End of the adventure

FAMILY!!!!!!

   He guys...So as many of you may or may not be aware, I'M COMING HOME ON WEDNESDAY!!!!!  I can't describe the bittersweet feelings that I have right now, but all those who have served a mission can understand.  Yesterday was was so tender.  My brothers from Africa threw a party for me and held almost a testimony meeting about how they have appreciated my coming here. I still have one full day tomorrow so I can't say that I'm done so I'm going to continue to work hard.  I leave on a night train tonight that takes off at 10:15 pm and will arrive in Donetsk at 5:50am tomorrow where I will have my final interview with President Campero.  I don't even know what to think, but I know that I worked hard.  I look forward to seeing you in the NEAR future!!   Have a great day and a half. :)

--
- Старейшина Руни

Best Week Yet!

Hey family!

   Thanks for your letters guys; it’s been great hearing from you all. I had such a crazy week. It was way good though.  Its weird being the oldest one out here but it’s been really cool to see where I was and where I am now. It’s slowly starting to hit me that my mission with a name tag will not be for the rest of my life but I am excited to continue on through my life. There is honestly nothing greater than serving others. It had been BLIZZARDING lately and it is NOT supposed to do that in spring haha, but today after the wind stopped blowing, it was just so beautiful.  I'm excited for the time when I can sit down and look at all the beautiful EVERYTHING that God has given me. My companion and I are KILLING it. We just blew our results from last transfer out of the water and it feels so good to know that I'm truly trying to stay focused to the end I have one of my old companions in my area now it’s been too fun to be around him again.  I have now been in this area for 7 MONTHS.  It’s crazy!! It’s going to be hard to leave my family out here, but I know that it be so easy to receive you guys back.  I had a really special experience this week that I will always remember. It was about prayer. During personal study, I learned a little about prayer and how we should pray and what our actions should be in connection with our prayers.  I read about how all things are fulfilled by faith and how b/c of the faith of Alma and his prayers, an angel appeared to his son.  Eventually his son's heart was changed. So I decided that I needed to pray with more faith that God can do anything, even soften a hardened heart. I had an investigator in mind (Sasha)  when I was praying, but as with most things, God's ways are different than my ways. So as the week progressed, I continued to pray for a changed heart of our investigators. Well, we have one investigator named Oleg that I don't like meeting with b/c he is super smart and knows the Bible way well and always asked questions that are impossible to answer and have absolutely nothing to do with our salvation...so our lessons go nowhere with him.  So we ended up getting a lesson with him at the branch and the spirit was there and he for the first time, just sat and listened.  He soaked everything up and seemed to really accept what was taught. It was truly a miracle. I know that God heard my prayer and we were just blessed enough to see blessings that came from that. Also, we met with Jehovah’s Witness....those lessons always drain me.  But this one was cool, in the sense that the spirit led us in our teaching. I witnessed weak missionaries confound the wise all b/c we were trying to listened to the spirit. I felt the Spirit work through me while asking questions to help them understand the need for a prophet and the Restored Gospel. Feeling the Spirit working through you is one of life's most sublime experiences, at least for me here on a mission where we strive to diligently to always have that with us. 

I have to go now to a lesson, but I love you all and am grateful for all of your support

Have a great week!

- Elder Rooney

Guided by the Spirit...

Hey guys, thanks so much for your letters!  They were all exactly what I needed to hear. I hope to continue to finish strong...really strong.   As for our baptisms, unfortunately we had to push them back b/c they didn't come to church on Sunday  but we'll get things moving with them again.  My comp and I are speaking 100% Russian out side of the apt. Its nice b/c I constantly  learn a ton of new words that are very useful.  The Russian language is a never ending "humble pie" haha, but it teaches me a lot about myself other than words and grammar.  I had a wonderful experience last night with a member of the church where I felt the spirit work through me.  We had a lesson planned for her and everything, then we got there and she started talking about a situation that she has with her daughter about how her daughter hates her now and left the church.  Its super sad.  But as she was explaining her situation and all about how she wants her daughter to come back to church and everything, I remembered what I had studied earlier that morning for personal study and felt prompted to share it with her. Well, at first it didn't seem to apply a ton to her situation but the lesson unfolded and scriptures kept coming to my mind and I kept sharing insights and things that I learned.  The lesson ended up being EXACTLY what she needed. How do I know this? b/c she told me.  She was lifted off the ground by the end of the lesson and had a goal of what she wanted to do and an action plan of how she was going to do it.  It was soooo great to see and understand that I may not know everything that is going on in her life but God does.  God directed my personal study that morning with this member in mind.  I'm grateful that I was worthy to be that instrument in helping this member.  It was such an AWESOME experience.  Then, she applied some of the things that we talked about in her prayer at the end, I could feel that she was actually praying and communicating. She prayed for us to find new great investigators and when she said that I knew that we would.  So as we left her place, we were on our way back to our branch bldg and as we were walking I remembered the words of her prayer and took that as God trying to communicate with me through the spirit by bringing back to my remembrance those words. I knew that her prayer would be answered and right as I remembered those words a man walked by us.  I rather suddenly stopped and said to the man walking by " HI!! we are here as missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and....".  Well, the man has had experience with missionaries before and even spoke a little English   He gave us his number and told us to call...it was such perfect timing and I know that God was directing the whole thing.  We are supposed to call him tonight and set up a time to meet with him.  All things are fulfilled by faith, and prayer is an act of faith.  I know that b/c we were close to the spirit, we were able to be led in a wonderful lesson that helped a woman grow in faith, which lead her to pray and actually mean what she said, which prayer of faith led us into a miracle. We were simply doing something that sometimes isn't so simple to do, we were " in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing", as Pres. Love would say. And b/c of this chain of events, all participants "were edified"...and it was SO AWESOME!  Anyways, Thanks for all of your emails, I love you all and pray for you everyday.  Have a wonderful week.

