The best week in Makeevka so far!

Privet family! Thanks for the emails, I always love reading about things at home and hearing from you. That's crazy about the snow and ice storms. We got a pretty good storm here Friday night, about 7 inches, but it's not super cold.. yet. This past week was awesome, here are the details.
 

I went on a split with Elder Efoshkin in his area because their investigator Sage needed a baptismal interview and I hadn't gone with Efoshkin yet. It was a great split, he is an excellent elder. We found them two new investigators, both brothers from Africa. One is named Dayo (he came to church yesterday and loved it) and the other Godwill (he is Sage's roommate). Every week at church now we have a brother corner in the back haha and we translate for them. Pretty soon we're gonna have to start doing sacrament in english for all of them. We taught a great first lesson to Dayo and he was excited about the BOM. This is funny, Sage and Bonaventure (recent convert that Fish and Efoshkin baptized, I'm pretty sure I've talked about him) forgot that Thursday we were doing the interview and dogged us! So we had to reschedule it for Friday night. It was an awesome experience though. It was my first baptismal interview I've conducted and it was being translated because Sage doesn't know English. So I sat in their hostel room with Bonaventure and Sage and held the interview. I studied and prayed that I could memorize the questions in order to focus on the interview more and this prayer was answered. Everything went fine and I even understood sometimes what he was saying in French. His baptism was on Saturday but unfortunately we didn't go because no investigators could come with us. However, we congratulated him yesterday at church and he got the Holy Ghost of course so all is well.
 

While on my split Elders Harrison and Carley met with our investigator Yuri. He is the one we found tracting who smokes, drinks, worships icons, etc. HE ACCEPTED A BAPTISMAL DATE FOR MARCH 2! It is amazing progress! We have lots to do with him but if he really quits everything he will be baptized. This week our goal is to get a member with him, probably Brat Velikanov.
 

Now some comments/tidbits. My next P-day will be next Wednesday, FEBRUARY 6, not Monday. The APs and President are trying something new and transfer calls are not coming out this upcoming Friday, but next Tuesday night. This leaves only one day to get packed and write family, instead of having 6 days to say goodbye to members/investigators/get ready. It's going to be interesting, I'm not sure how I feel about it. The possible scenarios of transfers are as follows: I stay one more, Harrison leaves; Harrison stays, I go; or we both go, which has happened to other trainer/greenie companionships even with people on date. My guess is that I'll stay but we'll see what happens. I can't believe it's already time for transfers again. Elder Harrison and I have grown a lot and are going to work to make this last full week together better than this one. Last but not least, we had a missionary fireside yesterday. It was pretty successful and I think we got the members more excited about missionary work. Elder Southam shared an experience of when he was stake president about how the members got better at sharing the gospel. In everyday conversations they would say "One reason I like my church is..." So we practiced situations with the members and it seemed to go good. We also sung "Come Thou Fount" as a district with Sister Southam playing piano. It was great! I forwarded some pictures she took from this week. Enjoy.
 

I love you all so much. Know that you are in my prayers and that God loves you! Talk to you next Wednesday!


с любовью,

Старейшина Каун

Украинская Донецкая Миссия