Dear Family, Happy January 28th from the world famous Nevsky Prospect again. Things here are going so well and I am so grateful for this chance to write home and tell you all about some of the amazing things that I have been blessed to experience in the last week. I Love being a missionary and I am so glad for the chance to serve here. I know that I am supposed to be here, this is my place to be. I really do love it so much.
So the first thing that I wanted to tell you about before I forget is a meeting that we had with a recent convert named Artsoon. He is about 40 years old and is from Armenia and he got baptized not too long ago-less than a month. I called him up last week and asked him if we could meet with him, he told me about how right now he is living in Kolpino for 2 months working down there and how when he can make it up to the city he would give us a call. He works construction and right now they are just trying to finish up a building down in Kolpino. On Monday night he called and said that he was in the city and that he could meet. We had just walked in the door and so I grabbed some cookies to snack on and he turned rightback out and headed back to the metro. We said that we could meet him on Nevsky Prospect and so when we got there we gave him a call and he said that he was also already there and that he was standing right outside the metro stop. We couldn't see him and so we headed down the street and tried to find him there at the other Hevsky metro stop. Now let me tell you, Hevsky is a really really big street and there are a lot of people always walking along it. We finally made it to the other one and he was not there. I don't know how many calls we made to eachother that kept losing reception in the bustle of all the people, or hbow long it took but finally I told him to go to a certain store and we met him there. Dome Kneegee, one of the most famous stores right on Hevsky. We met him there and I thought that maybe we could would go somewhere else to sit down and talk but no, we taught him right there. It was so crazy but so much fun. We planned before on teaching him about missionary work and so I brought my Preach My Gospel and we read the section out of there. After he read that I said, "Artsoon, the gospel is a gift from God, and got wants everyone to have the gospel in their lives so that they can be happy, because we are his children and he wants all of us to be happy. And so Artsoon, that means that we all need to do missionary work because God wants us to do missionary work" The Elder that left this area described Artsoon by saying, "Artsoon is the nicest most humble man than you will ever meet, and the only thing that he cares about is doing what God wants. If you tell him to do something he will do it if you tell him that that is what God wants" That is true. Artsoon looked up at me after I said that to him and the first thing that he said was, "As far as the money goes, how am I supposed to support my family when I go on a mission" I couldn't believe it! He was just taught the principle and yet he was ready to forsake all and do what the Lord wanted. I quickly explained to him that it is not required for him to serve a mission in order to do missionary work but that he can do missionary work by being an example and sharing the gospel with his friends. He then told us about some of the stories that had already came up while he has been at work and how he has shared the gospel. He is someone that has established Jesus Christ as his sure Foundation and will not be moved when the winds begin to blow. I have never met someone with so much faith and so humble. I just wish that I could take him home with me and have him come into our house, have all of you meet him, have him to dinner and just let him feel so loved, and assured by the choices that he has made. That will probally have to wait till the next life, but certainly there are people all around that we can invite in and just love on them, make them feel like the children of God that they are. Thanks for always being such a good example of this-each of you. Keep it up!
Sunday was New Year's eve-Chinese New Year's Eve that is. And what better way to celebrate it then with some chinese people making dumplings! And that is exactly how we spent it. There are quite a few chinese people here, especially on our island that we live on and in the last little while two of them have gottenbaptized and quite a few more are interested and so we are working with them. They are here for school. A five year program in which they study different subjects and the language also. Oh my if I have ever said that Russian is difficult, Chinese definetely takes the cake. But we are having a lot of fun learning new phrases and trying them out on one another. The other day right after our meeting with Artsoon we go on a bus to go back to our island and when we got on I pulled out my "A Marvelous Work and a Wonder" but then I noticed that there was a chinese gus talking to his chinese girlly friend and so I called up En Lien and asked him how to sayHappy New Years in chinese. He told me and after I hung up I turned around and wished them a Happy New Year in Chinese and suprisingly the guy spoke really good english and so I started talking to him and it ended up being a really good contact and I invited him to church but he wasn't interested but then I asked him if he was interested in sports so I invited him to come to hockey and he was legitimately excited and told me to write his number down! I just called him and he is still interested and told me that he will give me a call. I'm so excited. I am sorry if I have ever written anything that has made it seem like I am not happy to be here, because that was a lie. A lot of missionaries like to talk stuff up and I am sorry if I have done that in the past. I'm sure that I have and I apologize. Life is good and I love it. The weather really is not that bad, honestly it is not bad at all. This is the Lord's work and he does qualify and comfort his own. Don't ever worry about me, the Lord is here with us and his angels do protect us and buoy us up. It is true. I love this work and am grateful for the words in my patriarchal blessings that implies that I will be a missionary all of my life. I love it, I love it and am so glad that the Lord has called me to it. Keep going family-Upwards and onwards! You are all great and never forget that the Lord loves you and so do I!
Love,
Elder Dean
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