Week 46 Blessed

Hello everyone!! This week was a super good one for us! I hope you all had a good week too!! We saw so many tender mercies and learned so many good lessons it was just packed with hard work, joy, and happiness!

Being a missionary is such a blessing! 

"now, behold, I say unto you, that the thing which will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me," -D&C 16:6

I'm so grateful for my opportunity to serve and help others however the Lord needs me to!

Vova

This week on Pday we got together with our branch mission leader, Vova he's awesome! He loves doing stuff with us and he's such a good help and support to the missionaries he is awesome. He also really appreciates good food! He loves peanut butter, brownies, tacos, and a bunch more. Those things are just hard to get here so on Pday we got our hands on some taco seasoning and cooked that up and played some games together it was super fun! 

Exchange

So one monday night we had the Zone Leaders take the two and a half hour drive from Odessa on up to Nikolaev so that they could come do an exchange with us! It was super great! I was with Elder Hamzawi which was really cool because we've done many exchanges together because he was my district leader back in my days on Pobeda so that was really fun to be back with him and see how we've both changed and grown as missionaries. It was honestly one of my most favorite days of my mission which is really crazy because we didn't have anything to do all day except contacting so we contacted for about 8 hours in total and it was really good! We had so many opportunities and moments with people on the streets to teach and testify of truth. While not everyone was ready to start meeting or take lessons the spirit was undeniable and my testimony of the power of truth was really strengthened. 

Our Best friend Zakaria!

I love this man, We met with 2 times this week and its such a miracle to be able to see his growth in his understanding and faith and all that! The first time we met with him we talked to him about baptism and more about what he needs to do to be ready for it! It was really good he understood all that was asked of him and was ready and will to strive to do all he needs to do.

Then the second time we met with him we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked about faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end! It was a really powerful meeting and the spirit was very strong! He wasn't able to make it to church this week but he is still progressing well. 

Good little stories

We were out contacting and talking to people just walking along the path in this one spot and this little girl runs up to us with this homeade bouqet of flowers picked from probably someones garden. But anyways super adorable right and she says, "вы не хотите купить букетик?" (for all you non Russian speakers that means, "Do you want to buy a bouqet." she goes on to tell us that it's only 10 hryvnia which is like 30 cents. So of course Elder Trounce and I buy this little bouqet and then we continued on our way! 

About two hours before the bouqet we were on a bus traveling out to this different part of the city 15 minutes away or so and Elder Trounce sat down next to this lady. Svetlana. She started asking him all these questions and Elder Trounce told her gladly of course about the Book of Mormon and church the whole 10 yards. She was so excited about it all she missed her stop so she shouts to the driver stop and the next stop and gets to the front and says basically to everyone, "мы уже проехали мою остановку, но я встретила Американцев там в задней"

("we already passed my stopped but I met some Americans in the back there." At this moment everyone in the bus turns around and looks at us. Haha it was super funny a couple Other older ladies waved back at us and a man stood and shook our hands haha. It was super funny stuff like that always makes us laugh! 

Spiritual Thought!

This week I read/listened to a talk by Edward Dube titled, "Look Ahead and Believe" It's a really good one and he's got the coolest accent so that is a bonus. But anyways he shared a good story that I love that really applies to me in my mission at this moment. I'll let him explain the story, 

"While I was a boy working in the fields with my mother, she taught me one of the most important lessons in life. It was late in the morning, the sun was up, and we had been hoeing for what I thought to be a very long time. I stopped to look back at what we had accomplished and said to my mother, "Look at all we have done!" Mother did not respond. Thinking that she had not heard me, I repeated what I had said a little louder. She still did not reply. Raising my voice a little higher, I repeated again. Finally, she turned to me and said, "Edward, never look back. Look ahead at what we still have to do.""

I love Elder Dube's talk he gives about looking ahead. In life we will overcome much we will grow so much! We will make mistakes do this not as good as we hoped for there will be goods and bads, highs and lows. Many things. We have been sent to earth to learn and grow if we only live in the past and never look forward. We will find ourselves held up on our mistakes the things we didn't give our all. Maybe we'll even get caught up on the good times we had and wonder why the now can't be as good as the then.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, "The past is to be learned from and not lived in." As we learned from our past and strive forward in faith to the brighter future we will achieve our goals we will add to our joy! Our faith can lead us always to a brighter future.

Love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Elder Halls

Tacos!

Sunset

Zakaria