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