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| nativity |
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| our Christmas trees |
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| me |
Monday, December 26, 2011
More pictures
i hope you enjoyed those, i will take more and send more!!!
Pictures!!
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| the cat lady |
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| us laughing at the cats |
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| elder nelson and i :) |
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| eating at brat alexae's |
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| trying to eat more |
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| the cold and the outskirts/ghetto of zap |
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| making goodie bags for the branch |
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| sister clark owning the cold, me being a wuss |
Christmas in Ukraine
Family and friends,
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!! Christmas here was very different and gave us a good perspective on the true meaning of Christmas. We had a little program on Saturday with our branch. We did the nativity scene and that turned out good! Then the rest of the time was..interesting and hilarous haha. It pretty much turned into a talent show, and many people were more than willing and happy to share their talents. They ranged from a monoluge with spanish guitar music in the background, singing in english and russian, singing in french and german, a little boy singing, and many people singing poems or other various hymns. We felt the spirit, definitely had some good laughs, and it was great overall. I love the people here, even if they can't sing like Josh Groban. haha. I got to skype with my family later that night, which of course was amazing! I hope all of you that have missionaries out got to talk and enjoyed it too. After that, sister clark and I opened our christmas presents and then went to bed. Sunday was good, we went to church and then just the usual studies, calling investigators, and then sister clark got to talk to her family too. Christmas here isn't as big as it is in the states. New Years for them is like all of our holidays combined haha. we are only having Sacrament meeting next week because of the holiday haha. Which is fine with us i guess because we have to go home straight after anyway. And on new years eve, we have to come in at 2 pm for safety reasons. So we will keep busy and hopefully make some delicious food or something. Really though, i hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, it was special for us to have the true meaning of Christmas fresh on our minds and we loved it.
The rest of last week was good. We are still working with our investigators on baptismal date and they are getting more comfortable with church and with the branch. We have been blessed with great people to teach and a few of the members have been stepping up and giving us awesome referrals. We found out yesterday that one of the members cousin wants to get baptized and she is pretty much just waiting for us to teach her the lessons. CHUDA!!! (that means miracle in russian..with english spelling) We are also making headway with a few less actives. Yesterday in relief society they said that because it's a new year, they want to start visiting teaching and they want women who will actually do their calling (haha) and asked for volunteers. Different huh? Anyway, a few women volunteered and a lot shared testimonies on how visiting teaching has changed their lives. it was really special! definitely an improvement from other relief society meetings we have had.
One of my favorite ward members is Brat Alexae. He feeds the missionaries every wednesday before we have district meeting and he loves it. it is like his calling in life haha. He made us Pedoshki last week-like russian bread dough with mashed potatoes in the middle, kind of like scones ish-and they were delicious! But we got mixed up with our schedule and we told him there was going to be 8 of us (we thought the APs were coming to do splits) and there ended up being sister clark and i, and elder hopkins and elder baxter. haha he made SO MANY pedoshki!!! We only ate like have the pot and we all felt like we were going to die after. So on sunday, Brat Alexae was giving us the hardest time about how we only ate some of his pedoshki and he doesn't want to get fat so he had to feed them to the dogs hahahah. He is such a funny character!
And the news i have been dreading to tell you all--it snowed. Not a lot, but there is snow and ice on the ground. and it's cold. reallllllly cold. sister clark laughs at how many layers i put on every morning haha! I might survive, but it will be a close call. Pray for me that i won't slip on the ice everyday.
Well, I love you all!!! Missionary work has a lot of ups and a lot of downs, but I feel so blessed. I think of the great missionaries in the Book of Mormon and what they went through, I think of the pioneers and how the men had to leave their families to go preach the gospel in other countries, and I think of the missionaries of all generations that have gone before us to preach. We have it so easy compared to them and I am grateful for their service. I look up to the people here that are so faithful in the church and what they believe in. They are the pioneers for this country and they overcome obstacles everyday to stay true. We talked to this recent convert the other day who had a huge smoking problem before getting baptized and how he overcame that, and he said "it took time, little by little. God be thanked for his gift to me of the savior and that I am here today and I don't smoke anymore." Anything is possible through the savior and with faith. I am learning so much here. even though sometimes I feel like Russian might be the death of me (along with the ice), I am so grateful to be here and to labor among these people. I thank all of you, your examples to me, and your prayers.
