Dear Family,
I hope this letter finds all you doing well! This week
has been a week of hard work. We've been trying to figure out what can bring
more success to this area since its slowed down for a while now. This week we
tried the approach of family history, calling all former investigators,
searching for less-actives, english night, gathering all records from the past
of those who could come to english, baking cookies for our neighbors, and doing
our early morning and late evening finding on the street. We also worked with
one of our young aaronic priesthood quorom members to invite another young less
active boy back to church. We tried to work as hard as we could and pray that
the lord will consecrate our efforts. We also had a great lesson with a man
named Paddy from Nigeria here for college who recieved the Aaronic priesthood
this Sunday. We helped him understand his new responsibilities and the
blessings that would come. The poor man seemed so overwhelmed, but looked so
calm once he recieved it. I forget if I told you, but here, in Alekseevka, it has
the highest number of member students from Africa. There are about 10
active and most speak English with a little Russian. They are all so great and
a lot of fun to be around.
This next week, we plan to use a few more new finding tactics
to spice things up. For one, we will be making balloon animals that we can give
to families along with church brochures in the parks near our apartment. We had
another idea of setting up a table in a busy area and lay paper down over it
and put up a sign, "questions for God" and then let passerbyers
write down questions they have that we can answer for them and then give away
free Liahonas (combination of Ensigns, New Era, the Friend).
We still need to get it passed with public relations, but I
think it would be a great new way of starting conversations and involving
members in our finding efforts. We'll for sure do our best to find all those
who are ready!
I can't wait to see you all soon! Have a wonderful week!
With Love,
Elder Ostler
