Zone Leader!

 

Well, I got transfers and I'm gonna be a zone leader now!  They are sending Elder Sehnert back to his first area to die.  I'm getting Elder Braun, who has only been a zone leader for one transfer, so were both fairly new at this.  They are shotgunning the zone leaders old area and bringing it into my area, so I'll still be with all of our investigators.  President wants us to go on a lot of splits, and they are also opening a new area in our zone, just outside of Nizhny, so we gotta help with that.  There is a lot of crazy stuff that's gonna go on, it's gonna be a crazy transfer.  

Temple Blessings

Have I got a story for you!!! 

A lady from our branch decided she wanted to go to the temple. She prepared and went to Sweden. The problem was, there wasn't anyone there who spoke Russian to help her through her first time. She goes and by happenstance there is a Russian lady in the temple that same day who has been before!! She helps her through and everything works great. This other Russian woman lives in Norway, and was planning on going on vacation with her family to Egypt or something. But she got the impression she needed to go to the temple instead. So, instead of going on vacation, she goes to Sweden and helps our ward member through the temple. After talking, they find out that they are both from Nizhny Novogorod!! What is crazier, is that this woman who lives in Norway married a Norwegian with the last name of Olsen. WHAT!?!?  I need to find out if she is related to our Olsens!!!  

Baptisms and Transfers!

 YAY!!  Sara is training!!!!!  I'm so happy for her, I've wanted her to train!!!  She'll have lot's of fun :)

As you guys probly know, I'm in the most successful are I've ever been in my entire mission.  We have L and his family who will get baptized, we set another baptismal date with a different guy last week, and we will be getting another family referral this week. 

And I'm leaving on Tuesday O.o

I'm getting transferred, mid-transfer.  Not even, it's the second week of the transfer.  I'm going to go to a place called Nizhny-Novgorod.  Which is cool, it's the third or fourth largest city in Russia, and I've wanted to serve there my whole mission.  But NOW!?  Ya, I'm way bummed.  But that's what life is, and that's what happens.  They're bringing a missionary into the mission who had to get surgery done on his eyes in America, after he served two transfers in Russia.  He's been home for 3 months, and he's coming in on Tuesday. He's going to come to Lipetsk, and Elder Burton will become the new district leader and second counselor here.

Well, I've had a lot of members come up to me this past week and express how they feel about me leaving.  Most aren't very happy, haha.  One lady asked how they would function here without me.  Of course they will function fine, but I was happy that I had such an influence that the members are going to miss me.

Ok, Love you guys!!

A Discussion, Uninterrupted

 

     Hey Family!  Things are really going great.  When I first got into this area, I came with a brand new greenie, and we had nothing.  This is the end of my second transfer here in Lipetsk, and I just had my most successful week in my entire mission last week!!  It's on FIRE here!!!  We just set a baptismal date with someone, we have another guy with whom we also want to set a baptismal date with, the members love us, and we are just really doing well.
      Well, we were in a lesson on a park bench with our investigator A, teaching the word of wisdom, with a great member on the lesson.  Then our member gets a call in the middle of the lesson, and tells me that it's our friend M, and that he was going to go get him and come back.  Uh oh.  M is one of our dropped investigators, (with whom we've still been in contact with now and again to be his friend), who only likes to argue with us when we talked about the gospel.  The member and M had become pretty good friends fairly quickly, but now he was coming back with M to participate in our lesson!   We tried to do what we could do wrap up the lesson quick, but A had a lot of questions and concerns that we had to address.  Then comes M with our member friend.  And then, A and M shake hands and start talking like they're old buddies!!  Turns out that they had worked together for a long time a while ago.  Then M says he doesn't want to bother our discussion and leaves!!  We finish our lesson, and commit A to being baptized.  We were sure M would come over and just want to start arguing with us during our lesson, and really create a bad impression with our investigator there.  But it worked out just absolutely perfectly.

Love you!

I would not be here if it weren't for my parents

Mom, I just want to let you know how much I appreciate all your doing for me.  I'm talking about all that you've done for me growing up.  I've already told you and Dad this, but I wouldn't be here in Russia right now if I didn't have the parents that I do.  I love you Mom, and I'm grateful for the love that you've shown us growing up.  I didn't write this, but a missionary who just went home did and I think it's pretty cool.  It's about the man who built his house upon a rock; and Mom, you really helped me build mine upon that good foundation.
 
