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!

Family game time

Family!!

   Wow, that was too fun getting to see you all. I can't wait to see and BE with you!  I am happy to hear that Mammoth was so much fun, judging by the pictures it looks like you all enjoyed yourselves. I'm over flowed with joy when I see my family working hard to better one another and spending precious time with each other that will benefit you for the rest of your lives. It was so fun to see my 2 new brothers hanging out and fitting perfectly into  our crazy family. All my companions always comment on how awesome you all are.  I just wanted to express my gratitude to all of you for being such fun loving, light hearted, and hard working examples of how we need to support the other members of our family.  As a part of this wonderful family, we all hold a sacred calling to lift and support one another and I have been so blessed to see that calling fulfilled in my own family.  This week was crazy, we has so much happen.  But I wanted to tell you about a way fun experience we had just last night.  We were invited to go to our investigators house and eat dinner with them. His name is Ruslan. He just turned 30 and had wonderful 5 year old daughter and a super awesome wife. he has been meeting with us off and on but only at the church b/c his wife (Yulia) is not religious at all. last week we went over to his place and had tea and small little munchies with them and gave them a spiritual thought.  Well, they invited us over again and fed us a wonderful meal this time and we played way fun games with them.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  They are such good people and I hope things start to progress with them.  His wife is just like aunt Joni...she ALWAYS win every game!!  It was so much fun and so great to see this family apply Gospel principles with out them even knowing it!  I hope that things start to roll with this family b/c that is exactly what this church needs.  Yesterday I was privileged to confirm another brotha from Cameroon a member of the church, it is always such a special experience for me and always so great to see how the Gift of the Holy Ghost truly does have an impact on peoples' lives.  Anyway, I have to BOUNCE b/c Time is up and I was writing other siblings today :)

I love you all! have a great week!

- Старейшина Руни

ps thanks for the package!!! that popcorn was SOOO good. And I gave all my candy canes away to people at our Christmas party along with the majority of the Andes mints, b/c they have never tried that before. 

pss nothing urgent but if you have time, peanut butter and taco seasoning would be awesome!   I've made tacos for members and investigators and I would like to do that again.   thanks!!

Baptism week

What the heck! Not one letter from any of you!?....I forgive you. hopefully everything will work out, I plan on calling home at 7:30 am wed morning for me, so hopefully that will be Tuesday night for you!

 This week was crazy...we had such an awesome week. The weather is getting so cold again!!!! We haven't had electricity  for 2 days now so we opened up our wanna be balcony thing and opened to windows....so we just froze everything haha.  The guy came to day to fix FINALLY and said that the problem was a super easy fix...of course it was.  We lived to days by flashlight....it was terrible, but an adventure. I'll keep this one short b/c i'll "see" you all soon. But I had such an awesome week.  I was privileged to have the opportunity to baptize a brother from Cameroon.  I didn't teach him the lessons but he always came to our branch b/c we translated for all of the brothas. I did the baptismal interview with him and we got pretty close. there were 2 baptisms at the same time and I knew both of the guys getting baptized really well, so i was really fun to watch them go through the process of faith unto repentance and baptism, and to watch their lives turn around. Then the next day at church, I was pulled into a room by the other brotha  who was baptized on Saturday  and he just spilled out all of his fears and nerves and it was a huge privilege to be able to use the scriptures to comfort him...them only minutes later, I confirmed him a member of the church being that our branch president doesn't speak any English. I was so blessed to be worthy to give counsel when needed  and to be able to perform the ordinances.  honestly, it was one of the happiest days on my mission.   Ok cool, so I'll see you soon and we'll all catch up a bit ok :)?    Love you guys!

Merry Christmas

- Старейшина Руни

Tireless Sunday!

FAMILY!!!!

