Winter came early! We were out on the streets contacting in the rain. And then the rain turned into snow, and the snow stuck and it is everywhere! It snowed incredibly early this year wheras last year it wasn't until the mid-end of December that it finally start snowing. Needless to say it has gotten really cold really fast. I am already in my thick winter coat haha. The thousands of thermals that I have received in packages are coming much more in use lately compared to last winter. I really like the winter actually. It has a really awesome feel to it here in Russia. I think of all the seasons, winter was my favorite here, which is weird because I hate the cold. Summer is just too hot. In spring I am sneezing too much. Fall is too muddy and I have to clean my shoes and pants every day. Winter is just too cold but, hey it's better than the other two in my opinion haha.
Well this week was a good one. We got a lot of our investigators to church this week which happened to be a cool miracle. To start off explaining this, we have a less active brother named Oleg who lives in very trying circumstances. After about 2 weeks of searching for him, and trying to get a hold of him,we were finally able to get a hold him! He needed help cutting firewood so we got together with the branch president and left really early in the morning and took a train to him (he lives in a neighboring village about 30 minutes ago). We got our jeans on and grabbed some axes and chopped away. Cutting firewood is incredibly fun, by the way. I am a big fun. Maybe i should just live in a cottage somewhere in the woods. So after about 2 hours of cutting wood, he was incredibly thankful and was committed to come to church the next day. We brought with him two friends, one of which we are already teaching who is actually really interested. So we go to church, 2 of investigators that usually come are there: Stepan who is really close to a baptismal date, and the Karl, which is alwasy a pleasure to see him. (By the way, he has the strongest handshake I have ever experienced. It is fairly intimidating, but he is a joyful old guy!) And then a couple we have been working with showed up as well! The Priobrizhenski's, which means Transfigured. So the Transfigured family came to chuch as well! Our little branch had 21 come to church this week which is a lot for Pskov. I think at its height of activity, there was 30 somerthing members coming to church. I love this little branch. It's just like a family here.
We also had a great experience serving on another dacha (cottage) for one of our babooshka investigators, Glefera. She is a funny little lady. She is convinced that a pervious Elder Albee that served in Pskov is going to become the President of the United States in a decade or two. She is honestly a little riot. She is so funny and she just teaches us Russian as we pull weeds and carrots. She used to be a Russian teacher and so she makes sure that our pronunciation is perfect. We had another branch activity this week at another babooshkas place. We did a nice spiritual thought about repentance.
We did a lot of finding this week and had a few interesting experiences searching for previous investigators that live in old Soviet Communal apartments. I love it here in Russia, but I love the privacy that we do enjoy back in the states. I sometimes forget that I am in a country that once was the USSR. This used to be so forbidden for Americans to walk the streets in this country, but now I am here preaching the Restored Gospel. The past 20 years for this country have been dramatic, especially relative to the growth of the Church here in Russia. It grows one heart at a time.
I love being a missionary and I know without a doubt that this church is true!
Love,
Elder Tekulve
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