Uliya-Collin

Dear family and friends,

This week was pretty great! 

On Sunday we had a lesson in Elder's Quorum and I understood most of it. Hooray! I am beginning to understand more and more Russian. It is still hard to communicate with people. I will try to talk to some and they don't talk to me because I don't speak fluently. I don't need to right now because The Lord is on my side and He will help me communicate the things I need to. I don't have much time today, but will tomorrow. I do want to share an experience that I had this week though. 

We have been trying to find investigators, but we have met an uphill battle and we are making our way up the mountain. We have tried to meet with some of the ward member's and they too have been really busy so it has been hard. We met with the Elders Quorum President and his wife. Deema and seampra. They are fantastic. They have a really busy schedule, but always make room for Church. They went to the Temple twice last year. They have been trying to go, but it costs 3000 Euros. We pray for them. We went over and shared a spiritual thought with them and then asked if there was anything that we could do for them. They both asked if they could have a blessing. I was not asked to give the blessing, but one was in English because Seampra speaks Finnish and English. She has been hurting on her knee. I feel bad because all I could think about were Mom's knees. Deema's blessing was in Russian. He said that I needed to hear it so that I could have some practice...Haha! I love them to death. They are great. The Spirit touched me in both of the prayers. I am so blessed to be in Russia right now!

They other experience that I had was Sunday night. We were headed to St. Pete and while on the train I decided to talk to the man next to me about the gospel. I was on the Isle seat so it made it a bit difficult. I said a prayer before hand that I could say what I needed to. He was reading a book and I asked what type of book it was. I couldn't formulate it in proper Russian. He didn't understand and so he told me that. The girl in front of him spoke a bit of English so she translated. he wasn't interested in talking so I started talking to this other girl instead. Uliya is amazing, but has a busy life. She lives in Pskov, studies in Petrozavodsk, and teaches in St. Pete. We talked to her for and hour and then a Russian Orthodox man comes up and started discrediting all that we have said. It was kind of tough and then an interesting thing happened. She started defending The Church. She was Russian Orthodox, but she could tell that what we were saying was true. He promptly went away and then we kept talking. We started talking about the Plan of Salvation and she asked some pretty good questions. It was great. We got off the train and she invited us to ride the metro back with her. We were going in the opposite direction, but we got her name and number so that we could contact her later. 

This was such an amazing blessing. I couldn't speak to the one man, but through that trial came an even greater blessing. This is such an amazing concept of life. We will all have trials. It is up to us whether we let them beat us or whether we conquer them.

My companion said something interesting:

"Prayer is a WRESTLE with God to LOOSE your will"

This is so true. If we give up our will to The Father, We can do so much more than we can right now! 

I will be back on tomorrow. Sorry. This week is a bit crazy!

I love you all. God is GREAT! 

старейшина Hawkins

Russia, St. Petersburg Mission

Mailing Instructions:

Elder Collin James Hawkins

Russia St Petersburg Mission
Pr Malookhtinsky 16/1
POM 11-H, 12-H
Saint Petersburg 195112
Russia