just preaching the gospel

Okay first off I need anyone who can pray to pray for our investigator Zina. If everything goes as planned she should be baptized this next Sunday morning, right before we watch conference :)

Have I talked about Zina? I'm not sure, but she's awesome. Sister Palmer and I ran into her about a month ago while she was out taking her baby grandson for a walk, we gave her a Book of Mormon and she showed up for church a few days later! And the week after that, and after that... She is actually from a village five hours from Orenburg where ordinarily the church might not have reached anytime in her lifetime. It might be hard, but the church has ways of helping people who live far away from any established branch, and she's going to be such a blessing to the people out there. She has family here and occasionally comes out to visit. Anyway, she's really spiritual and understands the gospel. She just gets it. 

Sisters from Samara came on splits and we ran around the city. It was awesome. I have missed other Sister Thomas (the one that used to be my companion) so much! I was hoping to restore some fire into my contacting on buses with her, because she's amazing at it, but it didn't work. Here's why: We sit down on the bus. I start talking to the person next to me. She starts talking to the person next to her. Within 20 seconds the person next to me is listening to her. Then the entire bus is listening to her, with varying degrees of involvement or pretending-not-to-be-listening-but-clearly-listening-ness. All I can really do is occasionally look at the person next to me and say "what she's saying is true" and they look at me like "oh you're here too". I took four buses with her and that happened on three of them. All the stuff about declaring the gospel with the sound of a trump? That's Sister Thomas.

I think when we're on splits God knows how on fire we are, because we rarely get home on time. This week I set a new record (for myself) of getting home late: 10:40. wow. At the stop where we were waiting there were three of the buses we needed, but one wasn't running, one was broken, and the other one was helping the broken one. I have been super tired, so I've decided that's never happening again.

Did unplanned yard-work for a less-active and it was awesome. Went inside and sang "I have work enough to do". Definitely have never sung that one in Russian before. She loved it.

Had Zina and another investigator at Institute of religion this week, and not only did it go 45 minutes over, but it turned out to be an in-depth discussion of D&C 76, kingdoms of glory and other deep-doctriney stuff. Zina wasn't too fazed but our other one seemed a little overwhelmed. Another situation where I can only hope to control the laughter. And correct any opinion-doctrine/speculation that's being thrown around.

Happy day of fools, we/a member tried to convince our elders that we were in the hospital, but of course it didn't work. 

I think we've been to all the sketchiest parts of our area this week and I have taken exactly zero pictures this week. There goes that goal.

Fun fact: Sister Thomas (my current companion) has read the Swallows and Amazons books too.

This week is going to be a little bit hectic. Pray for us. Watch General Conference and tell me if it's good (okay, I know it's good). I'll comment on it next week, if we survive. 

I love you all! Be good, study your scriptures. Keep up the good work.

Sister Nielsen