Здравствуйте! (Hello!),
In 4 weeks time I will be in Russia!
To start completely off topic, how about them Utes! When I heard the score of that game (and about BYU getting beat) I went to our residence, put on my Ute apparel, and celebrated. I am so proud of them. The blessings of missionary work are clearly already working, you are welcome Ute Nation! All jokes aside, I am the proudest Ute fan Provo has ever had haha. GO UTES! Sunday night, our devotional speaker made all the Ute fans stand and informed us we were ranked 10th. He then said "BYU fans, you just remain seated." He was so funny about that and about missionaries getting written off from girlfriends and other stuff.
It has been a great week! Some cool experiences this week:
Sunday was thankfully my second and final fast Sunday in Provo. But we had a huge surprise. Elder/President Kacher was in town for conference, he is in the area presidency over all the Russian and Ukraine missions. So we had a spur of the moment meeting with just us Russian speakers and the General Authority himself. It was so awesome, he answered our questions and he is a great guy. Coolest part is his next mission tour is in Rostov just 2 days after I get there! So he told me to find him when him and his wife get there. His best line was, "We got to our home in Midway the other night. We have a beautiful home up there. But I walked in and said to my wife, "This is not home, Russia is our home now."" Gave me chills because Russia will be my home so soon!
Monday we got to watch Elder Scott's funeral which was a nice break from the routine schedule. What a life that man lived! Powerful messages were given and it is always a delight to hear from our incredible Prophet Thomas S. Monson. Speaking of that, the MTC is buzzing with General Conference being this weekend. Everyone, including myself, is pumped! Going to be the best weekend! It is not everyday you get to watch conference as a missionary, surrounded by 2,000+ missionaries. Going to enjoy it!
Last night we heard from Elder Costa who is in the Presidency of the Seventy, over Brazil and that area. This week I have heard a couple times that Brazil used to be like Russia - hard people and few baptisms. Brazil now has over 30 missions I believe, and they baptize like crazy. Got me excited! Anyways he was awesome and his best line was, "You can always count how many seeds are in an apple, but it is impossible to know how many apples come from the seeds." His point was we will never know the effect of our mission, whether we have high numbers or not, until the next life. He is a convert and is now a General Authority and all of his kids have been married in the temple and his grand kids are being born into the gospel. All it takes is one baptism to change generations!
Russian is going well. I have 5/6 of the Russian grammar cases memorized so I'll have them all memorized by tomorrow.
Love all of you more than you know. The packages, mail, and emails go a long way for us missionaries! I am so lucky to have the people I have in my life and to be able to be a servant of the Lord for the next two years!
Till next week,
-Elder Tucker
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