Cectpa DeMille
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!! Christmas here was very different and gave us a good perspective on the true meaning of Christmas. We had a little program on Saturday with our branch. We did the nativity scene and that turned out good! Then the rest of the time was..interesting and hilarous haha. It pretty much turned into a talent show, and many people were more than willing and happy to share their talents. They ranged from a monoluge with spanish guitar music in the background, singing in english and russian, singing in french and german, a little boy singing, and many people singing poems or other various hymns. We felt the spirit, definitely had some good laughs, and it was great overall. I love the people here, even if they can't sing like Josh Groban. haha. I got to skype with my family later that night, which of course was amazing! I hope all of you that have missionaries out got to talk and enjoyed it too. After that, sister clark and I opened our christmas presents and then went to bed. Sunday was good, we went to church and then just the usual studies, calling investigators, and then sister clark got to talk to her family too. Christmas here isn't as big as it is in the states. New Years for them is like all of our holidays combined haha. we are only having Sacrament meeting next week because of the holiday haha. Which is fine with us i guess because we have to go home straight after anyway. And on new years eve, we have to come in at 2 pm for safety reasons. So we will keep busy and hopefully make some delicious food or something. Really though, i hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, it was special for us to have the true meaning of Christmas fresh on our minds and we loved it.
The rest of last week was good. We are still working with our investigators on baptismal date and they are getting more comfortable with church and with the branch. We have been blessed with great people to teach and a few of the members have been stepping up and giving us awesome referrals. We found out yesterday that one of the members cousin wants to get baptized and she is pretty much just waiting for us to teach her the lessons. CHUDA!!! (that means miracle in russian..with english spelling) We are also making headway with a few less actives. Yesterday in relief society they said that because it's a new year, they want to start visiting teaching and they want women who will actually do their calling (haha) and asked for volunteers. Different huh? Anyway, a few women volunteered and a lot shared testimonies on how visiting teaching has changed their lives. it was really special! definitely an improvement from other relief society meetings we have had.
One of my favorite ward members is Brat Alexae. He feeds the missionaries every wednesday before we have district meeting and he loves it. it is like his calling in life haha. He made us Pedoshki last week-like russian bread dough with mashed potatoes in the middle, kind of like scones ish-and they were delicious! But we got mixed up with our schedule and we told him there was going to be 8 of us (we thought the APs were coming to do splits) and there ended up being sister clark and i, and elder hopkins and elder baxter. haha he made SO MANY pedoshki!!! We only ate like have the pot and we all felt like we were going to die after. So on sunday, Brat Alexae was giving us the hardest time about how we only ate some of his pedoshki and he doesn't want to get fat so he had to feed them to the dogs hahahah. He is such a funny character!
And the news i have been dreading to tell you all--it snowed. Not a lot, but there is snow and ice on the ground. and it's cold. reallllllly cold. sister clark laughs at how many layers i put on every morning haha! I might survive, but it will be a close call. Pray for me that i won't slip on the ice everyday.
Well, I love you all!!! Missionary work has a lot of ups and a lot of downs, but I feel so blessed. I think of the great missionaries in the Book of Mormon and what they went through, I think of the pioneers and how the men had to leave their families to go preach the gospel in other countries, and I think of the missionaries of all generations that have gone before us to preach. We have it so easy compared to them and I am grateful for their service. I look up to the people here that are so faithful in the church and what they believe in. They are the pioneers for this country and they overcome obstacles everyday to stay true. We talked to this recent convert the other day who had a huge smoking problem before getting baptized and how he overcame that, and he said "it took time, little by little. God be thanked for his gift to me of the savior and that I am here today and I don't smoke anymore." Anything is possible through the savior and with faith. I am learning so much here. even though sometimes I feel like Russian might be the death of me (along with the ice), I am so grateful to be here and to labor among these people. I thank all of you, your examples to me, and your prayers.
Cectpa DeMille
Monday, December 19, 2011
The fresh start
Fam and Friends,
I finally feel like i am starting my real mission!! Transfers last week was crazy. We went to Nepper on thursday morning and came back friday night. Turns out Sister Lacy ended up going to another city, training one of the new sisters. So it's just me and sister clark, and we couldn't be more stoked!! We have so much work to do here in Zap and we are ready to get it started. Nepper was good, it's just always busy and everything. I love that city though, it's so beautiful.
