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