because i have walked right out of my shoes that i have been wearing but 10 months everyday all day, yeah i think i got some good use out of them. I got the boots for about 30 dollars off so that was good i only paid about 55 dollars, not bad when everyone wanted double that. I think that is about it for this week hope all of you are doing good. i love you all. 

Love Jordan.

Baptism  (October 5, 2011)

Family and Friends,

This week was good. We had that baptism from the sisters which the girl asked me to baptize her so it was awesome. Her name is ksusha. She is awesome, she use to be athiest and then found the book of mormon when we were chalk drawing and now she is a champ at the gosple. But The day of the baptism i had to go early and clean out the font and make sure everything was good. So we cleaned it out and everything was good but then we tried draining the dirty water and it wouldnt drain. we were freaking out and we didnt know what to do because we didnt want dirty water it was gross. So we said a prayer and still nothing. We didnt know what to do then sisters came and on suggested that we pray and we were like we already did then she does this thing with her hand and tells it to work and then it starts draining. We were blown away and didnt know what to think. But we were just happy the dirty water was gone. so we started filling it up and turns out that in our building we dont have hot water. so my comp elder hayes goes and finds all the pots and pans to start boiling water to pour into the font. Well the water was still way cold when we got in. it took my breath away and she said she had a hard time breathing when she came out of the water. Then that night we weent back home and i was exhausted, and i had no idea why? I had no energy and didnt want to do anything and all we did that day was the baptism and went out to eat and watched legacy with the girl. I was the most tired i have been on my mission that day. We were trying to figure out why i was so tired and we decided that i was exhausted from the spirit because that day was probably the most spiritual experience i have had in my life. It was a good day. Then I was able to be apart of giving her the gift of the holy ghost, it was the 2nd counselor and then the guy who gave her the holy ghost and then me and that was it. i think people were kind of blown away that i was baptising her and was part of that. but oh well. Everything else is going great here. i hope all of you are having a good week. i love you all

Love Jordan

Splat  (September 28, 2011)

Hello friends and Family,

This week has been great! to start off, we have been staying at the other elders apartment because ours a mess and we cant really sleep there. so whenever we come over to their apartment they always throw water balloons at us so we were there waiting for them to come for lunch and we decided to throw some at them. but we only had 2 balloons. so we both had one. but they decided they would just walk and dodge the ballloons, well that didnt work for them. my comp throws his and completely misses. and i am looking for the other guy and he is walking and is almost under a little part of the building, so i lobbed it (might i add we are 7 stories up) and it is falling and i was aiming just to hit right around him to get him wet. NOPE it hit him right dead on the head! it was such a perfect throw. it was so funny. 

 This Saturday there will be a baptism from the sisters in our district and i will be the one baptizing her. i am way excited for that. The girl is just the most perfect investigator ever. We havent had much luck with finding people but this week we have been doing alot of service so that is good too i guess. 

This past sunday i had to give a talk. it was on service. so as you all know me and know how i love to write papers and talks i waiting till the last minute to do it. so saturday night i was up late wrighting it. then sunday morning i translated it, with a little help. then i decided once i got to church i had a few scriptures i wanted to read. so i decided to call one of the other missionaries up and read it for me and to thank him for his service. everyone started laughing it was pretty funny. its alot harder to give a talk in a different language and trying to read what you wrote, so at times i waqs just winging it but everyone liked it. 

So that is the week and i hope all of you have a good week. i love you all.

Love Jordan 

More Fun

Remont  (September 21, 2011)

 Hello everyone,

this week was a little crazy we have been dealing with alot of stuff this week. We are going to be doing a remodle in our apartment because we have the most ghetto apartment in the mission and alot of things are breaking or dont work so we have been having to deal with our landlady and making agreements with her and everything. So that has been a hassle and she has been cleaning out all of her stuff that she has in our apartment and she found an acordian which is from the war and she was just going to throw it away and i was like we will take that out later we dont have time right now. so when we got home that night i started playing it just for fun it was awesome. We had the other elders over for dinner on sunday and we had balloons at our apartment so we filled them up and when they were leaving we threw rthem off our balcony at them so it would land infront of them. it was so funny. they thought they were in war. it landed right infront of them so one turns back yelling and hides under our apartment. the other one was on the phone and he takes off running as fast as he could it was so funny. then the one that was hiding comes out laughing and sees us and takes off running too. it was way funny. we met this guy this last week he lives in the hospital and we go and read the book of mormon with him and he is awesome he is so thankful that we come to him and think of him. That is about everything for this week next saturday the sisters in our area will have a baptism and the girl asked me to baptise her so that will be awesome. everything else is good here. it is starting to get a little bit colder and it doesnt help that our windows let air seep in. so i wake up freezing in the mornings. hope everything is going good for everyone. i love you all

 

Love jordan

:)  (September 14, 2011)

Hello there friends and family,

I hope all of you are doing good. i am doing great here in russia. this last week not to much happened we had troubles finding meetings because everyone tells us to call them on the weekends and so when we call them they dont feel like meeting with us or they just dont answer their phones so that was a little frustrating. it mad alot of time for contacting which was ok. we had a culture night on friday so our district got together and made some russian food and watch some russian cartoons they were pretty funny i liked them alot. good thing i have them on dvd so we are good. it was fun to watch them and see how their cartoons are. transfers are this week and i will be staying with my comp and in the same area. so it will be my forth transfer in this same area. which i am fine with i like this area alot. it is a city outside of moscow called zelenograd. A few nights ago we were doing a split and so we all had to run home and get clothes to change for the next day and the other elders told us to were our fur hats to meet them. so we did and people gave us so many weird looks it was so awesome! Everything is going great here and i hope everything is going great for everyone. i love you and thank you for everythng you all do.

