SCRIPT & POSY: Week 64- JULY-Bloom'n Hobbits

"When the pain it takes to remain tight in a bud is greater than the pain it takes to blossom....just let it happen." You can always count on cheesy mother quotes to get you through another stage of the Refiner's Fire. Now there are two reasons for this ridiculous title....1) I just discovered that an Elder from my District is the voice maker of Shmegal from The Hobbit. 2) My mother has a strange passion for the Lord of the Rings and you can always count on her to throw in a quote or two...

"When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest; it is in that moment that you are endowed with power.....when Frodo stands on the shore with the Ring on his palm, looking...looking...What passed through his heart and mind in those private moments just before he closed a resolved hand around it and set off for Mordor alone? I believe he devoted himself wholeheartedly to a quest, committing himself to an outcome which would carry a huge impact for many; if not all-- certainly far beyond his own personal pursuit of happiness. He chose to do and give everything he could possibly be capable of, to see this thing through....and then the Holy Ghost (ie. cute, little Sam) shows up and lends him all the things he wants and needs but doesn't dare ask for: friendship and comfort, protection and yes, presence--for who really wants to feel all alone in the dark? " Don't you leave him, Samwise Gamgee!

We know what we should do and be...but sometimes, we're just trying to stay too busy to listen--too lazy. Or maybe just too scared to start....But then, "when the pain it takes to remain tight in a bud is greater than the pain it takes to blossom," just when we think we have to do it all by ourselves, the Holy Ghost steps up, puts a hand on our shoulder and whispers...."Just let it happen...."

Flash forward to the end of the movie; the ring is no more, the world has been saved, and among an oblivious, boisterous, hairy-footed crowd, the 4 hobbits sit in the pub drinking...apple beer...and looking knowingly at one another. They are, shall we say, Wiser For the Wear. Their experience has changed them. They are still fully themselves, but, having passed through the Refiners Fire, they are more themselves than ever: kind, loving, humble, and loyal.

...when they are wholly His, they will be more themselves than ever." This is why we are given commandments--asked to do and give and sacrifice so much: because our Heavenly Father wants to keep us reliant upon Him FOR AWHILE...even gives us weaknesses to keep us humble so that we can emerge with HIM inside us, being a God (or Goddess) like He is and with all His attributes--Wiser for the Wear but MORE OURSELVES THAN EVER.

See, we aren't broken in our weaknesses, just unfinished. When we are commanded to, "Be ye therefore perfect," understand that perfection isn't flawlessness, but rather, a state of being complete. We are in process, guys."

Talk about a fantasized General Conference talk! It fit in perfectly with my now new favorite talk called, "Becoming Perfect in Christ." It's AMAZING.

This week there was the sad note of having to admit that our investigators are no longer progressing. Roman is still stuck in Lviv, and the "long time, no see" streak has now hit over a month. But we have contacted the mission office to get missionaries in Lviv in contact with him. Also our dear Ina has come down with flu symptoms and was not able to attend church for now the third week. She has been working three jobs to support her and her son and is finding it harder and harder to meet, and her baptismal date is been getting more and more blurry, but we still still hope to work with her as soon as that nasty little bug leaves to help her get back on the path to salvation! For three days in a row we tried to meet with Ina but because of surprise registration and her canceling on us last second we're afraid she wont be making her baptismal date. One morning we were preparing for her lesson and had already, the day before, spent over an hour calling members to join on our lesson, and FINALLY at 10:10pm a member agreed to join. Our lesson was set for 9am and so we got ready early and started preparing for our loving, "throw down" lesson. We were just running out the door, made it out only for Sister Robertson to look at my upper left shoulder...she didn't have to say anything as i just looked down to the empty gap of a nametag and then was tackling those four flights of concrete leg killers faster than i ever have before. I had just clicked on my name tag and was closing the front door when Sister Robertson was on the phone with Ina and gave me the nod to go back inside. "NOOOOO!"the only thing i could do was defeatedly slide down the front door to sit on the mat of our door step.y

But just as our progressing investigator stock reached rock bottom we had a blessing and had some potentials from our English class come to church! The potential of Ukraine just amazes me. I'm almost sad that the not everybody can know of the goodness the people of Ukraine, and how this land truly is blessed and a prepared land for the gospel. I fear all people see now of Ukraine is war. My dad always seems to have a gift of being in tune with my thoughts of the week and this week sent me a very insightful email

"The Kyiv Ukraine Temple represents a departure from the more recent historical sequence of temple building. The temple was announced eight years after missionaries entered Ukraine and was dedicated within twenty years. It ranks with Kirtland and Nauvoo in terms of time between the introduction of the gospel and the opening of the Church's most sacred edifice. Unlike other temples erected long after congregations and leadership have been established, the Kyiv temple was erected in the early stages of the missionary effort. This suggests that temples are destined to play an increasingly important role in taking the gospel message to the living. While temples have always contributed to missionary work, they are now contributing to this work as the Church establishes its presence in a country or region."

The mission of the Kyiv Temple is to bring the gospel out of obscurity in this world as well as in the next. There were only five thousand members among the forty million Ukrainians when Pres. Gordon B. Hinkley announced in 1998 that at temple would be built there. The Church had but a single chapel in Ukraine, dedicated in Donetsk just weeks before the temple announcement. It would be another six years before the Church organized a stake in Kyiv.

It seems, then, that the Kyiv Temple served to establish the Church rather than the other way around, as had been the case with temple building historically."
Another cool fact is that the grandfather of our Mission President actually dedicated the land of Ukraine!

Oh and welcome to the Perchersky district sports night!

Practicing for our musical number for next Sunday

Just heating up some lunch in the church! Leftover hamburger patties for the BBQ we had at mission conference

1st ever homeade sharma!

This week was our District Leaders 20th birthday and we threw him a suprise party! I created a large collage of all our fun adventures together as a district