Yevgeny

Here is the story of a man we came to love.  The only thing I would add to Dad's account is the last time we saw him about two weeks before he died.   We drove to Revda (about a 90 minute drive) to attend the Sunday group that meets in a rented small conference room in a rundown hotel.   It was a beautiful bright snowy Sunday morning and we had the two assistants, Elders Lehnhardt and Cohen with us.  There were 13 of us gathered there for Sacrament meeting, 6 of us as missionaries.  That day Yevgeny blessed the sacrament.   It was hard for him to kneel because of his disability, but he reverently folded his crippled legs under him and pronounced the blessing in a loving and worshipful tone. It touched my heart to hear him say these beautiful Russian words with simple humility.  I thought at the time that this was a Sacrament service that I would always remember and treasure.   Afterwards we expressed our love for him and he beamed with happiness, and then excused himself so he could go take care of his sick mother.  He has touched our hearts deeply with his strong, simple faith.  Here is Dad's account:

Ten years ago, the Church had a thriving small branch in the small town of Revda, located more than an hour away from Yekaterinburg.  The branch was eventually closed and the remaining 5 or 6 members were expected to make the hour and a half trip by two buses to attend the Yekaterinburg 1st Branch.  When I had been serving approximately 2 months as Mission President, I had a strong impression to visit Revda and meet with as many of the members as possible, all of whom at that time wereinactive.  We were able to gather a small group of inactive members in the small, dark apartment of an older crippled man who held the Aaronic Priesthood and had not been to church for many years.

These members expressed to me and Sister Christensen how difficult it had been to be without the church for so many years.  They indicated that missionaries had, from time to time, visited them and brought them the sacrament.  They strongly discouraged me from sending full-time missionaries to serve in the Revda area, assuring me that it would be impossible to experience any success in that area. 

During the drive home from Revda, I felt prompted to assign two Elders to Revda, gather the members together and form a group, and begin the work of reactivating less active members and finding new investigators.  I assigned two young, very faithful and energetic Elders to reopen Revda.  These two Elders worked tirelessly and spoke with everyone they encountered in Revda.  They were successful in reactivating eight less active members who met each week for Sacrament meeting and Sunday School in the small meeting room of an old hotel which they rented for two hours each Sunday for $25.

As they walked the streets of Revda, a city of approximately 90,000 people, they frequently passed a man who appeared to be homeless, a man with disheveled hair, tattered and soiled clothes, a scruffy beard and an obvious alcoholic.  They frequently saw him foraging through garbage cans to find cigarette butts, liquor bottles with some remaining contents, and scraps of food.  They ignored him each time they walked past him.  One day, one of the Elders felt prompted to speak to him.  As he spoke to Yevgeny, he could tell that Yevgeny was an intelligent person who had lost any hope or direction in his life.  He had no job.  He lived with his 80-year-old mother who was bedridden and required his constant attention.  They lived off her pension.  Yevgeny did his best to take care of his mother but frequently drifted with his friends into long sessions of severe drinking and smoking.

The Elders spoke to Yevgeny about the Book of Mormon, its origin and the fact that it has the answers to all of the questions of life.  Yevgeny expressed interest in being taught about the Book of Mormon and invited the Elders to visit him and his mother.  In the small two room apartment Yevgeny shared with his mother, the Elders taught Yevgeny the message of the restoration, the coming of the Book of Mormon as evidence of Joseph Smith's calling as a prophet and a second witness for our Savior Jesus Christ.  Yevgeny embraced the Elders message and expressed his hope that somehow he could change his life.  The Elders promised him that through the atonement of Jesus Christ and the renewing power of the Holy Ghost, it was possible for him to overcome all trials in his life and become a new creature in Christ.

Yevgeny began reading the Book of Mormon and the Elders continued to meet with him.  Yevgeny accepted their invitation to visit the sacrament meeting held in the old hotel located approximately a mile from his home.  He walked to church each Sunday, carrying his scriptures in a plastic grocery bag.  He had been injured in an automobile accident 15 years before and shuffled slowly with a severe limp.  

Yevgeny bought a shirt with buttons, the first shirt with buttons he had ever owned, in order to attend church with the missionaries.  Surrounded by six or seven other members of the group whom the missionaries had reactivated, and feeling the love of those gathered to partake of the Sacrament profoundly impressed Yevgeny.  The Elders worked with him daily and assisted him in overcoming his severe addiction to alcohol and tobacco.  Yevgeny completed reading the Book of Mormon, prayed sincerely about it, and received a witness that it is true, that it is the word of God.  He repented of his sins and sincerely desired to be baptized so that he could receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Lauralee and I attended his baptism in a small public bathhouse.  When Yevgeny returned from the dressing room following his baptism, he stood before the 8 of us who had gathered for his baptism and bore a simple, humble testimony of the changes he had experienced in his life because of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  As I looked at him, clean shaven, a short haircut, wearing his short-sleeve blue shirt with buttons, I saw a light surround him and received a very specific spiritual impression that this son of our Father in Heaven was on the pathway to eternal life and exaltation.  I saw him as a noble joint heir with Christ.

