Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Hello From Moscow!

Well! A lot has happened since we last talked! We found out that Elder Smith was leaving Yaroslavl to Minsk, I received news that I am going to be training a Greenie, We had an awesome New Years party where we watched a few movies, and now we are in Moscow and yesterday we had the Christmas Party. I am writing from the office right now waiting for my new companion who is going through an orientation right now. Wow craziness!
Elder Smith is gone. He was not very happy at first because he wanted to stay in Yaroslavl until the end of his mission.. but then he found out that in Minsk he can't contact people or tract and he got very excited! Haha Elder Smith hates doing those things! It was sad to see him leave because Elder Smith is awesome. He always kept the work interesting and fun. He will be missed by the members and by everyone here in Yaroslavl. The cool thing is that he will be coming back because this week we also set a date of baptism with one of our investigators and President is allowing him to come back and see it! I will tell you the story of setting the baptismal date at the end of my letter.

So I got news that I will be training a new Elder. I just barely met him and he is from Ukraine. His name is Elder Anicaforov. He seems awesome! I can't wait to get him back to Yaroslavl so I can show him how awesome the city is and how much fun we have! Missionary work is about to sky rocket in Yaro and he is even coming into a baptism! That is a great way to start your mission! I am so excited to train! I know it is going to be hard and maybe a little scary, but it is one thing that I was hoping that I would be able to experience on my mission because I know I will change a lot! It is going to be awesome!

The New Years party was awesome! We were just over at the Forsyths and we watched two movies, Its a Wonderful Life and Forever Strong! After the movie we were really tired and decided just to go home and go to bed instead of stay up and watch the fireworks and drunk people go crazy. We have had to be very careful this past week and we will have to be really careful this next week because people here seem to celebrate a week before the holidays and a week after. No worries though, nothing has happened so far. We also had a Christmas Party in Moscow yesterday with the whole mission. It was awesome of course! We ate food, played dodge ball, and watched Toy Story 3 and Goofy Movie in Russian. It is always great to be together with all of the missionaries! Inspirational!

So just a few experiences from this past week. Sunday was another crazy day! Unfortunately, there were not a lot of people at church because of the New Year, that is including our branch president and first counselor. So, I had to conduct the meeting and pass the sacrament. Haha it was a really interesting experience to have... stand up and announce that the sacrament is going to be next and then go down from the stand and do the sacrament. But, you gotta do what you gotta do I guess. Haha I didn't know who to pass for first because I was conducting the meeting but I was passing! Kind of one of those awkward experiences!

So.. now how we set the baptismal date with Sasha. Sasha is the guy who wanted to become the Catholic Priest and doesn't want to disappoint his grandma by being baptized into our church. Elder Smith had left to Moscow by himself to get his Belarussian Visa and I stayed with the Forsyths. On the day that I was with them Elder Forsyth and I had a meeting with Sasha. The lesson was so weird from the beginning! We had given him chapters to read about the 2000 Stripling Warriors to help him to gain some courage to talk to his grandmother who lives in England about our church. We were talking about the chapters and how much courage the 2000 Warriors had and he just was not making the connection and seemed like he wasn't understanding... I could tell something had happened so near the end he started telling us what had happened. He said that this past week was so difficult for him. He is a work a holic and it was the end of the year.. deadline time with all the work he has had going on. He was working hard and got really sick and he prayed and prayed for help to get better. Well, his prayer was answered and he was soon feeling well and was able to finish his work. After that he kept praying on whether to be baptized or not. He has always had a lot of doubts and told us that he wants to know everything about us before he gets baptized. He said what happened was after he was done praying he just had such a good feeling and basically realized that he doesn't have to know everything. He will always have doubts and questions and the Gift of the Holy Ghost is going to help him more to find those answers. He has a strong testimony about the church and all that we teach and that is what he has to rely on and find answers to other questions along the way. Basically... everything that we have been teaching within a three month time was finally understood in one prayer! The amazing part is that we always doubted what to teach and where to start because this man has been an investigator for years.. but every idea that we had and everything that we taught was the answer he was seeking and he found that out in that prayer. It was an amazing night and after Sasha left Elder Forsyth and I just jumped for joy and went crazy! Finally success! There is no better feeling in the world, other than the baptism service, that compares to the feelings you get after working so hard and praying so hard for someone and then seeing the fruits of your labor and hearing stories about the answer that they received to their question. One more amazing miracle to add to the list!

In short, this week has been anything but uneventful and I am very excited to see what God has in store for us within the next few months! More miracles, and with some faith hopefully more baptisms! The work is great and I am loving it! My companion is awesome and we are about to get some work done in Yaroslavl! I love you all and I am grateful for your love and support! You are all amazing people! The Church is true! Remember who you are!

Elder Weihing :)