November 5, 2012

So many of you have probably heard about the protests going on in Russia against the church. The "in" day only affected Yekaterinburg. We have been warned and informed on procedures that  need to be taken if we encounter such confrontations but I am serving in such a small city that it is pretty much quiet. Of course there are  the occasional forms of telling us to go back to America. But those forms are harmless. All is going better here in Kurgan, as we  have been able to talk to some very cool people as we have been continuing to tract the apartment buildings. We stopped by one lady  that we contacted through the door and she invited us in to do a lesson and feed us some Russian pizza. She is a total animal lover and  I made sure to take out the pictures of me hunting and fishing to not offend her!  She was super nice and full of charity for everything  and she even battled to help her husband for thirty years to quit drinking and it worked out. She has seen the hand of God her life and  the blessings of choosing the right in never giving up on her husband. It was a good lesson and got her interested in learning more about the  church after going over Moroni 8 with her. While we were eating, she even took our shoes which were covered in mud from the dirty weather  and cleaned them for us! She is a shining example of one who puts others before herself always.

Instead of being stuck inside like the missionaries in Yekaterinburg, we had a fun filled day on splits with the assistants. They barely  made it out of Yekaterinburg to come on down to the big town Kurgan!  We had a good time contacting people in the cold rain and had  some good success. I learned a lot about planning specific goals. That night we had a successful activity in the place of English  conversation group. About thirty people came and we did watermelon
carving, scary stories, and eating doughnuts hanging from the ceiling  without hands. It was fun! I talked to about three people about the restoration and handed out pamphlets and Books of Mormon. People were  interested in our church and who we were. I will be sure to get some
pictures to you of the activity.

We had a couple of things left over to clean up the activity and did that at the weekly cleaning.  When we came the other day to do the cleaning there was a smell of sewage throughout the building and it was gross.  i looked in the bathroom and on the floor was stagnate water that had risen from the drains in the floor. We continued to clean after  identifying to the branch president the problem that had taken place. However after doing the second floor we made our way down to the  bottom after Sis. H came up telling us that the problem had worsened and that the flood was in the kitchen the baptismal font and  in the bathrooms. We mopped it all up and left the window open to continue to air it out. We came the next day to find that it didn't  smell too bad and that we could do church. I guess that Kurgan rests upon a swamp and that most of the rivers flow upstream. Therefore in a storm or snow melt it makes sense that water was coming out of the drains. I am glad Las Vegas is dry! ha-ha

We had a good week and had the opportunity of increasing our visits with our investigator who is preparing for baptism.  We hope that he will be ready.  I love you all and I pray for you. Have a good week!!

Love,

Elder LeFevre