 

Love Jordan

Day of the City  (September 7, 2011)

Hello There friends and family,

I hope all of you are doing good. this week was pretty crazy. so on sunday it was a holiday, day of the city. it was a huge deal up in the city i am in. It was way sweet though. so that day we were able to do that puppet show thing that we do at this like fair thing. it was way sweet. i didnt think it was going to be that good because there was so much awesome stuff going on and who would want to stand around and watch us do a puppet show about drugs and alcohol. but it turned out really good i was really surprised. we had alot of people sitting and watching and alot of kids were loving it. At the fair there was breakdancers and i wish i knew how to break dance. i want to learn so bad. i want to find someone who knows how to do it and have them teach me.  I also bought some more of those big fury hats that people were here. i bought 2 more because i got a really good price on them. i got 2 wolf fur ones. one is all wolf fur and the other has leather on the top and fur on the front, ears and back. Its way sweet i am so excited to wear all of these in the winter. on sunday we had a person from the 70 come and speak in our ward and our area president. it was a really good meeting. probably because it was somewhat in english and i understood it fully haha. I had to translate for some of it but i realized translating is so hard for me. because russian makes sence in my head (somewhat) and its hard for me to translate things into english. because i learn russian like i look at something and know what it is in russian, i dont learn the translation so it is hard for me. but it was good. 

Another awesome thing was there is this 7 year old girl here in my branch, she is my favorite little girl. But i talk to her alder sister and she said that her little sister said that i am her favorite haha. well she came up to me on sunday and asked me if i would baptise her. i wish i could baptise her, but her dad is kindof the 2nd counselor so it would be way messed up if i did baptise her haha. and she draws me little pictures and gives them to me. so wrote me a note saying she wants to serve a mission in america. she is awesome. Also i gave another russian blessing to this old grandma. it was funny the sisters called us and was like can you come give a blessing. and we were like sure. so we went over there but the sisters werent there and i say so you need a blessing is that right? she was like yeah. ok what is it for? for health. and then i was like ok we can do that. and she was like do you need bread and water? and i was confused i said no, unless you need the sacrament and she said no. and so she was like so you dont need bread and water and we say no. it was way funny. that is my week hope all of you are having a good week. i love you all

 

 

Love Jordan 

World famous in Russia (August 31, 2011)

Hello there friends and family,

So this week not to much happened, we found some new people to teach they are really nice. when we first met them we asked if we could help them in anyway and they said get us a million dollars. so this time we met with them i asked them if they got their million dollars and they said no, then they asked if we needed money and they were going to give us money. it was funny. So i think i said last week that we did the puppet show to help people know that smoking and drinking is bad. so we gave some pictures to our bishop and he put them online and now there is a story of us on the russian lds site. its latterdaysaints.ru we are front page news haha we thought that was kindof cool. We have been having a little more succuss with our new investigators and the ones we have been teaching and we are hoping that we can get them baptised soon so we will have to see. otherwise everything else is going good and we are having fun doing everything. hope everything is going good at home. i love you are and thank you for everything you do for me.

 

Love Jordan

Don't Smoke  (August 25, 2011)

Dear Friends and Family,

Hope all of you are doing good. This week not to much exciting happend but we got to do service. and the service we did was a puppet show. The puppet show was to tell kids not to drink and smoke and what it does to you. We did it infront of a store and people would just walk by and watch if they wanted. It got so tiring to just sit there for about an hour and have your hands up holding up puppets and moving them around. it was alot of fun though. we had some guy walk by start yelling at us saying what we were doing was wrong. but he was talking about us being missionaries, but we didnt have our tags on for that reason. then we watched this family stay and watch us perform the show and we are talking about how smoking is bad and everything, and it hurts kids, then right after the show finishes she lights one up right infront of us and her baby in a stroller. Then one missionary was like she really understood what she just watched. That was the biggest highlight of our week. we have been trying to find more meetings to just help our russian. its been hard at times because we both arent the best at russian so when he doesnt know what is going on he looks to me and i should know what is going on haha. it has been helping alot though, i have been having to make phone calls and talk to people. So hopefully russian comes along quicker. Yesterday me and hayes. . . my comp. . . almost set a baptismal date with this guy but he just wanted to listen to his nephews band so it was just not the best enviornment so we are hoping he comes to church and we can ask him then. well i hope everything is going great for everyone. i love you all.

 

Love Jordan

Worms?! (August 17, 2011)

Hello there friends and family,

this week was a good week, a few crazy things happened but it has been alot of fun. but here is a story for you. so yesterday us four elders in this area got invited over to this grandmas place for lunch. so we all go over there and she plays the guitar and is this old lady that just loves everything. so we go over there and ask her how she is doing and she talks for 30 minutes haha we just sat there. thene she was like ok lets eat i went and got some fresh food because i knew you would be coming. so it was just bread and salami which wasnt bad. then we had some tea and then here comes the good part. she brings out these candies and was like these are my favorites i bought them 2 days ago. so i take one and eat it, my comp takes one and eats it and then one of the other elders opens his up and a little worm crawls out of it and it just crawling on it, and he shows it to all of us, the greenie in our area startes freaking out. i just start laughing way hard, my comp is laughing which just makes me laugh harder, then the greenie starts laughing because we are laughing and he starts crying because he is laughing so hard. i felt like i was going to throw up because i am trying to hold back my laughing, i am sitting there squeeking and trying not to make noises. i couldnt elp it though, it was so funny. luckly the lady has a hard time hearing and was to deep in telling a story to palmer ( the kid with the worm candy) and he just sat there and listened to her while we are all crying and laughing so hard. then she goes to grab a picture and the greenie is like where is the worm and i just starting looking around and am like ah its by your leg its on you and he about wet himself haha then i start laughing harder and you all know me that when i laugh i cant just stop i just keep laughing. i was laughing for about an hour at this meeting. oh man then we called the doctor and like what do we do if we ate worms? he was like drink some coke. so we went and found a cold coke. and downed it. then last night we both felt so sick we dont know what it is if it is worms or not. so yeah who knows if i got worms or not i might be getting the bomb pill where it just cleans you out.  That is probably the highlight of the week everything else is going good i am having to speak alot more russian which is helping alot. hope all of you are doing good.

