Samara - Week 18 - "I'm grateful for a prophet"

December 1, 2014

All is well,

This is gonna be a really short letter! Sorry but today is going to be a crazy p-day :) got lots of errands to run!

This week we set TWO baptismal dates. WOW, and they are people that we have only recently been meeting with. One of them is L. While Sister Martinez and I were contacting this week we were getting into a really good conversation with a woman, then all of a sudden another woman came up and starting asking about who we were and what our books were about and we really thought it was a miracle that she was interested! Then to our disappointment I began to catch a familiar scent on her breath... yeah she was drunk. And the spirit totally left as she broke out into a broadway reinactment in front of us, singing at the top of her lungs. The first woman we were talking with excused herself and we tried to slowly break away from the drunk woman. We gave her a Book of Mormon and exchanged contact/telephone numbers and it seems to me that actually God delivered into our hands. Because we called her the next day, she was completely normal, and still wanted to meet with us. She's got A LOT of changes coming here way but it's going to make her life so sweet. Her name is L and she agreed to be baptized :) 

Also during church yesterday... I usually write down words that I can't understand, and then at night time I sit down and translate all of them. During sacrament meeting yesterday a member was talking to another member, one of them said that she's been feeling a little sick lately, and the other, who is an old grandmother replied to her and I guess said something offensive because the woman went running out of the room crying.... I got home and translated what the Grandmother said to make the member cry and she said, "Well maybe if you wouldn't gorge yourself with food all the time you wouldn't be so sick all the time!" Yikes... Sometimes Russians can be pretty brutal. 

First Presidency of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Meeting with a few of our investigators this week I just want to testify about how blessed we are that we have a living prophet. Some people really get confused by the scriptures and can't translate them correctly at all. Thanks to modern day prophets we don't have to read the scriptures and be completely confused all the time :) People who think that you LITERALLY have to be baptized 3 times by water, the spirit, and fire... people who don't understand that you have to have priesthood to do LIFE SAVING ordinances (for example I cannot baptize my companion!) I am grateful for prophets, otherwise we really would be tossed in the wind, wandering from one doctrine to another.

"Be Not Afraid" by Greg Olsen

I am grateful for my Savior and Redeemer. Sometimes I feel like I've dug myself a hole out here but time and time again my Redeemer has thrown a rope down into the pit and helps me out :) I have a testimony that if you do things that would make the Lord happy, it will make you happy :) I am so grateful for all the Lord has given to me, and because I have been given much I too must give. Therefore, I am in Russia.

Sorry this is so short! Hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving :)

Sister Wilson

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Samara - Week 17 - "The Greatest Miracle of All!"

Nov. 24, 2014

All is well,

I'll be spending another cycle down in lil Balakovo with my dear companion Sister Martinez. I'm excited to see who will be baptized this cycle, Heavenly Father has blessed us with a large teaching pool and I'm really anxious to see who he is preparing. Also on that note, the member Sv, who was baptized not to long ago, has actually been helping us on lessons. She's such a little fireball. She loves handing out invitations to people on the streets :) 

Sister Martinez and Sister Wilson eating their Thanksgiving dinner!

Oh man this week was full of the highest highs and the numbest numbs for me probably. My array of emotions has been pretty ridiculous here on the mission. However I am so grateful that I can always count on Christ when my mood goes down the toilet... he is my anchor and he is unwavering and unchanging. He always has a good mood, and he has overcome my bad mood, therefore I can rely on him to help me overcome my bad moods :)

Now for some miralces that we have seen. Most of them are pertaining to the members rather than investigators. At one point during the week all of our plans ending up falling through, however a member was still very persistant on being on the streets with us from 6-9:00. (Have I mentioned that our ward mission leader makes sure that the sisters in Balakovo are NEVER without a member from 6-9?) The member needed to take a bathrooom break so we called a member who lived nearby. When we walked in the door of the members house it became clear that we were not to come to her by coinsidence that night. She told us that she has nothing else to live for but pain and loneliness in her long 80 year old life. She is really losing sight of the point "enduring." She then pulled out of her closet a purse which contained the clothes that she wanted to be buried in. It sounded like she was thinking about ending her life short of what God wanted for her, and we spent the remainder of the night reading scriptures, praying, and lending comfort to our dear Babooshka. Heavenly Father is so mindful of his children. 

Saturday night we had a lesson with one of our dear sweet actives, E. She is married and has a child but the husband has always been against the church and refuses to let their son be baptized. Her husband's birthday was the very next day and it just so happened that we brought some famous american banana bread with us so we wished him a happy birthday with it :) On our lesson with E we focused on getting her back to church, so that she can take the sacrament and have the spirit with her throughout the week to lead and guide her and give her counsel according to the needs of her family. She came to church the next day with her little boy and texted us that night saying, "I have no idea why but my husband has agreed to come to sacrament meeting next week." She was overjoyed and so excited. She's been married to him about 7 or 8 years and that's the first time he's ever agreed to come to church. Heavenly Father is the master of changing hearts :) 

On the note of changing... I had an interview with President Schwab last week and he gave me some powerful insight...

When Jesus Christ lived on the earth every single miracle that he performed was the healing of something incurable. The deaf, the blind, the dead. But he mentioned that aside from all of that, the greatest miracle he has ever seen is the changing of a human heart. God is the one who made us, and truly only through him can we be changed.  

With another cycle here in little Balakovo I am really going to focus on giving it my all. I will love these members and strangers and investigators to death before I leave. I think Heavenly Father has seen my tendency to want to give up when I get "bored" or "tired"  he knows my tendency to give up when things get hard and he's not letting me back out! He really wants to transform such things into strengths. And that is what He wants to teach me right now; diligence :)

I wish you all a happy thanksgiving, and don't worry about me, I'm pretty sure Balakovo is one of the warmest cities in the mission right now, thankfully :)

with love,

Sister Wilson