Week 71: Jumping on the transfer bus

Alright everyone! This is Elder Halls coming to you live from Dnipro!! 

My Dnipro days have once again come to a close and my mantel of Assistanthood has been transferred onto the shoulders of another and now I will go to walk in the footsteps of my Father Elder Rodgerson and spend my days as a Zone Leader in Kharkiv. With Elder Payne. I can't think of a greater honor. I think deeply of the great missionaries before me who have served in Kharkiv Center and who have brought about such great a work there. We have long awaited this day... great things are about to happen in Kharkiv

This week was really good! And then a little sad but all in all really good!!

We were supppppeeerrr busy!! I don't think I have had busier weeks. But what a way to go out ;) We had a meeting almost everyday and the days that we didn't have meetings we had exchanges! So needless to say we stayed on our toes in about all that we did. But that kept things really exciting!
We had a lesson with Vitali this week that was really good! he really started to open up and we were able to better understand where he is at with everything that we have been teaching him! He really enjoys coming to church and always feels great peace when he is there with us! He's been having a hard time reading the Book of Mormon so we showed him the nifty new Book of Mormon videos and he watched all of them in one night hahah! Now he understands a lot better what is going on and he is able to follow along a little better when he is reading! 

We also had a lesson with Dima which went really well! Brother Kazachkov was on the lesson and that was really good! He testified about his baptism and how he found the church after searching for a pretty long time and that really brought in the spirit! We talked about Dima's baptism and got everything set up for that week the time the close all that jazz! 

We also had 2 exchanges this week. I was with Elder Cottam here in Center and we had a really great exchange together! We worked really hard and found a bunch of people who were interested to know more!! It's such a testimony to me everyday how as we exercise our faith the Lord guides us to those who are prepared to learn more about the gospel. Or even to those people who just need to feel a little bit more of God's love for them in their lives.

This week we had a special mission video call where the composer Alan Williams called in from California and talked with us about music and his experience composing the music for the Book of Mormon videos! It was really uplifting! I never realized how much inspiration and thought and prayers go into the writing of some of this music and the producing of the Church's media! 

I went to Red Rock for an Exchange with Elder Mason and that went really great! We worked hard together! He is a really good missionary straight out of Oregon. We entered many apartment homes in search of members of the church and we found places where there are no longer members of the church. But on the bright side we were able to find some people interested to learn some more!

On Saturday we were all prepared for the baptism and just one thing didn't work out! Dima didn't show up!! Ahh haha I don't know how that was possible but it happened. He was at church on Sunday though so don't worry. He will be baptized soon I'm sure it's all just going to be contigent on him having time to come! 

Sunday was sad to say good bye to all the members! I'm excited to go and serve in Kharkiv but it was sad to say goodbye to all of the wonderful members here in Dnipro! I had the opportunity to speak and share some thoughts which went good! 

Spiritual Thought
This week we had a special opportunity to go and visit brother Yuri who broke his hip. We went to the hospital to go and give him a blessing and it was a very spiritual moment. I think there were many different ways my testimony grew that day. I more deeply understood what it means to be a minister. I understood more deeply the love of God for all his children, I more deeply understood the peace and joy the gospel brings amidst all strife, and I deeply understood the reality of the restoration of priesthood power here on the Earth! We have been blessed by the gospel in so many ways! And what a wonderful responsibility and opportunity we have to share it!!

I'm hoping on the bus later today to Kharkiv at 1 wish me luck!!
Elder Halls






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 20 Winter Wonderland

Image
Hello family and friends! I hope you all had a great week this past week wherever in the world you are right now! This week was really great for me! I'm learning so much and growing more and more into the work!  IT IS GETTING COLD!! Saturday I remember walking outside and I think I shed a little tear of sadness because I had thought we were on our way back to warmer weather but that is just not the case. I think it won't be warming up even just a little bit any time soon haha. This week it snowed sooo much. Pretty much everyday! It's hard to tell how much because when you are living in a city of 1 million people and everyone walks everywhere it just gets all compressed down on the sidewalk, then after that turns into ice. People fall all the time its funny but also sometimes really sad! Lets just say we've had a lot of opportunities recently to serve Dnepr's older folks :)  Another cool things with all the snow is that usually all the moms in the city take ...
Read more

Week 23: I promise we aren't thieves

Image
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 grat...
Read more

Week 97: Igor's ready!

Image
Hello everyone!! This has been a really eventful and productive week! The biggest part of it I would say has been our teaching of Igor. I've grown to love this brother deeply! We quickly went through all the lessons. Most things he already remembered but there were a lot of other things that we were able to remind him and help him with and that was really good. Things like the Priesthood and the Sacrament. I felt that the spirit was a big help when we prayed to know what we should focus on as we worked with him. There were small and simple promptings that came that we then followed and felt good about. It's amazing to me to see the peace that he feels as he prepares for his baptism. He's very grateful for the work and things we have been doing to help him prepare for his baptism and also get his baptismal service ready and planned. He will be baptized this Saturday. We have been able to talk about everything with the branch leaders and we should have a great baptismal ...
Read more