THE ROCKMAN'S SIDE

Be not as the foolish man

Who built his house upon the sand

He built it to his own demise

And mocked the man he thought unwise

He thought himself above the rest

Perched upon his lofty nest

He gazed upon the unlucky lot

Who went without or so he thought

He laughed and scorned, so was his talk

"Why have you built upon a rock?"

"Out here the breeze runs wafting by"

"My courts are open to the sky"

"Come, build out here where life is grand"

"Come join me upon the sand"

Many heeded his haughty speech

And built alongside him on the beach

All except one humble man

He would not build upon the sand

He knowingly watched the sand-side block

As he stood alone upon the rock

The people mocked, but he hearkened not

For he knew the fate of that devil's plot

Time went on, years passed away

Until arrived that fateful day

A quake, a shutter, the earth was rent

The time to prepare was now far spent

The people fled before the waves

And now lay inside their seaside graves

Others ran and tried to hide

They came up to the rockman's side

They yelled to him "run you fool!"

"See ye not this deadly pool?"

He responded with solemn word

That stirred the hearts of all who heard

"I've lived my life a humble man"

"I did not build upon the sand"

"I fear not, I've got a plan"

"I built on Christ, my house will stand"

Baptism in Poldosk!

 

So this week I got a call from President Borders on Saturday.  He called to congratulate me, and told me the impossible has happened.  There was a baptism in Podolsk!!  It was the sisters' investigator, Galina.  She was found while I was there, and they set a baptismal date with her while I was the District Leader there.  She had a couple rough patches, especially the last week I was there.  She flipped out and yelled at the sisters and the member on the lesson about some weird things, the biggest being tithing.  She had been looking at some Anti-Mormon material on the internet, and had not been reading the Book of Mormon.  They were able to keep things going with her, I had the baptismal interview with her and then I left.  And the baptism went through on Saturday!  I think President just called me because he knew that I wanted so bad to be the one who changed Podolsk. When I left Poldosk, it was still a pretty dead area :\  First baptism in Podolsk in 3 years!!!  I was ALMOST there to witness the sisters break that streak, haha.  

Well, I love my new area!!  I love my new companion!!!  My new branch has about the same amount of members as my last one, but this one is not nearly as self functioning.  There are about 70 on the ward list, and we had I think about 30 at church, with 8 being missionaries.  75% of the active members are all Armenians.  They're way cool; Armenians are very sincere and truly have a deep testimony about the church.  Armenia is the highest baptizing mission in the Europe East area.  I've recently found out that Moscow Russia a year ago was at the bottom of that list, and we were the least successful mission in Russia, but we are now #1 in Russia and #3 in Europe East!!!  That's pretty incredible, I gotta say, that that success goes to our new Mission President who I came out with.  He's killing it.

Visit from Elder Bednar

 This weekend, Elder Bednar came!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  OH MY GOSH!!!  We saw him at Stake Conference on Saturday, he gave an incredible talk! (funny hearing him speak Russian ;) )  And yesterday he gave another incredible talk. THEN, we had the opportunity to meet with him as missionaries.  Only the missionaries in Moscow stake got to go, so I was WAY lucky.  He came, and I was expecting to get an intense lecture/talk about missionary work and stuff, maybe like Elder Holland style.  But he came up to the stand, and told us that we would be have a discussion.  He had asked us to read three talks of his before, and he just asked us what we learned.  He started just calling on missionaries and we would say what we learned, and then he would go off for a while about it.  He called on me, and asked me some follow up questions to my comments.  I talked to Bednar :D  And then he asked us to ask any ANY questions we wanted, and he would go off about them.  I, and we, REALLY learned a LOT about how to become a better teacher.  It was supposed to start at 2 (it started about 245) and it went until 6:30!!!!  And I was way sad when he left.  I shook his hand.  It was the most spiritually building experience I think I've had in my life, in that short of time. It was truly incredible.  I don't understand how his mind works; he's my favorite apostle now for sure :)