We are busy this week trying to get ready for Christmas and we are putting on a nativity christmas program with the ward. It's funny, their christmas isn't until january 6th or something, but they have gotten used to celebrating our christmas with us from previous missionaries. It should be fun. We have 2 little Christmas trees in our apartment and we are going to decorate them and put our presents under them. haha we are excited!
The biggest news for last week was that we taught our investigators Lydia and her son Igor twice, and on saturday sis clark and i committed them to a baptismal date. yeah!!! it's for january 28th, and we are hoping everything will go through. They are a little slow grasping everything, but they are so funny and just great. I sat by Lydia at church yesterday and she was so confused on how we sing the hymns and how we skip down to the next line and stuff haha she is great.
We had another lesson with our "golden" investigators Nickolai and Irena. Turns out, they are not so golden than we thought. haha. They are so awesome and accepting of everything, but we had a couple of hang ups this week with they think that any baptism is accepted by God and they have a problem thinking that there could be just 1 church because there are people everywhere with different cultures and stuff. Sis clark and i summed it up, and we think that they don't understand priesthood authority at all, so we will work on that.
One of the biggest things we are working on here is working with our less actives. It is so hard to get anyone of them to come to church. It's hard because most of them were offended and we try explaining to them that they should come to church anyway because it's what God wants us to do, but they just don't want to. Then there are the other less actives who just have sad stories like they don't have enough money to live so they have to work on sundays but they wish they could come to church. Our branch president is amazing. simply incredible. He just cares about the branch and is what they need. It's interesting, he investigated for like 7 years then decided to get baptized. In his teaching record the missionaries wrote "one man can change a branch. it will be this man some day" and that is totally coming to pass, he is making this branch so much better and it is a priviledge working with him. Sometimes i get frustrated with the church members or with the work, but then i think of people like our branch president and realize that there are wonderful people here and they just might take some time.
We are so lucky to be here and to be serving the Lord. With Christmas coming, it is easy to remember why we celebrate christmas and the true meaning of it and everything, but I am so lucky to have Christ's name next to mine everyday so that I can remember him and my purpose here. I was reading in Mosiah last night about the sons of Mosiah and Alma the younger and how they had such a dramatic change in their lives. They went from destroying the church to building it back up and converting many. So many people here need that drastic change and they need a testimony of Jesus Christ and of our Heavenly Father. I am so grateful to have been born in the church and to know of Christ and Heavenly Father and to be able to serve and tell other people about them. I have been studying the Book of Mormon like crazy and i have gained such a strong testimony of it's witness and divinity. It truly is another testament of Jesus Christ. It is how we get closer to him and how we gain a testimony of His words and teachings. A frustrating thing about being a missionary is so many people we talk to say they believe in Jesus Christ and who he is and what he did for us, but they won't follow him. They don't realize that we are here to preach HIS gospel and to tell people about HIM. I wish i could convey to everyone how important this is and how life changing it could be. I love being a missionary, even with the frustrations. One of the things you learn to do as a missionary is to leave things in Heavenly Father's hands. we can do everything in our power to help people change and everything, but we have to come to a point where we know people have their free agency and leave everything else to Heavenly Father. It's an amazing feeling to have a burden, and to have it taken away through prayer and through Christ.
Ok, as far as the weather, it's still teasing us. it's pretty cold, we had rain a few days last week, but it hasn't snowed and i just feel it lurking somewhere in the near future. I can't describe the cold, but sometimes its painful. I have been wearing thermals haha. Thank goodness for ukranians who know how to make warm coats and toasty boots.
Well, I LOVE YOU ALL!!!! and have a wonderful Christmas!!! I appreciate all of the emails, cards, and prayers. We can't email friends or else i would be emailing all of you back, but i am writing letters, it just takes a lot of time which we don't have a lot of :) haha so i'm sorry for not responding right away. My heart and prayers are with all of you and i am grateful for everything.
Cectpa DeMille
I finally feel like i am starting my real mission!! Transfers last week was crazy. We went to Nepper on thursday morning and came back friday night. Turns out Sister Lacy ended up going to another city, training one of the new sisters. So it's just me and sister clark, and we couldn't be more stoked!! We have so much work to do here in Zap and we are ready to get it started. Nepper was good, it's just always busy and everything. I love that city though, it's so beautiful.
We are busy this week trying to get ready for Christmas and we are putting on a nativity christmas program with the ward. It's funny, their christmas isn't until january 6th or something, but they have gotten used to celebrating our christmas with us from previous missionaries. It should be fun. We have 2 little Christmas trees in our apartment and we are going to decorate them and put our presents under them. haha we are excited!