- Старейшина Руни

Leaving the 90 and 9 to serve the 1.....

Hey Fam!
  Thanks for your letters!  This was really great. So as you know, my mission president had to leave our mission for the time being, and is in Utah right now having a surgery for something.  I'm not sure If he will be back for my "exit interview" which is really sad actually to think about. BUT he has delegated the mission to his first counselor Pres. Podvodov.  Pres. Podvodov was a previous mission president in St. Petersburg and is AWESOME. He is from our mission and so it is really great to see a leader do so much great work in his own native country.  The people actually understand him completely.  Anyways, I learned a lesson from him that I hope to never forget in my life.  I feel as though the end of my mission has gotten harder and harder to be honest b/c the end that you never wanted to think about, that never "actually" exists, its finally coming and that adds more trial, at least for me anyways, to not think about the future. There are so many more thoughts that race through my mind other than " I hope brother so and so can help us on our lesson tonight".  The trick is when those thoughts come, thinking to my self..."there is a season for everything" and continuing on with the task at hand. Again, serving God "with all your heart, might, MIND, and strength" has never meant so much to me in my life than it has to me recently. But I would like to share an experience that I had with my "new" mission president just on Saturday and how it has made an effect on me.  I called him and said that I was having kinda a hard time with a few things and was wondering if he could just give me a few pieces of advice on how to help.  I was expecting a "sure, I'll call you back later and we can talk" or something like that, but no, the answer I received was "can you be at the church at 6 pm?" and I said, "OK for sure, I'll be there".  This man, by the way, speaks about 3 words in English and I have always thought him to be very intimidating...so it took a lot of courage to just call the man, especially when I don't know him personally all that well.  So, I'm not sure if any of you have been mission presidents before, but they are ALWAYS busy, and especially now that this man has all the responsibility of the mission on his shoulders as of a week or so ago.  Well, I saw the hand of God work through this man that night and it taught me such a powerful lesson.  I sat down with him and started to tell him my feelings about everything, my concerns, trials, thoughts etc....he pretty much was my therapist :)  it was awesome!  haha  Anyway, he related a story to me about how when he was a mission president, he had a missionary call him and say that they needed to meet together and that the missionary needed some sort of help.  He told me that THAT missionary right then had just become his priority. He made everything work out so that he could meet with that missionary and satisfy whatever need that needed to be met in the eyes of that particular missionary...and on that day I called him, I was that missionary. I felt so loved and watched over.  The interview itself was my favorite on my mission thus far. He helped my situation perfectly not to mention the lesson I learned about "leaving the 90 and 9" to care so lovingly for the "one".   He did what the Savior taught us to do and I felt the pure love of Christ flow from that man, even if it was in an intimidating Russian way haha.  But it had a huge impact on me that is hard to put into words, other than we are never alone.  When you do everything you can, the grace of God truly does come into our lives in ways that we might not expect, but its still comes. I'm not sure if what I just wrote even makes any sense to you, but to me, this experience gave, and continues to give, me motivation to continue on and try to share that love with others I meet.  I'm so grateful for all of my trials b/c even though they always come in the most inconvenient times, they help open my eyes to the works of God in my life. I know that when we humble ourselves in our trials and turn TO God and not away, He will show us the way for us to become "partakers of the divine nature" which I have come to realize is not the easiest thing to do, but I have also figured out that its only possible if we humble ourselves to the will God and trust in him that HIS way is better than my way.
  Anyways, as regards to missionary work we have 3 people with a baptismal date ( I think only 2 are going to follow through with though,we are going to have to push back the 3rd's date) and things here are moving. My comp and I are doing great and its SNOWING a TON right now which is NOT cool.  I'm doing great and loving the last little bit of this eternity changing experience.

