Week of Opposition

Dear family and friends,

This has been a week filled with obstacles and opposition. Last Friday our Zone Leader talked about setting goals and working on inactives and investigators. He told us that there would be opposition in the work but to have faith and keep working hard. I don't think any of us were prepared for this week of events.

Last Sunday night I sent off my email and went to bed about 10:30. At 11:30 we got a call from one of our missionaries telling us that they had just got beaten up by some drunk guys. They were on their way to our apartment when they called and a few minutes later were knocking on our door. We opened our door to three missionaries who were cold, scared, angry, bloody and beat up. Elder Guynn, our Zone leader, was hurt the worse and his face was bloody, bruised and swollen. He was covered in snow, his hands were freezing and when he got inside our door he collapsed to the floor. He didn't pass out but I think he felt so much relief at being alive and safe that he just collapsed. The three missionaries had just taken another missionary to the train station for his visa trip to Moscow, and they were on their way home. They came up on a group of drunk guys and tried to walk around them and ignore them, but the guys attacked them and wanted money. Even though they tried to give them their money, they were still beat up. Elder Guynn was thrown up against a tree and had his head slammed into the tree, then thrown to the ground and hit and kicked in the face and head. He fought back and tried to defend himself, but he was up against a guy who was very drunk and angry. Elder Erickson was wrestled to the ground and hit a few times in the face, but his injuries weren't quite as serious. Elder Nalemov was not hit or hurt. He just kind of stood there frozen during the fight and couldn't do anything. He was pretty traumatized by the whole thing. My nursing skills kicked in and I did all I could to help the boys with their cuts and bruises with ice packs and ibuprofin. I took pictures of their faces, checked for any other injuries, wrapped them in blankets, layed them on the couches and listened to their stories of what happened. Elder Guynn's bag was taken with his apartment keys, wallet, passport, registration, money, camera, books, and EVERYTHING! He was traumatized by the injuries, but sick about losing his passport and registration. That usually means you have to leave Russia and go someplace else until you can get a new passport. We called their landlord right then and he immediately went to their apartment and changed the locks on their doors. Then we called President Woolley and asked for his advice. He told us to call the police, which we did, and a half hour later the police were at our door. They questioned the boys and ended up taking them to the police station to file a report. President Woolley wanted the boys to press charges so that people won't think they can beat up the missionaries any time they want because they're not going to do anything about it. So, along with the Branch Mission Leader in our Branch who is Russian but served a mission in California and speaks perfect English, they went to the police station. They left here at about 1:00 in the morning and didn't get back until 7:00 in the morning. They slept for a few hours and then went back to the police station at 10:00 in the morning and were there until 7:00 that night. Then they made them go back again the third day for about 5 more hours. The whole time they were there they said they felt like they were the criminals. They were asked the same questions over and over again for hours. They repeated their stories day after day. They sat in a small room, didn't get food or water and we're miserable. Even Misha, the Mission Leader, was angry with the way they were handling everything. After three days and about 30 hours of interrogation, they were all sick of it. Misha has his own electric company and took three days off of work to be with the boys, but on the fourth day, when they wanted them to go back again, he said no. Wednesday, Elder Guynn left here to go to Moscow so they could figure out what to do about his visa problem. They sent another missionary here to take his place until they determined if he's coming back or not. He was afraid to leave our apartment, they stayed with us they whole time, to go to his own apartment to get his things. He had to have some big guy in our Branch go with them in case anything happened. He was able to talk with his parents on the phone and on skype to reassure them that he was alright. Elder Erickson also talked with his parents. Elder Erickson has rebounded quickly and has been eager to get back to work. Elder Guynn has had a much more difficult time. Just before he left for Moscow, we talked with all the missionaries and reminded them of Elder Guynn's lesson about doing the Lords work and overcoming the opposition that will be there. We asked them to write in their journals about this experience and how they could use the things that happened and the lessons learned for the good. What were the positive things that came from this experience and how can those things be used to move forward? What a hard lesson to learn. Elder Guynn has been in Moscow now for five days, is recovering well, has a new passport and is returning here tomorrow to continue his work. He is a great missionary and I hope that he will be able to overcome his fears and anger and not let those things keep him from succeeding as a missionary for his last 6 months.

This is much longer than I thought so I won't go into details about the rest of the week other than to say that we closed a humanitarian project this week but we don't know how to do the paper work on the computer and have been VERY frustrated about that (Imagine me being frustrated with the computer). The Sister Missionaries lost all three of their investigators this week for different reasons and they are discouraged. Then on Friday night after English club I played volleyball with the group and either cracked or seriously sprained my wrist. I keep forgetting that I'm not 20 anymore. Yesterday I found a hard splint to put on my wrist which helps a ton with the pain and tomorrow we go to Moscow for training so I'll have the doctor check it out.

So. . .that was our week. I know things like this happen to every missionary, so I'm hoping that our turn is over and it will be upward from here. That's probably wishful thinking too, but we're working on the positive side of things.

It's always fun to talk to our loved ones on skype and read all your emails and facebook entries. Thanks everyone. We love you and miss you. Have a great week, we're planning on it.

Love,
Elder and Sister Frost