The biggest news for last week was that we taught our investigators Lydia and her son Igor twice, and on saturday sis clark and i committed them to a baptismal date. yeah!!! it's for january 28th, and we are hoping everything will go through. They are a little slow grasping everything, but they are so funny and just great. I sat by Lydia at church yesterday and she was so confused on how we sing the hymns and how we skip down to the next line and stuff haha she is great.
We had another lesson with our "golden" investigators Nickolai and Irena. Turns out, they are not so golden than we thought. haha. They are so awesome and accepting of everything, but we had a couple of hang ups this week with they think that any baptism is accepted by God and they have a problem thinking that there could be just 1 church because there are people everywhere with different cultures and stuff. Sis clark and i summed it up, and we think that they don't understand priesthood authority at all, so we will work on that.
One of the biggest things we are working on here is working with our less actives. It is so hard to get anyone of them to come to church. It's hard because most of them were offended and we try explaining to them that they should come to church anyway because it's what God wants us to do, but they just don't want to. Then there are the other less actives who just have sad stories like they don't have enough money to live so they have to work on sundays but they wish they could come to church. Our branch president is amazing. simply incredible. He just cares about the branch and is what they need. It's interesting, he investigated for like 7 years then decided to get baptized. In his teaching record the missionaries wrote "one man can change a branch. it will be this man some day" and that is totally coming to pass, he is making this branch so much better and it is a priviledge working with him. Sometimes i get frustrated with the church members or with the work, but then i think of people like our branch president and realize that there are wonderful people here and they just might take some time.
We are so lucky to be here and to be serving the Lord. With Christmas coming, it is easy to remember why we celebrate christmas and the true meaning of it and everything, but I am so lucky to have Christ's name next to mine everyday so that I can remember him and my purpose here. I was reading in Mosiah last night about the sons of Mosiah and Alma the younger and how they had such a dramatic change in their lives. They went from destroying the church to building it back up and converting many. So many people here need that drastic change and they need a testimony of Jesus Christ and of our Heavenly Father. I am so grateful to have been born in the church and to know of Christ and Heavenly Father and to be able to serve and tell other people about them. I have been studying the Book of Mormon like crazy and i have gained such a strong testimony of it's witness and divinity. It truly is another testament of Jesus Christ. It is how we get closer to him and how we gain a testimony of His words and teachings. A frustrating thing about being a missionary is so many people we talk to say they believe in Jesus Christ and who he is and what he did for us, but they won't follow him. They don't realize that we are here to preach HIS gospel and to tell people about HIM. I wish i could convey to everyone how important this is and how life changing it could be. I love being a missionary, even with the frustrations. One of the things you learn to do as a missionary is to leave things in Heavenly Father's hands. we can do everything in our power to help people change and everything, but we have to come to a point where we know people have their free agency and leave everything else to Heavenly Father. It's an amazing feeling to have a burden, and to have it taken away through prayer and through Christ.
Ok, as far as the weather, it's still teasing us. it's pretty cold, we had rain a few days last week, but it hasn't snowed and i just feel it lurking somewhere in the near future. I can't describe the cold, but sometimes its painful. I have been wearing thermals haha. Thank goodness for ukranians who know how to make warm coats and toasty boots.
Well, I LOVE YOU ALL!!!! and have a wonderful Christmas!!! I appreciate all of the emails, cards, and prayers. We can't email friends or else i would be emailing all of you back, but i am writing letters, it just takes a lot of time which we don't have a lot of :) haha so i'm sorry for not responding right away. My heart and prayers are with all of you and i am grateful for everything.
Cectpa DeMille
Monday, December 12, 2011
week 1 down
fam and friends,
ukraine is crazy! crazy awesome!! wow we have had a good week. we have had solid lessons (from what i could understand of them) and met some amazing, prepared people. here is a little about our investigators/recent experiences:
1-this lady named Irena met the missionaries on the street a few weeks ago. the elders invited her to a baptism that they had the day before i arrived in Zap. she came to the baptism and said she felt the spirit and told the missionaries everyone looked like angels. they gave her a BOM and she said she would come to english class on tuesday. *a bit of background, we a have a rule in this mission that all female investigators/potentials get sent to the sister missionaries, and all male investigators get sent to the elders. so we met her on tuesday at english and she said she has read half of the book of mormon already! she wanted to meet with us on saturday, and she brought her friend Nickolai. we taught them the restoration and showed a film about it. she said after our lesson that everything makes sense to her and she already knows the church is true!!!! Nickolai said he wanted to read the book of mormon and that it all made sense to him, but he wants to find out for himself. so awesome!! then, they invited us to a shin-dig that they were having that night that was promoting healthy food. it was like in a yoga studio and there were some cool people there but the food was nasty. all like soy and tofu. not my thing! but they are awesome and totally "golden" in my opinion.
