Missionary Letter

This is Max and Sergi, a man he and his comp are trying to reactivate. It made me cry! (Pathetic, I know, but Max just looks so much older here... I haven't seen him in over a YEAR.)

This is the amazing story from this weeks letter from Max.

This last week has honestly been one of the hardest of my mission. We had few lessons, a hard time finding, the missionary leadership is making me do a thousand little pointless tasks, and I was just feeling like a messenger pigeon. We also had our last meeting with Dima for a while. He's decided not to be baptized any time soon and is taking a break from meeting with us. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time feeling discouraged this week. Yesterday I was working with another missionary on designing the English class program when one of the assistants, Elder Melton, walked in and said basically this. “Elder Ence and I were just out contacting and we met a guy named Vitali that came back with us to the church for a lesson. He speaks really good English but he's Russian so we'll probably just end up passing him to you anyway (they're Latvian speaking.) They're in the other room so you go meet with him and I'll stay here and work on English.” First of all I was so happy to have a new meeting that I was immediately grateful, but hahah just wait. Elder Melton said that on the way back to the church, Vitali explained the following situation. He worked in Alaska for two seasons at a hotel where he met a few guys from the church. One of them really befriended him and told him a little about the Mormons. He even got a Russian copy for him from church headquarters before he left back home. He talked about how impressed he was with this guy... that he didn't smoke or drink, and he could hardly believe that every active member of our church does the same. He followed that with the statement “I've never done any of that stuff anyway, but it's just cool.” He called the majority of Europe ignorant for thinking that Mormons are a sect, and repeatedly told us how much he likes our values. WOW. Anyway, I joined Elder Ence for the meeting and we taught a short but very good first lesson about Joseph Smith and prayer. We also talked about baptism and challenged him to be baptized the 29th of November. He accepted and said he'd pray about it to make sure that he's making the right decision.

At the end of the meeting, right before we prayed I told him “I actually have some family that lived up in Alaska for a few years” (thinking of Mike and Sozel's family.) He then told me the name of his friend from Alaska. Jed Mumm. I remembered that Sozel's maiden name is Mumm and was really excited to tell him that I know some Mumms. Not the most common name. Then I started racking my brain trying to remember if I've ever heard of a Jed. Then, I hope I'm right, I remembered Brayden and Caitlyn talking about their uncle I think that likes to snowboard and lives in Utah. I asked where his friend, Jed, was from and he said ...... UTAH. I got chills over my whole body. “I know who that is!!” I said “I know exactly who that is!!!” He was sooooo excited to hear that connection. I can honestly say that something like that has never happened in my entire mission. Sometimes we, as members, think that our missionary work ends in dead ends but it doesn't! Jed went out of his way to tell this foreign guy about the church and even tracked down a Book of Mormon for him. Now here, on the other side of the world, he ran into two missionaries on the street that pulled him into the church at the only time I was there the whole day. I really hope that this Jed is the guy I'm thinking of... if it is, please tell Sozel about it and have her forward this letter to him. He's done a great thing.


My Mom called my Aunt Sozel, and her brother Jed is the same guy. WHAT A COOL STORY. You never know what your actions will bring about. I love it. How often do you hear a story like that. The best part, is that it is happening right now.

I hope we get to meet Vitali when we are there in August. On a lighter and slightly funnier note, this is my youngest brother Joey as Waldo for halloween.

Where's Waldo!?