Hello Family!!
So the baptism this week went very well! Kolya will be receiveing the Holy Ghost this next week and we look forward to this. It is somthing hard to describe when you see the happiness of the individual being baptized as they come out of the water. I had never seen him smile as much as he did that saturday. I think he will make a great, strong member of the church here in Ukraine. For the part of the program before the baptism, i had the chance to sing I know that My Redeemer Lives in russian. I felt like it went really well and many of the members thanked me afterwards. Somthing i am really striving for is the ability to portray a message through music in a way that does not pull attention to myself but points it all towards the savious and the feeling of the spirit. It feels so much more rewarding to know that the spirit was brought into that room and that is all i need. To answer your question i have been translating some of the hymns i have accompaniment for that are in English to Russian. This gives me more options to choose from when members ask me to share something or i volunteer.
So, this week we had a rather interesting experience while i was on a split with one of the zone leaders from Donetsk. We went tracting in the afternoon when the people are not quite soo hostile and we got let in which is almost unheard of. There was a really nice old grandma who led us into her tiny flat and then commenced to tell us of how she knew we were missionaries and that she had met with some sister missionaries a while back, maybe a couple of years ago. She kept asking if it was really just by chance that we were there with her but we assured her that everything happens for a reason and that God wanted us to be there at that moment with her to share our message. As we proceded to share a message about the plan of salvation, we learned that she had both a book of mormon and Doctrince and Coventants which was rather interesting to us. What even further amazed us was when she started quoting from the D&C. She knew it extremly well but was very confused on a few points because she had come to conclusions about the meanings of words by herself and not with the assistence of church members and priesthood leaders. We ended up just trying to help her understand what she didnt understand in the D&C and left with prayer. She was a pretty interesting lady but it was amazing to think that there were people out there that were already so far along that had just gotten lost along the way because they didnt have anyone to direct them. Hopefully we can help her out. Well, my time's about up but thankyou for all that you do for me. I love you and i hope to hear from you soon!
With Love,
Elder Ostler