Contrasting Lessons...some hard... some easy

Guys,
  I got a letter from everyone of you!  Thanks so much, seriously.  All of you who have ever served a mission know how wonderful it is to hear from your family.  I don't have words to describe my love for you all.  Just know that you are the most famous family in this mission b/c I talk about you all so much :).  Things here are so wonderful. The weather is money right now....well it was, it just started snowing again unfortunately but that's better than last year when it was too cold to snow.  I have had such a crazy week.  Our district is only 4 and we cover a pretty big area so we're always running around.  I guess the highlight of my week other than the sacrament, was on Saturday. I was on an exchange with my zone leader that I have know for a very long time and we had a good amount of lessons set up.  It started off with our lesson with our Jehovah's Witness friend Pavel.  He brought a friend this time who I had never met before so I was interested to see how everything would pan out.  Unfortunately our lesson did not start with a prayer b/c they wouldn't let us pray (as usual) b/c they believe that we don't pray to the same God. So we started and weren't able to continue with our lesson plan at all.  With out that crucial prayer in the beginning, it is SOOOOO difficult to have the spirit in the lesson. I again received a stronger testimony that only those who truly humble themselves will enter into the kingdom of God.  It was really interesting in a few lessons this week, we had a pretty good amount of really "hard" lessons.  They were with people who have studied the bible for years and know a lot more than I do so they would ask questions that were kinda controversial and really hard to answer.  But with all of these learned men none of them really wanted to find the truth, or so I felt. It reminded me of a student of Socrates, or someone to that extent....I forgot who, who had a student who was "ever learning" and wanted to know what Socrates does to get so smart, so Socrates took him to a lake of some sort and took the student and pushed and held his head underwater till the point where the student almost drowned and then finally brought his head out of the water. (I only heard this story from someone else so don't quote me....but it illustrates a great point) When the student caught his breath he said " What the heck was that for?!!" and the response was in the form of a question, "when your head was under water, how bad did you want to breathe? what were you willing to do for just one breath of air?" the answer was " I would do anything, the only thing I thought about underwater was how much I wanted to breathe".  The response of Socrates ( or whoever it was) was," if you truly want to understand and know the truth, you would do anything and everything to get it".  I love this principle b/c it helps me find those who are truly looking for the Gospel. With some of these lessons I had this past week, these men were "ever learning and never coming to know the truth"  b/c they truly weren't searching for it, or so it seemed by the spirit of our lessons.  So in contrast to hard lessons, we had some way awesome "easy" ones this week. We had one in particular that was full Africans.  We went to their hostel, or dorms, and had a lesson.  In the lesson we asked them to be baptized, and the concern of being previously baptized came up, so with the help of the spirit, we were able to use the authority given to and and teach loving but boldly the doctrine of the truth, resulting of 3 of them agreeing to be baptized on the 30 of March!!  Unfortunately, I don't think that I will be in this area at that time but as long as they are baptized and confirmed, that is all that matters to start their journey.  Doctrine, is truth which is the word of God, and when we hear the word of God, our faith grows.  So I have learned to that there is no better way to teach than to teach boldly the word of God with the Spirit and love. I know that this great work is true, and I know that God knows I know it is true.  We are truly never alone b/c God always has his hands in our lives.
Have a great week!!
--
- Старейшина Руни

An "Ahaw" moment...

Hey family!
С Днём Рождения Dad and Kyle!!


This week was really great. My companion and I are doing really well together. I got over the lump that I went through the last few weeks and I am back to normal Elder Rooney. I just love being here and serving with such wonderful people. I have truly made some life time friends that have made a wonderful impact on my life. This week I started to kick my missionary work up a knotch (notch? I can't remember how to spell that to be honest...).  We had a meeting this past week for some district and zone leaders about how to work with our Branch presidency in our area more effectively.  I was so pumped afterwards,  that I called up our branch presidency (which consists of one man...the Branch president. Our 1st councilor just moved and there was never a 2nd councilor...) and we met with him that night and laid down some of our expectations for this area and asked for his helped to get things going. It is so important that we have the support of our leaders b/c missionary efforts in the branches, at least here in Ukraine, will start to move forward if it comes from the "Top" down, and not from the "bottom" up. Anyways, we went and tried our best this week to get our Branch president on board with some things that we have been asked to do by our mission president.  By the way, our Mission president is sick and flew out today to America to go to Salt lake to see if they can fix some problems he has been battling as of late. So, we're kinda just waiting and praying that everything works out and so he can come back soon.
   If you haven't had the opportunity to read the Liahona for this month..do it!  Tad R. gives a wonderful presentation about integrity and it is really cool.  So, my thoughts for today come actually from my friend Alex Bertha's mom, Sandy.  First of all, she has written me my whole mission pretty much and for that I am very grateful. But the idea that was shared with me was that of the definition of the "Real World". The Real world in actuality is the time spent in the temple, in the service of others, and being constantly on the Lord's errand.  I love the idea about how this life time in the "world" is so short and so not what "real" life is. I see people all around here that are so stuck in the world that they become blind and numb to the things of God.
  I have had so many experiences that I wish I could share with you but I'm sure you will all hear about them soon enough. I am really excited to come home!! but Don't worry, I'm working super hard still. We actually have been blessed with a ton of lessons and are actually leading our mission in that area.  Now its time to help these people enter into the waters of baptism and start their journey back home.  I have learned something that I think is very interesting. I was sitting in church  and looked at a man who is a recent convert.  He is very lively, loud, funny, and a little too crazy at times.  And sometimes his ideas don't quite match up with the doctrine of the church...but as I was sitting there, I remembered an old investigator of ours who came to church 13 plus times, took all of the lessons, participated well, and seemed to be a man of sound understanding.  I remembered a conversation with him when we asked me how it was possible for a man who had such little understanding and such interesting ideas can be a priesthood holder of God and perform ordinances such as blessing the sacrament and so on, as was with this recent convert. And sitting in church yesterday, the answer came as I sat in gospel principles with the recent convert and with the absence of our investigator.  We had to drop our investigator unfortunately b/c he accepted everything and knew it was all true but rejected being baptized multiple times and he just wasn't progressing. But as i sat there in class, I understood that the reason why one of the men help the priesthood of God while the other didn't was b/c one of them had sufficient humility while the other did not.  And b/c the recent convert was humble enough to get baptized and take upon him the name of Christ, he will continue forward while our investigator will not. And b/c he is humble, he will learn and understand the true doctrine of the church and accept it, in time.  Its fun to see the events in my life and in the lives of others and say to myself over and over again.."Man, Jesus totally knew what he was talking about!" haha. Its true though, the "humble will be saved with their little ones".
 Thanks for everything you all do, I love you all!


- Elder Rooney

The back up plan.....

