2012 April 30

A fun experience I had this week that could only happen in Ufa: yesterday we had only a couple more lessons that we needed to reach our goals for the week. We had called every one we thought reasonably possible trying to find a meeting with some one but we had no luck. SO we decided to hit the street and find some people to talk to. While we were talking to one lady a man stopped and I started talking to him. Here is where the uniqueness of Ufa kicks in. This man told me that he had read the BOM 10 years ago and had met with missionaries. Then he explained that now he is a devout Muslim. He said that he could never understand why Jesus Christ is needed. This turned into a conversation about repentance. He told us Muslims repent through prayer and fasting and traveling to Mecca. Sis W and I explained to him how we repent, but then told him that that was not enough. Because we are imperfect we can never repent enough. We will never become worthy enough to live with God though our own efforts and that is why we need Jesus Christ. It was a really fun conversation. If anything it helped me again understand why we need Jesus Christ better. He didn't want to even take an invitation to church afterwards. We run into a lot of Muslims here. There is even a mechet(mosque) in our area.

We had a really good meeting with a family of investigators on Friday. The mom and dad are K and U and they have a daughter K (6) and a cousin N (8). The sisters have been meeting with them for a couple of months now , but they haven't been able to focus on them as much because they had been preparing the Armenian family for baptism. K is almost done with reading the BOM, but she still has doubts about being baptized again. They all pray together as a family. The best part is U really participates with his family. He even prayed for the lesson. You can tell that he loves his wife and the two little girls. He has never been baptized before. We brought a recently returned missionary member with us to help us teach the plan of salvation. The member got married last year and his wife is about to give birth. He shared a really sweet testimony about eternal families. And then he told them that they in the end could become Gods (little bit too much information for new investigators). We think this family has a lot of potential. Sis W especially is hoping that they will be baptized this transfer.

We have another investigator named Z (Ufa has a lot of interesting names) who has nicknamed me Mary Poppins. She has investigated for a long time now. We are trying to help her have spiritual experiences connected with the BOM right now. She goes to some kind of reformed Christian church. She says that she likes the doctrine in the other church better, but likes the people in our church. We don't quite know what to do with her.

On Saturday we went to a birthday party for one of the Armenian families. I think there are 4 Armenian families now that are members. All of the women are members and none of the men. We did some Armenian dancing. It was way fun.

Don't know much what else to say. Love you all!!!!!!

Sis Harrison

We saw a lot of miracles this week. First off Pres Rust let us go with him to Chelyabinsk to see Sis Zaharova's brother get baptised!!!!!! He got baptised!!!! Isn't that so great! Sis Rust called us Thursday night and invited us to go drive down with them. Vitaly (her brother) got baptised in a slightly frozen lake which was crazy. I have some pretty cool pictures. I will try to send them sometime. Sis Denning was one of the sisters that taught Vitaly before she came to Ekat to serve with me. It was so fun to see Sis Zaharova again. She is doing well and said that she wants to go back on a mission as soon as she can. She has also been able to talk to our investigator V on the internet a bit about what he read because she read it all before she got baptised. So that has been good.

This week a lot of our investigators came to church! We had two in the Shartashki branch and 3 in the Verhisveski ( I am not sure how to spell it). One of the 3 is T our new investigator. She came with a teacher and another student from the university to learn about our church and ended up staying and talking with us after the teacher and other student left. She already has a good grasp of what feeling the Holy Ghost is and she said she felt it while she was in our church. Also A and her Mom were able to come to church. This was so good because we haven't seen A in a couple of week because she has been so busy with school. She is still doing really well and her mom likes us a lot and told us she has been reading the french BOM that we gave her and she likes what she has been reading.

We met with V and tried to do some damage control. I think he could pull through. He is praying every morning and night. Although he hasn't started reading the BOM again. He is still really friendly with us and it just feels like we still have a normal relationship even though all the bad things he read on the internet really hurt him. He also came to the church after all the meetings just to talk to us and Pres Rust happened to be there. Pres Rust loves basketball and talked to him a bit about it. Pres Rust doesn't speak any Russian and V really doesn't understand English, but they threw out some names of players that they both understood. How come no one told me the NBA or whatever no longer exists? It turns out we might have to give him to the Elders because Pres Rust has told us now he want younger men meeting with the Elders and younger women meeting with the Sisters. V told us this week that he could never get baptized because he can't give up tea and coffee (he read something online about the word of wisdom). Its funny he has thought about baptism like that.

