4-12-10 Loving Conference

This week we have successfully passed all 3 of our investigators to other Elders. It's always tough passing investigators, especially when they are your best 3 investigators, but I love doing it. Our new Branch President, who is still the coolest guy ever, is a businessman and read that Burger King and KFC are coming into Harkov by the end of this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's good news.

That was one of the best conferences ever. I loved it so much, we didn't want it to end. I can't believe it's taken me so long to realize how awesome conference is. The talks were great and I have never gotten so much out of it. I can't pick a favorite talk, they were all so good. But Pres. Monson and Elder Holland are the best public speakers ever, the perfect balance of humor, doctrine, and personal experiences. I am so impressed by how all the apostles can go from so hilarious to so serious and spiritual just like that. I can talk forever about the conference, how it helped us (especially with our investigators that are struggling, I heard so much advice that I thought was perfect for them), and what we learned from it. Zone Conference was also really good, but of course it doesn't compare with the big GC. We talked a lot about using the Area Book, which we really needed to do because too many missionaries don't use the Area Book like they should. We also talked about other things that needed to be addressed and we need to improve, like what happens to the work during transfer week. It will help out our mission. Our mission is at an entirely new level and still improving everyday. The battle between the missionaries and the mission president that was so present when I came into country is finally gone, and you can just feel a huge difference. It's incredible.
As for our investigators, like I already said, we passed our 3 best ones, and the rest are difficult to meet with. But we had a huge step in the right direction with Oleg. Oleg is an English student who is going to America to work this summer. We hadn't been able to meet with him for 2 weeks because he was sick and/or really busy. But he finally committed to take, read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We are way excited because he is a good kid and our Branch President (whom I will now on refer to as Aleksey, but we call him Al-yo-sha), is sitting in on our next lesson with him. Life is good, but I really want to meet with the rest of our in-actives this week and find a few new investigators that will be great members one day.