Miracles and more miracles

05/07/2017

Miracles are some what of a common thing as a missionary. But that doesn't mean that they are any less miraculous.

We had some awesome exchanges with the Zone Leaders down in Taiorva. It was fun riding down for about an hour and a half on the beloved marshrutka. But it wasn't nealy as bad as the nine hours of bus ridding the day we had the Mission Conference with Elder Holland. I got to be with Elder South for our exchange and le me tell you. That is an awesome missionary. Not only is he fun to be around and good looking but he knows how to listen to the Spirit. We had lessons set up but they all fell through. So our exchange turned into us wondering around and talking with people. Now if I could have seen this before or while I was on my mission, I would have probably had a heart attack. But one thing I found that day is that I actually like it now. I think I have gone insane. No normal person would like going out and contacting people all with a white shirt and tie talking about somehing that not very many people want to hear about. But I have come to feel true happiness from it and man it brings the Spirit! We also had a fun advenure that day as well. We had planned on traveling down to one part of Odessa and finding this less-active family and seeing how they were dong and hopefully have a lesson with them. Just so you know, the week of this exchange was Elder South's first week in Odessa. So he didn't know too much about the area. But anyways when it came time to head down we found where the bus we needed stopped and hopped on. This bus was kind of stange. It wasn't like any of the normal marshrukas, But it was more like a small fifteen passenger van. And it didn't sound normal either. It sounded like one of the pod racers from Star Wars. But we rode for a while and then I found out the Elder South had no idea where we were. We figured out that we had gotten on going the wrong way and had ended up in Center Odessa about half an hour away. And what was even more, we had no idea where we were in Center either. But luckily I have been in Center just enough to figure out how to get to the Branch building there and then we got directions from there how to get home from the other Zone Leader. In the end everything was fine. We talked with a ton of people and gave lots of cards, pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon away.

Sunday was awesome. We had a little problem right before church with running out of scarament cups and no one knowing where more would be. But in the end we just improvised for the rest and ended up not needing to use them because we had barely enough. Nadya and Sasha came again! And I think that they had a great time. Nadya is still a little shy but she is just a shy person. And she has really warmed up to us elders. We had a great Gospel Principles lesson where I taught about Developing talents and skills and as a part of the lesson i had baked cookies and gave them to those in attendence. They really enjoyed that part. Especially Yuri. After chuch we had a little celebration where we celebrated Mother's day and the two couples who got married in our Branch. Yaroslav and Ira (both reterned missionaries and Yaroslav was even Elder Merrell's companion), and President Zhaloba and Nadya. They made some pretty delicious treats for us and again Yuri was having a great time. After Elder Merrell finished taking care of branch buisness we walked Sister Svetlana (the old lady with crutches) home. It was literally thirty minutes to walk with her to her appartmet and then two minutes back. At least she is entertaining.

After that it was almost time to skype our families. But what we had feared happend. The internet stopped working in our building again. But after a couple of prayers and fiddling with cords, it started working again right in time to start. We both got to talk to our families and say hi to each others and then after that the internet went out agian.

Life is great as a missionary. But life as an obedient and joyful missioanry is even better.

Thank you for your support and prayers!

Стфарейшина Класон / Elder Clawson