Another Incredible Week

April 25, 2016

Здравствуйте!

Hey everyone! This week has been pretty interesting, just a lot of stuff has happened and it's all gone by so quick! 

I'll start off with some of the less exciting news. One of our investigators, Dima, is apparently somewhere in Ukraine right now. There were some problems with his documents(and now that I think about it, he was probably living in that attic so people couldn't find him), and he ended up having to go serve in the Ukrainian army. We've pretty much lost all contact with him, so we're just praying that he's able to find some church members over there. It's a little bit sad to see that he's gone, but we did everything we could, and I feel pretty strongly that he'll find the church again in the future! He's got his book of Mormon, and he reads and prays every day, so hopefully he'll stay strong! 

This week has been full of all kinds of other crazy awesome experiences though. We've run into 3 former investigators this week, that were taught a few years ago but all ended up getting dropped for one reason or another. One of them even ended up coming to church this Sunday, and we were able to teach him a lesson. It's so cool to see the Lord just put people in your path that he's been preparing for years. It really motivates you to talk with everyone. Who knows how much longer it would have been for him if we hadn't ended up talking with him that day. We also ended up having a meeting with a guy we contacted like 5 weeks ago, that has bailed on us pretty much 5 times. We happened to be at the branch for a district meeting, and he called pretty much the second we said amen to close the meeting. We met with him and had a really solid lesson, and the spirit was just really strong. He brought his friend with him as well, so we ended up getting another investigator out of it as well, and they both seem pretty sincere and willing to listen more to what we have to say. 

We've been trying to change up the way we contact a little bit this week, and we've been having a lot of fun with it. We'll just ask people random questions about Russia, or the Russian lifestyle, or if we see something we don't know how to say we'll just ask them how to say it. I've asked a couple of Бабушки(Grandmas) what the deal with all the pigeons here is, because there's tons of them here and people basically worship them. Seriously, don't mess with pigeons if you come to Russia. It turns out that the word for pigeon, and the word for dove are the same, so in the bible when it says that the Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove, Russians also interperet it as a pigeon. We've had tons of really awesome experiences like this, and had tons of just really awesome experiences. 

We talked to an older man on a park bench the other day, and he told us some of his stories from WW II. He started serving when he was 17, and from what I understood he was part of a group of soldiers that marched 66 kilometers through a desert without any water to overtake a camp of Japanese soldiers. He was just a really cool guy, and hopefully in the future we'll be able to chat with him again. Overall, this week has just been full of all kinds of really awesome experiences, and there's so many other things to write about, but I don't have a whole lot of time. 

I'll just leave you with something I read in Preach My Gospel this week that was sort of interesting to me. It was talking about the Book of Mormon, and he we can better use it in our work here. It mentioned the promise given in Moroni 10:3-5, that if we pray to know the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, with real intent and a sincere heart, that we will receive an answer. Something interesting that it suggested we do is to apply this promise regularly, and to often reaffirm your testimony that the book is true. I've had the opportunity to do so this week, and the witness that the Holy Ghost bore to me is undeniable, and rekindled the testimony that I received when I first prayed for a confirmation of it's truthfulness. I know that this Church is Christ's church, and that we have the fulness of the gospel on the earth today. I love you all, and pray for you often! Hope all is well!

Until next time,

-Старейшина кэмптон

(Staryeshina Kempton)