Happy Five Months in Country to Me!

Well, happy five months in country to me today! Yesterday I hit my "seven months on a mission" mark. I really like these landmarks because they give me something to look forward to and celebrate! Hooray! Also, I'm pleased to report that I come home this year. Hooray!

Well, I'm sorry to report that Ufa is not as cold as some parts of the United States right now-- but that's fine by me! Because it's been cold and all that jazz, the ice sculptures have blossomed everywhere. I sent some pictures last week. They have erected ice mazes, ice people, ice slides, etc. It's funny because in America we have "water slides" but here, they're made of ice. They're gigantic. Some of them are at least two stories high and children just slide all the way down. It's pretty neat to watch.

I enjoy winter, but at the same time, I don't like it being six months of the year either.

We had a substantial number of meetings this week despite the fact that we were indoors for two days. We had 12 total lessons, which I consider a miracle, three of which were with investigators (another miracle). All  three investigators were investigators that we have never met with before (one investigator has been out of town since August, the other is a former investigator, and the other is a potential investigator). That's seriously a miracle because New Year's is suchhhh a big holiday here. The whole city shut down and we just watched people out the window sometimes. Comical. I also took a two-hour nap (that was an accident) and we updated our area book and area map (tedious, but needed work). New Year's EVE was great. As a zone, we cooked a bunch of food, and we watched "It's A Wonderful Life," which I thoroughly enjoyed. Some of the parts were a little too much for us missionaries (the bathrobe/bush scene) and we all awkwardly looked in other directions. Oh, how being a missionary has changed us all!

Dad reminded me about the SNL clip of the "alternate" ending to "It's a Wonderful Life." Totally forgot about that-- hilarious. I baked some delicious apple crisp that the whole zone LOVED. I was very impressed with it too. We remembered the night before at 10 pm that we were supposed to make a dessert and all we had was sugar, flour, apples, and some other needed cooking ingredients. We whipped it together quick, and it was SOOOOO good. Wow. Maybe I'm turning into a cook on my mission. Who wants to send me to cooking school in Paris post-mission? :)

We had some very substantial miracles happen to us. Friday we were looking at our planners for Saturday. "Oh boy-- no meetings! And the forecast is -25!" We definitely did NOT want to be contacting all day. We called everyone HUMANLY possible, but unfortunately we were only able to get one solid meeting set up. We made plans for Saturday right after lunch to tear apart our area book (not literally) and call everyone we could. Well, we spent an hour doing this. We said a kneeling prayer together before and asked God to open up the hearts of people. Holy.Cow. It was incredible! We were able to set up a meeting for Saturday at 5 pm with a former investigator, so THAT was a miracle. We were also able to meet with that one potential investigator, too (another miracle!) We called one former investigator but he wasn't home and his son answered the phone and remembered missionaries and wanted to meet, so THAT was a miracle. It was awesome. All in all, we had a very successful weekend. We closed that planning session after lunch Saturday with a big prayer of thanks.

Anyway, we met with a former investigator. There were some really interesting things written about her on the progress record, but we called her because we thought it would be worthwhile. Well, we show up, and she has a full dinner set up for us. That was ANOTHER miracle because we ended up being so busy on Saturday that our planned time for dinner was from 8:50-9:00 pm. She cooked some delicious food. We said "Oh, we brought our own tea because we don't drink black tea" and she said "Oh, I already know all of your secrets!" It was kind of funny. We had an interesting lesson with her. Sister Fedas had no idea what to say, but I feel like I was totally led by the spirit. The lady has some objections to church doctrine, such as we eventually become gods and the fact that there is a mother in heaven. Rather than focusing on addressing these concerns, I just bluntly kept asking her questions: "Do you believe that God and Christ appeared to Joseph Smith?" "Do you believe that God has called another prophet today on the Earth to lead the people?" "Do you believe that Christ really came to the people on the American Continent?" It ended up instigating an very interesting discussion, and we were able to find out more about her than was written on her progress record. We think that there's hope for her to be baptized yet. I totally felt like it was guided by the spirit. It was awesome!

One of our other investigators is really great. Her dad is a Jehovah's Witness, so she knows the Bible really well. When we met with her this week, she had remembered a lot from meeting with missionaries back in the summer. She has already read from the Book of Mormon because these last several months we've texted her reading assignments while she's been out of town and she read them! That was really great. We had planned on teaching her the first lesson again, but when we got there she really wanted to rehear the Plan of Salvation. We had to think quick, but our companionship is capable so we handled it really well and used verses from the Book of Mormon to give her another perspective.

I really love Ufa and the branch here, but I feel in the next transfer or two that I will for sure be leaving. I will have spent over seven months here, and I really do love it. I'm so lucky to have been in the warmest city during the warmest winter! I thank God every day for that.

I seriously love being a missionary. It's so surreal and the time passes by quickly.

Have an amazing week, every single one of you.

Love,

Sister Brown!!!