Week 22: Fake Appendix Problems and Tramvai Drunks

Hello!! Everyone Happy Monday from Ukraine!!

Alright so as you know from last week I'm now in a trio still on Pobeda so I've been showing my companions the ropes and the area this week but I wanted to start and tell you a little bit about them!

SO Elder Pierce he is a great missionary he's from Georgia so he's got a sweet southern accent he was a swimmer in high school and actually now he swims for BYU so he swam a year before he came out on his mission! He's just a super happy man always excited and joking around!

Elder Hansen is from New Hamphshire/Utah he lived down in Maple Mountain before he left on his mission! Really great missionary too! He's in like the Marine Corp reserves so he has all these really cool stories from boot camp and training! He's a really great man as well! So basically these two are gonna be whipping me back into just tip top physical shape and I'm gonna be eating like a champ and all is gonna be great haha!

So if you remember or if you didn't know we are the office Elders here on Pobeda so we don't just have our area and do our normal missionary work but we also are in the office serving the other missionaries in the mission as well! So since we're in the trio now we have a little different arrangement. Everyday one of us goes to the office while the other two missionaries go out and do just the normal missionary work and then at the end of the day come pick the one who was in the office back up! So it definitely makes things different and interesting.

A few crazy stories from this week to share! So Elder Hansen was having some stomach issues his very first day here on Pobeda and he just wasn't feeling great so we called Sister Wirthlin who was a nurse and she told us what she thought and we did what she recommended. Then the day passes and we call her back and give her an update on how he is feeling and that the stuff she recommended didn't really have any effect! She said she wanted him to talk to the mission doctor he called us and talks to Elder Hansen and he's thinking it could be appendicitis and that we've got to GET to the hospital FAST any way it's like 9:45 p.m at this point so we order a taxi quickly gave Elder Hansen a blessing. He asked me to give him the blessing and it was really powerful experience for me! We get to the hospital and it is a sketchy place oh my goodness if it wasn't scary enough already that you've got to be operated on add the fact that it's in an old dirty soviet union hospital with a sign on the outside saying it was build in 1798. It was quite the experience to even be there haha. Anyway Elder Hansen didn't have appendicitis actually just something viral that always gets mistaken for it and we took him home! and got to bed at about 11:30 quite the night! Glad that he is okay and doing well now he was in some big pain though there for a while!

Thursday was probably one of my most frustrating days haha we just kept having thing after thing not work out and it we were also running late to a couple meetings we had and it was just not the best haha but anyway I was kinda frustrated that we were running behind and things we're going how we had planned them and we are running to get on the tramvai and it's packed full there is no space on it and we have a meeting in 15 minutes and we have a 20 minute ride there on the tramvai so we start hustle to the next station then the next one after that until we finally get on the tramvai and I'm still just frustrated a little bit about everything and we are jammed like sardines into this tramvai and there is this just big fat man right next to me and his belly is just on me and our faces are like 5 inches apart and so I'm turning my head to the side so we aren't like just staring at each other still just kinda having a tough moment then this drunk guy asks me,

"Hey can I ask you a question." (Keep in mind he's like drunk and super hard to understand and saying sentences way strange)

And I'm like, "Yes, what's your question." (At this point I'm sweating a storm cause we just ran to the tramvai and there are people pressed against me all sides and we are just having this conversation our faces like 5 inches apart he has this massive beard by the way)

He says, "Hey what time is the groups meeting in the temple."

Me: "What groups?"

Him: "Like center and pobeda groups when are they in the temple."

Me: Super confused what he's asking, "Sorry I don't understand your question"

Him: Are you in Pobeda or Center?"

Then I finally understood he just wanted to know when church was haha! Any way just the situation and him asking a such a reasonable question like that and how crazy the day had been it was good to have a little moment when I just could laugh and realize that you know that's just missionary work and I can't let it get to me! Haha love the work it's always exciting!!

In a trio contacting on the street is definitely way different! a group of 3 coming up on just one guy is kinda a lot so we've been trying out different things out and we've settled on the two out in front with the one missionary in the back that kind of just pretends he's a normal person unless he's need in the conversation haha anyways it's definitely a lot different working in a trio but we are figuring it out and doing what we can to effectively work!

We talked to soooo many people this week it was really great! We are keeping the work going! I know that as we continue to strive we will see more and more success in the work! We have some meetings lined up this week and I hope to have some great stories of success to tell you all!!

I wanted to just talk today about how important it is that we stand in holy places! Which we all know can be anywhere! But really the principle is that it's so important we are always in the mindset and doing the things that allow the spirit to be with us! As we live close to that spirit we have all of God's divine help and assistance he can offer us and he will help us through any trial or challenge! That I know to be true!!

Love you all and hope you are doing so well!

Elder Halls