January 6, 2014 ~ С рождеством (again)

Merry Christmas everyone!! No this isn't a mistake or just a copy and paste of 2 weeks ago email.  Tommorrow (Jan 7th) is Christmas in Russia!!  However no one really celebrates it at all, it is recognized as a national holiday tomorrow, so I thought I'd wish it again.

This week has been so awesome!!! One of the best!!  First one of the members has a friend who wanted help with english cause she has a huge test coming up, so we met with her and helped for a little bit monday night.  We didn't unfortunately have time to do a spiritual thought cause we were late for another appointment, but as we were walking with her to the bus stop we basically gave her a run down of what we do and just asked if she would be interested in hearing the lessons.  She agreed.  Then invited us over again on wednesday night to help with English again, and this time we did have time for a spiritual thought and her husband was there (who is not really religious - does not like the orthodox church at all) but the spiritual thought turned into a full blown first lesson.  It was great!!  Then Friday night we met with just her again at the senior couples place to help with English for the last time (her huge test was either saturady or Sunday) and we did a little thought on prayer (since she claims she literally has no time for anything until after the 23rd) and challeneged her to pray every day.  Yesterday we called to find out how the test went (she passed) and also she said that she has been praying every morning and night and even she and her husband pray together now everyday!! So awesome!! We can't even get some of the members to do that!! There is real power in family prayer.

Then Friday we met with this other kind of investigator at the senior couples appartment and started a program with him on how to quit smoking!  It's a super cool program that one of the missionaries did with one of the members in Sestroretsk (I was there and this member is the bomb!) and it worked!  And this guy who we're working with is super cool and he's been a non smoker already for 3 days!!  This program is meant to make someone a non smoker in 7 days.  So far so good!! He's not particularly believing, but one of the steps in the program is to pray every morning and night, so we are hoping he will be able to quit and will realize how god really was helping him and it will spark a little more desire.  Pray for him!!! There is real power in prayer!!

The next this was that President and Sister Clark and the assistants came up to petro for the weekend and we went out and visited a lot of people and saw tons of miracles!!  Including a doubled sacrament meeting attendance yesterday. 

But the main miracle came from this same member (mentioned faguely above).  She and her brother and mom are all members but have been less active for forever.  The daughter has started being super active in the past year or 2 (in waves) (and we are currently (successfully) working with her non member husband).  Anyways, her brother (who is kind of a hooligan only because he is a slave to alcohol, but when sober is one of the nicest and kindest and most thoughtful people I have ever met) has a "wife" kind of - they;re not actually married- who have been on and off together for a long time, but really do love eachother and want to get married.  Anyways, her mom kicked her out of her house and so now is living with them and is having a really hard time.  Long story short (this is probably really confusing) she became a new investigator too!!  She met the missionaries for the first time Saturday night and came to church for the first time yesterday then we met with her again yesterday evening and she said she loved church.  We are meeting with her tonight again and she is awesome!  So humble.  It's a miracle.  All these miracles and people we are working with that are progressing are all because of this one member.  And that is all because the member is actually trying to live the gospel now and her friends are recognizing it and seeing changes in her.  So many miracles!!  This week has actually been a week of learning for me.  I've learned so much!!  I love it!! When you do what the lord wants to you, things just work out.  I promise!!

Have a great week!

Elder Robison