Thirteen Day MTC Missionaries Set New Investigator Record

Elder Garrett Jon Roberds McClintock
Ukraine Dnepropetrovsk Mission

Elder Garrett McClintock with two missionary buddies set a new MTC record for having progressive investigators.  Elder Tanner Maddux started up a conversation with two Ukraine workers who were helping renovate a building then recruited Elder McClintock and Elder Rhodes to help him teach the men this last week.



Elder McClintock shares the story:

The biggest news though, is that we are the earliest companionship to have a progressing investigator in the history of the MTC, that anyone knows of (including the MTC Presidency) at least. They are doing some construction, and in a few buildings they were replacing the sinks in the bathrooms. My friend, Tanner Maddux, was studying with his comp outside one of the buildings, and two of the workers came up and started talking to them. They were nonmembers from Ukraine, and Elder Maddux set up an appointment to meet with them after they got off! He found me at dinner, and Elder Rhodes and Myself went and helped them teach. We said the opening prayer in Russian, and taught as much as we could. We asked them to read Alma 40, because they had a lot of questions about what happens after we die. That was on Tuesday. The next day, we checked in with them and they had read and wanted to talk to us again!

We met on Thursday night again, with Sergei and Peoter, and we watched the Joseph Smith video in Russian. The two times we taught them, I have never felt the spirit so strongly in my life. It was phenomenal. I really don’t know how to describe it. They both came from really devout Russian Orthodox families, so they were hesitant to commit to serious, but we did the best we could, and you could tell by their body language that they felt it. They are from Seattle, and were only here for a week, it isn’t a coincidence that it happened that way. We put in a referral, so we will see what happens with that. It was the greatest experience ever. I honestly can’t think of a better first two weeks of the mission. It made me super excited to get to Ukraine and start teaching people.

At one point during the lesson, Sergei was trying to explain a question he had about Prophets in the Book of Mormon, and I was having trouble following his English (I couldn’t tell if he was saying "words" or "wars"), when I realized he might be saying words, I said "slav?" which is Russian for word. He then explained his entire question in Russian, and I couldn’t tell what the words were, but I knew how to answer it perfectly, I had randomly decided to study the exact vocabulary that I needed earlier that day. The gift of tongues is real, I have already witnessed it in an immaculate way, and everyday with how fast we are learning the language. Right now, I am probably at the same understanding I had of Spanish at the end of my freshman year of high school.

 It is great that the three missionaries were able to put in to practice their Ukrainian skills after only thirteen days of missionary training.  McClintock and the other two missionaries entered the MTC on 23 July 2010. This district is considered one of the most advanced with all of them passing off the First Vision in only two and one half weeks.