8-15-10

Hey All, 8-15-10

We want to thank you one and all for your sincere thoughts and prayers in the behalf of all those who have been suffering over here. It has been quite bad for some, even fatal for others, and mild for people like us. Although just over 50 people have officially died due to the fires, the mortality rate here in Russia has doubled in the past 3 weeks since the fire began. They estimate that 15,000 people may due to the fires/smoke/smog. One of our elderly members of the Church just passed away this week. They had no A/C and no fans in their apartment. They kept the windows opened in order to have circulation in their apartment. We hear stories of many people in this same scenario that drape wet sheets and/or towels over them at night to be able to sleep comfortably. It is sad to hear stories like these. We have been inconvenienced but all in all we are very good. For the past 4 days the smoke/smog has been gone and since the temperatures have dropped significantly (10-15 degrees) everyone is much more comfortable. We have learned that the sky is indeed blue still and we are happy to have witnessed that. Today however, the smoke is back and we don't know why. We really don't follow the news here or abroad so all we can say is that our eyes and lungs recognize that something is different again and we are saddened by that. Your continued thoughts and prayers are welcomed.The work is moving forward here at a slightly increasing pace in contrast to what it was even just 6 months ago. We are excited that we have baptisms scheduled for each of the coming 7 weeks. We know that some will not come to fruition but we also know that the missionaries are working hard and the Lord will continue to bless them with others who He is preparing to receive the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Let me tell you just one story that is one of these examples of the Lord doing his part in His work. Elena is a woman who is in her late 60's. She is one of the tiniest women I have ever met. A photo will accompany this email to show you the contrast between her and Bethany. We met her three weeks ago when we attended a baptism that she attended and the missionaries asked (Sister Packard, “Bethany”) to sit with her. Of course Bethany obliged and face it folks, anyone who has the good fortune to sit next to her is going to fall in love with her and/or anything that Bethany says. The people here in Russia just adore her. Anyway, Elena immediately bonded with Bethany and Bethany with her. On Monday of the following week we had an activity that Elena sponsored which was taking us to a famous Moscow Monastery. It was a wonderful experience and we had a great time. Two days later Elena came to our home for a missionary discussion in which the missionaries told us prior that Elena was “teetering” as to what to do. She had felt the Spirit often and was sincere in her desire to know the truth of the gospel but she had so much tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church in her she was really struggling. During this discussion, Elena told an interesting story which proves my point that the Lord is involved in His work and we are just instruments in helping Him. Her story is as follows: Seven years ago she had met the missionaries and was having discussions with them and they taught her the gospel. She was nice and enjoyed the missionaries very much. She even had them teach some of her friends in her home. This went on for some time but she never could understand why the missionaries stopped coming by… (most likely because she never continued progressing toward getting baptism and the missionaries needed to move on). Anyway, seven years went by and she began feeling the desire to visit with the missionaries again… (Now with over 20 million people that live in and around Moscow and only 42 missionaries in this area, you don’t see missionaries very often, even if they are easy to recognize with their white shirts and name tags…. We don’t ride bikes here though). So she had been pondering about seeing the missionaries again. Now, just a few weeks ago, she prayed specifically to try and find them. As she was coming up out of the Metro station on the escalator, she arrived at the top, got off and as she was about ready to walk out the doors, she distinctly heard a voice which said, “Elena, look up.” She, opened the doors, looked up, and there, just a little distance off were two missionaries standing outside the Metro station. She walked right up to them and introduced herself to Elder Miller and Elder Bogdonov. Now, three weeks later she has read much of the Book of Mormon, she loves the DVD of President Thomas S. Monson (“On the Lord’s Errand”) and interestingly enough, she has learned that her baptismal date next Saturday is the same day as President Monson’s birthday. She is very excited.
In the coming weeks we have so much happening, I wanted to give you some ideas as to what we are doing. It is just a list…

Elena and Bethany

1. The Kiev Temple Cultural Event. We are in charge of Russia’s portion of the Cultural Event. This has been an overwhelming and daunting task. It is difficult to explain just how challenging this has and continues to be. Let it be known that there will be lots of room for miracles that this event comes to fruition. We have faith that it will and are working hard to make it happen. Bethany and I have been given special permission to go to the Event in Kiev and participate in it as well as be at the dedication at the Stake Center there in Kiev. No other Senior Couple missionaries have been allowed to go so we feel very honored and privileged.