Our Babuska V came to church also. We met her when some members invited her to a lesson we had set up with them a couple weeks ago. It is so great when the members support their friends when they come to church. These members, the Bashkirovi, served a mission as a couple several years ago and so they know all about helping people come to church and everything. We also talked to V this week about baptism and she has a desire to get baptized. We haven't set a date yet with her but we are thinking and praying about one.There were other things that happened, but not enough time to write them all. I just have to say that I feel so blessed to be serving in Ekat. I love you all!!!!!!

Sis Harrison

February 27, 2012

2012 February 27,

We had a good week this week. Some highlights were: We went sign boarding with the Elders. I never realized how trapped we had become in our habit of contacting the same way until we tried something new. It was fun. We got a couple of numbers and the elders set up meetings with them already. We had a good lesson with some active members in our area and committed the wife to invite some of her friends to the Relief Society activity that was on Saturday. She didn't end up coming to the Activity on Saturday, but she brought a friend, L, to church! And we were able to set up a meeting with her too. It was also really cool to see V be baptized this last Saturday. It was great to see all the members and friends who came to support her. We invited our investigator Tanya to the young single adult activity that happened on Saturday and she was able to come. She didn't quite feel that comfortable probably because there were so many boys there and none were really that outgoing. It is interesting to me how many young single adult boys that we have in Ekat. Where are all their wives? The activity was  a delayed Valentine's day party and the member to organized it did an awesome job. Her name is Masha and she is my friend. She served on a mission and got back a couple of years ago. She is an angel! She made all these fun challenges for every one to do and every thing was related to stories from the Bible and Valentines day. We also got to help at the Colton's English course this week. It's not English club because it is suppose to be connected to the institute program and is suppose to be only for members. Right now there are more non members than members who have shown up. It is a good thing though because that means that the members have invited their friends to come. We missionaries are not aloud to invite any one to the course. We had a lady who does not live in our area call us up last night and ask us if we would be willing to meet her friend to take her to a Relief Society activity that is suppose to happen this next month. It is so fun when you find out that the members trust you enough to recommend their friends to you. Sis F's visa trip is coming up this week. We were talking about it and it really is so weird that she is going back to Finland to the city where her parents live. Her biggest fear is that there will be a problem with her visa and she will have to stay there all weekend and have to go to church there and see all her friends in her old clothes that she has been wearing for several days. :D To have such problems! It is interesting that she got to serve in Russia at all because other people that she knows from Finland were called to Russia but they had visa problems and so were re-assigned. Its probably because she has an American passport that she got to serve here at all. Love you all!!!!!!!!!!!

Sis Harrison

Why posts are out of order

Now I know how hard it is to repent of some things. I put off my days of posting for so long that now all the posts are not in any order. I can't seem to find a way to reorder them but I know you are all smart enough to follow the dates. Good luck!

2011 November 28

This week was so fun with Thanksgiving and we had President Schwitzer the Area president for Eastern Europe come and visit us. Pres Schwitzer was the mission president here in Ekat 3 presidents ago. He talked a lot about how he loves the people here so much. He only came to the City Yekaterinburg so we the missionaries in Yekaterinburg were able to meet with him and then he gave a devotional here. He talked to us about how we need to simplify our teaching and focus more on the principles and doctrines that will help people gain a testimony that this is the true restored church of Christ. He also talked about how the 2 reasons that people don't get baptized are fear and sin. We combat fear by finding friends for the investigators from the members. And we combat sin by not just telling a person to repent, but helping them to repent. He also talked about how everything we do here is to help people come closer to Christ and that our casual interactions during the day with people should also help them come closer to Christ.
For Thanksgiving we got to go to Presidents house to eat dinner. Oh my we are so lucky to be living in the same city as the mission president. We actually ate turkey and stuffing! I have never even seen turkey meat here before. It was like being home for thanksgiving. President is so good to us!
This week we finished teaching V alot of the commandments, but then her husband got sick so she wasn't able to meet with us or come to church on Sunday because she has to sit with him all the time. They are taking him to the hospital today so everything should be ok. She still wants to get baptised. We now need to decide though if it would be better to keep trying for her to get baptized on Friday or wait until next week or something. I don't know, I think it might be better to wait at least a little bit so that maybe we can announce to everyone on Sunday the baptism so more people can attend. So anyways she is doing really well. We have been calling her. She is just a little down because her husband is sick.
This week we met with T. We had a pretty heavy lesson with her talking about pre-earth life. She kind of got hung up on the fact that God might have created evil. That is why Pres Schwitzer's talk was so good for us. He reminded us we need to stick with the basics with her. That is what we are going to try to do this week. She has also been going to institute after we meet with her. So she has started to meet some of the youth in the branch.
We got a miracle meeting with a lady L whose son is serving a mission in Las Vegas. Her son met the church and got baptized in the states. He was living in Salt Lake City before he went on his mission. She is very prepared right now to receive the Gospel because of her son who has been telling her to read and pray and everything else. She also suggested next time that we meet her husband too. She showed us some pictures of her son with his companions and she showed us this letter that their mission president wrote to all the parents telling them not to send their missionaries sweets for Christmas.
Pres Schwitzer's talk also helped us with our investigator S. We realised that we have been telling him to repent and not helping or showing him how to repent. We are going to try to be better. It is going to be hard for him because he is a serious alcoholic. We need more ideas if you have any with how to help him. We are going to try to set daily and weekly goals with him.
I am doing pretty well. Sis Denning and I set up our Christmas tree that we found in our apartment. That was pretty fun. There have been some little signs of Christmas starting here, but new year's is a much bigger holiday for them so I don't think we will get quite as much of that here as in the states. Love you all!!!