2-we meet with a lot of inactives. our branch here has about 25 active members and a whole bunch of inactives. most of our branch is women, not very many priesthood brethern. so we have been meeting with a lot of the women and telling them they need to come to church. most of them haven't been to church in a long time because either 1 of 2 very outspoken, very opinionated, and very very blunt women offended them. haha. great. the inactive women always ask "is (so and so) still coming to church?" we say yes, and their response is usually "oh...." haha so we are workin on it! offence is a big reason why people go inactive here. also there are some apostate members here that got ahold of some book about our church that is pretty persuasive apparently and stuff. we have a lot of work to do with them as well.
3-we have a few "eternal investigators" that are pretty much members but not baptized. one girl just had her 23rd birthday last week and she comes to everything that we have! institute, church, FHE, everything. but she is hesitant on baptism. we also have some work to do there.
4-some investigators we have are really close to baptism! a few just have a couple of things they are working on but they are solid and love the church.
5-we have a lot of people come to english that love the activities in the church, love us, and don't want religion. haha we will work on that too.
overall, we are busy and i love it. there are some crazy people, some rude people, and a lot of wonderful people here in Zaporozhia. we just got news of transfers today and i am staying here, sister clark is training me, and sister lacy is heading to Nepper (the city) to finish her mission, she goes home in march. she will be training one of the new sisters arriving this week. me and sister clark are stoked to work it here in Zap. it's a hard city, but a good city with a lot of potential. i have had a lot of questions about the weather--it is COLD! today is actually warm, i only wore a pea coat instead of the legit ukraine winter coat that i bought last week. i also bought winter boots that are super cozy warm. usually i wear my winter coat, boots, thick tights, gloves, a scarf, and a beanie. usually it's just cold, but if the wind is blowing it is cooooldd. very cold. i'm not prepared for the snow. and all of the members/investigators will ask me how i like it here and i say "i love it! but it's cold!" and they all laugh hysterically and say "no, it's not cold." haha so that's comforting. i have a feeling it will get real cold this week. that's okay though, i will survive i think. i think i finally got over my jetlag. i like mostly everything here though. the food is good, we cook a lot, we have fun a lot, and we work hard. the weather is probably the hardest thing. and the language of course. i still can't understand much. but this transfer will help me a lot, it will force me to learn russian really good, really fast. the other day we were teaching a lesson and i shared a scripture and i felt like i read so good and my accent was good and stuff! but then she just looked at me with this blank stare..so i handed her the book and she read it and then she was like "oh!" hahaha. it's all good though, i will get it sooner or later. well we get to go up to Nepper this week on wednesday and come back thursday. we get to stay at presidents lavish apartment! yeah! i love being a missionary. it's a big responsibility here because we are like the support of the church. they have just barely started trying to get visiting/home teaching going and it is such a chore! all the members think its pointless so we are trying to help them. other than that, everything is good. i am trying to stay warm, trying to understand a crazy language, and loving ukraine. i love you all, i'm grateful for this gospel and that i get to share it to people who need it. ukraine is such a dark place, they need some light, and it's amazing to bring it to them. i hope you all are enjoying the holidays and everything. God bless America. i love you all!!!!
cectpa demille
ukraine is crazy! crazy awesome!! wow we have had a good week. we have had solid lessons (from what i could understand of them) and met some amazing, prepared people. here is a little about our investigators/recent experiences:
1-this lady named Irena met the missionaries on the street a few weeks ago. the elders invited her to a baptism that they had the day before i arrived in Zap. she came to the baptism and said she felt the spirit and told the missionaries everyone looked like angels. they gave her a BOM and she said she would come to english class on tuesday. *a bit of background, we a have a rule in this mission that all female investigators/potentials get sent to the sister missionaries, and all male investigators get sent to the elders. so we met her on tuesday at english and she said she has read half of the book of mormon already! she wanted to meet with us on saturday, and she brought her friend Nickolai. we taught them the restoration and showed a film about it. she said after our lesson that everything makes sense to her and she already knows the church is true!!!! Nickolai said he wanted to read the book of mormon and that it all made sense to him, but he wants to find out for himself. so awesome!! then, they invited us to a shin-dig that they were having that night that was promoting healthy food. it was like in a yoga studio and there were some cool people there but the food was nasty. all like soy and tofu. not my thing! but they are awesome and totally "golden" in my opinion.
