Kurgan is doing great. We are dealing with some difficulties trying to help some perspective returning elders return to activity and get our investigator in the waters of baptism. He works twenty four hour shifts and we are trying to get the ward accustomed to him and on top of that check his motives for baptism. He says that he would like to find his "beloved second half" by becoming a member. Basically, I hope he understands faith is what drives us to repent and then be baptized. We are working on implementing the commandments into the lesson as we teach the fundamentals such as prayer and reading the scriptures.
Other than our main investigator we are trying to find people to teach by our own means and that has been successful as well. This past week while leading the advanced group during English we talked about leaders and got on the subject of different types of leaders and governments. Of course, I made sure that we didn't talk about politics. It was a great topic and I got to learn a lot of Russian history in less than 45 min. English Conversation Group is going so well that yesterday we had another lady from my group come to church and she sat right behind the piano boldly to play during sacrament meeting. It was great having someone to play some music during the first hour of church, because I cannot sing solo for too long or people just give me the awkward stare. Usually, I just sing louder to bring some liveliness to the meeting.
One member here in Kurgan, has been helping us on meeting a lot lately before he leaves on his mission to England. We had a couple of activities due to it being his last week here with the young single adults and some nonmembers as well. This city for sure has some of the coolest young single adults. We took our dinner hour to play with them a couple rounds of 31 and UNO. By the way every city here in Russia has different rules for UNO. We even had the treat of tasting a Russian creation of overcooked and slightly under-cooked pizza with tons of sauce. I was the sloppiest eater of them all. Luckily I did not spill on any of my clothes but had a pool of sauce on the napkins which I had laid in precaution. What can I say, eating is a dirty job sometimes.
This past week as well, we celebrated Elder P's birthday! We got a delicious tort and had a great day giving out a couple of books of Mormon and a number. Everyday the Lord blesses us with something to be happy about and continue forward. I am a strong believer in the quote, "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to pain, and pain leads to suffering" (Yoda, Star Wars episode 5) This can relate to our spiritual growth due to the fact that we know the gospel of Jesus Christ provides a better path. So many people that I have talked to on the street in the past week have expressed to us that they are believing, but in reality they fail to see the love God has for them and in the end believe that God does not love His children.
The world and Satan are good at placing doubts, stereotypes, and fears into our lives. This of course happens often our lives, especially while trying to stive towards good and rightousness. Our pride clouds our view of the big picture creating ways to build a pavilion above us, seperating us from our Father and Heaven.(Liahona 2012 November Pres. Eyring) We can become caught up on a instance where we were offended and in due time not only do we stop our eternal progression but the progression of those around us. It is sometimes hard to overcome our pride. WE should not be left to think that we cannot overcome it. Every one of us is a leader for someone in some way and in some moment in time. God has commended us to purify ourselves (1 John 3 2-3). This process is not easy and no one said it would. Let this be our goal, to become like our Father in Heaven and strive for it continually.
LOVE YA"LL!
Elder LeFevre
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