The Joy of Friends

There happen to be several members from the Novosibirsk mission that have moved to Moscow and a couple other elders I served with who have also made the trek to the big city. This means that I get the wonderful opportunity to see old friends. Some of them I served alongside in the mission for extended periods of time and one of them I even confirmed as a member of the church and gave the Holy Ghost to. All in all, it was a true blessing to see them again. Despite my very little influence in their lives, it was quite impactful for me to see how they have grown. It is so obvious to see how living the gospel brings a myriad of blessings into one's life.


It has been a blast hanging out and seeing people from the mission. I was quite surprised last Saturday night. I was expecting to meet up with a few of my friends and hang out in the park or something. Ivan, once again, was waiting for me outside the metro. We walked over to this park and while walking into this park my eyes looked up to take in one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The sky was filled with hundreds of floating lanterns. It was the movie Tangled in real life. This park was filled with Russians lighting these little фонарики and letting them float up and away. It was breathtaking. This will go down in my eye's history book as one of the coolest visuals ever; You're welcome eyes.

Then I was able to go to church in a Russian ward - which was pretty freakin sweet. It was really fun to be in that environment. I kinda went into missionary mode too haha. I would talk to all the investigators and stuff. Speaking of missionary work, it has been really neat to see how easy missionary work is for members. I seriously have just not had very real opportunities to do it at BYU because everyone is Mormon. But it has been really fun to talk about religion with the people in my group. There are 6 of us and 2 of us are from BYU. I feel like no matter who you are or what your situation is life, there are always common ground questions to ask about God and life. Especially since I am with a bunch of science guys, it is fun to talk about evolution (which I believe in), the universe, and how it all began or how it all makes sense. I am comforted to know that missionary work from a members standpoint is manageable. I have actually been very afraid that it was something out of my comfort zone. I'm sure it will still be scary with neighbors and coworkers and stuff. But, one step at a time for me. :)

Sunday night I was also invited over for dinner by some of my member friends. The night was definitely entertaining. It was pretty much a young single adults dinner. Haha, I was the only married one for sure. But anyways, I really wanted to spend some time with these guys. They have an incredibly strong group of college aged guys. We even had a spiritual thought immediately after dinner! It was impressive to see how they all seem to hang out together and provide a great support group.