First Week as a Trainer

So it was the first week back in Perm with Elder A and we are totally excited to show our faith to the Lord and give it our all here to achieve our mission goal of 97 baptisms and specifically 2 in our area, where Elder A and I are serving currently. Once we came back it was tough, because now I am the senior companion and the example for Elder A. 

Everyday this past week we tried seeking meetings with members, less actives, and investigators, but we only ended up having three meetings with less actives and members total. I knew that this was not going to cut it for meetings. I want to give Elder A and I the opportunity to have as many opportunities to teach together and practice the language. Now, I have a different perspective on things being the senior companion. I knew in my mind that it was going to take some down to the bone missionary work and the goal was to go to bed tired from our efforts and wake up tired as well. I know that sounds crazy but that is exactly what happened this past week as we did stop bys and contacting on the streets along the way.

Elder A and I have been praying for the guidance of the Holy Ghost in our effort to find new investigators and restart the area's investigator pool for teaching. We decided that we don't need to spend so much time on investigators who were not progressing and we made plans this past week to conquer the language and the area! ha-ha Weekly Planning is crucial for success. We made the goal to make 18 contacts a day, 4 BoM a week, 10 new numbers a week, 3 New Investigators per month, and 100 push-ups in a minute! ha-ha (Gotta look good!) Our reward of course if we reach a certain percentage in the week is to go to KFC and chow down on delicious food on P-Day! ha-ha 

This past week we have been walking in the rain going up and down stairwells in apartment buildings, and talking with everyone!! Doing so led us to have a new investigator, six other meetings, 6 phone numbers, 1 meeting set for next week, 3 BoM handed out and two happy
missionaries. We put forth our faith this week and pressed forward through the crowds of people stopping as many as we could and we even went tracting in one apartment building. It was a fun experience and we traveled up 18 stories to knock on doors. We felt safe to do so and we did it legally. It was fun getting a couple of slammed doors and confused faces. hahaha However, we managed to talk to a few people who were interested. It was funny to get a few opportunities to ring the bell or the buzzer in most cases and end up talking through the door to the person. We would state who we were and most times they responded and said that they didn’t understand. HOW!! WE ARE MISSIONARIES!! (understandable) ha-ha

I am convinced that we will see the Lord's hand in the work here as we show our faith in our works daily! Training is legit and Elder A is tight! We are going to Smash it! (as Elder F from England would say) 

Thanks for the love and support and the packages.
Love YOU!
Elder LeFevre

First Visa Trip

This past week has been exciting with all the transfers and the arrival of the new missionaries! We got into Yekat Wednesday and I got paired up with Elder W for the day. A group of us missionaries put our priorities straight and decided that we needed to eat at McDonalds! We went to the mall to eat "Ocho Sinqo" (aka two big macs, large fry, and large coke) and some Big N Tasty's. mmmm REALLY AMAZING!! We will be getting a restaurant here in Perm soon. After we ate we went to the center of Yekat with a couple of missionaries who were leaving to go home to look for some souvenirs. While doing so, we stopped by the Temple on the Blood where the Romanov family was murdered and went inside the Provaslovnic Church. While we were there a couple of crazy бобншкы yelled at us for having our hands in our pockets and told us, "Well everything is free here, be respectful foreigners!" Then, she proceeded to ask, "Well, isn’t this a nice 'temple', you need to buy some icons!"  In the churches they have shops to buy golden icons to pray to the different apostles and get different blessings. It is really weird and the priests have long beards and wear all black! The lady sold us a Michael the Archangel icon and we asked what it gives and she replied anything you want! Really?! ha-ha..We had a great time talking to people on the streets and seeing the town.

After, our sight seeing we came back to the office elders' apartment to stay the night to wait for the arrival of the new missionaries. It was great! I got to see Elder P! (MTC companion) I got to see basically the whole mission that night and especially over the next couple of days at President R's house, which we ate stroganoff, scones, sandwiches, cookies, and Russian pancakes. It was great! Before, we went over to President's, all of the trainers sat down and had a pre-game pep talk and then it was off to see my new companion, Elder A.  We hung out at President's place for two days for training and in-field orientation and got to take our new greenies out into the Russian streets! Elder and I had an hour to do contacting then come back for dinner. I always lose track of time talking to people and my Russian is getting better to where I like to talk. We came back and we were the last ones at the table to eat and we were surprised to see there was still food! ha-ha.. It was a great experience and great to see the new companion show his skills out in the streets! All the training was fun! 

