Meet the Mormons

Здравствуйте!

Hello everyone! It's been another great week over here in Stavropol! There's been a lot of fun stuff happening here this past week! This Saturday we had a branch activity(the first since I've been here) where we all got together and ate some pizza and watched Meet the Mormons. We ended up having more investigators and potentials there than we did members, but it all worked out! Everyone seemed to really like the film, and it was hard to get everyone to leave at the end because everyone wanted to sit around and keep talking! It was awesome to see our members helping us out, they play such a big role in the conversion of these people. It's so much easier for people to come to church, and make the decisions that they need to make, when they understand that there are people out there that used to be in their same position, faced with those exact same decisions! 

Ilgar, our investigator with a baptismal date, was even going around telling people to meet with us after the movie! He's gonna be such a strength to this branch! We really need the priesthood over here, as of right now, we only have one worthy Melchezidek in this city, and he technically doesn't even live here. It really makes me appreciate the great blessing that it was to be raised in Gilbert, where the church and the priesthood are so readily available to all those who are in need of it. We've ended up moving his baptismal date back a week, so that our zone leader can come give him a baptismal interview face to face, and so that we have more time to teach him everything! Our other baptismal date, Nikolai, didn't end up being baptized as planned this past Saturday. He's still working to make sure that this is the decision he needs to make right now. While it is sort of sad to see that he wasn't baptized last Saturday, there is still great hope with him, and we'll continue to work with him to help him make that important decision. 

We got a new elder down here this Tuesday, and when they traveled down we ended up doing a short companion exchange. We ended up getting 5 lessons that day, which was beyond incredible for us! We've had entire weeks(a few actually) where we've had less lessons than that! It's been really cool to see this area start to turn around! When we got here, there was an average of 1 to 2 lessons a week, and now we're getting anywhere from 8 to 11, and it's only going up from there! God is preparing people for us everyday and, we just get to do His work and watch him send them to us! I can't really think of much else that's happened over here this week, but rest assured that there are more tender mercies and blessings that we are blessed with every day than I can fit in this e-mails. God knows us, and is very intimately involved in our lives. 

I love you all, and pray for you often! Hope all is well!

Until next time,

-Старейшина кэмптон

(Staryeshina Kempton)