Sveiki Visiems!!

Glad that conference was wonderful. We have yet to watch it. We will watch it in English throughout this week and into next week and start watching it in Lithuanian on Sunday and finish next weekend. It'll be wonderful as always.

Sweet that Skyline won the Emotion Bowl. Woot! Ella, I don't know if you'll ever have a dog. Maybe one day. Henry, Lithuania actually loves basketball. Kinda strange since it's a European country, but basketball is sometimes called their second religion.

Last week we ate Indian food at Chandler's restaurant. It was scrumptious. The meal we ate was called Alistair's Butter Chicken. For real. Crazy huh?

Miracles:

First, Tomas. We had a very open lesson with him, where he actually told us why he wants to quit smoking and we were thusly able to help him by reminding him of those reasons. He went to the hospital this week because of some blood problem in his leg. He's better now, but it still hurts and isn't completely resolved. He wants to be baptized, but has a lot of roadblocks, which need to be overcome. In another lesson this past week, he also listened quite closely and commited himself to read the Book of Mormon, so that the truth within could set him free. Hopefully he follows through on that, since he needs the strength.

Second, Eugenijus. He is a member that has some psychological problems, which require him at times to be hospitalized. He has been in the hospital since I arrived in Vilnius, but this past week we ran into him on the street and were able to teach him a lesson. The lesson started beautifully, but spiralled a bit into unpleasant waters. He was smoking when we ran into him, so we asked about that at the end. He then told us that smoking brings you spiritual strength and other such things. We tried to tie it back to following Christ and his prophets, since Eugenijus believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet, but it wasn't working. He rambled and wouldn' listen to us, trying to say that we shouldn't talk about it, so I just bluntly said that as missionaries we are called to preach repentance, that is our purpose. I then told him that he needed to repent by giving up smoking. Elder Hyer, who I was teaching with on an exchange, said afterward that he felt the power or authority as I said that. That was exciting to hear. We ended with a prayer and bid farewell. The miracle being that one, we found him, two, we know that he has a smoking problem which is deeper than an addiction, three, I exercised spiritual power.

For district meeting I taught about the worth of individuals. I used several scriptures, the worth of souls in Doctrine and Covenants, the 99 and one lost sheep, and Christ blessing the children individually in the Americas. I applied it in two ways, first to the members and investigators here, that we should focus our efforts on them as individuals not lists. Particularly because we are trying to contact all the members in our respective areas by Oct 23. Second, to the missionaries themselves. Following the idea that we are all important and have our own roles to fill, all of which are equal. I compared us to the Power Rangers. How they would fight the monster individually in their zords, but would fail, and how they needed to join together to conquer. That each member was an essential part, without one, there would be failure. I invited all the elders to discover why they are where they are with whom they are with. It went fairly well.

Also with Elder Hyer, we met with one of their investigators, Egle. She had a lot of doubts and concerns. Specifically about how church will bless her and why bad things happen to good people. She seems to be letting the doubts poison her faith. She believes the Book of Mormon is true, but has some problems with seeing it work in reality. Hopefully things get worked out for her.

We met with Dedukas. He's not doing so well. He's 87 or so and not totally there, so we just visit, chat a bit and try to share a short uplifting message. He seems glad to see us, so that's nice.

We also taught Jurga a lesson with Elder Rich. She is Elder Rich and Elder Whicker's investigator preparing for baptism. They aren't sure if she's ready, so they wanted our opinion. We also couldn't tell from that one lesson, so we decided to hold a pre-baptismal interview interview and judge by the Spirit's presence or lack thereof if she is ready for baptism. Hopefully that goes well and she can show her faith and be blessed by baptism.

That was my week. I'll try and get my license stuff finalized today. I didn't have my driver's license with me last week, so I couldn't do it. It should be pretty simple though. Thanks for your support and love. I love all of you and pray for you. Good luck this next week.

Love,

Vyresnysis Kanoris Hiltonas