Saturday, July 5, 2014

Family,

This coming week we are going to L'viv for Zone conference. That should be fun!

Sadly I don't have a whole lot to share with you from my week. I have had my ups and downs. This week, to be honest was more of a down. So I just wanted to share with you some things that I have learned instead of telling you about my week:

D and C 58:

3 Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.

4 For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand.

5 Remember this, which I tell you before, that you may lay it to heart, and receive that which is to follow.

Sometimes in life, we have to go through really hard trials. Whether it is the loss of a loved one, some kind of set back, or something else. These trials test us, and many times are very painful. They come even when we are doing what is right. These trials can either bring us closer to our Father in Heaven or they can drive us from Him.

A story that has been really close to my heart the last few weeks is found in three places in the scriptures. Matthew 19, Luke 18, and Mark 10. I will quote from the latter.

A young, rich ruler comes to Jesus to inquire what he needs to do to receive eternal life. Christ answers Him:

19 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.

20 And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth.

The young ruler was a good man. He kept the commandments.

21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

This was to be the mans trial. Christ knew it would be hard. Sadly this trail was to much for the young ruler, for we read:

22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

The young ruler was not willing to give His all. He was willing to give his most. But when God asked for that which was most dear to his heart and soul, that was too much for him. He backed out. I believe that each of us will have similar moments that will try us to see if we will be willing to answer the call of the Savior:

Matthew 4:19 And he saith unto them, Follow me

As we continue in Mark ten we read, that after the young ruler refuses to give his all:

28 Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.

Peter and the other disciples truly had done just that. For we read in Matthew 4:

20 And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.

They left their nets, their work, all they knew at the call of the Savior. Was it hard for them? Yes, I am sure it was. But that is the high price of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 20 we also get a little taste of the price of being a disciple.

21 And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.

22 But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.

23 And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.

Life was not meant to be easy. It is the refiners fire. We will have to drink in small measure the bitter cup that the Savior drank.

As we read of Him, we learn of what filled His cup.

Mosiah 14:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

We can even read His own words:

D and C 19: 18 Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—

19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.

So when trails come your way, remember the words of Peter

"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery atrial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."

There are many other who have walked the path behind the Savior who we can look to as examples. Consider a few:
-Joseph Smith
-Abraham
-Abinadi
-Peter
-Paul
-Job
The list goes on and on.

These words in Moroni 7 really stick out to me "charity suffereth long"

47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

Have the hope that when you are called to your fiery trials that it is not meant to destroy you, but it is meant to help you reach the promise in the previous verse. To become like the Savior, we must follow Him. That includes walking in the same path He walked. Frightening? Yes, of course.But also, with the help of the Savior and His atonement for us, it is doable.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 16: 33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

I know that the Savior knows what we are going through. I know He can and will help us overcome every obstacle. I know He is the Son of God. He loves us. He wants us to be happy, and He knows what will make us happy.

Love,

Elder Hadfield
Family,

Sadly I don't have that many stories to tell you this week. We spent most of our time this week on the street talking with people trying to find God's elect. It is nice to speak with people who are open and willing to receive what God wants to give them and it is hard to see people who don't want to receive more knowledge from God. We get to see people on ever part of the spectrum.

We did not have a baptism on Saturday. Our investigator got sick, ended up in the hospital, got big blisters on his feet so it was hard for him to walk, and felt a lot of pressure from family and friends not to get baptized. However, he still wants to keep coming to church and learning about the gospel. Hopefully he will still get baptized sometime in the future.

Brother Zhuck gave me a letter to translate to give to you, I put it in my journal. Here is what it said:

Dear Parents of Elder Hadfield,

I wanted to say thank you for the way you raised your son. He is a great man. We have become really good friends and he has really helped me though this hard time with the passing of my wife Nadia. When he is around I feel peace and I feel calm. I love him. I know God has a plan for each one of us.

Love,

Brother Mikola Zhuck

He is a very sweet man. I have been blessed on many occasions by his Christlike example. Brother Zhuck is a person who understands life. He gets why we are here. He loves the Savior and His atonement. He is kind to everyone. I love him.

In a talk in the last general conference "Live True to the Faith," by Elder William R. Walker Of the Seventy, he says"The more connected we feel to our righteous forefathers, the more likely we are to make wise and righteous choices. And so it is. Each of us will be greatly blessed if we know the stories of faith and sacrifice that led our forefathers to join the Lord’s Church."

As I read his talk I just got stuck on that quote. I guess I never really thought about it before, but I don't have a clue how any of my ancestors came to join the church. The only one I kind of know is Grandpa Schmidt, but I don't really even know that whole story. It all of the sudden became interesting to me, because of the quote I read in the Liahona. Knowing about my righteous heritage will bless me and help me be true to the faith and help me make wise choices. So if you know about how our ancestors came to join the church of God, I would really love to know about it. Or maybe Grandpa Hadfield and Schmidt know. I would love to know the stories of our ancestors so I can be blessed by their good examples.

Thanks for your emails. Thanks for your love and support. I am doing well and being taken care of.

Love,

Elder Hadfield
Hey,

Happy Fathers Day (yesterday)! I am so thankful that I have such a great father.

My week this week was good. We did not have a baptism, but we have one scheduled for this coming Saturday. The branch members have been key in teaching and fellowshiping Volodymyr (the one with the baptismal date). I will let you know how that goes next week.

We have been struggling with finding lately, so this week we spent a good amount of time searching for people to teach. We haven't really had any success yet, but we are not discouraged. We will just turn it up a notch and keep going. Keep us in your prayers.

