August 8th

Hi Family!

How are you all? I am so excited for Colin to get his mission call, Kimball's ABQ prospect, Mom doing Seminary again (good luck!), Carrie's new nest, Katy's soon baby, all the many upcoming grandkid bdays, and everything else! Your lives sound so happy! I hope all is well for all of you and I keep you all in my prayers.

Yes, it has been really hot here. All the babyshka's are having a hard time because they mostly earn money from the food they grow on their gardens in the summer. The big news here is that there has been little rain, a lot of heat, and nobody is producing anything to sell. So, the babs are having a hard time. Yes, it is really smoky here from some sort of peat bog fires not too far from here. The air smells like smoke and it's very hazy (the sun is red too). But, to be honest, the heat hasn't really bothered me. I like it. There isn't any A/C anywhere, so during the day, on a crowded bus, it can be rather miserable, but I feel like miserable heat isn't too uncommon for me. The cold was more difficult because I'm not used to it, and it just seems to affect every aspect of life. So, I'm grateful for the heat. Supposedly, last winter was the coldest in the last twenty years, and this summer is the hottest in the last twenty. Yay for me! Supposedly, snow starts falling the latter-half of September. So, no reprieve here. Extreme heat, to extreme cold. Gotta love it!

We had a great week in Botanika! So much happened. We were able to get two baptizmal dates, yay! One with a girl named Lena (not the same Lena I've told you about) and a guy named Pavel.

Lena has already had 4 different baptizmal dates with some other missionaries. We've been working with her the last couple weeks, since she lives in our area, and we've started to see some improvements. The other companionship that taught her said that they had started to feel like they were getting in a rut with her and didn't know how to help her any more. We had the advantage of being able to be vey upfront with her, and ask her why she wanted to meet with the missionaries and what her expectations are, and we think it has helped. She has already been taught everything, but the only question was whether or not she was willing to live the commandments. She has promised to start living as if she is already a member right now, because she will be gone the next two weeks. We hope she will continue to make right choices while she is out of town. We'll have another 2 weeks to work with her when she returns from her vacation, her bap. date is Sept. 11th. She is a really sweet 18 year old girl.

The other date is for a guy named Pavel that the other sisters found. They met him on the bus just last week and gave him the first lesson, and then we all met with him for the second lesson and got a baptizmal date. He seems so prepared. It was an amazing lesson! We all just wanted to jump and down together because we all go through so many different people who aren't really interested, to suddenly somebody that just seemed to get it. I just about died at how easily he said "yes" to the question "will you get baptized?" Of course, he doesn't yet know about all that baptizm really entails, all the commandments, a change in lifestyle, etc. but he felt the Spirit which is most important. Our job now is to get the Spirit to convert him, and get him ready to make those neccessary commitments. It was such a neat experience to teach him though! I love missionary work, and I especially love teaching new investigators about the Gospel. So many sweet experiences. Teaching Pavel reminded me of Lev in Chelyabinsk, do you remember him? He was the guy we found on the bus that was so prepared, our little miracle. Pavel also is just really prepared. He is about 22 I'd say, and a nice, normal guy. We need to be living worthy as a companionship to help Pavel get baptized August 21, which is his set date. I'm kind of nervous to teach him, because it's not too common we have someone like him. I want to make sure everything will work out with him, and I know it will. Faith, Kalli, faith. His bap. date is really soon, and we have no idea where he is in terms of what commandments he is keeping already, but anything is possible!

Other than that, we had that less-active member, Brother Kozman, come back to Church -- that's two weeks in a row! We even went with him to help buy a white shirt that is appropriate for Church. The members love him and we have an FHE planned with him and another less-active family tonight. He wants to be a missionary he says, and he has like five potential refferals for us, but as of yet none of them have happened.

Sister Schill and I decided to start focusing our work more on investiators, and work less often with less-actives. Sister Hanks and I worked a lot with trying to reactivate people, and we have seen a lot of success, but we both feel like we need to start getting more and more investigators. Last week was definitely a good start, we had I think 9 or ten investigator meetings, which is a lot more than we usually have. I know the Lord helped us acheive that goal, and I feel He wants us to be branching-out more and trying to find more new people to teach about the Restored Gospel. The Church is true and all is well in Botanika!

Have a good week,

Sister Hakes