August 29th

Family! Hi!

I have news! Ready....

Lena has a Baptizmal Date! Yay!!

Well, that date isn't until the end of November, she wants to wait until her Birthday on the 24th to celebrate her being "born" again, but we're gonna try and move it up. But, yay! I had such an amazing week. We were at training all week, but it was so so so helpful. I don't know if the Baptizmal Date would have happened without our experience at Preisdent's last week. Ok, so...

The Church has done a lot of in-field analysis of how Preach My Gospel is working among the missionaries. Overall, they say Preach My Gospel has helped missionary work tremendously. However, there are 8 points from PMG that the Church decided that, if missionaries undestood better, then the work would boost even more. The 8 points are:

1. Understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptizm, HG, endure to the end) as our Purpose

2. Using the Spirit to Find Concerns

3. The Importance of the Book of Mormon in Receiving Revelation

4. The Importance of Prayer in Receiving Revelation

5. The Importance of Church Attendance in Receiving Revelation

6. Teaching People, not Lessons

7. Involving Members and the Ward Council

8. How to Start a Lesson

So, that's a lot, which we means we just need to get better at everything! Our Mission President was given 8 lesson plans on how to teach us to do these things better (standard lesson plans given to every Mission President), and he taught us straight from those for the last four days. Basically, we did two points a day and had about two hours of role playing to try and put them into practice. Most of the Elders there aren't serving in Ekat right now, so they were outside of their areas the last week. But, Sister Schill (who got to come with me) and I had the opportunity to go back to our area from about 7-9 and practice the principles on real people as we were learning them, which is how we got the Baptizmal Date from Lena. The whole experience at President's house was so intensely spiritual and enlightening. I feel like I received good idea after good idea to better help our investigators. Gotta love the Spirit! Pretty much, the conclusion after the four days amongst us was the we need to 1. love the people more (because that fixes a lot of the above problems listed) and 2. be worthy of, listen to, and follow the promptings of the Spirit. Pretty basic stuff that I felt like I already knew before, but it was just reinforced so powerfully that I finally feel like I understand what it means to love the people and follow the Spirit. And, having really been able focusing on that the last couple of days, we have had such intense, spiritual lessons as a result. It feels so good. I feel empowered, like wow, there really is a power to my calling that I am finally starting to understand. Now, I just hope I don't forget!

All week at training, I kept thinking, we need to do this with Lena, or do that with Lena, etc. So, Thursday, the day of our meeting with Lena, I had like a million things my companion and I were wanting to teach her. Luckily though, we had just been taught to follow the Spirit, so it helped in the sense that I didn't freak out, but we planned a pretty flexible lesson that could be adjusted to meet her needs. We also invited Zhenya to be on the lesson with us. Zhenya is that guy I taught in Chili that got baptized here in Ekat a little over a month ago (remeber him?). He knows fluent English and investigated the Church for 10 years. Lena came to his baptizm. While at the baptizm, she acknowledged that the Church is true, but she also said that she undestands why it took Zhenya 10 years to join, and it'll probably take her that long too. That was a little knife in the heart, and from that statement we realized that she wasn't understanding the basic doctrine of Jesus Christ enough, otherwise she'd be wanting to be baptized now. We wanted Zhenya to come on the lesson to testify how the actual baptizm was worth it and necessary. Zhenya also has a little crush on me... hope that doesn't become a problem : ( Anyways, back to Lena. So, we read Moroni's Promise with her, and we asked if she knew the BOM was true, and she said yes. So, we then read from the Introduction, where it says that if you know the BOM is true, then you'll know that Jesus is the Savior of the world, Joesph Smith is a Prophet of God, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS is the true Church restored to the earth. We asked her each question one by one, and she said that she knew all of them were true (Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, the Church). Obviously, we then asked her to be baptized, and, at that moment, the Spirit was so so strong. We just looked at each other in silence for a long time. She said that she would be baptized, but not right now. We asked her why not, and she said that she's not ready. Zhenya was perfect, because he has had to give things up to be baptized and forsake his old life. He asked her to specifically say what it was that was holding her back. She finally opened-up to us about how she thinks it will be too hard to quit drinking. She doesn't do it that often, but when she is with her friends it is impossible to not drink. We knew this all along! I had no idea though that that was the only thing holding her back. Thus, the importance of teaching by the Spirit to find concerns: ) (see point 2). We were able to finally openly discuss this and tell her that she won't be perfect before or after baptizm, but that she can most definitely overcome this temptation now, and even more easily once she has the gift of the Holy Ghost with her. Long story short, she agreed to be baptized! Yay! She takes the whole thing very seriously, which is great. She understands the importance of the covenant and doesn't want to break it. She has committed to start living the WOW now, which is another reason she wants to wait til November. She wants to be completely rid of the habit before she is baptised. I can see where she is coming from, but at the same time I know Satan really works hard on the people who are preparing for baptizm. I feel like something always happens to them, and three full months seems too long. Pray for her! She has come such a long way! During the lesson, I felt like my whole mission was worth it just to teach Lena. I really feel the love our Savior has for her. Even if she still wasn't going to get baptized, she'd still be worth it. But, now that she has decided to be baptised, it's even better : ) I was like in disbelief when she agreed to set a date with us. It was too good to be true. Something we had been working for for such a long time and it actually happened. The best part of all, is that I know she's not doing it for us, but because she knows it is what her Savior wants her to do. She will forever be a part of my life. I love her. Plus, everything we learned in training worked so perfectly in the lesson. It really works to folow the Spirit haha : )

Sunday we didn't have regular Church services, because we got to watch the dedication of the Kiev Temple in Ukraine. Yay! Try explaining that to your investigators though haha... "You aren't allowed to come to Church on Sunday...." Anyways, it was totally worth it. President Monson, Uchtdorf, Nelson, and I think Anderson were all there in Ukraine. They had three sessions of the dedication broadcasred so a large group of people could watch. It was super cool because, I had no idea before hand, but people from Chelyabinsk had to come to Ekat to watch the dedication, so it was a big reunion with the Chili members. Nice surprise : ) The Kiev Temple will serve 30,000 members in 13 different countries, and is the first temple behind the Iron Curtain (not counting the Temple in Berlin). The only countries they mention by name were Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, Moldova, siberian Russia (that's me!), Kazakhstan, and Bulgaria. All Eastern European contries, which is why Elder Nelson was there. He oversees our area. It was a very spiritual occasion, and it was so cool to see the work moving forward on this side of the world. Ukraine is so much like Russia too, that it felt like the Prophet was here in Russia. Someday, Russia will have it's own temple too : ) Ukraine is actually further than Finland and harder for the members to travel to, but it will feel more like home to them. So, they are excited.

Well, I'm out of time! I wanted to write you all more, sorry, a lot about me this week... The Bday party for the twins sounds like such a blast! Way to go Chris and Francisca. Yes, please tell Grandma Hakes I received her lovely letter. I'm terrible and haven't written back yet... next week. Such little time. Please give her my love and thanks. I passed my year mark last week, and Sister Schill and I did not get a transfer this week, which means I'll be here in Botanika 6 months, just like I was in Chili six months. Woohoo.

Loves,

Sister Hakes