2-we meet with a lot of inactives. our branch here has about 25 active members and a whole bunch of inactives. most of our branch is women, not very many priesthood brethern. so we have been meeting with a lot of the women and telling them they need to come to church. most of them haven't been to church in a long time because either 1 of 2 very outspoken, very opinionated, and very very blunt women offended them. haha. great. the inactive women always ask "is (so and so) still coming to church?" we say yes, and their response is usually "oh...." haha so we are workin on it! offence is a big reason why people go inactive here. also there are some apostate members here that got ahold of some book about our church that is pretty persuasive apparently and stuff. we have a lot of work to do with them as well.
3-we have a few "eternal investigators" that are pretty much members but not baptized. one girl just had her 23rd birthday last week and she comes to everything that we have! institute, church, FHE, everything. but she is hesitant on baptism. we also have some work to do there.
4-some investigators we have are really close to baptism! a few just have a couple of things they are working on but they are solid and love the church.
5-we have a lot of people come to english that love the activities in the church, love us, and don't want religion. haha we will work on that too.
overall, we are busy and i love it. there are some crazy people, some rude people, and a lot of wonderful people here in Zaporozhia. we just got news of transfers today and i am staying here, sister clark is training me, and sister lacy is heading to Nepper (the city) to finish her mission, she goes home in march. she will be training one of the new sisters arriving this week. me and sister clark are stoked to work it here in Zap. it's a hard city, but a good city with a lot of potential. i have had a lot of questions about the weather--it is COLD! today is actually warm, i only wore a pea coat instead of the legit ukraine winter coat that i bought last week. i also bought winter boots that are super cozy warm. usually i wear my winter coat, boots, thick tights, gloves, a scarf, and a beanie. usually it's just cold, but if the wind is blowing it is cooooldd. very cold. i'm not prepared for the snow. and all of the members/investigators will ask me how i like it here and i say "i love it! but it's cold!" and they all laugh hysterically and say "no, it's not cold." haha so that's comforting. i have a feeling it will get real cold this week. that's okay though, i will survive i think. i think i finally got over my jetlag. i like mostly everything here though. the food is good, we cook a lot, we have fun a lot, and we work hard. the weather is probably the hardest thing. and the language of course. i still can't understand much. but this transfer will help me a lot, it will force me to learn russian really good, really fast. the other day we were teaching a lesson and i shared a scripture and i felt like i read so good and my accent was good and stuff! but then she just looked at me with this blank stare..so i handed her the book and she read it and then she was like "oh!" hahaha. it's all good though, i will get it sooner or later. well we get to go up to Nepper this week on wednesday and come back thursday. we get to stay at presidents lavish apartment! yeah! i love being a missionary. it's a big responsibility here because we are like the support of the church. they have just barely started trying to get visiting/home teaching going and it is such a chore! all the members think its pointless so we are trying to help them. other than that, everything is good. i am trying to stay warm, trying to understand a crazy language, and loving ukraine. i love you all, i'm grateful for this gospel and that i get to share it to people who need it. ukraine is such a dark place, they need some light, and it's amazing to bring it to them. i hope you all are enjoying the holidays and everything. God bless America. i love you all!!!!
