Sorry for writing a little later, hope Mom did not stay up all night! (which I am sure she did). Today we went on a boat tour of Rostov, on the Don river, so we pushed emailing back a little. It was way awesome, I will attach some pics! (Pammers (mom) will love all the pics).
It has been a good, busy week with transfers and everything but we will get to that later. We had two solid district meetings this week. We had a great discussion about living the gospel of Jesus Christ which is a huge part of what we do now. Our purpose to invite others to come unto Christ has not changed but instead of doing that by preaching and finding, we do it by example and how we live. It takes a lot of diligence and obedience, but when we truly practice what we preach or walk the walk, people recognize! We also discussed preparing ourselves spiritually and how to do that not only in our set apart hour each day for personal study but throughout each day as well. It is always hard to have our final district meeting before transfers, we have had a really solid group this transfer. Luckily, in the Rostov Mission, every district seems to just get better and better!
We got to do lots of service this week! First, we helped a member and her kids move apartments and they were very thankful for our help and fed us after. While we waited with the member, she taught us some stuff in Russian Sign Language because she actually translates each sacrament for our deaf members. It was way interesting to learn and now we always sign different words to each other.
Went back to the animal shelter and did some cleaning there. They were grateful as always and pretty surprised that we came back after the first time. We have got a lot done there already and we are excited to keep helping them!
We also went to the language school again to sit in on an English discussion. However, we just met with the staff and they were so excited to see us again and talk to us that we practically spoke in Russian the whole time. Our different service opportunities have given us the chance to make friendships and relationships with these people and it is very rewarding!
Thursday we had Elder Isaev with us while some others went on a visa trip. Elder Isaev is from a city outside of Moscow and is such a stud! The three of us got to take an hour train ride out to this tiny little village to serve a member in her home. She is a long time member and treated us so well with food and love. She has such a powerful testimony and wants to go to church so bad but lives too far and is limited by her health. Pretty inspiring to hear her testimony and love for the Gospel! I will send some pics of where we were, it was truly in the middle of nowhere.
Friday we had our weekly conference call with the leaders throughout the mission and just discussed how things are going and our district meetings. After that, we received transfer calls! I am very happy and excited to be staying in Rostov with Elder Shumway for another transfer! We are going to really push the work forward over these next 6 weeks. Pretty much our whole zone is changing though, it will be sad to see some go! We are getting a district leader in Rostov which is really going to help us have some more time to do the Lord's work and just focus on the District Leaders. We are also getting both new volunteers that arrive from Utah in a couple days in our district!
Saturday we got to have interviews with President and Sister Miner. I always look forward to time with them and they never fail to make me feel so loved and appreciated. We are so blessed to have the Miners with us who truly council with us and make us feel like we are their friends. I am eternally grateful for them and their service here.
Saturday night we had a big activity for all the Young Single Adults in the Rostov District- Hawaiian Night. Some sisters put a lot of work into it and it was a huge success. We had over 30 people there including many non-members some of which were from Nigeria, Africa. It was a great activity and everyone seemed to really enjoy it!
Sunday went well, primary went a lot better mostly because we had the whole Primary Presidency sit in with us. I taught the lesson and we actually had a good discussion!
Sunday we had a baptism in the Center Branch of an eight year old that lives in a different branch. The baptismal font was about one foot full when all the water in the branch got shut off... Most people thought we should cancel it but we exercised our faith and after some trips to the nearest volunteer apartment filling up 19L jugs of water, we had enough for the baptism! Everything turned out great!
Ended the week at Sister Ludmila's who is going through some hard times but we are going to do what we can to help her! Good luck to everyone going back to school!! Thank you always for the support, love and prayers!!
-Elder Tucker//Старейшина Таккер
Строка за строкой
Pictures - Us in the middle of nowhere, us again and again, waiting for our train, last district meeting, how we got our water heater to work(so we have hot water again,wahoo), we love Rostov, boat crew, Russian flag & me, world cup stadium, picture of me, Shumway and Sister Miner. (sorry if they do not appear in order).
No comments:
Post a Comment