Hi!
 So I loved hearing from you all! And mom, I'm sorry to say but your have 6 letters to write still...not 3 haha. I had a really hard week to be honest.  I absolutely love my comp, he reminds me of Aaron Rowan (one of my best friends from BYU) he is such a blessing.  The past 3 weeks have been hard actually. I have really been tried with serving God with all of my might, MIND, and strength. MIND....the end of my mission is coming and I know it is, and at this point in my mission I have a constant battle of keeping my thoughts HERE and not in the future. I get it now when we hear to serve God with our mind. I'm going through a battle right now feeling that when the end comes, I can say that I gave everything.  I know that I can constantly do better and there have been times where I have made good decisions, just not the best. I'm just trying to stay here and work hard. I was going to tell you all a story of what missionary work in Ukraine is like sometimes but I think that it would not be the best idea haha.  I'll just say that a few days ago after our 4 lessons fell through, we decided to refer to our back up plan.  We prayed to God to tell Him everything that we had done so far that day and with the best of our knowledge and with the time that we had left, we were going to refer to our back-plan for the last hour of our day (which consisted of stopping by a former investigator in his apt bldg, and if he wasn't home, we were going to go to the top of the bldg and stop by other investigators who live in the same place, and if THEY weren't home, we were going to tract the bldg) and we asked God to sanctify our plan b/c things just weren't working out for us that day.  So we went to the first guy, and he wasn't home, then we went to the second guys and they weren't there, so we started tracking ..at about door 4 or 5 a drunk guy walked up the stairs, maybe mid-20's, and muttered something in drunk Russian which is a different lang than regular Russian haha so I had no idea what he said.  He repeated himself  but I seriously couldn't understand him...our experience got a little physical...and I can't remember all of the details. However, my comp and I are both fine.  After our experience, we walked home b/c my comp had to change his pants being that they had been ripped from what had just happened from about the hip to the knee...so we went home to change and it was only 8 pm   So, we contacted home being a little shaken up, sat down for a little, made a nice hot beverage, got ourselves together and then went back into to the cold for the remainder of the night for some more contacting.  Things like that happen from time to time here but it was the first time for me when things got physical. Don't worry, My comp and I didn't fight back or anything but after I pushed the guy to get off of my comp just enough so he would stop getting crazy...my comp said that it was the first time that he heard me use "angry Russian" .  Anyways, even in situations like that I feel completely watched over by God and I felt watched over, I understand even more so now why we travel in two's or three's as missionaries.
       To answer Dad's question about Joseph Smith, He is important for me for some many reasons. I don't know where to start. I guess to some everything up, He is important b/c he was a significant tool in the hand's of God to bring to pass God's work and His glory. Meaning that he was worthy and humble enough to be the tool that God was able to use to restore His living church with priesthood power here on the earth, for our benefit.  B/c Joseph was humble and had a profound reverence for God and His ways, we now can all benefit from the Restored Gospel and The eternal plan of happiness, which God has perfectly designed to, if we allow it,  take weak things (us) and make them strong while binding families together, forever. Giving us as God's eternal children the opportunity to become like Him, through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Sooooooo, yea, Joseph Smith was a pretty cool guy :)
  Anyways, Thanks for all the letters, I love you all! Have a great week

-Sean

Tracting in the cold

Enduring to the end....

HII!
  I'm going to be kinda short this week b/c I went CRAZY and sent you a ton of pictures b/c I never send any. But I am doing really well.  It has been a BREEZE this winter with the weather. Its not cold at ALL.  Usually at this time of year its pushing lower than negative 20 but right not its super nice. Last year at this time was a JOKE.  It was too cold.  So I would not mind if this was a record breaking warm winter in Ukraine, but I doubt it haha, I'm sure it'll get cold by next week.  Anyways, I have a new companion!!  His name is Elder Jones, form West Jordan Utah.  He is a really good kid. He is in his 3rd transfer just like my last comp when he came to me. I'm still in Alekseevka and yes I still have no oven.  So for the last 6 months of my mission, I will have had no oven...my meals are very limited...I will never take an oven for granted again haha. The past 6 weeks have been nothing short of miraculous. Last transfer ago, My companion and I were leading the mission in investigator lessons and our goal was to beat our last goal...and by the grace of God we did.  We shattered our last results.  Now its time to get some of our investigators to enter in the the covenant of baptism and get them started on their way back to the presence of God.  I am happy to be here. I guess I thought that the end of my mission would be cake as compared to the rest of my mission, but for me, it has been very difficult.  I truly understand the principle of enduring until the end.  I want to finish the strongest at the end of my mission b/c that means that I am always striving to progress, but man its tough sometimes.  On Sunday I had a tender mercy, during one of the talks...I was able to translate it really well and it wasn't super hard.  It was still hard, just not super hard. It was nice to see that I am progressing with the Russian language slowly. Its been difficult for me b/c I have been the older companion since my 6th transfer...so I haven't had a ton of comps that have helped me improve a ton with Russian. So it was nice to see that God always helps you out when you try and put forth an effort.  Anyways, I grateful to be here. Its crazy to here about Todd Love and Jordan Smith eating Lunch together. and that Todd is getting married!!!  That's nuts. But super cool, I'm way happy for him.  K, I have to go, but I love you all! And enjoy the pictures of your malnourished and very white son (slash brother slash friend) out here in the former soviet union :)

have a great week!

--
- Старейшина Руни

Early morning street contacting

 Paddy, my favortite brother here. He is one of my best friends

Sean and the Brothas

The Poet....

Hi family!

