Many Are Called But Few Are Frozen: A Bear, a Fajita, and an Accidental Temple Attendance

Hello Dad, Mom, Brothers, everyone else,

This week was another one of those good ones. March is practically halfway over and doesn't seem to be slowing down. But I rejoice once more that I am able to write this email to you and enjoy another p-day.

So first, V just keeps on progressing. It is wonderful! He still won't come to church for whatever reason but now he does his reading assignments and has good questions. Last lesson he asked why we are not supposed to pray to icons. We gave him the scripture in Exodus about the commandments. And then when we were at the church doing something he came and told us he read it. The weird thing about him is that he will come to the church, just never when we want. My first week here he came right after church ended. And several times he gets mad at us because he says he goes to the church at random times during the day and it is locked. We have to explain to him a thousand times that we don't live there and that he should call us first. But all in all he is learning and progressing and it is great to teach him!

We started the English Book of Mormon reading club this week. Or at least the first week that anybody came to it. We have English practice at 630 and reading club at 600. Seems to be a success so far and hopefully we will get more people to come to English practice as well.

To all the women happy holidays. On the 8th of March it was Women's Day. And then yesterday it was pancake day but it has a deeper meaning than just that. President wrote something about it and I haven't had the chance to read it yet.

After the conference me and Elder Crabb have decided that we need to sacrifice to become more consecrated. We (on our whiteboard) drew an altar and placed things on it. For example, one of the things we have on our altar is to have timely meals and be out of the door before 12. They aren't really crazy sacrifices and it is stuff we try to do anyways but we know that when we put things on "the altar" we will become more consecrated and show God that we are willing to sacrifice. And sacrifice brings the blessings of heaven. Then if we keep whatever we put on the altar, we add another thing. And then if we keep both, we keep on adding one a day. But if we don't keep them, we don't add anything else on until we keep all of them. It is really good and I know it will bless us.

At the conference President talked about slowing down during the learning process. He says so many times we go too fast and then when we get out of our comfort zone on the streets or somewhere we go back to our comfort zone of what we know and remember. But if we hurry the process we won't have that knowledge in our comfort zone. It is hard to describe now that I am writing it but it was really good!

We do service now at a member's house. His name is C and he was not active when I got here. He is about 5'8 and has a long white beard. The service we do for him is that we travel all the way out to dacha land (where all the gardens are) and cut wood for him and cut tall grass with a sickle. It is fun to do the work and on his yard he wants to plant trees and he has this half built probably not the safest house type thing that's cool to look at. Then after the service we sit down with him and have a spiritual thought. He gave us dates to eat while we talked and dates are delicious! And now that he is active again he just wants to see the branch grow and go out with the missionaries and do all the member missionary work. All we had to do to get him back was go visit him. It is a miracle we found him!

Last P-day we went to the zoo! Many massive bears and and some wolves. The zoo also has a lion but it only comes out at certain times and we went too early. But it was awesome! We went with one of the other Elder's investigators. His name is A and he does the Olympic sport where you are on skis and go flying down the steep hill and see how far you can fly. He is so great! Then later that week we went over to K's (our Russian teacher) and made fajitas for her family. She has 2 little boys. And then we went to a a Russian Orthodox temple to buy a Bible and when we arrived the bell tower went off and then multitudes of grandmas come storming in the building and doing their service. There I am standing there having no idea what is going on. It was funny and we managed to get out and it turned out they ran out of the Bible I wanted.

We have been teaching repentance and it is good too because some don't really understand it. Vlad came to church! Another miracle!

This week was good as always!

Hope all is well.

Elder Wilding