Week 99: The sun is setting

Hey everyone!!

My beloved friends and family!!

The week

I wanted to share something right away that has been really exciting this week! The past week I didn't write about this but we got in touch with a member of the church named Martin from Zimbabwe. He is awesome! We had a lesson this week and our goal going in was really just to see what we can do to help him progress and come close to Christ at this time. We talked about church and the sacrament and that was awesome!! He really wants to come back to church and was grateful that we had been able to get in contact with him. He bore a powerful testimony and told us about his family and how they were baptized some years ago back home. 

We later felt impressed to invite Martin on a lesson with Samuel who we have been teaching. This lesson went so well Martin contributed wonderfully and bore his testimony. Samuel has began to read the Book of Mormon a little more to prepare for his baptism. We challenged him to read and pray every day and then Martin opened up to 1 Nephi 3:7 and testified that Heavenly Father will prepare a way for him to do so. We are happy with how Samuel is progressing. He's very open to baptism and has a agreed to be baptized. He has however already been baptized a few times and we feel that he needs to strengthen his testimony of the Book of Mormon and understand a little bit deeper the covenant that he will be making until he is ready. We are helping him prepare but we are uncertain to which day we will move his baptism at this time.

This week we began a new activity with the branch that we had been wanting to try to help our members get to know those people we are teaching. Its home evening and we are going to do it each Saturday evening for the time being. The first time was very successful! It went really well, we had about 10 people come, two of them were not members of the church but people that come to English practice. The activity went really well and we had a lot of help from the members. We asked one of the sisters to share the story if how she found the church and was baptized and that was really uplifting! 

We saw a lot of people come out to the church service on Zoom yesterday! I think it was the most we have had from the branch, we were almost to 40 I think. Also the English Group was also a big success. Martin Mangwiro from Zimbabwe has made a great addition to the group and it really feels like we are building this English group up. There are people being taught in different areas of Kharkiv that don't know Russian and are progressing right now towards baptism. Hopefully we will see continue success and continued movement forward! 

We were able to set up more lessons with a few people we have been working with! And we hit our goal of finding 4 new people to teach this week which was really cool! It's amazing to see how really in all reality all the work we do is the Lord working through us! We are his missionaries and can be instruments in his hands. 

I've really enjoyed diving into the scriptures are well as the talks of leaders of the church! There is so much for us to learn if we will just seek and ask! I've enjoyed learning from the scriptures this week and pondering the words of the Prophets and Apostles. 

Exchanges!! 

It's been sad to have some of the last exchanges of my mission and realize that these are some of the last times I will be able to work with some of these wonderful missionaries! We had great exchanges this week with Elders Trounce and Olsen which were really great!!

Spiritual Thought 

There are a bunch of things that I could talk about today but I want to talk about somethings that have been on my mind! Time really does go so fast! Soon I will complete my mission and in a 2 quick years I learned so much more than I ever could've imagined! That being said not every single day is easy! And in life we do have challenges! 

We should and must always keep in mind that God gives us all things for our good. There is nothing that he gives us that we will not be able to accomplish! We must never forget that we will accomplish these challenges with His help and by His grace! We should hold tight to our hope and to our faith!! 

I'm going to add here a bunch of my favorite scriptures about these things and those of you who want a little assignment/challenge can go and read them!!

Ether 12:4

Moroni 7:25,33-34

Alma 38:5

2 Corinthians 4:17

Alright everyone!! Love you so much!! Go get em!

Elder Halls