What a wonderful gift Sister Leavitt received for her Birthday early. And yes….I guess I am a little crazy, but at least I’m not alone in the family! Have a great Missionary Monday!
So first things first I just wanted to remind you all that tomorrow is my birthday. And for my birthday I already got everything I will ever want. Now with that being said, let me tell you about the birthday present Heavenly Father gave me this past week. It was Friday night. It had been cold and snowy all day long and honestly that kind of weather is not my favorite (good thing I'm in Russia huh?). So we had an appointment with our investigators Katya and Alexander set up for that afternoon at four. It takes about an hour to get to the part of the city that they live in from our house, so we set out and on the ride there I just kept thinking about everything that we had taught them, and how much they have learned and changed since I had first met them. I also thought about how lately Alexander has been a little obsessed with learning English lately, which is a real damper when we are teaching people because then they just try to speak so much english to us, when we just want to speak Russian, so they'll actually understand, and with him lately I just had been feeling a little bit of sadness in my heart that this was happening. So I just said a prayer in my heart that Heavenly Father would help me to know if he really is ready for baptism, and also to help us to know how we can help their family. So we got to the lesson and everything was going so well. One of the kids went down for a nap when we got there and the other one just played quietly by herself the whole time, and they usually just run around and be crazy the whole time we are there. It was so perfect because it was a great setting for the spirit to testify. Anyways we started teaching the lesson. We have taught them just about everything, we just had to tie up a few loose ends and explain some things a little better so that the principles of the gospel would be clearer. We just read the Articles of Faith with them and reviewed the baptisimal interview questions with them in order to do this. As we were reading the questions Alexander would answer them. When we got to the question that asks "Do you believe the Church and the gospel of Jesus Christ have been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith?", the spirit was so strong. And when Alexander said, "yes", I felt the spirit telling me that he really did. Then at the end I just asked him why he wanted to be baptized and he then bore such a strong testimony about what he has learned from us, and what he has learned from the members of the branch. He said that of any church he has ever been to, this church is the only one that has really ever helped him. After he said this I wanted to cry and scream and hug him, but because I knew that none of those would be very appropriate, I just smiled really big. I think that this moment on my mission and in my life for that matter, was the strongest I have ever felt the spirit of God. I haven't even been able to stop smiling these past few days because when I think about that moment my heart is just filled with joy. That scripture is absolutely right "how great shall be your joy if you bring but one soul unto me." I have such great joy in my heart right now, and so that is the gift that Heavenly Father has given me for my birthday.
Now, I just have to say thank you to my family for their birthday presents also, because on Saturday at district meeting I got the best surpirse ever called a birthday package from Kandace! In it, it had letters from my siblings and pictures of my family and when I was reading what they said and looking at all of the pictures I just felt so blessed and so loved and I am so grateful for my family. I am also so grateful that they are so crazy! All of the missionaries were looking at the pictures and they all asked me, "is that your mom?" and I said, "yep" and they said, "she's a little crazy huh?" and I said, "of coursre and that's just the way I like her." I love my family so much! Even if we are a little crazy.
Also I have another funny moment to share with you. Every week on Wednesday nights we have sports night and we just play ping-pong and workout on some of this workout equipment that is in our church building. So we were having sports night and Sister LeBaron and I were practicing our waltz. Only we aren't even good at the waltz and so one of our members stepped in and danced with me and taught me how to waltz. He even counted for me... It was funny. But maybe you had to be there. Well, I think that's about it for this week. I hope you are all happy, and don't forget to celebrate and eat some cake tomorrow for my birthday. I LOVE YOU!!!!
Sister Leavitt
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