  Sorry I dropped the ball on telling you that P-day was going to be on Wednesday this and not on Monday due to a new schedule to work well with transfers this week.  I read through Kimi's Statement and its sounds great however in the 4th paragraph there is a random "e" kinda just hanging out by itself...I know my English is going down hill fast thanks to Russian but you might want to look at the that...Anyways thanks for the updates on everything!  I can't believe that Danny is already home! I'm so happy that he's safe. I definitely kept in him in some prayers.  I just found out that I'm staying in my area until the rest of my mission, It will be my second 6 month area in my mission.  My companion is leaving me so I will get a new one tomorrow. This is my last full transfer b/c I will leave about 2 weeks into the next one. I can't believe Elder Smith is going to be home today!! I was in the MTC with him!!! Things are great here. There is too much to talk about in one whole day let alone one small letter. So I will give you bits and pieces about what happened and then later i can give you the full ish detail.  On Sunday night, we went to Theddy and the boys were we had a lesson in the equivalent a college dorm, with 6 Africans.  It was SOOOO AWESOME! 4 of them are already investigators and out of the other 2, 1 became a new investigator.  Those guys are party animals but when it comes time for the Gospel, they really know how to focus...well most of the time haha.  My comp and I are having a wonderful time teaching and seeing such great progress in people. I just heard last night that a man that I started teaching again in my last area is getting baptized on Saturday.  That brings peace to my soul that I am actually making a difference. With in the last 2 weeks or so I have heard from other missionaries currently serving in some of my old areas say that while street contacting, they had random people they met tell them to tell Elder Rooney that they said hi. I can't remember who they are all the time  b/c I meet a ton of people everyday but apparently they remembered me which I thought was really nice.  It makes me want to never forget anyone that meet with. even If it just on the street. It actually been a goal that I have given myself, is to invest in people.  For example, If I am talking to some one to if someone is talking to me...they get ALL of my attention. Its really interesting to me, that after analyzing why some of the missionaries here became some of my really good friends, I understood that they were the ones that cared enough about me to give me their attention. They invested in me and it made me want to be around them.  And b/c they did give me their whole attention, they were able to remember somethings that I considered important to me, and they were able to relate that back to me at later time in my mission, which made me feel that I was important to them.  So, I made it a goal a while back to do the same, and its been a great experience.  Sooooo, relating to this goal I had set,  I have an experience I want to share with you.  

   We went to a woman's place, her name is Sveta, I have talked about her before. She is a member of the church and is in her 70's.  She is the saddest woman I think I have ever met.

Sveta the Poet

 At the beginning of our lesson, I asked how she was doing, she just went on and on about her problems and how she tries and tries to have a good relationship with her son but he won't talk to her b/c she's "Mormon". She told us that she is not living, she just exists.  She gets up in the morning, bathes, eats breakfast, and goes to sleep again. She never leaves her apt and no one comes to visit her.  We started talking about the Atonement b/c the Atonement fixes everything...literally. then the  thought came to my mind that I need to ask her what she is good at. The whole time, and every time we visit her, she is always so negative and talks about things that she doesn't have (life, family...etc).  The thought of the parables of the talents came to my mind.  The reason why this woman feels as though she has nothing is b/c she is focusing on what she doesn't have and not focusing on what she does have. The parable teaches us that we must work well with the talents that we have been given and THEN we will receive more.  It doesn't say focus and the things that you don't have and you will be added upon. So, I ask her. " What things to you do well?"  (that is a hard question to answer by the way, Anyone can say anything that they need improvement on or something that they are struggling with but, its not as easy to say something like "I am great at.....".  When we look at the things we are good at, then we start to understand what beautiful things with which God has entrusted us). She said "I'm old, and its all gone from me now", "I'm not good at anything".  Then I felt prompted to ask her " When you were young, what things were you good at?" She began to answer the same way....."I'm not good at anything..." BLAH BLAH BLAH. Everyone has been given talents, I won't accept an answer of "I'm not good at anything".  I gently stated that everyone has talents.  Then she stopped and said "I liked to write poems".  And when she said that, the world stopped. She began to think about the things she loved to do. The room went silent.  She said that she also enjoyed reciting them for others.  We told her to tell us one!!! and she was like " No,  no I can't remember any of them....It's all left form me now..." Then we started talking a little and she stops randomly and she started to say this beautiful poem that she wrote years ago, that she STILL remembered.  As she did so, she started to smile. I was so happy when I saw her smile. She forgot what it was like to use the talents given to her, and she also forgot what it was like to feel the joy from God when He sees us using them.  So I asked her to write me a poem and then recite it to us next time we see her. She said that she wouldn't make any promises.  So I said " I'll tell you what, You write a poem and I'll write a poem and we'll both share them to each other on our next visit."  She said she wouldn't make any promises.  But I think she will :) I of course reassured her that I'm terrible with writing poems in English and that if I tried to write one in Russian it would be a nightmare haha. however, when she prayed to close the meeting, she was a different person. She offered a beautiful prayer that was full of thanksgiving and hope.  I felt as though I was I actually helping someone. It was a very tender experience that I will always cherish.  Yesterday, I started my poem for her and I can't wait for the day when I can share it with her.

 I have a firm testimony through experience on both ends that when you invest your time and attention in someone, you not only better the lives of those around you, but you also begin to see the hand of God work in your own life. How grateful I am to have had these wonderful experiences on my mission that have given me such great knowledge and joy.  have a great week! 

