Well this was my first full week with Elder Batson, (minus the day that I went to Novo with Elder Harrison for ZLC) and it went really well. We were pretty busy and had a little explosion of new investigators I guess you could say.
First, as we were going to P's place, there was a guy standing outside the building and he was a rough looking guy, and it's a rough neighborhood, and he came up to us asking what was going on with the Americans that keep going to P's place. By the way he asked it didn't seem like it was going to be a good situation, but he turned out to be an alright guy and we had a good talk with him for a while, taught him and gave him a Book of Mormon right there, (it was still pretty cold). Then we called him and agreed to meet him there another time and when we showed up, we saw him there with two other rough looking guys. I guess they were just some more neighbors that live right there in that staircase, one of them went in shortly but one of the other guys had been reading the first guy's Book of Mormon and wanted his own. So now we are teaching three guys who's apartments are in that staircase. The two new ones both came to sacrament meeting also, we will have a lot of work to do with them, but they'll come around after a while. And once we get P baptized that will be really convenient for "member-present lessons."
Speaking of P, we had a really good week with him. He chose April 27 as his goal for baptism, and today as the day that he is completely quitting smoking. He had already cut down to only a couple a day, but today he goes off for good. He really has a strong desire and I believe that he can do it, so we will be supporting him a lot throughout the week.
Another really cool experience this week was at church last week I found out that a guy who had been coming for a while wasn't actually a member and I had assumed he was. He started coming off and on a few weeks ago and when he came, everyone knew him and he talked to all the members young and old. I talked to him a few times but just always assumed he was a member. Anyway, upon finding out that he was not a member I set up a lesson with him, and yesterday at the lesson he explained how he has been coming off and on for about 7 years and he likes it because of the peace he feels at church away from the world. I asked him if we wants to be baptized and he said after pondering for a good while, "Yeah I really don't see why not." So we are going to pick a date next meeting and make a plan, but he should be ready to go really soon.
Then, in addition to that we launched English this week and had a great turnout, everyone did a good job finding people for it and getting the word out the last couple weeks. We got two new investigators from it already, and one of them came to church as well.
So the work is going really well, this is probably the most investigators that I have ever had on my mission - maybe at the apex of Elder Anderson and I's time together we had about this many. It will be really cool if they can all stick around. And I can see the 3 of them getting baptized soon.
Elder Harrison and I went to Novosibirsk together on Friday night for ZLC. It was really good as usual, then on the train back Saturday night, there was a Buddhist Monk from Tibet who travels around Russia doing Buddhist seminars in the cupe next to us, we struck up a conversation with him. He was really friendly and invited us into his cupe and we talked for a good while. He told us a lot about his Buddhist stuff and showed us a lot of pictures on his iPad. (He was dressed traditionally and I thought it was really funny when he whipped out his iPad, he is a very modern monk.) He asked us some questions and we preached to him for a while and gifted him a Book of Mormon. So that was an interesting experience for the train ride back.
When I was in Novo Elder Batson ran into that investigator from last week accidentally again. But he didn't show at church so I don't know what his deal is.
Yesterday was really warm, probably in the low fifties, and everything was wet all over as stuff was melting, but today got below freezing again and started snowing. And it was really windy.
Have a good week. Love you.
Elder Topham
First, as we were going to P's place, there was a guy standing outside the building and he was a rough looking guy, and it's a rough neighborhood, and he came up to us asking what was going on with the Americans that keep going to P's place. By the way he asked it didn't seem like it was going to be a good situation, but he turned out to be an alright guy and we had a good talk with him for a while, taught him and gave him a Book of Mormon right there, (it was still pretty cold). Then we called him and agreed to meet him there another time and when we showed up, we saw him there with two other rough looking guys. I guess they were just some more neighbors that live right there in that staircase, one of them went in shortly but one of the other guys had been reading the first guy's Book of Mormon and wanted his own. So now we are teaching three guys who's apartments are in that staircase. The two new ones both came to sacrament meeting also, we will have a lot of work to do with them, but they'll come around after a while. And once we get P baptized that will be really convenient for "member-present lessons."
Speaking of P, we had a really good week with him. He chose April 27 as his goal for baptism, and today as the day that he is completely quitting smoking. He had already cut down to only a couple a day, but today he goes off for good. He really has a strong desire and I believe that he can do it, so we will be supporting him a lot throughout the week.
Another really cool experience this week was at church last week I found out that a guy who had been coming for a while wasn't actually a member and I had assumed he was. He started coming off and on a few weeks ago and when he came, everyone knew him and he talked to all the members young and old. I talked to him a few times but just always assumed he was a member. Anyway, upon finding out that he was not a member I set up a lesson with him, and yesterday at the lesson he explained how he has been coming off and on for about 7 years and he likes it because of the peace he feels at church away from the world. I asked him if we wants to be baptized and he said after pondering for a good while, "Yeah I really don't see why not." So we are going to pick a date next meeting and make a plan, but he should be ready to go really soon.
Then, in addition to that we launched English this week and had a great turnout, everyone did a good job finding people for it and getting the word out the last couple weeks. We got two new investigators from it already, and one of them came to church as well.
So the work is going really well, this is probably the most investigators that I have ever had on my mission - maybe at the apex of Elder Anderson and I's time together we had about this many. It will be really cool if they can all stick around. And I can see the 3 of them getting baptized soon.
Elder Harrison and I went to Novosibirsk together on Friday night for ZLC. It was really good as usual, then on the train back Saturday night, there was a Buddhist Monk from Tibet who travels around Russia doing Buddhist seminars in the cupe next to us, we struck up a conversation with him. He was really friendly and invited us into his cupe and we talked for a good while. He told us a lot about his Buddhist stuff and showed us a lot of pictures on his iPad. (He was dressed traditionally and I thought it was really funny when he whipped out his iPad, he is a very modern monk.) He asked us some questions and we preached to him for a while and gifted him a Book of Mormon. So that was an interesting experience for the train ride back.
When I was in Novo Elder Batson ran into that investigator from last week accidentally again. But he didn't show at church so I don't know what his deal is.
Yesterday was really warm, probably in the low fifties, and everything was wet all over as stuff was melting, but today got below freezing again and started snowing. And it was really windy.
Have a good week. Love you.
Elder Topham
