Zone conference was on Wednesday this month...

Hey everyone, sorry this is a day late, but Zone Conference was on Wednesday this month, so our P-Day got bumped over; we didn't hear about this until Monday. We had a really good conference, though, where we talked about the importance of scripture memorization (it's kind of a nice feeling to not only be able to memorize scriptures in Ukrainian, but to be able to remember them because you can translate them from the english in your head).

We had a really cool experience lately with a sister in our ward, Sister Tyltina. Several weeks ago, we called the Relief Society President to find someone from the ward who could come with us on a lesson with one of our investigators. She called back to say that Sister Tyltina would, although she was a little nervous about it. As it turned out, this was the first time she had ever helped missionaries on a lesson before, despite being a strong, fully active member for the past 14 years. She did really well on the lesson, and then told us the following Sunday that she felt so good doing the lesson that she decided to begin studying out of Preach My Gospel in her spare time. When she came with us on our second lesson with our investigator, she had studied the Plan of Salvation thoroughly and, when we were joined halfway through by one of our investigator’s friends, she offered a perfect recap of everything we had taught to that point, better than we ever did in the MTC when we had just barely learned them. When our next lesson—which was going to be at the Tyltin’s house—fell through, she went instead to dinner with four of her five nonmember sisters and her brother, and ended up giving away two copies of the Book of Mormon. This past Monday we had family home evening at their house, where she told us that she had received an incredible desire to do missionary work, and that she and Brother Tyltin had begun to make plans to, once their youngest son leaves on his mission, go on a mission of their own. It’s been an incredible experience to be able to see how preaching the gospel has had such a strong effect, not only on our investigator, but on everyone involved. She also told Elder Higgins and I that when the elders who first baptized her were transferred away, she had been really sad, and had set up a wall between herself and missionaries after that; but, she said, she's come to love us just as much as she's come to love her original missionaries. Her son, Yosef, is also really cool. He's about ten years old and loves being around missionaries. It's amazing what blessings have come from serving a mission!

Well, unfortunately I have to go again, but I love you all, and I'll write again next week!
--Elder Hurst