 

Love you

I killed a Spider (August 11, 2011)

Hello there friends and family, i hope you had a good week!! i had a pretty crazy week. so we had transfers last thursday and i am staying in the same area and am with a new companion, his name is elder cody hayes. He is awesome me and him are alike in alot of ways so we have been having alot of fun even though we havent been together that much this week. So transfers were on thursday, on friday he had to go to moscow to stay the night because he had his visa trip on saturday, then he got back to our town during church then sunday we had a meeting with the stake president and after that we all went down to moscow together because I had a visa trip on tuesday but Elder goddard had an investigator that he wanted me to meet. so we decided to make a split and i was with goddard and wininger, my mtc group. it was so much fun!! i miss them and i want to serve with them. but it was fun being with them for a couple days. Then we went to kiev on tuesday and on the plane goddard was sitting next to these 2 girls who were on the tv show survivor. it was way funny, because they lost and they were on their way home. then we were going to the temple in kiev but traffic was way bad and we missed the session so we were able to baptisms and confermations, but the sweet thing was that goddard wininger and i all got to do everything ourselves so wininger confermed and baptised me i confermed and baptised goddard and goddard did wininger. but what was even more sweet is that we got to do it all in russian! it was so much fun. And when i was in the water i just wanted to swim and stay in the water and not get out. it was a way good experience. then we went and walked around the center of kiev a little bit and that was cool to just walk around. Everything is coming along with russian now that i have to do verything and i havent really had to do much speaking in russian. but now he turns to me when he doesnt understand and i need to know what they are saying. so i am excited to work with him. it will be alot of fun. Well I hope all of you have a good week i love you

 

Love Jordan

Crazy Week (July 27, 2011)

Hello there friends and family, i hope all of you had a great week. so this week was just all over the place. we had to go into moscow alot and that took up like all of our money going back and forth from moscow to our town and then to moscow and having to buy metro tickets and doing all that kind of stuff and its not over we have to go to moscow 2 or 3 more times this next week but transfers are next week so who knows maybe i will be sent back into moscow and i wont have to do all this traveling. But i was also on some splits for half the week to. since my comp is district leader he has to go on a split with the other elders once a transfer so i went with a kid who is about to finish his mission next week. we had alot of fun. we were talking to this one investigator and he was just making excuses about everything we say and the arguement was getting intense because he wouldnt let us speak and would make up dumb metaphores that had no relevance and what not so we were just ok we are done, everyone is getting a little to heated so we had to stop talking about gosple stuff. Then something awesome, when i went on a different split we had to stay at their house and i slept on a pull-out chair! yes chair not a couch a chair. its wasnt comfortable but i just thought it was cool. So on a different split i was in the international branch so its all the africans that speak english. these black people are so awesome i love them. they are so amazing because they take in everything and at the end of one meeting this guy just started sharing his testimony and telling us how thankful he is for us saving him and making his life have meening again it was so awesome. it is way hot here and it is hard not to go swimming. everyone just walks around in like swim suits or with their shirts off and alot of people just go swimming where ever they want. it is so tempting to go just jump in and tell my comp that i slipped because i want to cool off haha. well i hope all of you have a good week.

 

Love Jordan

Lock Down (July 20, 2011)

Hello there family and friends,

So last week i forgot to tell you all about what happened and thats pretty much why i titled it psycho but whatever. so last week during study we got a call for the other elders in our district saying they are heading out of our area becasue they were told to leave. Well here is why. There was a car bombing right next to their apartment! the elders got it on film and so they were telling us about it and we were like why are only you guys leaving we live 20 mins away. so then we were told to stay inside all day. so thats what we did until we needed to go to moscow. I stayed inside and played chess for 4 hours. it was pretty boring. and it was way hard to study after they told us there was a bomb but eh. but everything was ok and no body was hurt. crazy things just happen. I had a drunk guy grab my shirt where my tag is and so i had to shove him away from me and then when i walked away he looked at me and gave me the thumbs up. pretty funny. well it is way hot here now in the good ole russia and very humid. we walk outside and we are already sweating. in the morning we take cold showers because we were sweating all night. well the work is tough but thats how it should be. and everything is going good. i hope all of you are doing good and are safe i love you all.

 

Love Jordan

July 17, 2011

Is it Me???

Service Project

P-Day Activity

Psycho...

