Week 90: To all ma' fam' n' friens'

This week was very great! I learned so many wonderful things.

The Week
This week we had some great successes in finding! It's been miraculous to me to see how we are all finding in different ways. Some have had great success on Facebook others have received many referrals from ads and or members and various places. But the pattern is the same throughout if we have the righteous desire to teach and the willingness to work hard and follow the Lord's guidance we will have many opportunities! For us we have found great success in our Area Book and other old contacts that is how we've found the vast majority of those we are teaching. This week we were able to begin teaching 5 new brothers! I've reflected a lot upon desire and one verse that really hit me was Alma 29:4 "I ought not to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire," Thanks to the Atonement we can change our hearts and our desires and we can get to the point where our desires are righteous and in line with the Lord's will much like we see with Nephi in the Book of Mormon.

Another highlight of this week was a discussion me and Elder Stosich had on our exchange. Throughout my mission me and Elder Stosich have served closely together in our various assignments and this has led to us having many opportunities to have exchanges and I feel that they're always so spiritually uplifting and so many great thoughts and feelings are always shared and this time was no different! We talked a lot about prayers, honesty, and desire and this discussion really taught the both of us so much and opened our eyes to many things we can do better.

A highlight for me this week was to see how Dima spoke in our Zoom Sacrament Meeting. This was the first time he has been assigned to speak and he did a great job! He talked about how he is preparing to serve a mission and he shared a powerful testimony. He really enjoyed the youth and YSA activity and talked about how he learned so much. I feel so blessed to have taken apart of Dima's conversion process which has endeared him to me for eternity! I know we will always be close brothers through Christ and I'm excited for his long life of activity ahead of him. He was able to help us on a lesson this week! He is going to be a very experienced missionary by the time he gets out in the field because he is constantly willing to help us.

We have been trying to work with some of the returning members in our branch and this week I've talked a couple times with one of the Youth Vanya who was baptized about 2 years ago now. We haven't been able to do a lesson with him because he doesn't have a proper telephone but we have been able to speak by the phone and it has been good to get to know him and build a friendship there! It really is so critical we really hope to be able to meet with him soon.

Rainy Days 
Okay so one day we set out on a big adventure. We've kinda be missing the days of contacting 8 hours on the street as we've been in our apartments and so one day we decided to hit the streets and try and contact/make phone calls and we figured it be a really good use of our time! For the first half of the day it really was! We called a bunch of people and it was fun to be enjoying the sunshine and we had no worries in the world. That'll be the first picture. Soon we realized that our joyful walk was in for a turn as we turned around and saw this picture... haha we were already not super close to our apartment and it was already too late to go back so we continued forward. Eventually the rain caught up to us which made for a fun muddy adventure haha. (The remaining pictures) We made it home wet and tired and it was a good adventure. (I will add it will never compare to the rain I experienced in Nikolaev with my beloved son Elder Trounce: I'll include a flashback pic ;) haha) 

Dima gave us some honey through Nova Poshta and I've never met better honey all my life wow! 

Spiritual Thought 
For the past few weeks as a district we have had the  goal to work on various attributes of Jesus Christ as listed in Preach My Gospel. This week our attribute was knowledge! I think learning is something that I've always enjoyed and growing and becoming better has always been something that I've really valued but I think only on my mission have I realized how important that it is! 

Doctrine and Covenants 131:6 teaches us something powerful, "6 It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance." And something I read not long ago from a talk by Elder Bruce R. McConkie really added to this verse he said, "There is no salvation in believing a false doctrine." And I've realized this week just how important it is that we show and exercise faith in order to learn and gain more knowledge about Heavenly Father, His nature, the Restored Gospel, and continuing revelation. I have such a desire to learn and grow and help others gain the knowledge that they need in order to be blessed with Salvation and eventually Exaltation. I'd encourage you all to constantly study the scriptures! Learn and ponder what you're learning the Spirit will lead and guide you as you do so!! 





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