Week 81: Press Forward!

Hello family and friends! I'm glad to have the opportunity to write to you all each week and tell you a little bit about the Lord's work out in the Eastern Ukraine part of the Vineyard.

This week we kept ourselves busy calling contacts and members and a few other things as well so I guess I'll just jump right in and tell you about it!

Calls
So on my phone there are about 800 contacts not to mention all the other contacts that are in the Area Book. But some of these contacts are from months and even years ago. Before we even had smartphones so who knows how long they have been contacts and I've made it my task to call everyone. Usually we set some time to get working through our contacts and right now I have called at least one time about half! So it's been going good. We've been able to set up some lessons from that actually which has been really cool! None of those people are quite progressing yet but it's been successful so we'll continue. We also make calls to members and share with them spiritual thoughts which is always great!! 

Family History!!
We've been receiving a little bit of family history training each week from one of the missionary couples that has since gone home and is back in Utah and this has been super cool! If any of you are just sitting at home and don't have a lot to do! вот, something you can do to make good use of your time! It's been really cool. I've found some good documents and even added in a couple of new people into my family tree this week so missionary work continues on both sides of the vail! 

Teaching! 
We continue to teach and work with different people and right now we are working with 3 people who I am really excited about! We finally got back in touch with Dmitry who was on date for this Saturday. We are going to have to move his date because we aren't gonna be able to finish the lessons in time. He went on a trip back home to Donetsk before the borders closed and it's been hard to contact him because the internet service there isn't super great! So a little bit of a challenge but no big worries now that we are back in good contact. His family has been a really big support. His brother and uncle are members of the church and they are just awesome so he is in good hands! It's been a little rough the last couple of weeks for him but we are now back in business.
We also began to start teaching again someone from the area book his name is Diao! He used to live in China and is now studying here in Ukraine! He's awesome. He has a good desire to learn more about God and find out in the first place if God really even is there! We had a great lesson with him where we talked a lot about faith! that was really great!! We will continue to work with him and gave him some good chapters to study.
We also began teaching Ivan! Ivan has a really cool story because he doesn't even live in Ukraine but we started teaching him this week! Soooo most of you might know Sister Feldman! Maybe you don't but anyways she's serving in Oregon! And they found a man there that speaks Russian and not much English. They haven't been able to teach him or find someone who can speak Russian to teach him either. So Sister Feldman reached out to me and we were able to connect with him through WhatsApp and do a first lesson this week!! Super cool!! He's from Ukraine and he's an awesome man! We had a really great lesson with him and the spirit there was really strong! Hopefully he will continue to progress well!

Working with Members.
We made a couple videos with our sisters to show the members what we are doing as apartment-based missionaries and how they can contribute to missionary work as they are spending the majority of their time in their apartments as well! It was fun to make some videos and teach a little and share some thoughts! From what the members said they really liked our videos and I hope they really helped! We've taken this time to really make an effort to strengthen and support the branch and help them press forward in doing missionary work!! We had a couple of lessons with Dima as well! He is really thriving at this time and the branch just loves him so that is great news!! 

Exciting things
This week I made some brownies, they were really good! I also made some pizza which was really good too!! We also made some other foods that don't really deserve mention. Except a quick shoutout to Elder Hong who gave us 4 bags of Wontons when he left to go back home. They're super good! I'm also learning how to knit! (Actually no I'm kidding) We have enough things to do to stay busy! We do most of our work from the balcony which is actually way nice because the weather is a champ right now. 

Spiritual Thought!
Now that I've let you all know what I've been up to! I'm grateful for the opportunity to share with you my testimony as well as an invitation! 

As many of you know this week we will have General Conference!! I hope you are all very excited! I know we are here!! It'll be a super special conference and I'm certain we will learn much from our marvelous leaders in the church. I hope you all make it a priority to listen and tune in! 
In D&C 45 it speaks much of the iniquity of the world that we will see in the last days and it speaks of many things that will happen but I love what is says about the Saints and Disciples of Jesus Christ! 
verse 32
32 But my disciples shall astand in holy places, and shall not be moved;  
Amongst uncertainty we have the opportunity to continue to stand in holy places and rely upon the Lord! He is very aware of us and watches over us! We can be certain of that. We will find peace and joy as we rely upon him! We need not be afraid because we have Prophets and Apostles that are leading and guiding us! We have the opportunity to make our homes these Holy Places at this time! As we live and focus on what is important we will find that we are built upon a firm and solid foundation! We will discover many blessings that we have been given! Rely upon the Lord!! "Look unto Me in every thought; doubt not, fear not" I hope we all press forward in faith trusting on the Lord and his time! He will lead and guide us and give us all of the assistance that we require!

Love you SO much!!
Elder Halls
Teaching Ivan

Quarantine haircut


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