Hello Family and Friends,

This week was pretty psycho. So we had troubles finding meetings this week and didnt have alot of them. everyone is out of town or busy or in moscow and something just doesnt work. so we did alot of walking around. Also my comp had a visa trip this past week so i was in moscow with a native elder. it was fun i spoke more russian with him and it was some good practice. while i was with him we went and handed out english flyers and it started to get dark just from the clouds and it looked like it was going to rain. so we still are just standing out there and we could see lightning coming and could hear the thunder. so the clouds get closer and closer and it wasnt raining yet for some reason but the lighting seemed like it was way close. then one time the thunder was so strog we could feel it in our bodies and it set off car alarms for many blocks. after we could just hear so many car alarms going off it was way crazy. We had mission conference this week and it was pretty good. President wasnt there because he had to fly back home because he has been really sick and they needed to do some testing. but it went well even without him them. So we stayed in moscow the past 2 nights and some thing crazy is, i saw a dead man just laying on the streets. And for some reason it was normal for a dead man to be laying on the ground with no body doing anything about it. it was way crazy, people would just by look and then just keep walking. it was way crazy. Today we went to the market to buy some fur hats because they are cheaper in the summer. so we went there and i wanted to get a wolf fur one but i decided i will get that when i come home because they are huge and expensive. but i still bought one as you can see in the pictures. It is a grey fox fur hat. The guy i am with in the picture is the guy that sold it to us. he was way nice. i got the hat for like 45 dollars it was way good. i am so excited to wear it this winter. well i hope everything is going great at home i love you and pray for you.

 

Love Jordan

Another Couple Months....

HEY...HOW DID THIS STORE END UP HERE

STREET ART  - WE DO THIS OFTEN 

Party  (July 6, 2011)

Hello there everyone, hope you all had a good week and had a good fourt of july. Well this week was pretty fun, well there were some fun times to it. So on monday it is this one girls birthday in the ward i am in now and she was having a party and she invited all of us missionaries to go, so what did i say? OF COURSE!! well my comp wasnt all that into the idea. So he tried as hard as he could to find something else to do during that time, luckly no one was able to meet that day so we got to go to the party. it was way fun! we went out into the forest and set everything up. i made rootbeer and brought it for her because some russians here love rootbeet. they were all way excited for it. But in the forest we made a fire and roasted hot dogs and had smores! it was way fun. We also played ultimate and football and alot of games. As soon as we got into the woods and started a fire my comp was like hey we are going to leave soon. so i said why? we dont have anything planned. he walked away. then it comes around 7 pm and he is like hey we should leave in a half hour and i say ok what for? do you have something to do? because if you do lets go, if nots its dumb to go. because it would take an hour to get home, 30 to get ready and then what its time for us to be home. so then he thought and walked away. wasnt to happy. but i had fun with everyone. i love being around everyone and other people. to bad i still dont really know russian. today for p-day we went to this huge mall in moscow and went ice-skating. it was way fun! i think that was pretty much it for the week we did alot of service and alot of people go out of town this time of the season so its tough to do work but we still do it. hope eveyone is having fun at home. i love you all

Love Jordan

Yet Another week  (June 29, 2011)

Hello there family another week has gone by and it has been really hot!! The thing is that the heat isnt the problem it is the hummidity that kills us. we are in shirts and ties and we are walking the streets and we just get sweaty. its not all that fun being sweaty all the time. and for some reasons, russians dont really believe in AC. we only have a small fan in our appartment and that doenst do much for us. at night we usualy dont even have to sleep with a blanket or anything because its hot and stuffy. We went chalk drawing a few times this week and one time this guy that we meet with was very drunk and we were trying to get a picture but he wanted to be in it so he is in the picture holding his beer then out of no where he kissed my comp on the cheek. so we were talking to him later and trying to get him to throw his beer away and he wouldnt he was like guys i am drunk i have drinken alot and i said yeah i can see that, then he looks at me smiles and head butts me! it wasnt that hard but i thought it was funny. We then went to that one guy i found while chalk drawing we went to his house and he is so excited to pray, when i called him he was like yeah come over and we can eat and say some prayers and do this and pray and what not it was way funny. he is an awesome guy but we just need to start teaching him. He talks alot and we have to tell him like hold on we want to say something is there is anything we want to say. and he loves to take pictures, he always tells me to bring my camera so we can make pictures and he has to be in everyone of them. i wanted a picture of something of just me in it but no he comes right in and is like make the picture and what not. kinda funny. We had the end of a transfer last week and i am staying with my comp. Well that is about everything that happened here and i hope all of you have a great week. i love you all

Love Jordan 

This looks like our cat at home - Nimba!!??

Dance  (22 June 2011)

Hello there family and friends, another week down and it was pretty fun. So to start it off i went on a split with the other elders in my city and they have a way nice apartment. I am way jealous of their apartment because ours is way small and stuffy and yeah just not the best apartment. So while i was with him we went over to this members house. this memeber is amazing. He used to be in the mafia and has been in jail i guess. He is a big guy and way funny, and he loves sports! doesnt matter what sport he loves it. like when we were over there on his huge tv we watched bull riding and some water polo. So while we were over there he asked me what sports i did and i told him swimming and he was like "oh mark spitz" and i was like yeah i know who he is and he was like are you the next mark spitz and i was like i wish then he was like ok mark spitz pray for us. then he fed us some borsh, the cabbage and beat soup. Which is really good i really like it. then after a big bowl of that i was full then he says ok dish 2. and he gave me this dish it was cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, and hot dogs in some mixture and i was looking at it like i dont want to eat this it looks gross. and he gave me a full bowl full. so i was like ok i can do this. so i started eating it and it wasnt that bad. but once it got cold because i was eating slow and i didnt want to eat anymore because i was so full was when it wasnt so good. so he told me, " when you come to me you dont need to eat the breakfast and dinner the day before". he isnt lying either. then When had a culture night last night and we went to a national russia dance. It was awesome. they did the typical russian style dancing were they bend down and then jump up into a star shape and then crouch down again and what not it was way awesome.

