April 6, 2009

This week was pretty good. On Tuesday we went on splits with the AP’s, so that was fun. We’ve been trying to meet up with this contact from the elders before us for a month, and we finally did. It was a very interesting conversation, to say the least. He converted to Muslim, and he doesn’t believe in faith. He needs evidence to believe, but when I told him that the Book of Mormon is evidence, he told me it wasn’t and that the letters were small. . . . . hhmmm. . . . can’t argue that, just good logic. How can it be evidence with small letters? Man, I don’t know what I was thinking. Whatever, he just wanted to talk about religion, but wouldn’t really listen to anything we said, so we’re not meeting with him again. I also don’t know what we’re going to do with Nikolai, the kid who supposedly read the Book of Mormon. We talk to him every time we go to his store, but we can’t teach him there. He works all day, every day, and we can never set up an appointment, so we’ll see. We’re still going to teach English at the college here once or twice a week, the teachers love to have natives come (and it’s basically like a free sub because they just leave) and the students seem to enjoy it to. I’ve pretty much been teaching all the lessons because they’ve been about sports and the Olympics, which isn’t really difficult to talk about. Sasha, the guy with no legs who we meet with every week that Elder Sutherland and his trainer baptized, is finally quitting smoking again. After a meeting with the Branch President, we took all his cigarettes, so that was really exciting. And we also had another good lesson with the girl Sasha, who’s the eternal investigator. We had a really good lesson with the couple we tracted into late at night, but the wife wasn't there for most of it. The husband is really interested though, he even researched about our church on the internet before our appointment. So he had some interesting questions about a few things, and of course Mountain Meadows Massacre had to be one of them. Luckily, we didn't dwell on that too long and he was very receptive throughout the lesson. His wife came in and was kind of annoying, but he was like defending us at times and was also getting irritated at some of the questions she asked, but it went well and we're excited to meet with them again.
And now for my man Pavel, which in English is Paul. It’s the apostle Pavel in Russian, not Paul. We met with him twice this week. We were planning on watching the Restoration movie with him, but unfortunately we had to meet with him outside his door both times. But here’s a funny story you might like. So this Sunday was normal Fast Sunday, because we didn’t have conference. As a companionship, we were fasting for Sasha to have the desire to be baptized, and for Pavel’s wife and monster-in-law’s hearts to be softened towards us and our message. Remember that 2nd part. So we had a lesson with Pavel last night, which we went to at 6:30, right after we broke our fast. As soon as we knock, we hear his bobyshka (grandma) start yelling and he just yells back at her to get off his back. He came outside, kinda laughing, but we just started to talk to him. Then his bobyshka locked the door, so he punched it and told her to open it up. She did, and started to yell at us. Pavel was shoving her back inside and tried to shut the door, but Elder Sutherland said that we could talk if she wanted. Yea, ha ha, bad idea. SHE WENT OFF! And she did not stop, she didn’t even give us a chance to say anything. We even had this member who just got back from his mission in Chicago with us, but she was just yelling and accusing us of tearing her family apart. I was trying as hard as I could to hold in my laugh the entire time, but I couldn’t hold in my smile too; it was too funny seeing a bobyshka go off like this. Then, the golden moment of the conversation, was when Elder Sutherland asked what her name was, and in response, she dropped the WORST Russian swear word on him. A BOBYSHKA! Ha, I didn’t know what the word was, well, now I do, but just seeing my comp’s face when she said it to him was priceless. The whole experience was unforgettable, straight out of a movie about America’s perception of old Russian people. And afterwards, we somehow managed to teach a good 2nd lesson and answered all of Pavel’s questions about Alma 40-42. He’s a stud, but it would be so much better if his bobyshka and wife weren’t so anti.