It's really, really hot... (July 18, 2007)

Hello again all, it's that time of week again. Well, things are going well, except it's really hot again outside. We have a mission standard of 3-4 hours of finding a day, and our area doesn't have that good of tracting (most of the apartment buildings have electronic locks that we can't get into), so we spend 3 to 4 hours every day at least (sometimes quite a bit more) out in the sun walking around. I really wonder sometimes how far I've walked in this area, because I bet it's an incredible amount. I know this area far better than any other I've had, mostly because I've been up and down almost every street here a LOT. But, thankfully, we've been able to meet with several members of our ward here, so we should be able to get some work going with them. There's a really, really cool newlywed family here named the Russo family that we met with on Sunday. Brother Russo is 24, I think, and he's served in the Ukrainian navy for 3 years and been on a mission to Latvia. He and his wife, Anna, have been married for about 10 months, and they'll be having a kid here soon. They invited us to go on a picnic with them and another newlywed couple from the ward, which would be a lot of fun; they were really excited to work with the missionaries, so we're expecting good things from this.

So, I'm not sure how many of you receive the Church News (or, if you do get it, how many of you read it...I know I certainly didn't before my mission), but in the most recent edition there's an article about the Kyiv Temple groundbreaking, and included is a picture of one of the families from my area! There's also a picture of Alexander Manzhos, a Ukrainian member of the quorum of the Seventy, and Viktor Kanchenko, our stake president. The picture of the Vashenko family is really cool. They're pretty much the perfect family.

On Saturday, we had a "frank talk" lesson with our eternal investigator family. In case you don't know what a frank talk lesson is, it's where we sit down with them and see whether they're really interested in our message, or not. This time was really hard because I really like this family. They're really nice and funny, and they love missionaries, but the problem is, they just don't care about the gospel. She's a happy seventh-day adventist, and he's a happy agnostic, and they're both content that "all roads lead to God," and that one should find the religion most comfortable for their own, personal wants. They compared it to the 12 tribes of Israel, saying that the different churches are like different tribes ("Ah, but didn't all the tribes follow Moses and Joshua and all the other prophets, together?"), they said that all churches were the same ("That's what prompted Joseph Smith to pray in the first place!") and that the Book of Mormon was just like any other religious book. This last one is one that we've heard a lot recently. The wonderful thing about the Book of Mormon is that it's worth more than the sum of its parts. If one merely reads it, they'll find a nice book with scriptural lessons and doctrines similar to the Bible, though in a different location, with different people, and sometimes explained more than is found in the Bible. But that's not the most important part! The most important part is what's written in Moroni 10:3-5, that after we have received the Book of Mormon and read in it, we can pray directly to our Father in Heaven and ask if it's true, and then receive a personal, private witness direct to us through the Holy Ghost that it is, indeed, true. That is what makes the Book of Mormon different than any other religious book--it's true, and God wants us all to know for ourselves that it's true.

Well, I've got to get going again, time waits for no one, and as usual, I've been long-winded. I love you all, I'm jealous of all your various vacations (the dilophosaurus footprint was really cool Mom, and I'm impressed by your cliff jumping escapades). Have a good week everyone!

--Elder Brett