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
