I hope you are well and happy!

This week was really good!  We had a series of miracles happen in our ward and I am really excited.  First we were able to finally find a house for sister missionaries to move into our ward. In four weeks we will split the ward and we will have four missionaries here. That will be so awesome because I know the ward will improve with success and excitement.

Then we were able to set a baptism date for two families in our ward. There is a couple whose son is a member and they have been investigators for a long time but they needed to get married and we set a date for them on August 23--a little far away but that is when they are getting married so we will just wait patiently and work hard with them. The other is a woman named MJ who was an old investigator who stopped listening but then we found her in the street and started teaching her again and now she has a baptism date for July 20. Two miracles!

Last we received two strong references this week from members. These two people, F and M are people who are prepared to listen to the gospel and to find answers to their doubts. They need the Gospel in their lives. There is a difference between finding new investigators knocking doors and working with members. The references from members are already prepared and interested. Our contacts are really new to the Gospel and don’t understand, so they need more work to prepare and many times are not willing to listen. I know that working through the members is the best way to do the work. But I am really excited to be working her in El Mirador. A lot of things are changing right now.  

I hope you are well and happy!

Love, Elder Christensen

Check out my blog:

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What up y'all.

Everything is good at the MTC... well i guess it is as good as it can be for being the MTC ya know? but i have a pretty cool group of guys but my comp and i have had a few rough patches haha.... But i am having a pretty good time now that i have settled in and started to really know how to work.  I see Christian quite a bit, enough for my whole district to know his name and be friends with him haha so... It is so nice to see him around here and makes it seem more like home everytime we talk and see each other.  Cook is on my same exact schedule so i am sitting next to him as we speak e mailing or i guess as i write! Its nice to see him and talk to him as well! But reminiscing makes it harder to be gone sometimes.  I hope all is well there!

 

Love,

 

Elder Barker!

Dear Homies

Please check out my blog at

http://drewbabeinchile.blogspot.com

To all my Homies!

I leave today for the MTC and so I just want to say thank you for standing by me. To those who are on missions, and to those who are not, thank you for inspiring me and supporting me. I cannot believe this day has come already. It is a day that I have talked about my whole life, and I could not be more excited! Mexico City here I come! Well, actually, Provo here I come...

I want to give a shout out to Elder Durham. Thank you my gentlemen for the letter. I needed it very much. And I want to apologize to all of you currently in the field for not writing you guys. I really have missed you guys. I cannot wait for all of us to come home and catch up with a fresh batch of missionary stories. And we'll be able to communicate in our own secret language (Spanish) too. Sorry Ninow and Jacob...

Love you all,

Elder Brown

 

Dross!

Hello everyone!  First off, thank you to everyone for your prayers on my behalf.  I am doing better and even though everything with my chest pain is not completely resolved, I am loving the work and able to everything I need to do.  It is awesome to feel the power of prayer working in my life and I am grateful to all of you for caring so much!  Thank you.

This week was great!  We found 4 new investigators and lots of our contacts came to church which is huge here.  It is really hard for the people to get to church and so we are super excited when they make the sacrifice and come.  I love my little branch.  The people here are so SOLID and they are amazing!  My companion and I are in charge of conducting, teaching, presiding over all the meetings etc. for the next two weeks while our branch president is away.  I guess I will see just how far my Russian has come J  But I am kind of excited about it – it will be a great learning experience for sure!

Olga – who was baptized a few weeks ago is coming to church and doing well.  It is so great to see the gospel change people’s lives and it is really humbling to be a part of the Lord’s work.  I can really see the love He has for all His children….pretty incredible.

The snow and ice have finally gone and with it – our hot water!  Now that it is “spring” and getting warmer, we no longer get hot water for our apartment apparently.  We asked our landlord about it and he just was like – yea, there is no hot water….so???  I am learning to take fast showers J  But it really has gotten warm and everything is green instead of white and now the rain has come!  And I mean RAIN!  They call them Russian Power Showers and we get soaked pretty regularly – no hot water in them either – hahaha.

We went to the Rinok (market) last week to buy some peppers and there was a COW on the chopping block... in 4 pieces! legs.. guts... everything... the WHOLE THING!!!! and the head was chopped off... fur and everything still on it... man... it was fresh.... DROSS haha we didn’t buy it don’t worry... but you think a 72 ounce steak is big... try a whole cow!

I was also listening to a talk, and the speaker said something interesting... they said that a lot of the time we believe IN Christ... but we don’t BELIEVE Christ... we believe that he is the Son of God, Redeemer of the world, that he died for us... and that he is the Savior of the world... but some too often don’t believe that he can save them.... WHAT GOOD DOES THAT DO!? What’s the point of having a Savior who doesn’t Save?????? It’s like having a lifeguard that won’t get out of the dang chair!!!! Christ didn’t HAVE to go through with everything he did... he had free agency like us all and chose to do everything because of how much he loves us! and as i started thinking about that and studying it... it really helped me accept Jesus as my Personal Savior.

