Contacting in the wild

2012 February 13,

This week we had some fun things happen:

-I get to teach piano to an active member in our ward. :D She is the wife of a man who served a mission in Moscow when Bro Kelly (Annalise, Jacob, and Spencer's dad) was mission president there. They are the cutest young couple in our area. Sis F's job is to keep their 2 yr old son occupied without touching him. It's a challenge.

-Sis F and I decided to pick a new area to go contact in. We picked it because I have never been there before and we thought we should get to know our area better and because it was by this really big lake. When we got there we realized the only people we could contact were the wild dogs in the forest surrounding the lake and the ice fishermen fishing on the lake. Not a very effective use of time.

-We were able to go visit the new member again outside the city. The senior couple The Coltons and the other sisters went with us. Her 6yr old granddaughter is learning to play the piano and they have this really out of tune piano for her. We talked about the Holy Ghost with her because she has been asking about why before her baptism she felt the Holy Ghost very strongly and then after her baptism she hasn't had any of those same experiences yet. We shared Elder Bednar's talk with her from a couple of conferences ago about receiving the Holy Ghost. It's always so fun to go visit her.

-On Saturday morning we went contacting around the church building because we had time before a meeting. I like contacting around the church building because then you can show people where the building is. And the building is so pretty. We talked to a kid named "D". I honestly didn't think he sounded that interested because he said he wasn't very religious and we didn't talk to him that long. We got his number and said we would call him later to set up a meeting. We called him that night and he told us that he couldn't meet on Sunday or until the next weekend because he has school. That was kind of disappointing. Then Sis F helped me call him back and ask him if he could meet in a half an hour. Amazingly he agreed. We had a really good meeting with him with our amazing member Masha. And it turned out he had a lot of knowledge and questions about the bible. Then in the middle of the lesson the security people for the church building came because the alarm for the building had been having problems that day. There was this huge security guy that kept joking with us and the tech guy for the building security. After they left it was way too late and so we had to go home. Then when we tried to set the alarm for the building it wouldn't work. Big surprise. We tried several times and then "D" said "Shouldn't you pray about it?" He had stayed with us this entire time even though we told him he could go. We were all happily shocked and insisted that he should pray for us. He hadn't wanted to pray for the lesson. We probably stood around for 15mins trying to get him to pray. He wouldn't in the end, but it was still a cool experience. Next time I think it will be a lot easier for him to pray. He was a really really nice boy. We already know he doesn't smoke and he doesn't have to serve in the army. He is also only 21. Yay miracle! We are going to give him to the Elders this next weekend when he can meet again.

Love you all!!!!!

Anya's baptism

2012 February 6,

We really got around our area this week. We even got some people to talk to us on the street in the freezing cold weather. It was the coldest week of the winter I would say this last week. (-28 C) But over all this has been a really warm winter. And then all the new people that we were going to meet with at the end of the week canceled or were unreachable. We keep trying though to find new investigators. Sis Fitzsimmons is so great. She always has a good attitude about everything. It was so amazing to see Anya get baptized!!!! She is such a miracle. I just want to be her friend for forever. Sis Fitzsimmons and I were able to talk to her mom while the other Sisters were taking care of Anya during the baptism. Her mom did seem really happy for her daughter. She gave us presents. Her mom is a teacher at a French school her in the city. She told me that she discovered that one of her acquaintances is a Professor of French at BYU. She was very, very excited about this. She said that BYU must be a good school if this man is working there. Anya looked like an angel. President Rust baptized her and he had to twice because her feet came up. I only got to see her get the Holy Ghost through the window of the door to the sacrament hall because we were going to our other church meeting also and made it out of our class a little late. I love her! We had a miracle happen last P-day. We were at the mall trying to find Sis Fitzsimmons a coat for spring. And a girl came up to us and started talking to us. She spoke English really well and said she had been to English club one time. She started asking us why we decided to come on our missions and we invited her to the baptism on Saturday to come and see what our church was about. She agreed to meet. Then she ended up as one of the meetings that didn't work out, but it was still a testimony to me on how we are watched all the time and if we are being representatives of Christ all the time people notice it. We also finally got a person from our branch to call "N" (new member). She has really been struggling lately because she hasn't had a job for a while now and she was never fully paid for the last job she did. We just keep telling her that she needs to keep the commandments especially paying tithing and then she will get the blessings. The branch is going to send her a bit of money to help her out. I hope you know that I love you all!!!!!!

Sis Harrison

Favorite Russian Holiday- Maclinetsa (spring)

This week is my favorite Russian holiday - Maclinetsa. It is the holiday that celebrates the change from winter to spring. I like it alot because it means that you get to eat as many blini (crepes) as you want.

We met again with the kid D who we met on the street last week with the Elders to pass him off. After that meeting I don't think any of us really wanted to meet with him again. All he did is argue with us and not listen at all. One Elder said that he thought he had a recording device in his pocket recording our lesson. I am sure if he did record it it was a pretty boring with him just arguing and the rest of us telling him that we know the Book of Mormon is true and that he should read it and pray about it. I think he read stuff on the internet after our last lesson. Considering all this D does have some potential if he were to stop arguing and start thinking about the answers we are giving to all the questions that he has. He said he would try to come to church next month when his schedule frees up.

T came to church and the youth Devotional on Sunday. We had about a month when she couldn't meet with us, but she finally pulled through. We thought that she made some progress this week. We met with her on Wednesday and talked a bit about the BOM and then on Sunday after church we talked about her concerns. She said that she has a lot of doubts about all kinds of different religions because she hears so much and can see good in all the churches that she goes and visits for her class. So in the end she said she gets really sad because she can't see one of them being true. We read the Joseph Smith story with her from D&C and talked about receiving answers to prayer. She said that first she needs to come to know if God is real and then move on to the question of which church is true. We keep telling her she need to pray and ask God, but she is afraid of praying. Sis F shared the really good analogy of how feeling/seeing the presence of God is like seeing the wind. We can't really see it but we know it is real. We also talked about how the best place to feel wind is if you go climb a mountain and stand on the top. If we stay down in the forest (trees = distractions) we won't feel the wind as strong. T was much happier after our lesson and she said she got a lot out of it.

The lady that I have been teaching piano to has been really excited about it and on Sunday played 2 simplified hymns that she was able to learn for us. Her goal is to be able to play for primary. Teaching her to play the piano makes me feel good. Probably because she is such a good student.

This week I also found out that Sis Zaharova got her mission call!!!!!! She is going to the Rostov Russia mission on May 9th. She really wanted to serve in Russia so she got her wish. :D Its so exciting!!!!! She was my favorite mini missionary ever.

Love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sis Harrison