31 January 2011 Working in Perm

2011 Jan 31,

Well this week was an interesting on. We still don't have any progressing investigators, but we have a couple of potential progressing investigators and a baptismal date. Yep a baptismal date. That is our miracle this week. We have tried to do some contacting on the street, which doesn't work that well, and we have been calling people from old contact sheets that we found in the area book. One girl was contacted on the street 2 years ago and Sis Hakes called her and she was interested to meet and she showed up to the meeting on Sunday and she was smiling when we first saw her. (I have to tell you people don't smile on the street or on the bus and they think it is really really weird if you try to talk to them.) So that was a good sign. We took her to the church building and she told us that she had been thinking for the last couple of months that something was missing and so when Sis Hakes called her she thought that this might be it. She was so happy through out the entire lesson and when we testified of Joseph Smith we felt the spirit. At the end Sis Hakes asked her if when she prayed she felt that the Book of Mormon was true and that what we were saying was true would she get baptized. She said yes! How cool is that? I didn't think that actually happened. The only catch is she doesn't live in our area. She lives in the other Sisters area so in the end they will get to teach her. But that doesn't even matter because it was so awesome that we found her! This was a pretty big miracle for us because we have been praying and fasting to know what to do to be able to find people to teach.

Other things that happen this week: We contacted a kid on the street named Stas who was so excited when he found out we were American and that I was from Utah. He said "Salt Lake City" in English and I asked him how he new it and he said "Jazz". Turned out he was a basketball player and really into American basketball. We meet people fairly often (especially younger people) who are really excited when they find out we are from America. We always invite them to English club and hope they come. English club is a lot of fun. This last week we taught the beginners class and we have everyone say one think they liked and one thing they didn't like and why in English. It is always fun when we hit upon a word most people don't know and everyone tries to guess what the word means. We always have a spiritual thought after and this time we talked about Prophets. We showed them the recent Conference Liahona with all the pictures of the Prophet and 12 apostles. It was really good.

I still don't speak Russian very well. I think I can understand more, but when someone tries to talk to me one-on-one I always second guess my self and so if I really did understand I come off like I didn't. A lot of people just revert to whatever English they know with me. One girl I was trying to explain something to and she said (in English) "just say it in English." I really need to practice more. Sis Hakes says I haven't gotten to practice as much because we haven't had very many lessons for me to practice in. Everyone here really likes Obama for some reason. He always comes up at some point if the conversation is in anyway connected to America, or even if it is not. I love you all! Hope everything is going well!

Love,

Sister Harrison