Hope you all had an incredible Conference weekend, we will be watching this week and I am so excited I can hardly handle it. Conference is such a blessing to be able to learn from modern day prophets and it is like Christmas for a missionary/volunteer.
This past week was a good one, starting with Monday night. We were an answer to someone's prayer and one member testified about it yesterday so I will share her testimony with you. She said something along the lines of this: "Good morning brothers and sisters, I would like to testify today that God hears and answers our prayers. Last week, our grandson was taken to the hospital with a stomach infection and was in need of some medicine and something to help him breathe (don't know how it translates). It was already late, it had been raining all day, and we did not know how to get those things to him and his mom who could not leave his side in the hospital. We said a prayer and the next thing we knew, our doorbell was ringing, we picked up the intercom and heard, "Hey it is the Elders, we have some cookies for you!" We were able to, through the elders, get all that was needed to the little boy in his time of need..." The miracle is that we had not even planned or even thought to go to their apartment that night. We had taken some cookies to another less active but we got to her apartment and heard that she moved, we were by their house and just felt like we should go. I wish you could have seen the shocked look on their faces as we walked in their home with cookies and when we told them that that hospital is right by our home. It was a blessing to be able to serve them in a time of need!
Wednesday we were serving Sister Pavlova again at her home and in her yard. We were also able to teach her and answer some questions she has been having in regards to the Plan of Salvation. I could not help but think how blessed we are to have the knowledge that we do of God's plan for us. It is the key to happiness in this life and for out eternal progression. It is the truth!
Thursday we had a great District Meeting about the Will of God and how in some scriptural and real life accounts it is hard to understand why things happen and how it could possibly fit into the Will of God. We came to the conclusion that He is all knowing and sees what we do not. His purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man and all that he does will support that goal.
Thursday we were also able to teach Ruslan, a recent convert, over Skype. We have been teaching him the lessons from the Sunday School course "Gospel Principles" because he lives multiple hours away and does not have a branch in his city. We talked with him about the Pre-Earth life and the plan that we all accepted to come here and the main part of the plan being the Savior himself. Once again, great knowledge thanks to the Plan of Salvation. Ruslan will be getting a patriarchal blessing next month, so I will finally be able to meet him in the flesh!
Thursday night we had the Volgograd and Krasnodar Zone Leaders with us for Mission Leadership Council on Friday morning! We had a great meeting Friday morning in the Mission Home mostly discussing finding and teaching skills. Our teaching pools mission wide have been drying up so we are trying to focus on finding new investigators and have created a new standard of excellence to find two new investigators each week, which will really be a challenge seeing as most companionships do not find any most weeks, it is exactly what we need! Of course if we find them, we have to be ready to teach them so we are also trying to improve our teaching skills, especially with the five missionary lessons. At the end of the meeting, we surprised all the leaders with smart phones which they were excited about! MLC has been a highlight of my month for the past 10 months.
For the rest of Friday I was on a split with Elder Clement who is a great friend of mine, he is pretty young on the mission but a great leader! We had a couple of great lessons together and it was great to be with him and council together on different things.
Saturday morning we fulfilled our seminary teaching duties with our one student Anya. It has been pretty sweet to work with her because I was her Sunday School teacher a few months back and she was pretty quiet back then but she has opened up with us and we have good lessons with her! We talked about our testimonies and being bold in sharing them, not ashamed to be a Mormon! She is of course the only member amongst her friends but she shared some experiences of sharing with them what we believe!
Saturday we had a baptism for a young boy from the Severny branch, I love baptisms! After the baptism, the sisters called us saying the branch was a mess and no one was there to clean so we got to clean the branch Saturday as well, makes the meetings on Sunday mean a little bit more when you clean on Saturday night!
I want to share with you all some things I loved from Church on Sunday. In Gospel Principles, we were talking about the atonement and an investigator shared that he always used to ask his father what to get him for his birthday and his dad would always say, "Get straight A's." The investigator went on to compare it to the Savior and how we need to utilize the atonement and 'get A's" in this life to strive to pay back the unpayable debt that we are all in! In Elder's Quorom we talked about temptation and one brother said that we need to fill our minds with light so that there is no room for darkness (temptation.) When our minds our empty, that is when the adversary can come in but if it is filled with light, there is no room for his tricks and lies.
After church we went out to Elena's, we have hit a major road block with her.. She has made great changes in her life and was blessed with some new work. That new work, though, is daily from 7 AM to 8 PM and her only day off his Sunday and it is her only day with her family and to get things done so she has no time to read, come to church, or meet with us. We have not lost hope, though, just need a miracle! We have planted seeds and I am sure something will come of it.
Hope you all have a great week!! Thanks for all the love, support and prayers!! Until next week!!
Much love!
-Elder Tucker//Старейшина Такер
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Pictures - Cleaning the branch, MLC meeting
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