October 15, 2012

We had our conference weekend this weekend. On Saturday we watched both Saturday sessions and priesthood at the branch building. That was a lot of conference! Sunday we watched both sessions. We had about 30 minutes in between each session which is good. We loved Elder Nelson's talk on missionary work. He invited investigators who had questions about anything at all to go and "ask the missionaries; they can help!" We also enjoyed hearing from Elder Larry Echo Hawk. He was the stake president of the BYU singles stake where Elder Peterson served all those years so we got to know him pretty well. Elder Holland never disappoints; he has set himself to such a high standard and delivers every time! We had five investigators come to conference so that is pretty awesome. We also had one member come who hasn't been to church in many years. We went with the elders to visit her this past week, invited her to come, and she came! Her husband is very against the church, but as long as she doesn't tell him where she's going, everything is okay. Her brother is a fairly active member. One of the investigators commented on the music. Even though she wouldn't have understood any of the words, she definitely felt the spirit of the music. Awesome!

We had an interesting meeting this week. For the last couple of weeks, we have been impressed to go and see the non-member husband of one of our active members here. We had a member of our Branch Presidency call and make the appointment directly with him. He (counselor in presidency) was supposed to go with us. We got over there and he never came. So we explained to this person that God talks to his representatives and that we had been impressed to come and get to know him. We also asked him why God wanted us there. It ended up being a very good meeting. We talked about some wonderful things as well as listened to some gripes. Bottom line, he invited us back. The missionaries had been trying to see him before, but he wouldn’t allow them to visit. He just goes into another room if they are visiting his wife. He stayed the whole time with us, and we had a good chat. We looked at and talked about Enos and he agreed to read. We will follow up this week and see what he thought. He is in his mid-70's; he and his wife have been married for 24 years; she was baptized in 1995 along with her daughter so they have been members of the church for most of their married life. We haven't discovered all of his hang ups, but maybe we can be friends and help him think twice about maybe coming to church. He said he would come to the big Fall Ball next weekend. As an update to this story, we returned last night and this couple taught us how to play Sequence (an American board game). It is similar to Connect Four, but you play it on a board with checkers. We had a lot of fun and felt impressed that just coming as a social visit was more important than trying to teach a lesson this time. Many times, just being patient and friendly ends up paying better dividends in the long run.

We had a zone training meeting this week. Our Area Presidency has said we are to have a zone training meeting once a month. The mission has a zone council meeting once a month, district leaders join that council every other month, and then the zone training meeting replaces district meeting that particular week. They are trying to get information passed along from leadership to the other missionaries more effectively. Missionaries living two or more hours away from where the zone leaders are will not be able to attend, but this week, being the first meeting and with a lot of training information which the mission president learned at the recent mission presidents' conference, all of the missionaries in the zone came together. It is so great to see elders and sisters again who we served with in the past and haven't seen in awhile. President Sartori taught us the concept of "drag vs. lift," as directed from the Area Presidency. There was quite an extensive list of items that tend to cause distractions, or "drag," in missionary work; for example, hanging out in the church building longer than necessary, shopping other than on P-day, not exercising etc., etc., etc. We came home and made some goals where we can improve.

We are headed to Kiev, Ukraine, this week for our visa trip. We arranged to go a day early so we can check out the city and go to the temple a couple of times. We will have to exchange money and get around on our own which will prove to be interesting. Hopefully, someone at the temple will speak English and will be able to give us some hints. We have met the mission president and his wife; they are from Rexburg, but I'm sure they don't have time to be tour guides.

We are reminded every day of the dedication, discipline, and hard work that it takes to be a diligent missionary. We feel so honored to serve with such valiant young men and young women who are doing their best to be the best possible missionaries! The church is true!

1 - Missionary Meetings
2 -  This is a street in town that is lined with flower shops.  In the winter, they just bring the flowers inside. You buy an even amount of flowers to give someone for mourning or sympathy and an odd amount for birthdays, love, everything else.  There are a lot of flower streets in the different cities of Russia.

3 - Rainy-day Sunday

4 - Missionary Meetings