Hi everyone,
If I could sum up this week, it would be finding. Finding, street contacting, and tracting. We hit some smaller areas that are outside of Artyom proper and contacted in each of them for a day and saw miracles. There, the people aren't as familiar with the missionaries. We tracted a full stairwell (about 20 doors) in Artyom and were rejected the whole way down. One woman threatened to call the militia on us, asked who let us in, and then told us to stop knocking on doors. We said a quick goodbye before knocking on the next door. There were also people who walked right by us without saying a single word or even making eye contact. There are still nice people here, especially the drunk ones. They think we're very beautiful, and they always share with us that they're looking for a wife and wanting to start a family.
We had different results in the smaller areas. We went to some areas called Zavadskoi, Knyevichi, and Oogolnaya. (Those look ridiculous in English.) In Zavadskoi, we met a boy who stood in the stairwell and read the title page and introduction of the Book of Mormon out loud right there. We invited him to pray about it and be baptized, and he said he would if he gets an answer. In Knyevichi, we found a less-active who told us to never come by and never call, and she doesn't need any kind of gifts. We left her card, candy, and magnet on the porch. Then in Oogolnaya, we found another less-active who was a lot nicer. She said that she just flew in from wherever she was the previous day, and she asked when English practice is. We had no idea that she was still living there, so it was awesome to find her. We tracted the top floor of her building (about 40 doors) and lots of interesting conversations. Overall, we have met lots of different people this week, each special and unique.
In other news, it's snowing! Winter is here. It's been so cold the past few days. Sister Oler is gearin' up to head back into Siberia where it's still much colder than here. Some sort of storm has been traveling across Russia, and it hit Artyom today. It's been snowing hard all day. Now I feel more like I'm serving in Russia. I think the coldest parts of my body are my face and my toes. We're layering up like crazy. It's funny how much time it takes to get dressed.
In case you're wondering, Sister Oler is still here. Sister Stephenson went on her visa trip and then up to Khabarovsk (and she almost took our phone with her). Sister Hawley will get here this weekend, and we'll also have Sister Wilson (not my Wilson, but the one who's from Kazakhstan who stayed with us in November) will be with us for two weeks while she waits for her visa trip.
I could write about Sister Woodland's cool visa trip where they met a Korean woman who married a Chinese man and currently lives in Switzerland who felt inspired to bring some craft projects to the temple in case she ran into some missionaries, or I could talk about the member who threw herself a birthday party and invited the missionaries and some work friends, or I could write about a boatload of other things that would just take too long, so I'll leave it at that and wish you all a marvelous week!
Сестра Спрингер
Pics:
Snow!
If I could sum up this week, it would be finding. Finding, street contacting, and tracting. We hit some smaller areas that are outside of Artyom proper and contacted in each of them for a day and saw miracles. There, the people aren't as familiar with the missionaries. We tracted a full stairwell (about 20 doors) in Artyom and were rejected the whole way down. One woman threatened to call the militia on us, asked who let us in, and then told us to stop knocking on doors. We said a quick goodbye before knocking on the next door. There were also people who walked right by us without saying a single word or even making eye contact. There are still nice people here, especially the drunk ones. They think we're very beautiful, and they always share with us that they're looking for a wife and wanting to start a family.
We had different results in the smaller areas. We went to some areas called Zavadskoi, Knyevichi, and Oogolnaya. (Those look ridiculous in English.) In Zavadskoi, we met a boy who stood in the stairwell and read the title page and introduction of the Book of Mormon out loud right there. We invited him to pray about it and be baptized, and he said he would if he gets an answer. In Knyevichi, we found a less-active who told us to never come by and never call, and she doesn't need any kind of gifts. We left her card, candy, and magnet on the porch. Then in Oogolnaya, we found another less-active who was a lot nicer. She said that she just flew in from wherever she was the previous day, and she asked when English practice is. We had no idea that she was still living there, so it was awesome to find her. We tracted the top floor of her building (about 40 doors) and lots of interesting conversations. Overall, we have met lots of different people this week, each special and unique.
In other news, it's snowing! Winter is here. It's been so cold the past few days. Sister Oler is gearin' up to head back into Siberia where it's still much colder than here. Some sort of storm has been traveling across Russia, and it hit Artyom today. It's been snowing hard all day. Now I feel more like I'm serving in Russia. I think the coldest parts of my body are my face and my toes. We're layering up like crazy. It's funny how much time it takes to get dressed.
In case you're wondering, Sister Oler is still here. Sister Stephenson went on her visa trip and then up to Khabarovsk (and she almost took our phone with her). Sister Hawley will get here this weekend, and we'll also have Sister Wilson (not my Wilson, but the one who's from Kazakhstan who stayed with us in November) will be with us for two weeks while she waits for her visa trip.
I could write about Sister Woodland's cool visa trip where they met a Korean woman who married a Chinese man and currently lives in Switzerland who felt inspired to bring some craft projects to the temple in case she ran into some missionaries, or I could talk about the member who threw herself a birthday party and invited the missionaries and some work friends, or I could write about a boatload of other things that would just take too long, so I'll leave it at that and wish you all a marvelous week!
Сестра Спрингер
Pics:
Snow!