City Conference and Upcoming Baptisms!

Greetings from Ukraine!

This past weekend we had the incredible opportunity of having Dnepropetrovsk city conference. And what makes that even better was that our visiting General Authority, President Bennett (from the Seventy and from the presidency of the Europe East Area) was presiding. (He will also be speaking at our zone conference later this week, for which I am incredibly excited!) It was a treat to be gathered with all three Dnepr branches and listen to inspired words from our leaders. As President Bennett was talking about how each of the speakers had prayerfully sought the direction of heaven in what to say, I was filled with a sense of excitement - I was sitting next to one of my dear investigators, Nastia, and I knew that God knew exactly what she needed to hear that day, and I knew that she would hear it. (Nastia is the 19-year-old girl who is super quiet and sweet. She will be getting baptized super soon! Hopefully next Saturday.) I was struck with the realization that, even though I don't know all of the needs and concerns of my investigators, God does, and He was using that meeting to address some of those needs. I am deeply grateful for revelation and inspired church leaders.

As part of the conference, President VanBruggen invited a few church members to come up and bear their testimonies. One of them was Sergey! (You probably remember him [in fact, some of you have asked about him recently] - he's the one we found on the street who was baptized a few weeks later.) It was a treat to hear his powerful testimony and see him so strong in the gospel. It was also very cute how he began his testimony saying that he has been a member of the church for 63 days. :) He's a good man.

We had some more miracles this week. (It really is incredible how completely the Lord directs us and how much we truly are on His errand. This is His work.) Our mission is working on a project right now to make contact with all of the seminary- and institute-aged members and invite them back to church. Each companionship has a lengthy list of these members and their addresses and our task is to either make contact with them or discover that the address and phone number is not correct. We've been working on this for some weeks now with little visible success aside from discovering that a lot of people have moved. But this week, at our last stop for the night, we rang up a girl named Anya on her domaphone. (Have I explained those yet? Basically, outside virtually all large apartment buildings is an electronic keypad. You type in the number of the apartment you want to visit, and it calls them and they then pick up their phone and either talk to you or push their fancy little button to unlock the door and let you into the apartment building.) Anya answered (which was somewhat of a surprise in itself - it's often hit-or-miss to find people at home) and we were completely shocked when she told us to come in. So we rode the elevator up to the ninth floor, and were again shocked when this young woman opened the door and invited us in. We sat down with her and her mother (who is also a member - surprise!) and had a wonderful conversation/singing session and invited them back to church. And they promised to come! Talking with Anya, I knew without a doubt that we were all exactly where we needed to be that night. God needed somebody to love her back into church, and I'm really grateful that we get the opportunity to help do that. 

 This past weekend a man named Vladimir was baptized. He is one of the most incredible people ever! He lost one of his legs due to a disease, and I am incredibly impressed with his faith to do everything despite the fact that he only has one leg. It was touching to watch his elders help him climb into the baptismal font and just see how completely happy he was. He's quite an inspiration to me.

Vika is getting baptized on Saturday! She is seriously the cutest little girl in the world, and I feel so blessed to get to work with her. Lessons with her are always one of the highlights of my week. This past week, we taught her tithing by the means of balloons (since there happened to be a ton of balloons in the branch left over from the Halloween party) and how if God gives us ten balloons, it's not unfair of Him to ask for one back, since all the balloons that we have are really His in the first place. It was quite fun. She's so ready for baptism, and she honestly is going to be such a support to the branch. (Even though she is practically like a member now. But still. You know what I mean.)

Today a wonderful couple from Utah took us out to lunch. They're here adopting a couple Ukrainian teenagers (who we will get to teach, depending on all the timing of the legal stuff and such). He was a mission president in Chile about ten years ago, so it was a really neat experience to get to talk with them and learn from their wisdom. Their lives and experiences were really a testimony to me that God truly does direct our lives and He has a specific plan for each of us.

I wanted to share a scripture with all of you that has come to mean a lot to me on my mission. It has kind of become my personal theme and even holds a place of honor on my planner cover. It's 1 Nephi 6:4 "For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved." And, like Nephi, that is my purpose, too. That is why I'm here in Ukraine, to persuade people to come unto our Redeemer and be saved. This is all about Him. I love the Savior dearly, and I want everyone in the world to know Him and come unto Him and receive the redeeming grace that He offers. I know that His Atonement is real and that through Him we can become stronger day by day. I know that the gospel has been restored, and through the restored Priesthood authority, we are able to access the full blessings of the Atonement. I deeply grateful for that knowledge and for this opportunity to share it with these people I love so much.

--Sharisa