Wednesday, November 25, 2015

"Every Man In His Own Tongue" -Collin

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been GREAT! Our investigators have been progressing really well!! 

Vitalli:

Vitalli accepted our invitation to pray! We taught him how and after a few questions, he said a an amazing prayer. We invited him to also pray with his family and he agreed. IT was really amazing to see how The Spirit can soften the hearts and change the minds of our investigators. This has helped me to gain a greater testimony of The Holy Ghost. Vitalli will be out of town for Thanksgiving so we wont be able to teach him until next Tuesday...I am really sad about that.

Katya:

Katya is really receptive to our lessons and it also helps that she has had the missionaries before, they were just taken out of her area just before she could be baptized. She wants to know God and Jesus Christ better. We told her that through prayer and with real intent, she could know them better. We asked if we could give her some scriptures to read that would help her to understand The Father and The Son better. She said yes and then we taught her about the Book of Mormon. We taught her about how to use the scriptures to find truth. I told her my experience of how I came to know that the Book of Mormon is true and I bore my testimony of it. I then asked her if she would read the book and do as Moroni directs and pray to know of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. She agreed and committed to reading it every day. It made me so happy to tell her of the power of the Book of Mormon. I am so proud of her.  

On Friday we are going to teach Katya about baptism and ask if she will be baptized. Will you all keep both of my investigators in your prayers. They need the Spirit in their lives and I hope that we can bring it with us. This work is great and I love it!

As you all know, there are more languages at the MTC that English and Russian. This week I was able to bump into some spectacular people. I was able to speak to the French missionaries and answer question that they had about where to go or what to do as they were new to the MTC. I spoke to them for a while, and then went back to studying. Not 5 minutes later, there was a tap on my shoulder and when I turned around, the elder was signing to his companion. I caught the last half of the question and had his companion ask him to clarify. 

The deaf elder wanted to know what the order was for blessing the sick. He didn't know when to anoint the person. This was  an awesome experience for me because I could have just had him read the Missionary Handbook, but I tried to sign as best as I could,  He and I signed for a bit and he commended me on being able to sign. I was happy that I was able to use my little knowledge of sign to help somebody else.  Thank you mom for giving me a love for that language at such a young age! 

My companion are getting along better although there are still a few hiccups. Drew and I are closer than ever. Our relationship has grown and is growing more and more everyday! 

I need your addresses if you want to get a letter from me. I love getting letters and I want to write back, but I can't unless I have your addresses. 

I love you and can't describe how much of a blessing you all are in my life.

Elder Collin Hawkins
Russia, St. Petersburg Mission


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