I hope everything is going great with all of you!

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

Elder Sven :)

Hello Elders!

I am so happy to write this post for you all because this week we witnessed a miracle. Last Thursday (4/25) Johnny Wall was arrested and charged with first degree murder and aggravated burglary. He currently is being held in the Salt Lake City Jail at a $1.5 million cash only bail. His first court hearing was Monday and he has another one on May 13th at which time his bail will be further discussed. Our families have been working tirelessly towards this moment for the last year and a half. We all feel immense gratitude and relief for the arrest. Our primary concern right now is the safety of Pelle's siblings. So in that sense, the madness is far from being over. We still have many battles to fight, we are now in the process of petitioning for guardianship of Liam and Ilona (aka "tums and chuck") and we are fighting to make sure that Johnny's bail isn't lowered to the point where he could get out of prison.  The final trial will most likely be in a years time, that is just how these things work. But even with the assurance of trials to come, Thursday was no doubt a day for thanks. There were many who felt that Johnny would never be arrested and the fact that he has been charged is an absolute miracle. I can't express the amount of joy bursting in my heart right now. Because it is all uphill from here on out. This was a critical first step on the path to justice. 

                            A view of the images taken from news stories over the week. 

Amy asked me to write this post for you all because Pelle (who left Pomona as soon as he heard)  has been in non-stop lawyer meetings, court meetings, media interviews, etc since he got off the plane that Thursday afternoon. The case has even begun to attract national media attention, in addition to a steady stream of local coverage. In fact, Monday morning the case was on Good Morning America and more media is sure to come.  I know that Pelle appreciates all of your friendships and he is grateful to have the homies with him in spirit. 

As hard as it is for me to say, I would ask that all of you all, in addition to any prayers for Pelle + our family,  pray for Pelle's father. Pray that Johnny's heart will be softened. That he will stop fighting against our quest to reunite the Wall children and that his hatred will cease to cause anymore sorrow. I will try to keep you all updated on the case situation over the next few months. Thank you for your friendship + support, hopefully Pelle can write a blog post for you all soon. Keep up the good work boys, I love hearing from each and every one of you. 

Much love, Jess

                                  The Wall + Oglesby Tribe at Sunday dinner (4/28) 

HOLY MOLY!

HOLY MOLY I’M ON TOP OF THE WORLD HAPPY! This week was so freakin good! We were SO busy and the work is booming!!! Everywhere in our mission... not just in our city! God is really blessing the people of Russia!

This guy came up to us almost in tears and he said that he was having a really hard day but looked up and saw us and pulled over immediately to come talk to us... he said that he had no idea who we were but when we were walking around together in our white shirts he said that we looked like angels... so we talked with him and he has to meet with the other elders because he doesn’t live in our area... but how cool is that!?

Olga's baptism got moved to this Saturday because she wants the members to be there and this way they will be able to... and also she can get the Holy Ghost the day after her baptism! But she is doing awesome! We are so excited for her! It’s been amazing to see the gospel change her life!

I am really grateful for my big fur coat and my hat.  It is still pretty nippy here and it keeps on snowing.  We have a couple of good days where it warms up a bit, but those haven’t come very often.
Also...my bed is a giant sponge... no joke. Just a big foam sponge... my covers/sheets are fur!  Welcome to Russia.

The sidewalks are pure ice here but I haven’t fallen yet.  We were walking to this apartment complex and had to walk across this path thing... but it filled with water and then froze... so we crossed it because we had to, to go to this appointment and right in the middle of it the ice broke and we fell through... COOOOOOLD!!! We fell in like up to our knees it was SO COOLD! The coldest thing I’ve ever experienced ever!  Later in the week we got 2 AK 47's pulled on us.  What an experience. They thought we were breaking into our branch building because the alarm went off and so we are inside and these cops show up and are just yelling at us and pointing their guns at us. But the office gave us this like top secret clearance magical thing where we just pull it out and it basically says we have the right to be here and then we explained the situation and it was all good. also... some random drunk punks came up to us and pointed something to our chests and said "I’m  going to shoot you" and I looked down and it turns out it was a little keychain of a gun... not exactly sure how someone intends to shoot me with a keychain... but whatevs.. He was crazy, so we just walked away.

The lord really blesses his missionaries so much. The members here are so great!  I am serving in the Branch Presidency and love our Branch!  I am really enjoying my time here, I love the people!

I miss you all so much and really I love you all and thank you for all your support. Can’t wait to hear from you soon! :)

Elder Sven Ninow
старейшина стефэн александр ниноув