2. Institute Fall Social/Kickoff. This event will be wonderful and fun. We have planned a Chuckwagon Dinner, Western Dancing, Pioneer Games, a Pioneer Movie (The Work and the Glory),and visits from Pioneers from the past. This should be a great event if we can pull it off. It is just 4 days after we get home from Kiev. Keep your fingers crossed on this one as well. Getting the food there to the event at the church is a major challenge since none of the other senior couple missionaries who are helping us have cars to drive. Everything has to be carried by hand on the Metro…. Wish us luck.
(Bethany made
this Poster)
3. Young Single Adult Choir to start up again. Those of you who have followed our choir escapades know that we have challenges in this category. We are getting familiar in how the Russian people teach and train culturally. Let me just say that it is different than we do it back home.
I just want to close by thanking you all for all you do for us out here in the mission field. Your support is greatly appreciated. Keep doing your part in helping this work move forward. We love you.

Sincerely,
Elder and Sister Packard

August 7th, 2010

My parents with Red Square and St. Basils Cathedral behind them

Hey Everyone,

By now most of you, if not all of you have heard of the wild fires that have taken the lives of scores of people and made life miserable for millions of people in around Moscow and across vast lands here in Russia.

Today, we have been advised by the Area Presidency to stay indoors unless you must be out for legitimate reasons. While indoors, keep your windows closed and fans going... if you have no fan and no A/C (very few people here have A/C), open your windows but drape wet sheets over your openings of your windows and allow cooler air to penetrate the house but inhibit the smoke. You guessed it, it's a mess here in Russia right now and many people are suffering horribly. An interesting sight yesterday however, many people are wearing masks now to minimize inhaling this smoke. I mentioned to Bethany in the Metro that it would be amazing and funny to see a person smoking who was wearing a mask as well. Sure enough, within about 30 minutes we saw a guy walk across the street with a mask draped over his ears with the mask under his chin and he was smoking a cigarette. Lot's of smokers here as most of you know.


I am going to include a few pictures of the smoke here in Moscow but if you want to see all of my photos, as well as get up to date info on what is going on here in Russia, please go to Facebook and check things out. Chad N Bethany Packard is our name on Facebook.

the Cathedral about 300-400 yards away

Other than the fires and smoke the work has been progressing. In the mission for the first time in years we have had baptisms every single week for the past few months and into the foreseeable future. One baptism that did not happen today to keep the streak going was one that we have been teaching in our home. I will spend the bulk of this letter discussing Ivan and his story during this letter and then I will attach the photos of the smoke.

Ivan is from Cuba and has been here a year in Moscow. He speaks Spanish of course and very little Russian and even less English. Since I served my mission in Ecuador over 30 years ago, I was asked to help the missionaries translate for him. We had great discussions with Ivan and he had a great command of the scriptures. He joined the Pentecostal Church in "Cuba" about 11 years ago and has been a preacher for them for quite some time. He loves the Lord and the scriptures and when he was given the Book of Mormon, he was enthralled with it. He had no problem reading it and had little difficulty accepting the prophet Joseph Smith as a prophet. As we got to finishing our lessons with him over the past number of weeks I could see that he may have had some other ulterior motives to learning, one of which may have been to get the Church to help him financially to leave the country and get to another country possibly a Spanish speaking country or even the U.S. He did NOT want to go back to Cuba and Cuba wouldn't take him due to the fact that he had been gone for more than a year... (not sure the significance of that but he continued to refer to that issue). The other possibility may have been that he wanted to be a preacher for the Church because that is what he did at the Pentecostal Church. Regardless, there was something that wasn't right as we continued to teach. Turns out that as we taught he continued to say that "all" religions teach the same as we were teaching, except for the Book of Mormon. He continued to press us as to what made us "different. We finally had to tell him that the real difference was that we had the "whole" truth and the "authority" to administer the ordinances of salvation and that these other churches, although well intentioned, did not have that authority. He didn't like that. He thought that we were trashing other religions but we made it very clear that all religions had some good in them... He did like that either and he began to kind of trash the Catholic and the Russian Orthodox Churches, (Interesting). What later came up was that not only did he believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet but that all of the other churches had prophets and apostles too! That is where the "rub" came and we just couldn't get past that. Both sides agreed that he was not ready to be baptized and then ultimately he said that he was going to quit going to "any" church and was just going to go around and preach from the Bible and The Book of Mormon... It was a very interesting situation. All of us bore strong testimony to him that as he continued his search for truth, that he was going to end up here again some day. I sincerely hope that this will be the case. He is a good man who loves the Lord, believes in miracles and also in latter day revelation. But he also believes that anyone can be a prophet today. He doesn't understand that in ancient times, the Lord needed multiple prophets, but that today in the age of the internet and open communication networks and things that the Lord has his "order" and has prophets, seers, and revelators, called to do the work.

This was difficult for us to let this baptismal commitment go but we also felt that he was not ready and may not be ready for quite some time.

It is great to be here in the mission field. We love the work of the Lord. It is difficult to do out here but we continue to work through the challenges. We need more missionaries, that is the bottom line. We appreciate your prayers and thoughts toward us and other missionaries in the world who need those prayers to sustain them.

Sincerely,

Elder and Sister Packard