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