Week 29: Офигет

Hello Friends and Family,

     This week was a really interesting one. We had another guy just walk into the the church right before sacrament meeting wanting to learn more as well. He is about 22 years old. We also had a game night this week and we only had 4 people show up but it was fine because it was was fun. There was an African who was hyping everything up and that made ping pong fun. 

Our Investigator who is getting baptized told us that he will tell us on Wednesday if he is ready to be baptized. He really is ready to be baptized though. You will find out next week though if he is or not.

Also President Miner told us that when he and sister Miner go home, (which is in July) then our mission will be combining with the Samara Mission. It will still be called the Rostov-na-Donu Mission though!!!! The mission President in Samara will become our mission president and he is only 1 year behind President Miner. So that will be different. There's about 30-34 volunteers in each mission so there will about about 60-70 when we combine. 

I had to translate for our church president again when he gave a talk. I felt like I did a lot better this time. I still slaughtered cases and the grammar but at least I gave the same message. I hope hahaha. 

Other than that things are fine. I really hope that our investigators will progress exceedingly fast and our potentials will turn into investigators and accept the Greatest Message this earth has to offer.

Hope everyone has a great week.

с Любовью

Старейшина М Франсковияк

 

Pictures from Zone Conference.  Elder M Franckowiak gave a talk on diligence.  

 

Week 28: Zone conference

Hello everyone,

 Last week we were in Volgograd all week. We had a few things to do here in the Volgograd zone, like cleaning out the red army apartment because we closed that area.  There was a huge conference with the district in Volgograd so a lot of members in the 4 branches came on Saturday and Sunday to listen to Elder Martino, a General Authority Seventy.   After that great conference the volunteers had our Zone Conference on Monday! Throughout the entire weekend Elder Martino talked a lot about home teaching and the power and effect it could have here in Russia if people actually did it. He spoke with such power, it was cool to even hear him speak. 

Our investigator came to Volgograd for the conference and came to both the  Saturday and Sunday sessions. And we got him a ticket home on a train with the rest of the members that came from Astrakhan.  Our branch president called us and told us that after talking with him on the train for a couple of hours, he said that he wants to get baptized!!! I am so excited. We plan on doing that on February 3rd. I hope all goes well. 

Love everyone and hope you have a good week! 

Elder M Franckowiak

 

 

Week 27: January week 2

This week for us was good. The person that just showed up last week, we have met with twice now and it sounds like he has had a hard life. He really just wants to do the right thing in this life and he just wants to find happiness. He is divorced and some other things had happened too but he just wants to find happiness. We have a District Conference for a couple of the branches in Volgograd this next week and he said that is will be going. I am really happy to see his dedication to the gospel and how he actually does things, not just says he will do things. 

This week we met with a potential at a restaurant and it was kind of weird at first. She is an 18 year old girl and she got reservations. It kind of seemed like a date at first, but soon a young man showed up and he spoke really well English. He asked us about our lives and things like that and it was good. Soon after that his friend showed up and this guys spoke really well English as well and started asking us the same questions. We now have a couple more potentials. 

I hope everyone had a good week. I look forward to sustaining our new prophet as a mouth piece of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Elder M Franckowiak

(Max's comment with the Smarties picture: "Is this some kind of sick joke?" Anyone who knows Max well knows how much he loves American Smarties.  haha)

Week 26: Transfers!!!!

Good morning,

     We received transfer calls last week and I found out that I am staying in Astrakhan and Elder Williams will be staying as well. So nothing actually is new. Yesterday at church we had a guy just show up and said that he wants to know more. He said that he found out about us on the internet, so that's pretty cool. We plan on meeting with him later today. I hope that he is white and ready to be harvested because we have been doing a lot of finding and no success has come from it. But we have been trying our best to spend our time as effective as possible. We go to a good amount of English clubs and try and get contacts from them. 

Nothing else has really happened this week. I'll let you know about this guy though.

Love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Elder M Franckowiak

 

 

Week 25: C Новым Годом

Happy New Year!

     This week was pretty tough with lessons but it was pretty eventful. We met with the same person 3 times this week but he was not able to come to church.  So glad I had the opportunity to Skype my family and talk to Zack. In which we did speak Russian behind their backs. 

We had 14 people at church yesterday. It wasn't bad. We had 2 Africans give talks that they didn't prepare. It was so funny!!! "We need to read the Book of Mormon, maybe not everyday, maybe just on weekends" I kid you not I was up in the front laughing so hard. Trying not to burst out and have him see. I love the Africans!  On New Years Eve we had to be in by 5:00.  It is a really big holiday here and most of the fireworks were just homemade bombs haha. I was siting at my desk with the window opened and then I heard some yelling and then I looked out the window and just saw an explosion. It scared the crap out of me. The fireworks started around 10 slowly and then I woke up at 12 with just bombs and fireworks going off everywhere. I just fell back asleep though. 

That's pretty much all that happened this week. Hope everyone has a good week. 

Happy New Year for the 3rd time!

Elder M Franckowiak