Valiant Volunteer in Moscow: Week 4

Here's the week's update.

It's been a busy, busy week. After emailing last week, we went to the temple and then I was able to talk to Sister Gonzales. She went to PG and her family just moved to the new subdivision by Silver Lake. We had a lot of mutual friends so it was cool to talk to her. She was very sweet.

Friday we had a breakfast of waffles. Elder McKendrick(who was in Jake's district in Provo MTC) did his waffle rap and then we spit a few freestyle verses back and forth. We're both awful. Our first investigator, Maxmyt (Mac-moot) was (surprise) Muslim. It didn't go as expected, but still well. We pulled weeds at the temple, taught Anactacia (Anastasia) and had a meeting about proselyting in the park.

My park companion was Elder Adams. We set very high goals before the training. We got on the metro, and the very first people we talked to were a couple from Ukraine! I spoke half Russian-half Spanish with them. When we got to Retirlo Park, we met a man named Jesus and I had a full blown conversation in Spanish with him! He had met with missionaries before, but only liked to talk to God at the low points of his life. We placed a few copies of the Book of Mormon but had no real success. I became super frustrated. We were on God's errand, doing all the right things, to no avail. I was upset until testimony meeting later that night, when I realized we were successful. All we could do was do what the Savior did, invite others to "come and see".

Sunday Elder Franckowiak was made District Leader. It felt busy, but sluggish as a whole. Sacrament meeting led into District Meeting, which led into Priesthood. In Priesthood we focused on obedience and had more of a discussion than a lesson. President gave a devotional about how the first lesson is not "The Restoration", but rather "God's Love." In our break time, Elder McKendrick and I tag teamed an Old Testament crash course. We taught the entire history of the Old Testament in half an hour. Then we went and sang on temple square. We sing in Russian, Spanish, and English.

Monday was the most uninteresting day. I got a little overwhelmed by the language, but then I remembered I've only been speaking a month.

I woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday with some incredibly and oddly specific revelation. We talked about the Book of Mormon and street contacting. Elder McKendrick orchestrated an MTC-wide rock-paper-scissors tournament that got shut down at it's peak. We did a gift of tongues lesson and watched a video about missionary work in Turkey that can't be viewed in the US. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. We got feedback from our investigators, and they only had good things to say!

Yesterday we got tentative baptism dates for Anastasia and Maxmyt. I also found my temple recommend shredded in the dryer, but I got a new one. We had a lesson on prayer. I've been studying the BoM and noticed that God is much more responsive when we present a solution, and not just a problem (like when Nephi was tied up by his brothers).

Today we toured the palace and it was beautiful.