Sis Harrison

2011 November 21

This week was good. The Lord has been blessing us so much lately despite of our imperfections. We were able to set a baptismal date with V (babushka) for the 2nd of December at 6pm. She is such a prepared person and it is so great that she already has friends in the branch. She came to church yesterday on her own and loved all the meetings. The Branch members were really supportive of her especially since we could not be with her for Relief Society. After church on Sunday she has started to read more and try to understand more. She is also praying more. She told us that after we left her last night she prayed for our safe return home. So yeah she is amazing. She met with missionaries a really long time ago and she says this time everything is a lot more understandable. She knits really well and so Sis Denning and I decided we are going to buy some yarn and she said she will knit some mittens for us. Her life has been really hard she was an orphan and she grew up during the war and the depression and during the communist era, but all through this she has developed a huge faith in God. One of her legs is 5cms shorter than the other so she has to wear special shoes with one being taller than the other. She also plays the accordian at weddings. Isn't she so great?
Then we had a newer investigator T come to church again. She is about 18 years old and is studying religion at the university. She always has a lot of really deep questions. This week we talked to her about the trinity and that was kind of mind boggling to her. She had never ever thought about that maybe God and Jesus Christ are different people. Sometimes I just don't realize just what we do when we tell people restored truth. One problem is she has doubts about the existence of God because of all the things she is learning in school. Often times the teacher talks as if God is a made up concept. We keep telling her she needs to remember the experiences she has already had with the Holy Ghost and what she feels in her heart. She also was sad the last lesson because she said she didn't have very much faith. She is progressing though because she is reading and coming to church.
A came to church! She has been so busy, but this is the second week in a row that she came. It is a little hard with Anya because we can't really meet with her. She has been praying and reading a little bit, but until after she presents her project on the 12 of December its going to get harder and harder to meet with her. She is very studious.
V who plays basketball was kicked off his team. We aren't sure why yet but hopefully he will meet with us and we can find out. We have been praying for him and he said that he still prays every day, but has not started reading the Book of Mormon again yet.
One big miracle we saw this week was that our new member, N, who hasn't been to church since she was baptized came to church on Sunday! We were pretty busy so we weren't able to talk to her much, but she seemed really happy. Also we had Sister's Conference at President's house this week. All the sisters in the mission came into town. I got to see Sis Knol again. She is still in Ufa and is doing very well. I loved it so much!!! I learned a lot from it. I felt like I received revelation for my mission, for our investigators, and for my future life. President and Sis Rust talked to us a lot. They told us stories from their lives how they met and everything. Also the senior couple from Ufa The Jensens were there and The Hassells from the office came. So much fun! I am so lucky to be serving in Yekat.
Thank you all for your love and support! I love you all!

Sis Harrison

They don't have a baptismal font in Ufa because they are just renting part of a building. They said they might get a portable baptismal font sometime. That is why Zaharova's brother Vitaly was baptized in a lake.

