March 22, 2009

On Wednesday we had a lesson and my first meal with a member family, the Agarkov's. They're rich to Ukranian standards, and the food was good. They were really cool. Thursday was an interesting day. After studies we went and did some service cleaning up around the church. It turned out to be a good, fun service project. Then we had a lesson with this college girl who was baptized about a month ago and her 2 roommates. We brought this really cool member Deema, I don't know how to spell it in English, who got back from his mission in Kiev a few weeks ago. When we got there, we started talking to them but then one by one more girls started to come into their room and talk. That would've been great but it just turned into a kinda 'hang out.' We knew that wasn’t good, but luckily we had English class as an excuse to get out of there. The girls we were going to teach were coming to English so we asked if we could teach them after and they said yes. But at the end of English class, Elder Sutherland had a great idea and he invited the rest of the class to stick around for the lesson if they wanted. They all did and we taught a really good, simple 3rd lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the steps God gave us to help us get to Heaven. There was a great Spirit there and they were very receptive. We're teaching two of those girls now too. Afterwards this other girl from our class that I had never seen before starting talking to me- they all do this to practice their English. And then pretty much the whole class walked back home together, well almost to home, because most everyone lives in the same general area. This same girl started walking by me and wanted to talk. So I asked her to tell me about the history of Ukraine, it's relationship with Russia, and the people who are on their money. It was really interesting but then it came time for me and my comp to walk a different way than the rest of the group back home. We said we had to go and when we did, that same girl made this sad face and said "Ohhh" with a sigh as she started to come towards me. I knew what that meant so I hurried and stuck out my hand. Yea, that's when it started to get weird. She was pretty determined though because she shook my hand then continued to go for the hug. I honestly had no idea what to do, and you could tell that from the look on my face, which Deema saw as he was also wide-eyed and trying to hold in a laugh. I just froze, hands at my sides and didn't move as she gave me the MOST AWKARD side-hug-thing in my life. I don't even know what it was. She just tried to hug me and I did not move. My comp thought it was hilarious and laughed the entire way home. I told him that I almost gave her a Heisman and took off running. I just wasn't expecting it, but now I'll be more prepared if that ever happens again.
Anyways, the next day we visited some inactives, but none of them wanted us there. We had an appointment with an inactive family that has 2 priest age boys! It stunk, because they weren't interested at all. But we found this one guy, Pavel, tracting and I'm so excited for him. His 22 and really, sincerely interested, but his wife is against it. We're still meeting with him though. We also had a great lesson with this 22 yr old girl Sasha who's been investigating for 3 years and we feel like we can commit her to baptism. We still need to meet with this guy Nikolai who read the whole Book of Mormon in 3 days while working full time, so obviously he has a lot of potential. But this other investigator, Lena, broke our hearts this week. We had a good lesson with here, but I wasn't really a part of it because I didn't speak fast enough for her. She wasn't very patient, but still nice. Then the next days she called and said all this stuff about how the Book of Mormon is for little boys and not holy at all. I'm guessing she didn't really read it. But it made it all the more awkward when we saw her on the street the next day.
But I have a really cool story, well to me it's really cool. One of the lessons with an inactive was a lot shorter than we thought it'd be so we finished at 8 pm. It was cold and wet and we did one stairwell and no one listened, most told us to go to bed. We finished that at 8:30 and were supposed to be home at 9. We were 5-10 minutes from home and even though everyone told us to go home to bed we knew we should work a few more minutes. As we went to the next apartment building, I was just praying so hard that God would let someone listen to us. I wanted to use this as an example of why we should work until 9. Our 2nd door was a couple that let us in and we talked to them for 20 minutes! It was so cool! I hope something happens with them. But I am positive that God did that for me and my comp, and I was so grateful for it. I'm realizing how much more sensitive to the Spirit you are as a missionary, and how much the Lord helps us every day. It's good for me to see that, makes me more humble and grateful.