- Sean

Apartment Check....ug

Hi Family!!

   This week was so nuts.  I honestly can't comprehend how much went down.  I got a phone call from the Zone leaders and a companionship requested to do an exchange with us to learn why things were working out for my comp and I, so so how they got permission for us my comp and I to go to the other elders' place for an exchange and teach them what we have been doing.  Those Elders were Stoker and Arrington.  Elder Stoker is from Henderson and like best friends with Ryan.  He is now one of my best friends. But I can't remember the last time I had so much fun on my mission. It was so great to be able to be around other missionaries.  Ok, so the baptism....let me tell you about the most stressful day of my mission. Friday.  We go out for morning contacting and we got a phone cal from the lady who works with all of the apartments in the mission, she said that she was coming over to check our place for things that were broken and stuff like that.  So we went home and cleaned up a bit then she came over with a member of the mission presidency (who was a mission president in St. Petersburg about 1.5 years ago) and it was a ROAST session.  In other words, there are a lot of things that were broken b/c of missionaries in the past (ie a drawer doesn't close all the way, stuff like that) and this apt has been rented out by missionaries for 8 years.  To start off, its not a great apt AT ALL and there are no carpets or anything so we have to constantly be sweeping b/c somehow there is just dust EVERYWHERE.  Anyways, I got owned for all of the broken things in the apt, even though I hadn't broken a THING in there and we are never home anyways.  We are home at night and for studies, literally.   well, they got mad at me for everything and it was SUPER annoying b/c I've never been so organized and effective my whole mission. When they left I was ticked. And my comp was just hanging out having a good time b/c I'm not sure how much of everything he understood.  So as I was in the height of my annoyance, I put my elbows on my desk as usual and out of now where...my desk snaps in half and my study material flies EVERYWHERE and I just sat there with half of a huge desk in my lap covered with books and pencils and stuff like that....it was NOT cool.  Then, after I thought about everything that had just happened, I took it as a sign from God that I needed to chill and relax.  I tried my best to be patient.  Then we had our lesson with Toleek to finish teaching him the last couple principles before baptism.  He gets there and tell us that wasn't going to make it to his baptism (keep in mind its 7pm on Friday and his baptism is the next day at 12pm and programs are made and ready to go with all assignments given out)  b/c he's "busy".  Last time he said that he just had some concerns which we quickly resolved.  So after talking about it with him, he wants to get baptized and loves the concepts of having the Holy Ghost at all times when worthy, but he wants to talk to his parents about it, which he hadn't done. He is 36 years old so we didn't really think that it would be a problem.  He passed his baptismal interview with flying colors and he told us that he would call his parents and let us know if he would get baptized the next day at 12.  So we waited and waited. FINALLY he calls at 9am the next morning...and says that he would love to keep coming to church and everything but he wouldn't get baptized.  I think its b/c his parents were against it but I'm sure.  So unfortunately we had to cancel the baptism which was really sad and hard to do. This guy seriously is so elect. I'm sure he'll become a member sometime. We are going to continue to meet with him and with time I know he'll understand what he should do.  Then the same day we go to the Hostels and meet with our investigator Jay.  He is Nigerian and is progressing fast. He came to FHE at a senior couples place and bore such a strong testimony.  Then we met with him on Saturday...and he had been drinking and was high. That also was NOT cool.  He started telling us about how he is going through a hard time and even when he prays nothing happens, so he gave up the night we stopped by. We are really close with Jay, He told us already all about how he wants out of his "old

 life" and when we got there, he was on his way back. The lesson was POWERFUL.  We were very bold with him.  and by the end, the spirit was finally there and he said that he'd come to church. He prayed and thanked God for us going to him and that we helped him change his mind.  It was definitely the most bold I have ever been on my mission.  I could feel the spirit working through us and I was so grateful to have been worthy to be there and teaching Jay with power and authority.  It was nuts. It was "by chance" that we ended up over there in the first place b/c we were on our way to a potential investigator lesson, that wasn't working out so we decided to call Jay, it was perfect timing AND we got a new investigator with the man we were trying to meet with in the first place.  It was a crazy all over the place week.   But thanks everything you do!  I love you all.   Look up my new favorite scripture about thanksgiving. D/C 50:34... I Love you all! have a wonderful week

- Sean

Miracles and Sardines....

Hey family!

  Thanks for writing Mom and Dad.  Well, I sent you my flight plans, looks like I'm flying on one big long airplane ride....all the way from Moscow.  I'm flying into LAX, they had to change the schedule. Ok, enough about that!  This week was great. I'll start off with the good news....we have someone on date for baptism!! and whats cooler slash crazier, is that he will be baptized on Saturday!  He is a miracle.  We found him street contacting over a month ago, at 7 ish in the morning. We called and called to try and get something set up with this guy and nothing ever worked out. Eventually, we stopped trying b/c after 3 weeks of nothing, it was time to focus on others.  Then one day we decide to call him and he finally meets with us. He came to church with us, and continued to meet with us. Almost 2 week later, he agreed to be baptized. so we set the date for the 26th, and well...its totally happening. Our Branch Pres. had already been on 2 lessons with him and they really like each other.  Toleek ( by the way, his name is Toleek...) actually likes coming to church and likes the people who are there, which NEVER happens. It was scary b/c we set the date and he had only been taught 2 lessons....so we were a little nervous to see his reactions for the other lessons, but he willingly accepted everything! He is in his mid 20's and is perfect for what the church here needs. So this week will be really busy for us as we try and get everything going for the baptism. 

