Elder Spencer Halls

The Transfer Calls came around this week! Nothing changed in our companionship me and Elder Trounce are still gonna be serving together and now I'm our new district leader. But other than that no real big news!  This week has been a little bit crazy. We have had all types of weather on the spectrum. Super warm, crazy windy, cotton and tree pollen everywhere, light sprinkles, downpours, and one rain attack (sooo much rain...). However, despite of all that it wasn't ever really cold which was pretty nice! The unpredictable weather kinda messed with all the plans that we made this week but either way we made a good week out of it! Last week on Monday we got together with our branch mission Leader for lunch and made some tacos and played some games. That was super fun! Taco Seasoning is a treasure in the country so it is always reason to throw a little party.  Tuesday was a pretty good day! A family in the branch got sick and asked if we could come over and give them b...

Hey everyone!! Exciting news this week in Nikolaev we had a baptism, from the other Elders his name is Sasha!! He was super super prepared!  Other big events of this week we had mid transfer training in Odessa for all of us who are training/in training right now. That was super good!! I felt like there was lots of great instruction and many things that we learned, and then after that we had an exchange with the zone leaders! I was with Elder Hartmann who's from California he's got like 4 weeks left on his mission. So on Monday we hopped onto the marshrutka that was gonna take us down to Odessa and got down there to be ready for the mid transfer training the next day! We got there right around 8 and got some dominoes pizza and then headed to the other Elder's apartment. The next day we conference called in on the mid transfer training! That was really cool we all talked together over this company called zoom. It's like Skype but designed more for group calls th...

Happy Mother's Day all you Moms out there! Especially to my wonderful Mother who has done so much for me in my life!! Thank you for all of your love and for being a great blessing in my life!! Love you Mom!! We also had another holiday this week in Ukraine! Victory Day День Победы A lot of the Ukrainians took it as an opportunity to quiz me on what holiday it was as I'm an American and speak their language with a hard to hide accent. It was good to know what holiday it was and then wish them a happy holiday as well. also another holiday I personally love, fresh bread monday. It's this great tradition where we go to the store and buy really good bread по понедельникам  This week I want to just share a couple of stories!!! So first off we as the missionaries in Nikolaev have been working on this branch list of all the members. Trying to find out information on members so we can get them back to church, know how to help them best etc. etc. This week we really ...

Well one week later and the Easter Bells are still ringing constantly in the Orthodox churches. People on the street keep coming up to us to ask us which Holiday it is and why the bells are still ringing. I wish I knew the answer too haha!! But I always love it when the people walk up to us to start conversations too. Makes our job easier.  We had a pretty good week this week!! The weather was very great the sun shinning the days are getting warmer which I love! We are enjoying this nice weather before it starts to get super super extra hot haha. Most of the people we are teaching right now weren't able to meet this week so we spent a lot of the time finding (Gospel Contacting, English Contacting, Chapel Contacting, Book of Mormon Table, Finding in the Park) You name it we tried it! We actually did find one new person this week! His name is Yuri (Юрий) He's super cool! It was actually a little miracle how we found him.  This week on Friday I asked Elder Trounce where he fe...

Well to start off Happy Orthodox Easter everyone!! Haha like I mentioned last week (maybe, I forgot) Here in Ukraine they celebrate Easter a week later! It was super cool they have many cool traditions.  Everyone takes their easter food (eggs, cakes, fruits, etc.) In baskets to the outside of the church and then the Orthodox priest comes out with like a wand/broom thing and a bucket full of water and he goes and "blesses" everyone and their food. So this priest is just dipping this broom in the bucket and then flinging water over everyone and their food. That was pretty exciting to be apart of haha. We got permission to go and participate from President Wirthlin so we went to go and see how they celebrate Easter here.  Another cool thing that they do is everyone when walking on the street just says "Христос Воскрес!" (Christ is Risen!) and then you answer back "воистину воскрес!" (Truly, He is risen!) That was super cool maybe my favorite part. I...

Hello Hello everyone!! I hope Easter was super amazing. Here Easter is celebrated next week so I'll get double Easter!  It was a very eventful and busy week that is for sure! I'll kind of give you a little bit of the run down of what happened! So of course as I said last week I found out that I would be training so I of course I had to go pick up this brand new companion of mine in Dnepr! So Monday evening we got on a little bus down to Odessa and then from there took a big ole train to Dnepr over night! Got there in the morning and then I went to my old area POBEDA!  That was really cool to be back there with the trio even for just a few hours and see it all with green and leaves on the trees and all pretty looking! I did however forget to take pictures so sorry about that. Wednesday we had train the trainers which is exactly what it sounds like and that was a very good meeting! I felt like I learned so much and got very excited for this opportunity to train! ...