Week 23: I promise we aren't thieves

Привет всем!!! Это я Старейшина Халлс все хорошо у меня!

Another week is here in the books in Dnepr, Ukraine, we are all doing good the ice is melting off of the ground and it's getting warmer which I am very excited about! However I still think that it is just the weather deceiving us and it's about to get even colder than I thought was possible... But there is always hope maybe winter is on the outs early this year in Ukriane! посмотрим!

This week has been pretty good for me!! I felt like I've had so many great experiences and learned a lot as well!! I think I'll just go right in!

Tuesday we have this weekly things where we go over to this members house and help here grandson out with some English help and then we also do a lesson! Her grandson and her son are not members but they come to church sometimes! this week was our third week there but it was the first time that Zhenya stayed and listened to our lesson which was really exciting! We are super grateful for the opportunity we've got to teach and I hope all goes well and he starts reading the book of Mormon and progressing! I also helped out with this math problem Zhenya had been having trouble with which was really interesting to do in Russian but it was way fun hadn't done something like that in a while!

Wednesday was my day in the office we've got a daily rotation going where one of us in the trio spends a day working in the office while the other two are out on the street doing the normal missionary work! It's has been working out pretty well and been keeping all of us effective which has been really good! On my day in the office I was working on this missionary roster excel spreadsheet that someone made a while back and it's some extravagently arranged thing super difficult to understand with these huge formulas connecting all of the sheets haha. Anyway that's what I spent the whole day trying to work on figuring out and it ending up working a lot better and I actually learned a ton about excel haha. Still more excel work to be done which isn't the most exciting but it's actually a huge help to Elder and SIster Crisp the office couple!

Thursday I was off on an exchange to Kamianske with Elder Hamsawi and that was really great!! We found and talked to so many people there gave a bunch of Book of Mormon's and got some exciting contacts as well! Super cool! One of those people they already have an appointment with! On Friday there in Kamianske there was this really cool experience where this guy he passed me on my right right as we were finishing a convo with this other person on the street but I really felt like I out to talk to him! So I turned and stopped him and he wasn't really with him but it turns out he was walking with his Mom (or maybe wife) but anyways I asked him if he was a religious person and he said kind of and then his Mom/Wife turned and said yes we are Orthodox and then after that we talked with her for quite some time and she was way interested took a book of Mormon and said she'd come to church on Sunday! It was a huge testimony builder on heading those promptings!

Friday night I got back from Kam and we had district council and then a game night in the branch building and those both went really well! We had one guy from our English practice come to the church for game night so that was super exciting! We are going to start and try to work with him!

Saturday I tried L'viv Croissants and it was amazing! I wish we had them in America cause they're super good! And it's super cheap cause that's just how everything is here it was like this way yummy fancy sandwhich for $1.50 Us three all ate this meal and kept it under $5 that was the best part of all haha!

We talked to so many people this week and really have just been working hard to find people spent a lot of time just contacting on the street and we talked to a bunch of people and it was really successful in meeting and finding we are just now working on turning all those people into investigators!

Sunday was great we had a meeting with this young guy who is 7th day adventist and it didn't quite go how we planned and it was hard to share our message but we should be able to meet with him another time and talk about the Restoration!

Wanted to include a little story as well from this week! Soooo Saturday night we got back to Pobeda from the branch at like 8:50 so we were hurrying to get home but then we remember we needed to get some money out of the ATM before we were in for the night so we start walking towards the ATM and there is this lady using it at the moment but we just keep walking towards it cause we want to use it next right... Anyway we get closer and this lady sees three of us walking up towards her at the ATM and she thinks we are going to rob her or something so she starts screaming. "STOP!! DONT MOVE!! STAY RIGHT THERE! NO FURTHER!" and she's just yelling at us and stuff, "PLEASE STAY RIGHT THERE" So needless to say we got out of there quickly. It hurt a little bit that she thought we would try and steal from her it was definitely a little awkward for us for sure haha. ahhh.

Spiritual thought!! This week I really notices more than every how the Atonement not only allows us to overcome our sins and live again and be resurrected but it allows us to change to become better people! As we set goals and try to improve the person that we with the Lord's help he poors out so many blessings upon us and as we strive to follow him and become better he helps us and we don't only change and grow but those attributes of Christ become apart of us! Who we are as a person and what an amazing blessing that is!!

Love you all keep doing wonderful things!!
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Elder Spencer Halls