We went to the celo this week (outside of the city) for a young men's activity with a family that we home teach. We did some work on their farm garden and we also played soccer with their son and the boys in the village. We had the four elders there and we played four vs four Americans vs Ukrainians. Sad to say we lost 14-7. After we lost I asked them if there was a basketball court in their village haha!

This morning I was reading in the book of ether and I came across this verse (5) in the third chapter (it is the brother of Jared speaking with the Lord) "Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of men."

That really made me think, how could God's power look small unto our understanding? It made me think of many things that we just take for granted ever day like the sun rising, rain, plants growing, and many other similar things. So many intricate systems working in harmony that bring us so many blessings. Some people may think that is just how it is, or that it just happens by itself. But the reality of it is that God upholds them by His great power.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-01-002-earthly-father-heavenly-father?category=mormon-messages/mormon-messages-2013&lang=eng&cid=HPTU061014222

There is a really cool mormon message about Fathers that goes along with this thought. As God's children, we do not often see all God does for us, as children do not understand all their eartly father does for them.

A funny story from our week that Elder LeBaron wrote:

Elder Hadfield and I have been having a hard time finding new investigators. This happens to every missionary at some time or another. Such has been the case with us. We pray on our knees every morning before leaving the apartment for safety, and to find those people who are ready to hear this message. Since it was raining this day, and our only method of finding investigators besides visiting members (who we didn't manage to get any appointments with), or english (we are on a 2 week break from english class), is contacting on the streets. When there is rain out, NO ONE will stop and talk. In fact, it makes people here kind of angry. So, since it was raining, we decided to make some awesome cake for some members who helped us on lessons recently, some older people, and anyone who has had some difficult circumstances recently. We had run out of flour. This meant going to the store. Okay! Time to leave the apartment. On our knees, Prayer.
This particular time, I was especially invested in praying for just ONE AWESOME missionary experience that day. Anything, please. I knew it was raining, and everyone out there was trying to get from one place to another, but anything.

Well, the rain stopped for a bit.

We went outside... and there, on a bench, was an old man eating some little bread thing and a can of tuna. Naturally, we weren't about to pass this one up. Elder Hadfield planted himself right next to the man, and began talking to him! It seemed like an awesome contact! The man even offered his half eaten bread thing to us. We kindly declined, because we had already eaten.
"So, we're volunteer's of our church, and what we do is meet with people, and teach them about this message! Would you have some time this week when we could meet and explain a bit more?"
"Where is your church?"
Elder Hadfield explained where our church was, and then tried to give some directions...
"Show me where it is!"
"Uh... okay,"
Elder Hadfield then looked at Elder LeBaron, and all I could muster up to say was, "I left the oven on."
"Will it be okay?"
"Yes."

And so we took this man across the city, by foot, to our church building. He explained about his life as we walked... He worked as a miner! He has a very large family. His name is Yura! He also has a strange love of pigeons. On our way, he found one hobbling around in the middle of the street, and went out of his way to chase it off to the side of the road, in order to save it's life (?).

Remember how I said it stopped raining for a bit? It unstopped. We got very wet.
At one point, we thought we lost him... but his just stopped to take a whiz in the bushes by someone's house. Cool. Do what ya want bud'.

Finally, we get to the Church. We've by this point (embarrassingly) realized that he was drunk from the beginning...
Seeing our church, he immediately turned stone faced. We gave him a pamphlet, and he bid us adieu. Awesome... wet and on the opposite side of the city. Adventures!

So we take a bus back home.
We finish the cake.
And we take off to deliver it.

SURE ENOUGH, back outside of our apartment, there he is again. This time, he is smashing a television set with his bare hands by a dumpster. He cheerfully greets us, we waved to him, and went about our business. I'm not sure what kind of missionary experience that was, but I assume that it's going to help somebody, someday. I think the moral of this story is two-fold; Always check the sobriety of those with whom you are conversing, and God works in mysterious ways."

A little add on from my end:

In the Bus home this really cool man named Rooslan sat next to me and we got talking and he ended up taking a Book of Mormon and promised to read it!

I love you,

Have a good week,

Elder Hadfield
Hello Family,

So I am sure you would love to know about my week. This week we have taught a lot of lessons to our investigator. We pretty much have all the lessons required for baptism done except one. So that will be nice because it will give us a long time (two weeks) to review other lessons, and to read the book of Mormon with him. He is a small, very humble man, who is full of desire and great gospel questions (not to mention he always wears a nike shirt). Everything we teach him seems to make sense to him. Which is really cool because in Preach my Gospel it talks about how we are not teaching people new things but we are bringing it back to their remembrance. The members who have came on the lessons with us to help us have payed such an important role. One in particular has became really close friends with the investigator and he talks on the phone with him to answer questions that come up.

We got transfer information this week. I will be staying in Lutsk with Elder LeBaron for another transfer, alo the other elders who were here will be staying. Both of them finish their missions after this one. I know them both really well, and have been around them in various cities so it will be fun to serve it out with them. Yak Raz (It just so happens) that we went on exchanges with them this week. It is always nice to get another perspective on things. I have come to learn that the best way to teach someone is by a loving example. That goes leaps and bounds beyond telling someone how to improve. While it is good to tell them sometimes, showing an example will help them realize they want to gain the trait that you are showing and their desire to change will come from the inside and not the outside.

After exchanges we had a chance to play some basketball. I love sports! We can lean a lot from them and grow mentally and physically! Haha, though while we were playing I went up for a rebound and smashed my finger. So sadly basketball is the cause of my pinky being all sorts of nasty colors.

In a nutshell that was my week. A senior couple also came to Lutsk to do apartment checks, and we passed! So that was good!

Love,

Elder Hadfield