One of the old investigators we have here in this area when we went over to his house he got mad at us because we didnt bring the sisters but he is crazy. so we started talking to him and he said he had a vision, that joseph smith came to him and said that he is going to be the nixt prophet. And i about started laughing. because why would joseph smith come ti him. he isnt the one that calls the prophets. And we were like you need to be a member to be a prophet and he was like i know but i dont want to be the next prophet. and it was way funny. he also want us to go swimming with him and i really wanted to go but i know we cant do that.

So yeah that was my week hope all of you are having a good week and that you have a good week. love you all

Love Jordan

Quack (June 15, 2011)

ello everyone, another week here is russia. not to much happened this week but i will say a little bit. so we went over to one of our investigators. the one investigator that feeds us way weird food. so we walk in and we were fasting so i was going to use that as an excuse so i wouldnt have to eat what he was giving us. but turns out that day was a holiday so he prepared something really big. so he had a duck in the oven. I thought is was a huge fish at first but i didnt really see it all the way. But he stuffed the duck with apples and potatoes. so it was looking a little weird at first and i was thinking there is no way i can say no to this. so he loads up the plates and there it is some duck on my plate. surprising, it was actually really good. duck isnt bad. So things are kinda crazy here in the town i am in because for some reason people look at me and pretty much have the death glare and want to fight me. 3 people in one day have gave me that look and its not just the look like what are you doing here. its the look like i want to tear your head off. and they only look at me, my comp is just behind me and is like that guy wanted to kill you and i say i know. My comp almost had a stick thrown at him because this guy was freaking out at us and i was just watching them a little ways away. and my comp turned and walked away and the guy had a stick and raised his had to throw it but didnt then raised his hand again to throw it but seemed as if he couldnt. so we were being watched out for. That is about it for this week hope everyone is doing good.

Love Jordan

Again  (June 8, 2011)

Hello everyone i hope you all had a great week i know i did with some crazy things happening. So first off we now have a stake in moscow. it is the first stake in russia and it was great to have Elder Russle M. Nelson come and organize it. One interesting thing is that his son was one of the first missionaries in russia and some people remember being taught by him and so he spake and spoke in russian so that was pretty sweet. Also Elder Nelson bore is testimony in russian and that was pretty awesome to hear an apostle speak in Russian. Then on Monday they had a meeting for just the missionaries and Elder Nelson so it was a way good meeting. So remember that one guy who me and my comp had to throw our food out the window. well we went over there again and we were like we cant eat. well his is drunk and says no you are eating. so he gives us borsh, but this borsh was way gross, i told my comp there is no way i am getting this down so again the investigators leaves and out the window it goes, but my comp thought it was pretty good so then he is like talking about other russian foods and talks about the meat jello again. well he insisted that i try some so he pulls some out of the fridge and gives me some. and my companion to make it worse is like oh he loves it he told me he loves it so i am telling my comp i am going to punch you right in the face. so then my comp is like lets get it on video and i was like oh my so we got me on video taking a bite of this meat jello and spitting it right back out. and gagging alot. it is so gross. and then my comp is like the our investigator i dont understand he said he loves it. and i said i am sorry this is gross. so yeah we he gave us half the pan to take with us and it is now sitting in our fridge and will not be eaten. had a sweet experience were we were chalk drawing and a guy comes up to me in english and what tdo we got here missionaries or something so i give him and english club flyer trying to get him on his way but he wanted to talk to me. so i talked to him for an hour and he loves me and was like i want you to come down to my house and meet my family and my neices and i have a way loud sound system and we can listen to this music. so afater that i was talking to my comp and he was like you know you were the one he needed to meet because no one else would have been able to relate with him so we will see how things work out with him but to bad he lives in my last area i was in. so yeah. well that is everything for the week hope all of you have a good week.

Love Jordan

Split (June 1, 2011)

Hello everyone,

It was pretty eventfull this week and i think you guys will like this letter. so to start it off we went over to this one guys house who says i can pray to god why do i need to go to church. blah blah blah whatever so he decided he was going to feed us when we came over so he had prepare a meal for us. oh man haha so he took and soggy hard boiled egg cut it in half and put it in a bowl. then he added some kind of broth to it. maybe the broth he cooked the eggs into or something i dont know. so he gives it to us. i take a bite (we just ate right before this so we are stuffed) and this stuff is just gross. i am trying not to laugh because we are so stuffed and this is so gross so we are talking to him and not really eating. so he was like ok i will go talk with my wife and let you eat. when he leaves we are like there is no way this is going down. so we see a window next to us. so we are thinking we are going to throw it out. so we have to move the table a little bit so we can get to the window. my comp opens it. sits back down and he comes in and is like how is it? we are like ah its so good. he is like yeah my friends tell me i am a good cook. so he leaves again. we are like we have to do it. so he gets up and dumps his out and sits back down, i am like dude throw mine out. he is like ok hold on. I am done you have to figure out yours. i am like no get op and open the window. so he stands up and opens the window we thought we heard him coming so he is trying to shut the window and sit back down at the same time but ends up the window just is slamming open and close hard too. i am laughing so hard because i cant believe we are doing this. so we sit down and he doesnt come so i tell him stand up and i will hand him my bowl so we did and out it went from the 15th floor of the building. and he comes back and our bowls are spotless. we couldnt have done it by ourselves so i just start wiping it with bread to make it look realistic. so yeah there is one story.

