9/09/2013

Dear Family and Friends,

Another fabulous week gone by WAY too fast! We had quite an interesting week! It started off with P-Day, after we did email we went on a picnic by the river, and it rained the entire time. THE ONLY day it rained all day that week so we felt so smart for picking just the right day! This weekend was the most exciting thing though. President and Sister Clark, as well as the Assistants, and the counselors and bishop from the st. petersburg stake came up to pskov! President Clark wanted to do this huge plan where we would all go on splits and have meetings all day on saturday starting from 1-9. We all rotated having lessons and contacting and finding less actives, it was a packed day! We had some members helping too! It really was amazing, and everyone was so excited to meet President (that was a lot of the reason why we were able to get so many lessons, especially with less actives) everyone wanted to meet president. Meetings did fall through and there was confusion but the work pressed on all day. That night Sister Kefalas and I were able to take President and Sister Clark and a member alexae to our investigator nikolae's house. He really just loved it! He actually invited his friend over (he introduced him as the "man of the neighborhood", and of course we immeadiately thought mafia king) so we had 7 people in one lesson! It was really intense and got kind of crazy as nikolae was getting drinks for everyone and showing us how his house looked like america and his friend had so many questions and was a bit contentious on most things. BUT! finally we were able to have some sort of a lesson and Nikolae really felt the spirit and loved having us all over. After the meeting because it went a little long, sister kefalas and i had to RUN home to make it on time, and we did with literally 20 seconds to spare. The next morning for sunday we had 38 people at church!!!! Now this was incredible compared to our normal 6. It really was an answer to prayers. There were less actives and investigators all there! It was incredible. I got to play the piano and had to keep turning the keyboard up because people were actually singing! it was glorious! The spirit was so strong and you could tell that everyone felt something.

It was such an amazing experience and really is a testimony that WE CAN DO HARD THINGS! the work is hastening as we speak and miracles are around every corner!

I have made a goal for my mission and it is that I am going to read the book of mormon 18 times. Once a month! each time i am going to go through with a different "topic" in mind, this time through (i got a new soft back regular book of mormon) and i am going through just marking peace love and joy. Seriously it is so amazing to see how full the scriptures are! Really so incredible. If someone wants something "new" to do, take a topic and go through a brand new unmarked book of mormon and mark ONLY that topic. It takes a lot of self control because i really just want to highlight the entire page because it's "ALL BRILLIANT" (in an english accent). I love the scriptures so much! they really are the word of God and I have personally seen how much they have changed my life and the lives of others. "When we want to talk to God, we pray. And when we want God to talk to us, we read the scriptures" I love that quote and use it often when teaching. We need to search and ponder and ralate the scriptures to our lives. I know that if we do we will find answers to our prayers and feel the love of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ more in our lives. I love you all so much! have an amazing week!

Love your Russian Missionary, Sister Yeates