Yevgeny received the Aaronic priesthood and began administering the sacrament.  He eventually bought a white shirt and received a tie from one of the Elders.  He eventually bought a secondhand suit jacket.  Within six months he had progressed in his understanding of the gospel and priesthood service to receive the Melchizedek priesthood and be ordained to the office of Elder.  Ten months after his baptism he received his patriarchal blessing.

Yevgeny's life changed dramatically.  He gave talks in Sacrament Meeting and bore his testimony regularly on Fast Sundays.  He was diligent in home teaching several families. 

In an interview conducted entirely in Russian with Elder Golovonev, one of our Russian Elders who does not speak English, Elder Golovonev shared with me the following wonderful story about Yevgengy:  Elder Golovonev, who was serving in Revda at the time, became very ill.  He had a high fever and an extremely sore throat.  He felt the need to take a bus to Yekaterinburg to have me give him a blessing.  But then he felt prompted to visit Yevgeny, remembering that Yevgeny held the Melchizedek Priesthood and lived there in Revda.  Elder Golovonev and his companion visited Yevgeny's small, humble two room apartment and asked him if he would give Elder Golovonev a priesthood blessing.  Yevgeny humbly nodded his head, rose to his feet, and shuffled to a small, old wooden chest of drawers in the corner of the room and retrieved his white shirt and tie so that he could exercise his priesthood dressed with appropriate dignity and reverence.  He then asked the Elders to teach him how to give a priesthood blessing.

After receiving instruction from the Elders, and following the anointing administered by  Elder Golovonev's companion, Yevgeny laid his hands on Elder Golovonev's head, called him by his (long) full Russian name, and said: "by the power of the holy Melchizedek Priesthood, I bless you, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

With tears rolling down his cheeks, Elder Golovonev looked directly into my eyes and said to me softly: "President Christensen, as soon as Yevgeny spoke those words, I was instantly healed.   Heavenly Father knew what I needed, even though Yevgeny did not pronounce a long or specific blessing.  Heavenly Father recognized Yevgeny's Priesthood power.  I had faith in the healing power of the priesthood, and I was healed. "

Yevgeny was true to the covenants he made.  He loved listening to modern prophets and apostles in General Conference which, in Russia, is broadcast in the Russian language the week following General Conference in Utah. Yevgeny had to travel an hour and a half from Revda to view General Conference in Yekaterinburg.  I had the privilege of shaking his hand and greeting him in the Yekaterinburg Chapel for the April 2014 and the October 2014 Conference Broadcasts.  Tears filled my eyes both times as he entered the building carrying a well-used plastic grocery bag which held the latest Liahona, a pad of paper and a pencil.  I realized he had walked about a mile from his modest apartment in Revda to a bus stop early that morning to travel by bus to Yekaterinburg, and that he had walked, shuffling along with his limp, another hour from the bus station in Yekaterinburg to the chapel.  He said very little.  He just smiled and expressed his gratitude to be able to listen to living prophets and took his seat in the darkened chapel waiting for conference to start.

Two weeks ago, I received a call from the Elders serving in Revda.  Yevgeny had been visiting with three of his friends who were struggling, as he had, with severe alcoholism and smoking.  A fire broke out in his friend's small wooden shack-like house and two of these four lifelong friends, one of them Yevgeny, lost their lives.  One survivor told the missionaries that Yevgeny, who was always true to his new-found faith, was trying to help his friends with their addictions. 

At the memorial service in Revda, which was attended by the two Elders working in Revda, the four active members of the Revda Group, some of Yevgeny's friends, and a few family members, a thirty-year-old son of Yevgeny, whom the Elders had never met,shook one Elder's hand and said: "Thank you for helping my father find great faith and peace.  After becoming a member of your church, and for the last year of his life, my father was a 'holy man.'"  Yevgeny became a "holy man" by coming unto Christ.  Hewas taught the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and developed great faith in Christ and His atonement.  He repented of his sins and was baptized by an Elder who held the restored priesthood of God.  He received the priceless gift of the Holy Ghost and lived faithful to the covenants he had made.  He was grateful for living prophets and was happy to make the long journey, partly by bus and partly on foot, each General Conference in order to sit at the feet of apostles and prophets and receive their instruction, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I am convinced that Yevgeny's constant effort to hear, read and follow the counsel of living prophets was one of the reasons that others, not of our faith, described him as a "holy man."