Next story, i was walking down the street handing out english club flyers and i come up to these group of guys and i was like dang. ok whatever i will give them one. so i give them one and they are like oh you are mormon i say yes. they hand in back and this one guy who was drunk, he had a black eye and looked terrible starts swearing at me and yelling at me and then spits on me and walks away. whats even more funny is when we were chalk drawing he came up and looked at it and was interested haha. that is about it for this last week. this next week elder Nelson is coming to form the stake and he will have a conference with just the missionaries. OH another funny thing i did. we had a meeting and he was saying apostles are fake and there cant be apostles and what not. so i challenged this guy to come to the meeting with elder nelson and go up to him and tell him that he is fake. Who challenges someone to tell an Apostle that they are fake. Well obviously i do haha and i decided to tell him that his church is fake and what he believes in is фигня (crap) i guess i have become very blundt. ok well i hope all of you are doing good and hope you have a good week. love you all

Love Jordan

On our trip to the Ukrainian Temple...had to go there to renew our Visa.

Crazy Week (May 18, 2011)

Alright well it has been a crazy week. first i went to kiev ukraine for my visa trip so i had to renew my visa. that was way fun. ukraine is way pretty and it smells like fresh air. moscow smells just dirty and my boogers are like black from all the polution. but we made it to the temple and did a session. but the session was in romanian and they were all out of headsets so we had to listen to the session all in romanian and try to know what was going on. then after we were working our way down to the center of ukrain to eat and find a ride back to the airport. well we had to find a taxi or like a bus. well they thought they could rip us off becasue we are americans well i showed them whats up and i made a few people mad at us haha. they kept trying to get us to pay way to much then i start speaking with them and tell them no we dont have that much money we are volunteers and we dont have much money we dont work or anything. so then they would lower it but i already had a price that we were not going to go over. so they would try and i would just laugh at them an say like i said 100 greaven ( which like 15 maybe 20 dollars) for all of us. and they were like no how about 200 and i say yeah we will do 100. they were like NO i said 200 and i would say i said 100 its not worth 200. and then one guy was like but this is a nice car and you are going 40km, i said thats cool so do you want our 100 or no. then we start walking away and he was like ok i will do 200 and then again i say ok yeah 100 then he starts walking away yelling like you stupid americans and what not. so i say yeah we are americans and we arent stupid. then this other guy was like i will do 150 and we were like eh whatever lets just get to the airport. then we open up the car and it smells like weed (mariuana) and we were like eh thanks but no thanks. he got mad at that. then one guy came up and was like i will do 100 so yeah needless to say i got what we wanted. everyone else was just like 150 lets do that. because alot were saying that price but i was like no just wait we will have some one say 100.

    So i got a new comp and i am in a new area. My comps name is elder Jenkins, he is from provo but is not one of those kind of guys he loves the U so right away me and him get along. he is a goofball. we are in an outer city of moscow about an hour outside. and its so much nicer than moscow. we live right next to a forest and it smells so fresh. and all the people are way nice here. i have talked to a few people for awhile in russian and it makes me feel good that he russian is actually coming along. the branch here is amazing they are way nice and love talking with us even if we arent that good at russian so i hope i stay here for a few transfers so that my russian will get better.

   Last week i dont know if i said but i went and bought dvds. i spent about 20$ and got about 90 dvds. most of them are in russian and english. some are just russian. so that was a way good deal.

    some other random things. i have seen 2 dead people, both in the metro and everyone acts like its no big deal. i made spetleis on sunday because we were out of food and we only had flour and rice and we didnt want rice and they turned out really good. we dont have the metro in this city and we have tou use the buses. well its kinda hard when you dont know the bus routes and where anything is because we are both brand new to this area, so needless to say we have gotten lost very many times and have had to run to other bus stops to try to get where we want ontime.

  We went and did service for this family on monday, with our zone. this families house burnt down so we went to help them clean up and throw stuff away. like their whole house was in ashes so we went and did what we could. it was actually pretty fun i had to carry huge peices of wood around and they werent light. but these people are amazing. its just a grandma and grandpa. they are in their 80s and they are helping us dig through stuff and carry stuff and what not they are some troopers. i found a peice to an old 100 ruble bill to tape into my journal. so after this service we are all way dirty and we get home and we go to take a shower to get clean, well some thing russia does is turns off the hot water at times to clean the pipes. well thats what happened to us so we had to clean ourselves in cold water. its been off for a few days now and we boil water on the stove and then mix cold water with it to make it a good temp, then grab a cup and pour it over us and then shampoo and then rinse with the cups. its very time consuming but its alot better than a cold shower.

   I was getting off the bus one time and i felt my backpack get zipped up so i hurry and look back and there is a guy standing there and i look in his hands and he has a beer and nothing else so i was like he couldnt have taken anything. so we get off the bus and so does this guy. we are looking at the map trying to find where to go and this guy walks away and stops and stares at us. then walks at me and then pulls out of his pocket one of my pens. so i say what else did you take. he said nothing. i wanted to punch him in the face for stealing but i didnt. we started talkign to him and he said he is a good guy he could have stolen everything and ran away but he has a consience and is a good person. if he was a good guy, usually good guys dont do that. but yeah i got everything back and i was lucky because i had my ipod in that pockt too. well i hope all of you have a good week i love you all

Love Jordan

Split/Stake (May 11, 2011)

Hello everyone, i hope all of you had a good week i know i did. it was good to talk to the family on sunday for mothers day and see all your faces. i am glad all of you are doing good. well as for i have been on almost a whole week split with elder larsen, he is in my district right now and me and him get along way well. so we have been on splits for almost this whole week probably 5 days out of 7 we have gone on a split and they have been way fun. So we have tranfers tomorrow and i will be getting tranfered to a city outside of moscow and my companion i heard is a goof. so i am really excited for it, i need to start packing though. on sunday president called an emergency missionary meeting and he told us that in june when elder nelson comes he is going to establish a stake. so we will have the first stake in russia and that is exciting. but that also means our mission boundries will be changed so we might get kazakstanor something or they might split up the city of moscow half moscow mission and half moscow west mission, so who knows these past 2 tranfers might be the last 2 tranfers i serve in moscow but who knows we will find out more during this transfer when elder nelson comes. so that will be exciting. otherwise not much else is new i will have alot to talk about next week, i have a crazy week planned ahead of me. i hope all of you are doing good and that you have a good week. love you all

