Splits!!

It has been a busy, crazy week. Definitely grew a lot this week. Loved working with Elder Berger, such a good example of service and consecrated missionary work. I loved working with him!!

Had some way awesome meetings with members in Volgograd. One was extremely powerful with a less active family. They are Armenian and from what it sounds like, Armenians are not treated the best here. Anyways, we talked about temples and it got the lady really emotional because it was one day before the anniversary of her mother's death and she would love to do temple work for her. It just really got me thinking how lucky I am to be surrounded by temples and by friends and family in the Gospel. She gave us the closing prayer in Armenian (so cool) and fed us, I don't even know what it was, but it was good! 

That night we visited an incredible member family. They were so welcoming and loving, just so happy to have the missionaries over. I talked to their little 5 year old because that's about all the vocabulary I have and he was the cutest. Kept giving me bones and high fives. They also have a deaf non-member in the family who Elder Berger has been teaching, it was incredible to see. He gave the closing prayer in sign language, also awesome. 

One thing I relearned this week was prayer and the Spirit don't have a language prayer. Whether English, Russian, Armenian, or Sign Language, it is so powerful. 

Sunday was a day full of miracles. Without Elder (President) Barnes here, as 1st Counselor I was the only member of the Branch Presidency here. Yes I even conducted... it was pretty scary but all went well. I also blessed the Sacrament with Elder Berger so it was probably the first time the "presiding authority" blessed the sacrament and then received it first haha. Luckily, we had Sister Kukla and Delan from Astrahan that came and both gave talks and Sister Delan taught Sunday School because the teacher did not come. Way grateful for them and their willingness to help! Day full of tender mercies. And for the first time, we had 3 visitors show up and we met with 1 one of them and he is now an investigator. 

Speaking of investigators we have a lot of potential investigators and investigators to work with as of now, so thank you for the prayers!  Keep them coming!!

I've learned a lot this week. I had many doubts about how this week would go, just felt so inadequate. But it was actually one of my favorite weeks so far. I was contributing more in lessons and conversations and just felt the joy that comes when I open my mouth and have some faith! There is so much joy that comes from being a missionary and I will find more and more joy as I progress in the language and always have the Spirit with me.  Thanks to you

all for the continual love, prayers and support!!  Love to you all!!

-Elder Tucker