Baptism in Petrosky - Elder Mueller and Elder Johnson with a member, Evaugh baptising Sergey on August 7th.
NEW EMPHASIS FROM PREACH MY GOSPEL!!! We have been given 8 lessons from Preach My Gospel to teach the missionaries in leadership training sessions. For zone conference we began lesson 1. "THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST - THE MISSIONARY PURPOSE." President Fry presented this in Zone Leaders Council and he did a great job in zone conference too. These are some points he stressed using the scriptures. The true doctrine of Christ is: faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. He instructed the missionaries to teach with: boldness, plainness, by their language and understanding, be on their level, follow the Son with full purpose of heart, authority and power. We are working with other's eternal salvation. The Holy Ghost is a gift - obtain it, teach with it, and maintain it. Love for the work - have a desire - love for those we teach. Love the Lord - love thy neighbor. We must have love in order to teach the people. Forget your inadequacies - love the people - they will feel your love for them! Five things to remember when teaching: 1. Teach people not lessons 2. Ask inspired questions - thought provoking 3. LISTEN 4. Discern what the spirit tells you 5. Teach doctrine. We did our skills practicing and the assistants, zone leaders, President and I went around and helped out. Since this was presented in Zone Leaders Council (4 weeks ago) the zone leaders have been busy teaching in the districts and the results have been amazing! The missionaries seem to really enjoy this and they are having great success. Four weeks ago, we had 7 on date for baptism and now we have 39!!!! People are very excited and the missionaries are very busy teaching them and getting them ready to be baptised!! President had a dream a few weeks ago that he didn't have enough baptismal clothing to go around and he was frantically hunting some down! Maybe his dream will come true.
From left to right: Elder Kearsley, Elder Duffy, Elder Jones, Elder Valverde, Elder Howard. We love you and will miss you! Thanks for a mission well served!
Elder Duffy and Elder Jones.
Elder Valverde and Elder Kearsley.
Last meal in Ukraine!!!
Elder Howard eating the yummy ice cream they make here.
Baptism in Petrosky - Elder Mueller and Elder Johnson with a member, Evaugh baptising Sergey on August 7th.
Elder Zsembery, Elder Duffy(an assistant) Elder Solin and Elder Pulsipher. We are so grateful they are here in our mission!!
Elder Solin is from St. Petersburg Russia. He likes swimming , Kayaking and he is learning to play the piano(he plays by ear). His Trainer is Elder Ryser and they are serving in Alexsavka.
Elder Pulsipher is from Denver, Co. He likes playing tennis and and was a tennis instructor. He is the oldest in his family. His trainer is Elder Jahnert and they are serving in Alexsavka.
Elder Zsembery is from New York. He likes to work on cars and bicycles. He is 1 of 12 children and four of his siblings were adopted from Latvia. His trainer is Elder McCallson and they are serving in Novia Doma.
Sister Ward - We love you and miss you! Thank you for your awesome service!!!!!
Elder Waldsworth - One Terrific Missionary!! We love and miss you!
Elder Beus - We are barely surviving without you!!! We love you and miss you!
Hard working successful Missionaries. Good luck in all you do. Thank you for your service!!
We had a blast at our couple's conference! We enjoyed staying at the mission home and being more relaxed. We had a good session of planning and reviewing. We visited parks and the new Soccer Stadium that will host teams for the Euro Cup in 2012. We attended an ARP meeting put on by the Meads(our Humanitarin couple in Donetsk). Also attending the conference was our driver Vladimir and his wife, Galena, and son, Max. Vladimir has been vital to us for without him, we could not get around the mission as easily. He is a Branch President and we attended his branch on Sunday. He is a great asset to the mission and district. Olya(our Russian tutor and the Meads interruptor) and her husband, Vitally, and their 3 month old daughter, Masha, attended as well. They also have been a great asset to the mission and we could not accomplish much without their help. All in all we had a wonderful conference and accomplished much!
Our newest couple is the Burrs. They are from Orem Utah and are serving in Kharkov as the Unemployment Specialist Directors for Ukraine and Humanitarian couple for Kharkov area. We are so excited to have them in the mission. We love them and they are a great asset!
Elder and Sister Aagard are from Burlington Wy. They started out as a proselyting couple in Kharkov but we asked them to be our office couple when we didn't have a replacement for the Salomonsons. They are doing a great job and we love and appreciate them so much!
Sister Kartashova finally arrives in the mission. She was to come here in Feb. but could not get a visa so she started her mission in the Moscow West Mission. We are so grateful to finally have her here with us. She is from the St. Petersburg Mission.
