Missionary Service of Elder Benjamin Moore: IT'S RAINING!, Tomsk and Novosibirsk Updates

Winter may actually be ending. But it's Siberia, so we won't know for sure until May! Today during studies, it started to rain. The first rain that I've seen in about 7 months!! That means that I'm two for two surviving the Siberian winter. :)

We headed up to Novosibirsk early on Wednesday morning to make it to the mission office by 1. We pulled in at the same time as the Tomsk bus, and off came a couple Tomsk missionaries. We took a taxi and got all of elder Yungfleisch's stuff to the office. The office at transfer time is always pretty busy. Elder Carlson filled me in on what's goign on in Tomsk. Nikolai, who Elder Batson and I started teaching way back when in my first transfer in Russia is still kickin' it! He's still meeting regularily with the missionaries, and has even helped to teach Elder's Quorum on Sunday. It was his birthday so I used Elder Carlson's phone to call him. He remembered me! oh man was it easier to understand him on the phone than it was 18 months ago. He remembered me! Because our mission is losing missionaries, my area that I served in in Novosibirsk is being closed down. Elder Stucki is off to Tomsk and the Assistants are taking over our area as well as theirs. My last week Elder Stucki and I found Simyon and started teaching him. He's still going strong, and has been the source of three more solid investigators! So that's pretty exciting. It's worth it to work hard to the very end. Day, transfer, mission, You never know when you're going to make the difference for someone.

Picked up Elder Kolten Gardner from Texas/ Lafayette Indianna, and headed back to the bus station and on to Barnaul. We got a really nice, new bus both ways the "Golden Dragon". Usually we get an old, retired bus that used to be used to tour around places like japan or Thailand. So it was a good change. Made the 5 hour drive in 4 and got home by 8. Elder Gardner had just gotten back from Helsinki and hadn't slept in over 48 hours so he crashed right when we got home. In the taxi ride home from the bus station, the taxi driver had a bill from Tajikistan on his dashboard. We talked a bunch on the way back, and in the end I asked if I could have it, so he gave it to me.

Since then, we've just been going and going here in Barnaul.

All I've got time for today!

Have a great week!

Elder Moore