Week 36: Easter Bells and Bush dwellers

Well one week later and the Easter Bells are still ringing constantly in the Orthodox churches. People on the street keep coming up to us to ask us which Holiday it is and why the bells are still ringing. I wish I knew the answer too haha!! But I always love it when the people walk up to us to start conversations too. Makes our job easier. 

We had a pretty good week this week!! The weather was very great the sun shinning the days are getting warmer which I love! We are enjoying this nice weather before it starts to get super super extra hot haha. Most of the people we are teaching right now weren't able to meet this week so we spent a lot of the time finding (Gospel Contacting, English Contacting, Chapel Contacting, Book of Mormon Table, Finding in the Park) You name it we tried it! We actually did find one new person this week! His name is Yuri (Юрий) He's super cool! It was actually a little miracle how we found him. This week on Friday I asked Elder Trounce where he felt we should go contacting as we had a couple hours of gospel contacting planned. He felt that we should try a certain road on the map. So that's where we headed. However, we hopped on a wrong marshrutka and I quickly realized we were heading to the wrong destination. We end up riding a little further and getting out at a spot that was familiar to me. About 5 weeks ago me and Elder Pedersen had come to this spot and I had only been to this spot this one time before. I remember when we were there 5 weeks ago I'd felt guided to there but didn't really feel like as we were contacting anything really happened. Until this week. Because I had been to this place before, rather than being lost I knew where we were and where to go to get to the spot that we had originally planned to contact. So that is the direction we headed. Contacting along the way we ran into this man Yuri! He is an older gentleman but super humble and prepared. He has problems with his throat so he talks super deep and low which sounds like it hurts him which makes me sad. He wasn't able to make it to Sacrament meeting because he was sick this week but he started reading and wants to meet some time this week so that's awesome!! 

We had like a huge flash rain storm for like 10 minutes out of nowhere that was really cool. It was coming down pretty crazy actually then it was over. My old friend lightning even came to say hi.

This week we left one morning to go and start contacting and as we walked past this bush we saw that there was a person lying under it. That was very interesting I hope he's doing okay now. 

Danny and Bitchu made it to church this week. I don't know how much they got out of it because they don't speak Russian and they wouldn't let me translate for them! But we were happy to have them there with us! The little primary kids liked to bring their toys to Bitchu and he would hold them and he seemed to enjoy playing with all the little kids. I'm glad they also welcomed him to the branch!

Their is not an awful lot to report this week on the happenings. It was good I feel like I'm learning so much! I'm filled constantly with further desire and hope and I know that we are going to get the ball rolling here in Nikolaev! Keep working hard! There is many blessings and much joy for us in the work.

This week I have been watching some of the conference talks that I have missed in the past little while and I wanted to share a quote that I really enjoyed from one talk specifically from the talk "Hearing His Voice" by Elder David P. Homer  "we have learned that answers are sometimes slow to come. This can be because it is not the right time, because an answer is not needed, or because God trusts us to make the decision ourselves. Elder Richard G. Scott once taught that we should be grateful for such times and made this promise: “When you are living worthily and your choice is consistent with the Savior’s teachings and you need to act, proceed with trust. … God will not let you proceed too far without a warning impression if you have made the wrong decision."
God will give us all the direction that we require but in the large part he trusts us to make good decisions and do what is right. When the promptings do come we must always be ready and prepared to act and do as the Lord invites/directs  

Love you!
Elder Halls 



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