Hello All!! Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and was able to spend time with their families and enjoy some good food! As well as think about all the many things that we have been blessed with! I hope we all recognize where it is that all those blessings come from and that being our Loving Heavenly Father!
This was a pretty normal week! I don't want to say it was not exciting because that wouldn't be true missionary work is always exciting and important and I'm loving it but I just say it's not super exciting because I don't have any super cool stories for you and we weren't able to teach any lessons at all! BUT! I still learned so many great spiritual lessons and had a great week as well!
We've been trying to meet with the guy we met from the Ivory Coast for the past two weeks and he's been dipping us repeadetly, but he always calls us and tells us some excuse and that he wants to meet again so we set up another appointment but it has been three times in a row that we've met with him and he has not showed up so we're a little frustrated but still really hopeful that he will meet with us because he's such an awesome guy!!
We met with a lot of members and LA's this week because we didn't have any people to teach and that has actually been really great! We were at the Поляков Polyakovs again this weeks and taught them this object lesson where you put pepper in water and then dish soap in the middle and all the pepper gets pushed out and it's clean in the middle. That went really well and the kids really liked it and I think it helped them understand better how repentance and the atonement work! We wrote sin on the pepper shaker in Russian as well as the Atonement on the Soap and so that was really funny I wish I had a video or something of the lesson it was super aweosome! But I'll send the picture haha I have lots this week!
We also met with Alex this week (Before I continue the story quick thing about peoples names here... So everyone like everyone has like one of a few names: Сергей (Sergey), Саша (Sasha), Игор (Igor), Иван (Ivan), Влад (Vlad). Like legit I know about 10 of each of those so I'm expecting that somewhere down the road there will be some confusion at who I'm talking about it's just bound to happen. In the phone it makes it really hard to differentiate one Sasha from another so we put discription words next to them like they're last names or something. For example, there is Sasha Prepared, Sergey Athiest, Sasha Cat. Differently things like that.) Anyways, we met with Alex this week he is a member that we're trying to get to start coming back to church! He's an awesome guy loves the missionaries and the branch he just always says he's to busy doesn't have the times or what not. Well this week we invited him to church again and he said he was busy had to prep a lot of lessons for this English class he teaches but he wanted to come and he'd think about it. He didn't end up coming and then as we were leaving the church on one of the Marshutkas we see him with this girl. It was like we were back in high school or something again and one of the buddies was ditching us for his girlfriend haha! It's all good though we'll get him to church I'm sure!
Sunday was an adventure for me! So I usually play the piano at church unless this sister is there sometimes she will play! But, she wasn't this week so I picked the hymns and I was all ready then this sister walks up to me says something in Russian I don't quite understand I got some of it thought like, "Accompany... music... this song... can you?" So I say I can try and I play the opening and sacrament hymn go and sit down cause I'm not sure when the musical number is gonna be. Then it comes and I play it doesn't go great because I'm not awesome at just sight reading stuff. Sit back down. Then Branch President announces another musical number and I'm thinking wait a minute... what is going on? So I eventually figure out it's our little branches primary program and I'm playing all these songs for them to sing oh man it was stressful!! But I made it through stayed calm with the help of prayer and played pretty well! That's my little miracle for the week!!
I wanted to share a little spiritual thought in conclusion as usual with all of you! I have realized how important members are in missionary work this week! I know that helping the missionaries and missionary work talking to people about the gospel and sharing what you know can be scary sometimes but I know that it's important that we do! We have this great gift of the gospel in our lives and as our testimony of it grows we are bound to realize how this great gift can help everyone!! I would challenge all of you this Christmas season to look for some opportunities to be a missionary whether that entails sharing your testimony with someone or inviting them to church or to meet with missionaries, While that would be awesome I realize that is scary but if you can do that great!! I would challenge you to at least do something share a scripture to someone you think might need it! Share a treat and a little Christmas story about the Savior there are so many easy and none scary ways to invite people in little ways to come unto to Christ!! Be thinking of what you can do! I'd love to hear about your experiences!!
Love,
Elder Halls
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| Orthodox Temple |
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| Me, Elder Rodgerson, and Elder Guarteche all have the exact same coat in different colors |
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| Our little sins pepper and Atonement Soap |
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| This is how Ice cream comes here in weird sausage looking tubes |
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That is a Tramvai so a lot like Trax back home!
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| Haircut. I don't know the haircut words in Russian, so it ended up super short |
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| Our first snow! Out the apartment window |
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