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!