September 13th

Hi Family!

I had a nice, healthy, full inbox today, yay!

Ok, sorry I have kind of slacked on my writing lately. I just never have time on Pday I feel like. Sorry, this week my letter is going to have to be short again.

Our investigator Vladislav is finally considered progressing again! After our training, we really decided to focus with him on the BOM, and how it is necessary to read it to gain a testimony. I had thought he already had a testimony of it, becasue he has already read it through once, but it turns out, the more we discussed it with him, the more we realized that he didn't really read it right. He never prayed while reading, and he never really took it as a spiritual text, but more historical. Anyways, we kind of threw a "spiritual smackdown" on him (as we lovingly call it here), and he ended-up reading all of 1 Nephi and more as a result! Cool, huh? He was just different with him when we met this week. He actually had questions for once, and he actually responded to our questions. It's a marveloius thing really, communication, it opens so many doors. My comp and I trying to work more on asking inspired questions to our investigators, so it's not really us doing the teaching, but they speak just as much if not more than we do. That was something the training really focused on too, and, low and behold, it actually works! That's always nice to find out.

Lena came to Church, that's number two now, and she also came to a Fireside at the Mission President's home last evening. There is a boy in our district who is leaving on a mission to Moscow, so President Allcott decided to have everyone over to the Mission Home to see him off. It was really great, and there were a lot of the youth from our district present, which is exactly what Lena needs -- friends! She is still sober, which is super cool. Our concern with er now is the concept of free agency. It has been so fascinating teaching Russians the concept of agency, they honestly don't get or they don't approve of it. They think that it is better, or at least more intelligent, to have someone control things more. Like, her hang-up, is that if God really loved us, why would he let us suffer so much? She thinks that when people use their agency to harm others, God should step in and preven them from hurting others. She doesn't yet really have an eternal perspective, so it's hard to accept that everything will eventually be made right through Christ, either in this life or in the next. Sigh... We've discussed this now several times, and we've just told her she needs to take it to the Lord. This could actually be a really good thing for her and for her testimony. But, yeah, my comp and I find it so interesting how communism has influenced their view of the world. They see the need for a God that is more like Stalin than like Jesus. Scary, but that's how they feel. It all comes back to the lack of trust they have that God actually loves them, knows them, and has a plan for them. How grateful I am for knowing the Plan of Salvation is true! We are so blessed.

Our other Lena, that was supposed to get baptized Saturday, didn't end up making it to baptizm. We're wanting to keep working with her, but we are needing to be straight-up with her and find out why she isn't taking this whole thing more seriously. I think she skipped out on our last lesson with her to go to a club. What can you do? I love her and we are trying. In fact, I love all of our investigators and it is kind of hard to have so many people to be loving and caring for all the time. I sometimes can't fall asleep at night, and this is me, Kalli, who could never stay up past 10! I can't imagine how mothers do it!

Well, I love you all. Hope all is well at home. I'm doing so well. This week was cold, but that's good to hear next week should be better. Please pray for our investigators and for us to find NEW investigators.

Thanks for your letters and continual support. You have never stopped writing me after a year! Thanks : )

Sister Hakes