Week 40: 4 week old juice

Alright everyone another week has come and gone and it's time to tell you a little bit about how this week went for us! Time is cruising!

This weeks I've got a couple of good stories for you!

A Juice Box Miracle

To fully grasp this story we need to send it back to about 5 weeks ago. But actually first you got to know some background knowledge about Ukraine. In Ukraine the juice industry is healthy. Very very healthy, there are sooooo many kinds. Multi-Fruit, Multi-Vitamin, Banana-Apple, Blueberry-Apple, Banana, Pineapple, Peach-White Grape, Pineapple-Apple. The combinations are endless I don't think I can try all the different flavors in the amount of time I have. Then on top of that there are even a plethora of different brands, sizes of boxes, sometimes the juice even varies. For example, one day your Multi-Vitamin might be a little more appley than normal, or maybe there's some extra banana... Sometimes we even mix juices -- you of course have to be careful.

While the task to try all the juices seems impossible, me and Elder Trounce have taken it upon ourselves to find the greatest of all the juices. (Side Note: Elder Trounce's as of now is Pineapple-Apple, but he still searches on. I personally prefer a mix of banana and mango.) In this search 5 weeks ago we tried to take a go on the Pomegranate-Apple juice. We made two mistakes. First off this juice isn't super good which we now know. Second off, we bought the biggest sized juice box! So we drank some of it but got tired of it fast and left it in the fridge and forgot about it.

Now fast forward 4 weeks later. Tuesday morning I'm cooking up some breakfast. I open up the fridge and something smells kinda strange but I got other things on my mind so I don't think anything of it. Now fast forward to dinner time. We had just finished a super awesome contacting session that went super well- we got a couple numbers and some new people to teach! We hurried back home to eat dinner before English Practice. We open the fridge and the smell is worse and I start looking around and I see the POMEGRANATE-APPLE JUICE long forgotten. It's bulging in its box like a balloon and the juice that is now fermented into wine is all over the fridge. The cleaning up kinda threw off our dinner plans so we decided to switch to shwarma (Middle Eastern Burrito) for dinner. We headed out onto the street again and on the way to the shwarma stand this man Andrei stopped us! We talked to him and he turns out to be super interested in meeting and hearing more of our message!!

It was such a miracle to see that through things like a mess in our fridge because of bad juice and not having enough time to make our dinner put us in the right place and the right time to meet Andrei! I know that as missionaries the Lord is always guiding us! Even in the things that seem little and small!

ICE CREAM

Everyone in this country loves ice cream. At least I think. I guess everyone everywhere likes Ice cream though. However, people here are just more upfront about their ice cream love. In America we only express our love for ice cream indoors amongst friends and family. Sometimes we even enjoy ice cream by ourselves alone at night in secret. I myself am a culprit as well as my littlest sister Cydnee. In Ukraine it is almost the opposite. As soon as the sun gets high and hot in the sky it's already ice cream time. Everyone is eating some. We all walk the streets together ice cream bar, or cone, or even sandwich in hand. This week I got asked by a man I had just barely met to come and sit down with him over ice cream. It brings us together we share the love of our ice cream in this country. I think we can take some lessons from these Ukrainians, I know I have.

Empty Streets

Saturday was some sort of holiday, however we had no idea which one. In Ukraine there are soooo many holidays, they're always looking for an excuse to celebrate. We'll be walking on the street and someone will wish us a holiday and we will have no idea it was even a holiday. So Saturday was one of these days, a holiday we didn't know or understand. However we didn't begin the day with this knowledge. We start contacting walking around and there is no one on the street! We go to the park, no one. Try a usually busy street no one. Finally we decide to check out the center street. and we found where everyone was. Kids running everywhere, so many people you can't navigate. Firefighters. Relays. Ice Cream. You name it. It was at that moment we knew they were celebrating. Now the question was what! We eventually figured out it was Детский праздник which means, "children's holiday" Go figure.

Teaching

This week we had another lesson with Tatyana! She's continues to amaze me! She might just have the busiest schedule I have ever heard of but she always manages to be so happy whenever we see her and she somehow finds time to meet with us as well. We taught her about the Holy Ghost and how we can receive our answers! It was super great! We had awesome members on the lesson and it all went really well! She really wants this in her life. She just needs to makes some time!!

Spiritual Thought

This week we talked to a man on the street, he was drunk at the time but he came up to us and asked if he could talk to us. Of course we said he could. He asked us to tell him something about God. I told him that God is our Heavenly Father, and that He loves us and that we are His children. He told me that God can't love him because he's made so many mistakes. We testified to him that it's never too late to change. I know that our Heavenly Father loves us so much that he is never far away. He invites us to turn to him. To change, repent and to come home to him! This gospel is the path it is the way! I know that we can do it. While this man didn't take any immediate action from after our conversation it strengthened my testimony in the reality of our message and this doctrine. We are sons and daughters of God. He loves us and has provided a way for us to return to him. He will help us along the path. We can return to him. He can strengthen us and bless us and we can receive a fullness of joy and exaltation!

Love you all! Have an awesome week!! Read those scriptures!

Elder Halls