Week 98: I is for Brother Igor!!

Hey everyone!!

There were many miracles this week and the Lord's work moved forward in marvelous and miraculous ways. A highlight of this week was to see our brother Igor join the Lord's fold by entering into the waters of baptism! He had a long path that led him to this day- a very unique story. It was powerful to see the peace and joy that came over him as he was baptized and received the gift of the Holy Ghost! Our branch President, President Mikhailovski was able to perform his baptism. Then the Elders Quorum President gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was a miracle that we were able to take part in this event and see it all come together! It is always and always has been uplifting and deeply spiritual to see a brother or sister make this life changing decision and step foot on their path of becoming disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Brothers ;)

We taught lessons this week to some of the members. We've been trying to help Maksim who is a recent convert, he's been having a difficult time during the quarantine just in general. We want to be here to help him and lift his spirits. We did a small lesson and talked about Come Follow Me and about the importance of scripture study in our lives! He was able to make it to the first part of church on sunday which was a step forward!

We also taught Vitya! He's been doing a lot of work and has 3 jobs right now so he was really tired as we talked to him. But he is so positive and filled with energy which always gives us a boost! He's a great member of the church and doing really well.

We've been having success using Facebook. We've found a good pattern that works well for us! We've been communicating with a good amount of people and it feels that we are learning how to use this tool more effectively! It's definitely been a process from the beginning to where we are now but it's been good to learn and grow and understand what we can do. I've always been impressed by the potential that we have to do even more than we even realize on Facebook. There is most definitely a handful of people that our posts uplift and bless each day that may not comment or say anything to us! Knowing we could've helped one person with our testimony is enough to get to work each day!

We have continued to teach Samuel who has now been to church 3 times. He hasn't been keeping his commitment to read the Book of Mormon. We are working on emphasizing the need and importance there and hope that will help him to read more often and deepen his testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and this book of Holy scripture. At the conclusion of the Plan of Salvation we invited him to be baptized and he said yes! The date is still not certain as we found out he may soon be traveling to Kiev and as we still feel that he has some growth that needs to take place in his testimony. Nonetheless really exciting news!! It's amazing to see how the Lord is preparing his sons and daughters to follow him and make these big decisions at this unique time.

We continue to teach Mohammed and Mohammed Ali. They have a lot of questions about missionary work and about what we do each day and why we decided to come and really all great questions. One important topic of our lesson was prayer! These brothers would normally pray a little differently from a prayer we might offer and Mohammed Ali was really excited to try prayer for the first time himself. He offered a great prayer! It was a little challenging for him and we had to help him a little bit on the way but it's always an exciting moment to help someone offer a first prayer! We are exciting about continuing their teaching.

Peter who we have been teaching for about 3 months now is beginning to read the Book of Mormon and grow his faith in Jesus Christ! He attends actively another church but he really has enjoyed learning more about Jesus Christ as he reads the Book of Mormon! He will sometimes even read it for 2 hours in a day! And he has great questions and it's become very fun to teach him and answer these questions! We are trying to help him make it to the church worship service on Sundays but it's a challenge for him with commitments at his other church. We are trying to work around the problem and help him see the importance! I think we will see him soon at church on Sunday.

Other things (in bullet points @Elder Morty)

• we walked 18 Kilometers to and from the Novy Doma branch with Dima! It was a party. (And about 4 hours of walking)

• I received a shipment of 4 Ukrainian ties and they're super cool!!! Wow

• the beer can contraption in front of our sisters apartment for those of you who have been following along has grown into something more... you'll just have to see for yourself.

• and nothing can stop the Lord's work from rolling forth!!! Wohooo!!

Spiritual Thought

I absolutely love this quote from this week so I'm gonna share it with you alllll!

"No matter what your current status, the very moment you voluntarily choose honest, joyful, daily repentance by striving to simply do and be your very best, the Savior’s Atonement envelops and follows you, as it were, wherever you go. Living in this manner, you can truly “always retain a remission of your sins” (Mosiah 4:12) every hour of every day, every second of every minute, and thus be fully clean and acceptable before God all the time."

-Elder Jörg Klebingat

The Savior's Atonement is a special and individual gift to each and every one of us! The Lord cannot force us to use it! Much like the fact that he atoned for us doesn't mean that we're set and good to go, we have our own personal responsibility to use the Atonement in our lives! That's what Elder Klebingat is talking about when he said, "voluntarily choose." If we desire the cleansing and enabling power of the Atonement to be active in our lives we must choose ! We must choose to repent daily and to walk the path that ultimately brings us closer to our Heavenly Father. All the Father asks is that we try our very best! We most certainly can do that! A lifetime of moments of striving, showing faiths, and choosing to come closer to the Savior will equate to the obtaining of our Heavenly Home! The Atonement is what makes this possible in our lives!!

Love you all sooo much!!! I challenge you to use the Atonement each day! And think about how you can rely more on the Savior in your life! Apply what comes to mind!

-Elder Halls

Okay listen up. In Ukraine everyone walks through construction. There is none if the re routing parking somewhere else stuff you just go for it. I think людям просто всё равно! So today when a big ole torn up road stood between us and where we needed to go we walked through. Safely of course!