Friday night, Elder P and I dropped our companions off at the Zone Leader's for splits in order to fly to Finland to get our Visas. We left Sat morning from Yekat and arrived back on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we didn’t go to the temple and we couldn't really go anywhere but the airport, so I didn't take a camera with me. After that experience going through Russian security several times, I think I will be a pro when I get back home from the mission. However, Elder P and me did order a giant pizza each and devoured it like champs!! haha... Finland was great, especially how green and beautiful it was. When we walked out of the plane I turned to him and said, "WOW, I can breathe considerably well!" haha.. It was a great experience to fly into Moscow as well, where we ordered some onion rings and watched the volleyball game between Russia and Serbia until our flight left. We came back into Yekat and then it was off to church to meet up with our new companions. Then it was to the train station to hit the ride to Perm! It was exciting and Elder A and me had a good trip. We were talking on the train and then on one of the stops a lady came in and sat across from us and then the fear crept into my gut. At first I debated if I should start the conversation or not, but I did, because I remembered my trainer's example for me, (Elder H) and he did the same by allowing me to practice the language and talk to someone in the train. Already, I was translating for my companion and understood the conversation enough to do so. It was super cool and the same happened to me while contacting with Elder A. God had blessed my companion and I for opening our mouths. This is a great opportunity for both of us and I know we will grow quickly with the Lord's help! 

Love you all!! Всего Хорошого! (All the Best!)

Elder LeFevre

Moving service & Zone Conference

So this week was crazy busy and we had about four meetings total that we had achieved due to the amount of service we had to do. The zone leaders called us up about four times this week trying to coordinate times to move the things from the church building to an apartment in the area not too far from the church. So we hopped inside a little truck called a gazel and moved three full loads of furniture to the new location with my companion. We unloaded it outside the door to the stairwell and then President said lets go look at where we are going to place this stuff. It was on the 3rd floor up a skinny stairwell and into a small apartment! OH GREAT, I thought! Let us say that I got my workout for the day and then to top it all off we went to eat at Rusteeks (KFC). Bocksmasters are the best!! 

Along with this event, the other day we moved the sisters to their new and amazing apartment, which our apartment is now the oldest in the mission. Hey I move for food!! While we were moving, I was sitting outside with Elder K and we got drinks to fuel the fun. I had my water but he fueled up with a 2 L Mountain Dew! ha-ha Mountain Dew is different here, it doesn’t contain orange juice, on the label it just says orange taste! ha-ha (Made in Moscow) Other than that this week has been full of weekly planning which takes 4 hours and transfer cleaning! I love to clean! And I am being serious our apartment still looks like junk after we hit it up with some cleaner. It needs to be remodeled. When we had zone conference, Sister Rust came and did inspections of our apartments and I admit we needed to clean. She seemed like she didn’t like the conditions too much, so we hope maybe we might get something better. YEAH!! Plus the other day my companion pulled the bed away from the wall to do vacuuming and the bed legs broke!! hahaha It is all good we made Russian pancakes to fix the occasion. So he will be sleeping on the floor last few nights in the country.

Zone Conference was AMAZING! We got a general authority to spend the day with us all Thursday and the topic was, "Go forth in Faith", and we were privileged to here from the R's and the Bennett’s, who instructed us and lifted our spirits to look forward and not behind. Elder Bennett served a mission in France and told us an experience of how quiet he was the first five months of his mission and how he regrets it and how we need to change our approach to contacting and make it fun. Satan wants us to place doubts in our heads and fears to replace our courage in order for this work to not progress and for us not to progress either. I really was taken back by the whole talk and realized that was exactly what was going and on and the main difference in how I felt last transfer compared to this one. I have been a little quieter! So I have set the goal to be out going as much as possible and have confidence in myself and in the Lord more. We went and did an hour of strait contacting and it was great! It just got easier and easier every minute that passed. I was with Elder L (AP) and we talked with some interesting people and it was a great experience in general. Elder Bennett is an amazing guy and he got us all pumped up and I felt awesome in general.

