Dear family and friends...
yep, its the time of year where it is just plain cold and dark, haven't seen the sun for awhile. but, the Lord's work still moves forward!!
last Monday night i got a phone call from the elders in the next district over-"hey, sister little! do you remember a 'valery' you met at the temple awhile ago, you and sister zanger sat him down and had a lesson with him and gave him a book of Mormon right there in the waiting room at the temple?" yes. "well, he is getting baptized! tomorrow! and he still remembers that meeting and what it meant for him and he want you to be at the baptism and say the closing prayer!" Okay! no problem. wow. that's so cool to see the result of such a small coincidence. I think i wrote a little bit about it, but about three months ago when i was with sister zanger we were having weekly planning on a Friday and realized the temple would be closed for two weeks, so we called president to get permission to go the next day, Saturday morning (missionaries aren't really allowed in the temple on Saturdays because its a big day for people of other countries to come in)...anyway, he said, "sure, go. if you think it will help you get more baptisms" ha. i could sense a slight bit of sarcasm in his voice when he said that, but we went anyway...and look. Ha! a baptism!! We met valery as we were about to leave the temple, had a lesson with him right there with a temple worker with us, all in white. it was way cool. normally i wouldn't give a copy of the book of Mormon to someone right when i first meet a person, but in that moment i felt inspired to give him one, but with my small doubt i told him, "im not going to give you this book if you're not going to read it. Are you going to read it? Promise?"...and we passed his name and phone number to the elders in his area and went on our way. Surprise! baptism! very cool.
And the wedding...
so its really cool ive been noticing how the work and needs of the wards change just slightly with transfers, different missionaries etc. The work has been slow in these wards, but we were blessed to have a girl move into the ward boundaries who i really saw as someone who needed our attention. The story starts with paul who got baptized in Odessa almost a year ago. he met yulia on line, moved to donetsk to help her find the church, she also got baptized, and the next day moved here to Kiev. When i heard this a couple weeks ago and met here, i really had a feeling of duty to make sure she gets situated in the ward, has the lessons again, and most importantly has friends at church. Agree? how precious she is not to get lost at this moment. Well we finally had a meeting with her on last Sunday to just answer any questions in general she had about the church. Her biggest question: When and where can i get a temple recommend? Yes!!! she gets it too!! her boyfriend, Paul, has done a great job in helping her understand the gospel. She also slightly mentioned that they are officially getting married. on Thursday. this Thursday? yes. its not going to be a big deal she said, because they don't have any money and no family or friends really here. UUUMMM. that's no excuse. Can someone say cultural event? time to use my party girl talents and help our little yulia have the best day ever. So here in Ukraine, in order to be officially married you have to sign "zaks" which everyone has to do even if they are having a marriage ceremony. So we called yulia the night before, got ourselves invited to zaks, rounded up some elders from district who knew paul from Odessa and went to zaks on Thursday. we decoupage a picture frame for her, made her brownies, and bought her flowers. And i am so grateful we did. besides missionaries, only her brother and his wife came to support her on this beautiful day, oh and one of pauls friends from Odessa. She was so happy, so beautiful, so grateful that we were there to help her celebrate. I promise we didn't take up too much proselyting time by doing this. but i think it was definitely a good use of time-to support this recent convert and show her that missionaries and members of the church can be a big support. Its was a neat experience, funny though. there is the huge hall, they walk down the aisle, and sign the paper, kiss and then they are married. interesting. Yulia already knows the exact date next year when they can be sealed, so we are going to work with her to keep her strong and motivated and enveloped in the ward and in the gospel. We can be a blessing to her and she is a blessing to us-someone to serve and pray for. this yesterday me and my companion fasted to help the sisters in our ward be more open with us so that we can know how we can serve them better.
another miracle in these cold times is that a young girl-late twenties found her way back to church after being inactive for about 5 years. i never would have known if i didn't open my mouth and talk with her. its neat because we have been working a lot to follow up with a list of less actives to try to meet with them to no avail...but look. a blessing. She is also someone we can work with and pray for while we are serving in this area. She said she just felt like it was time to come back to church. probably marry someone in the church. good idea. We have talked with our priesthood leaders a little more lately about our work, especially information we have found on the less actives, and while they are ever appreciative of our contribution, one bishop told us nothing big will change until the members of these wards shows this much interest and do this work themselves. fair enough. so he asked that we also helped the members get excited about visiting their less actives and doing visiting teaching.
I am trying to realized each day the blessings and little miracles in our work-that a bus came right away while we were waiting, or that we were at the right place at the right time in order to talk to someone who needed help. I need to stop seeing everything as a coincidence and realize and recognize the lords hand in everything.
yes! my birthday is in two days!! the office sister was in our ward yesterday and said, "sister little, you have a birthday coming up!" how do you know? i asked, "because your mailbox is overflowing with mail!!" she said she is going to try to see if she can get my mail to me by Wednesday, but if not, ill just get it a little late. we'll see..Thank you in advance for the love and support....its a necessary pick me up as I work through these middle months of my mission and just the beginning to get to know the definition of cold :)
love you,
sister little
ps...pictures...oh yeah so we show up to the baptism..and who is going to baptize him? oh president klebingat. hah. so cool, he's been working with him a lot-has been on a lot of lessons with him, so cool.
next-the 'wedding'-more like the big whooped di doo about signing the official paper.
next-we did the armor of god lesson with a less active family and dressed up their little boy-so cute!!
No comments:
Post a Comment