     The weather here has been unusually warm so everything is melting and it actually rained here.  The night it rained, the temp dropped a little so everything was literally a big ice skating rink.  So morning contacting was interesting. But we had a really cool thing happen. Almost everyday we see a man named Vladimer.  He is a doctor at a nearby hospital and is the happiest man I have ever met. He speaks English slowly but has a huge vocabulary.  The other day during morning contacting, when is was super slippery, we saw him happy as always. about 20 min after we saw him, we found this little old Babushka who looked lost and in pain. She was holding her wrist as though she hurt it.  Well, she did, and is was actually a compound fracture.  She fell earlier in the morning and was still in shock form the pain.  She was super old and she told us is was really hard to speak b/c her pain, so we called a taxi and took her to a hospital b/c her wrist was WRECKED and she needed to see a doctor bad.  Well the taxi came and we took her to the nearest hospital and went everywhere to try and find the emergency room and guess who we walked into....yup, Vladimer.  It was a miracle, he took her off of out hands and helped her out and thanked us for our help.  As a result of this, we ended calling him and going over to his place for dinner!  Now, the next part of the story, Vladimer is a former boxer and is stoked on being healthy and fit.  He is 58 years old and is ripped!  the guy gets up at 4:30 everyday and does his workouts then goes to the hospital.  He showed us a diploma that he received 4 days ago for being on a swim team for the hospital...he was the oldest member of the team and I don't doubt that he was the best swimmer. He fed us dinner and for the first time, I couldn't even get my self to eat some of the food. Usually I try my best to try all the food if not eat it. and this time I couldn't even get myself to try some of it.  He feeds us sausage, cheese, and bread...not bad at all.  The bad stuff was the sour crout with a rotten onion and the fish.  When I say fish, I mean cat food.  Why? B/c they were little individual fish about the size of my pinkie finger, and there were probably 10 or so on my plate.  They had their heads cut off and that was it.  scales, fins, everything. I saw the can the was opened...where the fish came from and they were doused in this nasty sauce and....pretty much I almost threw up like 3 times...it was terrible. I couldn't do it. And Vladimer was DOWNING them, it was crazy!  Anyways, after that we had to tell him that we don't drink black tea and I felt terrible b/c he was pumped about giving us tea.  So after that, we had a wonderful lesson about the Restoration and he willingly took a BOM.  He actually only reads. He doesn't watch TV and his place is a library, literally. And He has read the majority of those books. He is such a wonderful man to be around and I see big things in the future with him. 

    This week was so packed and is so much more to talk about but, it will have to wait.  Thanks for everything!  I love you guys! have a great week!

- Sean

Best District ever!!
(Typical native enthusiasm)

The ol' swimmin hole.....

Hey family!
  Thanks for the wonderful updates with everything. I'm doing really well right now. We have a ton of investigators and are currently leading the mission in lessons taught and it’s all due to meaningful planning and the grace of God. I'll chapter 8 of PMG. When Don R. Clark of the 70 came to our mission, he stressed heavily the principles taught in chapter 8 ad I have tried to apply its teachings in our missionary work here and it’s done WONDERS! The other night I called one of my friends who is an outstanding missionary and asked him how to put someone on a baptismal date b/c he is the leading baptizer in this mission. And when you see something is working for someone else, it just makes sense to apply what they're applying...so I called him and asked him how he does it.  Then after hearing his method, I turned around and applied it (w/ my comp of course). We were able to have 4 investigators at church yesterday and we now have 3 people that should get baptized here before the end of the transfer!!  We're so pumped!  I have gained such a testimony of obedience and working hard with the correct motives. I was able to have an interview with my mission president! It’s my last one until the big one at the end where I'll be told to go home and get married haha. I can't believe how fast things have gone. Guys....I'm stinking NERVOUS! Anyways, I came into Ukraine one week before my mission President, and we went to Armenia together...We have a wonderful relationship. I look up to him so much and It was just great to meet and talk about my future goals in the mission and also afterwards. I wish you all could meet him, I'm sure ever missionary says that about their mission president but I'm serious...this man is so awesome!  OK, funny story time that was not funny at the time but looking back at it...it was funny.  So, yesterday as we were getting ready for church, we were super busy and we hadn't even left our apt yet. We had to get all the translation equipment ready to go, change our water filters (the water filters that make it so my children don't come out with missing or additional limbs...b/c of radiation in the water), and do everything we usually do to get ready for church...so I turned to water filter on and let the water run to flush out any gunk that comes from a brand new filters...for example, when we first turned the water on, the water was black hahaha....so we left the water running as we are supposed to for about 7 min while we were getting ready to go to church. Then my companion goes into the kitchen and says..."Uhh I think there is a leak".  I was a little confused b/c he walked back into the room I was in and didn't do anything at first. I asked him if he was going to fix it b/c usually when there is a leak, if you don't get on it right away, it can make a mess.  His reply was.."I need my shoes."  Now super confused, I got up to go see what happened....Yes, there was about a half inch of water that spread over our kitchen floor!!! It then made sense as to why he wanted his shoes haha.  So as we were about to leave...we were surprised with the lake the formed with in the few minutes that the water was going...that was really fun to clean up :) but its ok, b/c we got to church and we had a wonderful time.