  Sounds like a super fun week at home. Diana wrote me a letter and told me all about Yolanda and her family. That's so cool to be able to see that after 31 years (you guys are old ;) the person you both helped bring to the truth is just thriving and now her own family is. What a blessing to be able to see the fruit of your labors. OK. so update on our area, I came in into this area with 3 investigators (one of them eternal), and a not so obedient comp....now after these few weeks we have been blessed with 22 new investigators and 6 of them were at church on Sunday.  This is NOT usual by the way. This is HUGE.  Its been so much fun to see that obedience and hard work brings forth such wonderful blessings.  However it takes a companion to make is work. I've learned so much about how unity with your companion makes all the difference. Its been so nice to FINALLY have a comp that wants to work and now that we are unified, I can see a difference in our work here. Our district had 10 investigators at church with 2 other investigators from different missionaries. That makes 12...such a blessing. I will say that I have never been more stressed at church in my life!! Let me tell you why...so I am the translator b/c we have a ton of Brothas from Africa that all come to our branch. So, when ever anyone has an investigator that is English only...they come to us.  So it starts of with no investigators showing up at the beginning of the meeting (b/c all of the brothas work in "African Time" as they call it, which means that you come at least 30 minutes late).  It was Branch conference so there were already a lot of people.  Then Sacrament mtg starts and I get a phone call from one who is trying to make his way over to the church, so I stepped out side to take the call and as I do, I see 5 brothas walk in to the hall, 3 of them being our investigators. So I took the call and Ruslan said that he'll be 20 min late but he's coming.  Then sacrament ends and I go back in to see that there are no more headphones ( I use a micro phone that is connected to a transmitter that sends my voice to a ton of headphones) for every one b/c they are all being used...so Our friend had to translate for some and I translated for the rest.  Then, as I'm translating, the phone goes off again and another investigator is trying to find his way to church, but forgot how so as I'm trying to do my best translating (which is SOOOOOO hard by the way) I'm also texting an investigator the address of our church (which is actually an institute and a lot of people get confused when we tell them that our church is at an institute....) and I'm worrying that the words I'm trying text aren't come out of my mouth....and that words I'm supposed to be saying  are making sense to all the people listening to me ...5 of them investigators and out of those 5, 3 of them were first timers, so of course you don't want them to get a bad 1st impression.  I don't think my brain has ever been that used before.  THEN, the missionaries performed a musical number. I wrote an arrangement to "Oh, come all ye faithful" and our district sang it. The performance went well but then I had to go back to translating and there weren't enough headphones for everyone so those with out head phones had to sit around me to hear my voice while the others were in the congregation somewhere.  So at the end I had an investigator (not English speaking) sitting next to me on a ledge of the wall b/c we ran out of seats, and I was trying to speak loud enough for the English speakers that weren't with headphones but not loud enough that everyone else would get annoyed with me making too much noise and trying to just understand what was being said by the speakers. IT WAS CRAZY!!!  I think the problem was that I had the phone on me and not my comp and he was sitting with other investigators in the front and I was in the back translating.  He DEFINITELY gets the phone next time haha.  So that was one crazy first hour and I'm just so excited that I was worthy for the spirit b/c with the spirit...I wouldn't have been able to do anything.  I love this gospel and I love being so stacked with things to do that I feel like there is not enough time in the day to get it all done. I know that God is the perfect "planner" b/c His house is one of order and with out order there is chaos.  I'm grateful some much to do b/c it is teaching me how to manage my time well and how to become more like my Savior. I will say that the a big motivating factor when dealing with all of the things of missionary work is that Jesus Christ worked "tirelessly" and that is something that I'm trying to apply in my life; to always have energy to keep a smile on my face.   I'm not sure if anything in my letter made any sense but, I'll just say that I'm having a blast and love being here. Definitely the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but now I have more of a capacity to handle it all, and I know that source of my success is b/c of the Savior and the enabling power of the His atonement.

I love you!!  I'll let you know next week what times I'll be able to Skype....wait actually, you guys need to tell me and I'll make it happen :)

have a great week!

- Sean

Great week

So, I could write to much today but I'm so great! I love my life. I have no more time to type unfortunately but I just wanted to say that i love you and mom so much! Mom's letter was BOSS and super profound.  Ok, I have to go.  I love you!  thanks for being the best parents ever!!

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- Старейшина Руни

ps MOM!!!!  Happy BIRTHDAYYYYYYYY!!!! soooooooon :)