So with this new and inspiring outlook it was time to receive my next assignment from President R. He pulled me aside into the other room and we sat down and asked, " So...Elder LeFevre, You ready?!" I said, “I am ready to do anything you ask!" He said, "Good, because you have a great responsibility in TRAINING Elder A !" Whoa! I was taken back. I will be senior companion next transfer and I will be training. I am so excited and I am ready for this great opportunity which will allow me to grow immensely in order to help him out and I in all aspects of the missionary work here in my area. I will be carrying dictionaries cut into two in my pockets and I will be setting the example. This is going to be awesome!! One thing that is great about this is we are both fairly new and we will be doing a ton of contacting and tracting due to all of our investigators and potentials don’t really have potential. There are many things I want to accomplish in this area and I want to leave it better than I found it! (Camping code) We will be definitely going forth and showing our faith in the Lord and press forward strong! Nothing and no one will bind our tongues and our faith. 

I love you all back home and I appreciate the support! Y'all keep it real in America!

Love Elder LeFevre

Living off food storage

So this past week was quite different from the usual. We had the opportunity to participate in service and we were living off our food storage waiting for MSF! ha-ha (noodles, rice, noodles w/ketchup) You know all the good stuff. Mmmmm add a lil salt to spice things up. All the elders of the zone had exhausted their funds too and none of us wanted to go into personal, so we were toughing it out and we did get fed at member's houses. We helped move all the furniture and belongings from the southern end of Perm to the northern branch building, due the other building being renovated. President said it was going to take only four hours starting from 10 am to 2pm. WRONG! Took the whole day and more loads than we thought. It was fun and we got to play a bit of ping-pong while waiting for the load to come. On the way there in the electric trolley I was sitting in my seat when an undercover cop came over and tapped on my shoulder and said, "билет ваш!" (your ticket!) Took some time to register in my brain then it made sense, he was about to throw me out. ha-ha But no worries crises adverted, except for the guy ahead of me he literally got kicked out. So, while we were waiting at the southern branch building, Elder J and me went to the Vivat to see if we had obtained our funds from the Church and hey we did!! So we decided to celebrate with COKE, Super Snickers, and waffles.

So this past week was just like work in a way and hanging out with the guys from work. Lately, we have been trying to work with referrals, which we have received in the past or new ones. Not to much success in numbers, but we have been trying to hit our goals and surprisingly we have been almost exact every week. We have been meeting with some in-actives and one is a little out there. One of them we have been trying to get to sacrament and we got the branch to help us out on that! Whew but be careful for what you wish for! Last couple of visits the person told us that they converse with Michael the archangel and that Satan is bound. So this person shared some of this with everyone this past fast Sunday during testimony meeting. We were sitting there and I can only pick out a few words but I got the 'jist' and they spoke to the moon too!! Ha-ha-ha Eventful!

I am excited that today is P-day, well just for the whole week and President Bennett is going to be here in Perm for zone conference and interviews! I get to meet with a member of the quorum of the seventy! SWEET!! Today we are going souvenir hunting for Elder Fife before he leaves the country at the market and it may be a good chance to look for some pants due to the washer messing up my last pair of slacks! I have been told I am living in the dumpiest apartment of the mission so down the road it can only get better ha-ha-ha-ha. We also plan to look at music, ADIDAS, and stop inside a Proveslavnic Church and buy a couple of Russian dolls. It will be interesting, because then I will be able to see the icons and the shops inside the church. However, on most P-days we meet up at KFC or SUBWAY and play basketball, and I have only taken a nap once! So...yep our p-days are short due to transportation time. Love you all and hope you guys have a successful school year.

I almost forgot to talk about an amazing miracle in my eyes that I got to see this past week. We were teaching English Club, when a new guy comes in and sits with us. He was invited by his friend, who is a sweet member of the church here in Perm. My companion and I teach the advanced group here in Perm and he was able to speak a little bit of English just about the amount I can in Russian. So we got on the topic of history and science. My two favorite subjects! He is an astrophysics scientist in perm. So I showed interest in his job and asked more about Einstein's theories and we began to speak Russian, but I understood most of it due to the scientific theories and expressions in the equations are universal. It was really cool! We connected on the same level of interest and he wants to show me his theories and explain it through a model on his laptop this next week. ha-ha He even invited us to go lap swimming with him, but it was a bummer to say we couldn't I miss swimming. Plus we got to the point where we began to speak on informal 'you,' so it was LEGIT!! I believe it is necessary that as missionaries, we need to express interest in other people's lives and interests to create a level of trust and friendship. Once, this is established it is only a matter of time where they will say something, which you can connect to the gospel. Listening, listening, listening is the biggest form of respect, care, and interest you can give anyone and then they will show to same respect when you share something that is close to you, such as the gospel.

Love you all,
Elder LeFevre