Actually, Sundays and the most stressful days for me, b/c we don't run the branch but we pretty much run the branch.  Especially b/c our Brothas need to communicate somehow with our branch President and they don't speak Russian and He speaks very little English. On Saturday night, we had a lesson in a Hostel with our boys Theddy, Toosin, Chookumah, and Jay. There was another friend there but that we technically could count as a new investigator, but I'm not sure he was super into.  Anyways, It was fun to teach 5 Brothas at once and Its SO COOL to see that 4 out of the 5 of them had BoMs in hand.  Brothas have so much faith.  They teach me a lot about how to pray and how to really use your heart when doing so.  My studies have been super fun, I have been studying about faith lately and my mind just gets blown. I'm sure I'll never master the principle (and attribute as Joseph Smith calls it) of faith but I know that I'm going to learn as much of it as possible. OHHHH!!! I had one of the coolest experiences of my life!  I read in the scriptures that we are supposed to mourn for those who have no hope in a resurrection more than over death.  And there is a woman who is in her 70's who comes to church every Sunday and every time we go visit her, she tells us how she is so unhappy. She is the only left in her family and she just says that she has no hope.  We call her Blind Sveta b/c she has terrible vision but she is an Angel.  I have a really strong relationship with her b/c I was going through the same things that she was going through so I was able to help her out. Well, I know that scripture study is essential to our salvation and peace in this life. So the branch was working for 2 YEARS to get her a Book of Mormon on cd so that she could listen to the scriptures at least. But they slacked HARD b/c they finally got all the Mp3s ready for her and her cd player didn't accept them...so they didn't know what to do...so I was shocked that it took 2 years for this woman to be able to The BoM and then it didn't even work.  So I promised her that we would do it for her. So we called our mission office and had them put the BOM on CDs that were compatible for her CD player, then got then sent up here, we got them and took them to her...Her face LIT up.  We taught her how to use the CD player and gave a wonderful lesson on scripture study giving us hope.  She was ALL SMILES, I was grateful to be able to be instrument in God's hands to be able to get that done.  Then before she left, she told us how she decided to go to the temple in February...no big deal, I was so happy walking out of there.  It was really sad b/c the branch just forgot about her, her home teacher too...SO moral of the story...we are ALL children of God no matter how old we are or what our circumstance. Don't let anyone slip through the cracks.  Everyone deserves brownies at their door step.
 Have a great week!!! I love you all

Test of Faith

Family!!!!

   Thanks for all of your love! I heard from everyone...almost :)  That is way cool David is moving in with Garrett, I'm sure everything will be great. I love Garrett and his family!!! Tell them I said that please!  Wow, so this week was so crazy I have NO idea where to start and what to even tell you guys. WAIT!  When I heard about the baptism and everyone who participated with everything...I was blown away and so happy.  K, so this week was very emotional actually....hahah I was a wreck haha. And I'll tell you why. So we met a guy on the street and His name is Nikolai, annnnnnnnd we got a lesson with him after 2 or 3 weeks of calling. So he came and was very nice.  He is a successful man in the world and was honestly one of the most intelligent men I have ever met.  He told us he's read all of the Holy writ i.e. the Bible, Koran, talmud...all the above. So, we met up with him at a predetermined location and walked with him to our church bldg.  On the way he says that he just got back from living in Iran so I had a little something to relate to him with ;) We sat down, started with prayer and got going on the first lesson...when he said he "read" the bible...he should have said DEVOURED it.  He knew SOOOO much. It was really hard to teach him, b/c with all of the precious truths that have been lost over the years in the Bible, he pointed out so much them and I didn't have answers for a lot of his questions, which is fine b/c I'm perfectly OK with not knowing answers to ridiculous questions.  His questions started getting controversial and and I felt as though he was trying to tear my faith down. When we got to the BOM He wasn't listening to us anymore, he was only trying to find everything that he could think of with the book and tried to show us how wise he was. He was all about "facts" as he mentioned a several times. None of that stuff he was saying to me even phased me. Then as I we went further along, It was clear that the spirit wasn't there and he wasn't listening...which happens. But before it ended, he asked me a question that for some reason I couldn't answer and it really hurt me.  It was like he was purposely trying to destroy my faith.  I, for the first time in my life, was backed up to the wall of faith.  I didn't really know how hard that would be. This man was educated and really though hard about things and after this question, I tried everything to answer it. But everything I was coming up with was not write and I felt for a while that I had lost my faith, all b/c of one dumb question. I don't know why it hurt me so bad but it did and I didn't know what to do but cry. I sat on the piano and I could barely play anything, I was honestly drowning in fear. And this may sound weak to you but by what happened next will tell you how hard it was for me and how God always will be there for you. as we were about to leave, my branch president walked in with a bag full of super famous Ukrainian cookies, milk, and Christmas presents for us.  He didn't know we were there. No one else had been there all day and no one else was there during our lesson. He just had a thought that he needed to buy lots of cookies and milk and go to the church...he was my miracle. But I found the answer to this man's question while I was on my knees actually.  I know that this experience made my faith stronger and I know that the gospel will answer ALL questions. I learned that faith is first a hope in things which are not seen which are true. Then next in this process of faith is knowledge.  Which comes after experimenting on the word of God. I learned on my mission that when you have knowledge you do everything you can to align your will with God's, in other words, sacrifice.   Then after sacrifice you can now "come boldly to the throne of grace" saying that "God, I have given you everything....help me out please".  When you sacrifice, you are able to bind God by your actions. With this last step of faith comes power.  it is by faith that all things are fulfilled.  I learned a ton this week, and I'm so grateful for this trial of faith that I was blessed with and I know that in the future I will that much stronger.   I love you all Have a great week!