Mixed week

As I look back on this week I have mixed feelings. We have definitely received major blessing and miracles but we have also had some struggles as we try to meet the mission standards and accomplish our goals.

First off, I might need a boyfriend. Appartently, the member family that we visited with last week wants me to marry their nephew. The mom pulled my companion aside on Sunday and asked her if I had a boyfriend in America. She proceeded to tell Sister Carlson that she wants me to meet her nephew that lives in America. Sister Carlson told me that she was pretty serious about it. And when we did service for Irina Victronovna she tried to hook us up with these two boys that worked at a local grocery store. I suppose that I should take it as a compliment.

I have mixed feeling about this past week. In terms of our investigators we were only able to meet with one when we have about 5 investigators in total. The meeting we did have with Lena was great. The last time Sister Carlson (she was passed to us from Arbatski where Sister Carlson just came from) met with her was two months and based on her last lesson we were not sure if she had read in the Book of Mormon. She surprised us by saying that she did read and bore her testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. She can't read everyday but she reads on the weekends and likes it. We do not think she is ready for baptism because there are still other trouble areas that we need to resolve but we have great hope for her and she wants to meet us regularly. But it was incredible to hear an investigator bear testimony of the Book of Mormon and say that it is the only thing that coudl unite the world. At one time she said, "It is very important. It is your history, my history, and the history of God." As we left the meeting Sister Carlson turned to me and said, "What just happened?"

I have been disappointed with our other investigators. Karina, who at one time had a baptismal date, has not been committing to meet with us. It has been a little frustrating since our last meeting was two months ago and it was a good meeting. When we try to set a specific time to meet she gives wishy-washy answers and then won't answer our phone calls. We know Satan is working hard on her and I am worried because I have noticed a dimness in her countenance and demeanor. We think that if we can meet with her things will be all right but the hard part is meeting with her. That is how I feel about most of our investigators, if we could meet everything would be all right. 

But our meeting with less-actives have been great! We meet with two on Monday and we were really impressed and have hope that they will come to Church in the Perovo Branch soon (they are both active in other wards). As we left our second meeting, Janna told us that we would like us to return next week when previously she said she could only meet with the missionaries about once a month. And she gave us some cake, which is always appreciated. 

Things are a little rough but we have been promised that a better time is approaching from our mission President. Interestingly, we can no longer chalk draw or sign board. Also, we have been encouraged to do more tracting. Finding new investigators is going to be an interesting ride.