Today Sister Thrall and I had an adventure. One of her fillings came out so we had to go to the dentist. So this morning we ventured into Babylon (aka the world outside the MTC). Nothing really exciting happened but it was an interesting experience none of the less. One thing I noticed is all the noise. Music and the radio played in the dentist office and afterwards Sister Thrall and I talked about how it was distracting. It was an interesting observation because I love music and felt uncomfortable when I was not listening to music.
Once again this week has just flown by! Keeping everything straight has been hard.
We had great lessons with our investigators. Both of them went in different directions than we had planned. We made our lesson plans and decided on the commitments beforehand. As we discussed the Book of Mormon Sergei asked us about sin. This in turn led to repentance and baptism. It is hard to describe the lesson but it went so well and the Spirit was so strong. All of our hearts burned as we beared our testimonies. At the end of the lesson we asked Sergei if he would be baptized. There was a period of silence and then he replied, "I want to... but I don't know." We discussed his fears and he admitted that he knew the Book of Mormon was true and baptism was important. He said he would talk about his decision with his parents.
Our lesson with Sasha (I wrote Cawa first without thinking, which is closer to the Russian way of spelling it) also went really well. We had planned to finishing talking about the Plan of Salvation, which includes what happens to us after we die. However, as we talked about this life we felt impressed to discuss repentance. As we bore our testimonies of repentance our teacher's eyes watered. He did not cry but he came close.
Sunday was Fast Sunday, where we abstain from eating for two meals. It turned out to be a really great day. Sister Thrall and I both beared our testimonies in Russian during church. I started reading Jesus the Christ. Wow. It is hard to put down.
Next Preparation Day will be the last time I will be emailing home from Provo. The past 2+ months has flown by. I have seen a huge blessing with the language. I could never be at this level of Russian without divine help. I think I am ready. I know I don't know the Russian language and even in our lessons where I can only speak in broken Russian I can feel the Spirit so strongly testifying of eternal truths and the love of God. In a lot of devotionals we have heard about the power of the First Vision and how it is one of the greatest events ever to occur in history. Everything in our religion hinges on whether Joseph was a prophet. I know that he did see God and Jesus Christ. I know that he was a prophet and restored Christ's authority and church on the earth. And how beautiful are the things he restored! And just like the prophet Alma in the Book of Mormon I know this through the Holy Ghost and through prayer.
I love you all! Thank you for all your words of encouragement. They mean the world to me. I have been blessed with some wonderful family and friends.
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