2011 November 14

We saw a lot of miracles this week. First off Pres Rust let us go with him to Chelyabinsk to see Sis Zaharova's brother get baptised!!!!!! He got baptised!!!! Isn't that so great! Sis Rust called us Thursday night and invited us to go drive down with them. Vitaly (her brother) got baptised in a slightly frozen lake which was crazy. I have some pretty cool pictures. I will try to send them sometime. Sis Denning was one of the sisters that taught Vitaly before she came to Ekat to serve with me. It was so fun to see Sis Zaharova again. She is doing well and said that she wants to go back on a mission as soon as she can. She has also been able to talk to our investigator V on the internet a bit about what he read because she read it all before she got baptised. So that has been good.

This week a lot of our investigators came to church! We had two in the Shartashki branch and 3 in the Verhisveski ( I am not sure how to spell it). One of the 3 is T our new investigator. She came with a teacher and another student from the university to learn about our church and ended up staying and talking with us after the teacher and other student left. She already has a good grasp of what feeling the Holy Ghost is and she said she felt it while she was in our church. Also A and her Mom were able to come to church. This was so good because we haven't seen A in a couple of week because she has been so busy with school. She is still doing really well and her mom likes us a lot and told us she has been reading the french BOM that we gave her and she likes what she has been reading.

We met with V and tried to do some damage control. I think he could pull through. He is praying every morning and night. Although he hasn't started reading the BOM again. He is still really friendly with us and it just feels like we still have a normal relationship even though all the bad things he read on the internet really hurt him. He also came to the church after all the meetings just to talk to us and Pres Rust happened to be there. Pres Rust loves basketball and talked to him abit about it. Pres Rust doesn't speak any Russian and V really doesn't understand English, but they threw out some names of players that they both understood. How come no one told me the NBA or whatever no longer exists? It turns out we might have to give him to the Elders because Pres Rust has told us now he want younger men meeting with the Elders and younger women meeting with the Sisters. V told us this week that he could never get baptised because he can't give up tea and coffee (he read something online about the word of wisdom). Its funny he has thought about baptism like that.

Our Babuska V came to church also. We met her when some members invited her to a lesson we had set up with them a couple weeks ago. It is so great when the members support their friends when they come to church. These members, the Bashkirovi, served a mission as a couple several years ago and so they know all about helping people come to church and everything. We also talked to V this week about baptism and she has a desire to get baptised. We haven't set a date yet with her but we are thinking and praying about one.There were other things that happened, but not enough time to write them all. I just have to say that I feel so blessed to be serving in Ekat. I love you all!!!!!!

Sis Harrison

2011 November 7

So this week has been kind of up and down. We found out that our amazing new investigator V started reading bad things about the church on the internet and so he lied to us and told us he was going out of town to visit his parents. He agreed to meet with us tomorrow night, but I really hope he shows up and if he does its going to be a pretty hard lesson. He was accusing us of lieing about everything. I have never come in this close of contact with this before. Usually the people just stop answering when we call. So it is good he was willing to talk to us on the phone. He was saying things about how some guy wrote the BOM before Joseph Smith did and that the BOM has been rewritten 4000 times or something. It is so sad that it is all so ridiculous and yet so many people believe it. It is too bad that Sis Zaharava is gone. She read all that stuff and was able to see through it all. I don't know how we will be able to explain anything very well in Russian. I hope he will be able to see how we are being honest in everything we say and that we are not out to get him or something stupid. The phone call with him was just so hard. And then we had another crazy phone call. This lady called us and started asking me if she should get an abortion. I think we were able to help her in the end, but I feel less and less adequate with the language. No I am just kidding, I know that the Lord has blessed me so much. The fact that I can even understand half of what everyone is saying is a miracle. I know that there is a reason that the Lord makes us do things we aren't good at so we will rely on him and on the spirit. We were able to have a miracle meeting with our new member who lives outside of the city. It was a miracle because we were able to find a church member to go with us the night before and then the lesson it self was really good. This member, N, still has not come to church since she was baptised. We told her when she gets her paycheck she needs to take out the money she needs to get to church before she uses all the money. She gave us this HUGE jar of Russian jam from some kind of berries that I don't know. We were able to talk to A (our 14 yr old) by phone. She is so crazy busy with school. She is preparing a big presentation right now about our church for her class. She said if she does a really good job then she will be able to present it to the school and then even to the city if she is chosen. She was really excitied to find the scriptures about poligamy in Jacob for her project. Sis Denning of course is a miracle. She is so great. It is still so funny how we had to come all the way to Russia to meet each other. It is fun to serve with her. Well that is about it for this week other that we have about a foot of snow and it has been way below freezing for the last couple of days. Love you all!!!