This week was so intense! We had so much going on, but it was all awesome. To start, we had a Zone Leader Council on Monday with President Bennett from the Quorum of the Seventy/Area Presidency here in Eastern Europe. We discussed the progress of the mission, how we can improve, and essentially how to make the mission a more successful mission. The council then took this turn towards member missionary work and how to improve on that. The Spirit really directed the discussion on Monday insomuch that we ended up spending all Monday talking about that (for the most part). This week was completely planned with Missionary Conferences, District Conferences for the members, Firesides and so on. The plans completely changed as a result of our discussion on Monday. During the missionary conferences we talked about how we can better work with members, having them come contacting with us, or tracting with us, and being more present when we teach. We talked about how they can work with us during the magic hours here in St. Petersburg; 6pm to 9pm; the time where everyone is off of work.
And then afterwards, after we talked about that some more, some more ideas came up, and we made a concrete plan to work with members and then on Saturday, President Clark and President Bennett helped train them all in Preisthood and Auxilary training meetings. The members are fired up to work with us, and the missionaries are more than willing to work with the members, because we all know that the key to missionary work is working with members. We have already got out contacting with some members and went out with other members to visit less actives and really have the church grow here in St. Petersburg Russia. I am so glad that I have that oppurtunity to participate in this! This is exactly what the mission and Church needs here --- Unity!
Well, on Tuesday and Wednesday we had two mission conferences, 2 visa trips, and a bunch of other stuff going on. Some pretty intense couple of days. All of our plans of who would have go on an exchange with who, and pretty much organizing missionaries alltogether more or less fell through completely, and it was a lot of quick thinking and replanning. It was actually quite hilarious by the end of it. After Wednesday night, I probably had the best night of sleep ever. It was wonderful haha. OH! An awesome little/big miracle happened in the middle of it; we organized contacting activities in between the morning half of conference and lunch where missionaries would, as you guessed it, go out contacting in the streets. We only had time for maybe 20 minutes of contacting because of making sure everything was set in order before lunch. But, we found a little lady named Alla and her neighbor Vaciliy out walking in the streets. We started talking to them and they both were incredibly eager to meet, insomuch that we met the next day. We talked to them about the Restoration, which they accepted so well, and agreed to be baptized on the 15th of May. The work starts now with them.
Unfortunately Gennadiy, that one fellow we were working with really didn't work it. He won't keep committments, he won't read, and doesn't want to change, essentially, to prepare for baptism. He really is not ready for baptism so we stepped it down with him.
We couldn't meet with Jacques at all this last week because his schedule completely changed and he is incredibly busy now. I have been talking to him everyday and he really wants to meet but he has a hard time finding time to meet. He really appreciates us calling him everyday and really caring for him. He told us he is going through a depression and really wants to meet up again. I know that once he accepts the gospel into his life, and live it until the end, he can given so much strength during trials and hardships. I think we all can attest to that. Something about the Gospel just gives us so much strength when we are in such a dire need of it. Why is that? Because it's true. Because it's the Gospel of Jesus Christ,. Jesus Christ being the one died for us so that he can know how to succor each and everyone of us. He knows us, he knows exactly what we go through, because He felt it Himself.
So we had an amazing District Conference last night. I don't have much time to talk, but we completely FILLED the chapel and cultural hall with people. It was amazing!! There over 500 people there this conference, which is absolutely outstanding here. We are making so many big steps towards a stake, and it's so amazing to observe. The members here are so incredibly strong and faithful, and incredibly excited to become a stake. There were more people here at this conference then there was when Elder Nelson from the Twelve came down. It was incredible.
I gotta get going! I don't have much time, but the church is true!
Love,
Elder Tekulve
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