Love Jordan

Yup  (April 27, 2011)

Hello there family and friends. another week has gone by and not much happened. we had a total of 3 meetings last week. me and my comp. but one crazy thing i went on alot of splits with people. and when i was on one split me and this kid were recieving miricle one after another. we had 7 meetings in one day got maybe 10 new contacts and 3 new investigators. but to bad it wasnt in my area. but it was amazing the people we met. we met on guy in the bathroom and wanted to talk to we went to a resteraunt and talked and he was way nice. we met some bums but they were amazing bums. they stopped drinking and cursing and are trying to stop smoking. so we went and bought them some bread and bananas. not much else happened though it was just alot of splits because my comp had to go on his visa trip. today for a little birthday thing for me we went and got on a train for 2 hours and went to like a way orthadox town and in a temple. i couldnt help but laugh and smile when i was in there. i dont know why. no one else was smiling or anything. and none of the missionaries were either. people probably thought i was on drugs but whatever. well i think that is about it for this week i hope all of you have a good week i love you all. 

Love Jordan

Another Week  (April 20, 2011)

Another week down and not to much happened. we had a meeting with a very famous and rich guy here in moscow or overall in russia. He has writen 2 books, been in 19 movies, has weekly meetings with the russian president, works in the kremlin, and works for the secret services and yeah very acomplished man. but he wants to help the lds church be on good terms in russia. i dont know if he just wants money or what but yeah hopefully he is some help. and the other guy that we met with is way rich i guess he has a $11000 euro fur coat. yeah i wish i had that much money to spend. but that rich guy wants me to teach him how i tie my tie knot. because i learned a pretty sweet way in the MTC and it blows peoples minds. Then yesterday i was handing out english club flyers and this guy comes up and and wants to talk about the new testiment of his church. well his faith is something i have never heard of it is called the gideonnites. one elders who was with us said they are very rare and it was like finding a holographic charizard pokemon card. and he gave me and all the other elders one of the new testiments to his church in russian and english. so yeah pretty weird. that is about everything for this week nothing to interesting or fun. but the language is still way hard i still dont understand that much. well i hope everyone has a great week i love you all.

Love Jordan 

Jello Meat??!!....March and April 2011

GQ Pose in Russia...

So it was done...(14 April 2011)


Well sorry you didnt get my email yesterday the myldsmail wasnt working so we just get to email today. so here was the week. last week we had to help[ this guy to the hospital and the hospital was pretty creepy, there are people on gurnies everywhere long hallways of just rooms and people in them. and yeah i swear it could have been a horror movie place if the lights were dimmed and a flickering light at the end of the hall. So we were there for about 3 hours then we went back to the guys house. he is in a wheel chair so we would have to lift him everywhere and hold him while others move and fix the wheel chair, but its like 8 at nightafter we get to the house and they were like we need to feed you and we were like no we got to go and they wouldnt let us go, so we go in and sit down i am stuffed from the meal we had earlier though. then she is telling my comp what were are eating and turns out. . .  it was the meet jello. when she said those words my heart and stomach sank! and she cuts me a slice and slapps it on the plate and its just jiggling i was not excited. and then we were told the first day we got here not to eat fish, well for the side we had fish, and also some buck wheat. and thing here is they dont give you a drink till after your meal and they give you tea. well so there it was staring me in the face. i take a little peice and decide ok i will try it. i put it in my mouth and this is how it was... imagine salty jello made out of cow hoofs and nose and meat somewhere in the middle of it and carrots and yeah. it was slimy, moist, and overall not good. i had to hurry and shove the fish and buckwheat in my mouth to get it down. and i was gagging when it first was in my mouth so yeah dont want to have that again. and we went back there 2 days ago and we took this guy for a walk, or i mean we pushed him around for 10 minutes and it takes hime 20 to get ready haha, and same thing oh we got to feed you. no its ok we really have to go. we go sit down and its the buckwheat and some more fish but this was just chopped up fish, not cooked or anything. i didnt try it i just had the buckwheat. and that was everything that was exciting this week no investigators and we get like 7 meetings a week and all with members pretty much. hope everything is good back at home i love you all. have a good week

Love jordan 

Almost Behind Bars...(6 April 2011)


Hello everyone i hope you are all having a great week. so not to much happened this week. we dont have any investigators the guy i dropped the hammer on with the ping pong analogy doesnt want to meet with us anymore which is fine he wasnt progressing for 4 years. so what can you do? alright so after english club last week we were walking back to our apartment. we cross this busy street everytime we cross it but this time. . . my comp was almost hit by a car like he was maybe 6 inches away from being hit. and then once we get to the other side there were police men waiting for us, so they asked for our documents and they said usually you have to pay a fine for doing that. so they are looking at our documents and they didnt know what to think. so i am sitting there thinking like i am going to jail. i am going to go stay the night behind bars. i was kinda excited for it. and so i turn to my companion and say have you been to jail before? he says no. and i was like thats to bad i thought you were going to know what we should expect haha. he laughed. then they wanted us to sign something and we arent suppose to sign anything without our lawyers approval so we called her and she talked to the popo and said to sign it. so we did and yeah so we didnt have to go to jail but we got a citiation but we dont have to pay anything. another thing is that i went on a split with elder Goddard, he came here the same time i did, so we both dont know the language but we hap a meeting with this family that lived in new zealand so they know english. we play risk with them everyweek but his dad isnt a member, so me and goddard threw down the plan of salvation and he loved it and then the little kid was like what about reincarnation and i had the pictures all set out. i asked him, what about it, he said i want to be an animal, i said when do you get that choice? he said after i die. and i look at the pictures and was like this is gods plan his plan doesnt change, so you cant just take this picture and move it back to where we got our spirits and we understood it and changed his mind, it was really sweet. well that is it for this week hopw all of you have a good week. love you all.

Love jordan

Good Encounters...(30 March 2011)


Hello there again everyone, another week down and first transfers are down. i will be staying with my companion in the same area so that will be good we are hoping things will start rolling here pretty soon. this week we set a baptismal date for this one guy his whole family are members but he isnt. but he comes to church every sunday and is just a great guy. so we set a date for the 16th and hopeing he will recieve an answer if the book of mormon is true. but the only thing is he is addiced to . . . video games. . . he plays all day long and doesnt spend alot of time with his family so i am ready to lay the smack down on him too and say video games are only a temporary satisfaction and will only satisfy you for this life. . . but what do you have after this life? your family. . . but you playing video games is taking you away from your family and causing contention. so yeah we will wait and see how that goes. i have began to be very blunt with these russian people, they like to beat around the bush with everything so you got to be staright forward with them, but my comp is way to nice and has a hard time being blunt so i just do it and dont mind haha i get the point across. so yesterday we were handing out english club flyers and i stopped this guy and he started yelling at me and my comp starts talking with him and he is yelling and spitting everywhere and i am trying hard not to laugh because i just think its funny that people get so mad when they see the name tag so i am just like eh whatever and he was yelling like there is no god and what not so yeah we decided to just walk away. pretty funny. and also we had this chinese guy cook us some chinese food i told him to make it as spicy as he could! it wasnt to bad for me but my comp 2 other elders and peter (chinese man) were dying!! peter is like i am not going to cook for you again this is too hot!! my favorite saying of his is "YOU SO SUCK!!" so funny he is my favorite. So remember me telling you that my friend is going to be in the same mission as me the one i went to high school with? woodruff is his name, well he will be in my branch starting thursday so that will be fun to see him often. that is pretty much it this week, my language is coming along very slowly but yeah people we met with when i first got here we meet with again and the say i sound like a russian and it is getting alot better so yeah that makes me happy everytime i hear that, but i have a hard time understanding people still, they speak like lighting here, i dont know if you know how fast lightning is but its fast! i hope everyone is doing well and having a good week you are in my prayers and i love you all.

P.S. here are some pictures, my comp is the one i am at the table with, with mountain dew :)

Love jordan!

My Comp and I

Circus...(23 March 2011) 


Hello everyone! Another week down and i have been in Russia for over a month now. so this past week has been pretty crazy. we found this one guy in the metro and he know like whee our church was and when we meet and what not so we met with them and pretty much they are missionaries for the Russian orthodox church. and at the end they decided to say a prayer and write down what the spirit told them and gave it to my comp. well it sounded like they were beat boxing when they were praying, one guy is holding down the beat saying something they others and chanting some other words and yeah pretty crazy. we went back again and all they like doing is bible bashing so we aren't meeting with them anymore. we also had a meeting with this investigator who has been meeting with the missionaries for 4 years. so this meeting went down and i pretty much laid a smack down on him. he speaks English. so first time i met with him i gave him mints to take instead of smoking. well he just ate the mints. next time we met we challenged him to read the book of Mormon every night, he did nothing. then the next time i challenged him to read to find answers to his questions and he was going to give the lesson the next time we met, also nothing happened. so this next meeting we were going to commit him to be baptised, he started making excuses. so we were downstairs of the church and we have ping pong tables there and i went and got a paddle and ball and said OK, this table is your life, this ball is the book of Mormon and commitments and stuff like that, then i said the paddle was him. so i told him that the missionaries came and gave the book of Mormon to him. so i put the ball on the table, then said OK the ball is in your court. and asked him what can you do with the ball. he goes on and says stuff for playing and then i was like OK but you need the paddle to make anything happen and work with the ball right? he said yeah. so i said last time we asked you to read so you could give the lesson, in this case what did you do with the ball. . . ? you left it there didn't you, you did nothing with the ball. and i was like you have to pick up the ball to do something with it. i was like how hard is it to pick up the ball? not hard at all, same thing with the book of Mormon, its not that hard to pick it up and do something with it. then he was like this book cant help me in my life, then he opens up and flips to 2 Nephi and says how has 2 Nephi helped you in your life?? and i said flip to chapter 32 and read it, so he flips there and starts reading and then wants to stop and i said no, keep reading you wanted to know. my heart is pounding with adrenaline and the spirit at this point. finishes reading and then i say OK right there, words from god telling you to pick up the ball and do something about it. read the book of Mormon and pray about it. and then i was like this chapter is like having god right here showing us how to hit the ball over the net and score. so i was like if someone is showing you how to be better you would do it right? he said yes. so i said then pick up the ball and do something with it, then i hit the ball over the net and the echo of the ball bouncing fills the room, he was left speechless. alright enough of that, some fun stuff! we had a culture night this week and we went to the circus!! so much fun!! there was a huge bear in a like tonka truck thing and tigers and leopards and it was alot of fun. well that was about it for the week. hope everything is going well for everyone. i love you all

Love Jordan