cectpa demille
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Family and Friends,
Well, i am in UKRAINE!!! We were in phoenix last week at transfer meeting on wednesday, and then we got a call wednesday night saying we were booked on flights for friday morning. It was crazy fast and busy for a few days and then we left phoenix. We flew friday morning from phoenix to DC, DC to Vienna Austria, then Austria to Dnepropetrovsk. It was a long flight, but we are soo happy to be here. We got into Nepper, met our mission President Nielsen and the AP's, then we went contacting around the city, we went out to dinner, and then i went to the mission home and the elders went to the AP's apartment. The mission home is super super nice, the nicest one in eastern europe. I took a shower, then hung out with Sister Nielsen until 8:30 pm and then crashed. We had breakfast yesterday morning with everyone, then we went to church. The members in Nepper are fantastic and it was cool to be at church in all russian. I can't understand much but i'm not that discouraged, i know it will come sooner or later. After church we had orientation, dinner, more orientation, and then we all went to our assigned areas. We came in a week and a half before transfers so we are all in 3-somes. Elder hopkins and i are in an area called Zaphorozia aka Zap, the other 2 elders are staying in nepper until transfers. So last night 2 elders from zap came up and picked us up. It was a crazy night, we left the mission home, got the elders luggage from the AP's, took a tram to the mission office to get mail, took another tram to the bus station, and then took a 2 hour bus ride to Zap. The night was interesting, here are a few things that happened: i almost got ran over by the tram because i wasn't standing far enough away and then ukrainian guys laughed at me haha, the two elders from Zap had to pick up a drunk guy that was passed out and had no hands (seriously), we got yelled at and overcharged on the tram because of our luggage, and we dragged 6 suitcases and a bag full of packages through all the city of Nepper. It was full of adventures and it was amazing haha. We finally got into Zap last night at about 10:40. I am in a 3-some and my 2 companions are Sister Lacy and Sister Clark. We are all super similar and having a blast thus far. I am still so tired and my body is sore from traveling across the world and dragging luggage through broken cobblestone streets, but i feel so good to be here and i am ready to work. We are lucky we came in right before P-day to have a day to unpack and get settled in. We have 8 missionaries in Zap now. They say the work is going well and they are pushing hard to get more baptisms by the end of the year. The weather is cold, but there is no snow. It is definitely the wind that hits you hard. They say the work is going well and things are progressing. I might be here for awhile because i think president likes to keep missionaries in an area for awhile to get things moving and gain trust. The missionaries i have met so far are all solid, fantastic missionaries. I am so blessed to be here and have this experience. It's been a little bit of a culture shock, but i love it. It looks like europe a lot, but just older. I am alive, doing well, tired, but ready to get to work. I appreciate all of the prayers towards our visas and for the missionaries everywhere, we truly need it! It is amazing to be united in bringing people unto Christ. I love you all, and I will have more updates after my first week in Ukraine!
Love, Cectpa DeMille
Well, i am in UKRAINE!!! We were in phoenix last week at transfer meeting on wednesday, and then we got a call wednesday night saying we were booked on flights for friday morning. It was crazy fast and busy for a few days and then we left phoenix. We flew friday morning from phoenix to DC, DC to Vienna Austria, then Austria to Dnepropetrovsk. It was a long flight, but we are soo happy to be here. We got into Nepper, met our mission President Nielsen and the AP's, then we went contacting around the city, we went out to dinner, and then i went to the mission home and the elders went to the AP's apartment. The mission home is super super nice, the nicest one in eastern europe. I took a shower, then hung out with Sister Nielsen until 8:30 pm and then crashed. We had breakfast yesterday morning with everyone, then we went to church. The members in Nepper are fantastic and it was cool to be at church in all russian. I can't understand much but i'm not that discouraged, i know it will come sooner or later. After church we had orientation, dinner, more orientation, and then we all went to our assigned areas. We came in a week and a half before transfers so we are all in 3-somes. Elder hopkins and i are in an area called Zaphorozia aka Zap, the other 2 elders are staying in nepper until transfers. So last night 2 elders from zap came up and picked us up. It was a crazy night, we left the mission home, got the elders luggage from the AP's, took a tram to the mission office to get mail, took another tram to the bus station, and then took a 2 hour bus ride to Zap. The night was interesting, here are a few things that happened: i almost got ran over by the tram because i wasn't standing far enough away and then ukrainian guys laughed at me haha, the two elders from Zap had to pick up a drunk guy that was passed out and had no hands (seriously), we got yelled at and overcharged on the tram because of our luggage, and we dragged 6 suitcases and a bag full of packages through all the city of Nepper. It was full of adventures and it was amazing haha. We finally got into Zap last night at about 10:40. I am in a 3-some and my 2 companions are Sister Lacy and Sister Clark. We are all super similar and having a blast thus far. I am still so tired and my body is sore from traveling across the world and dragging luggage through broken cobblestone streets, but i feel so good to be here and i am ready to work. We are lucky we came in right before P-day to have a day to unpack and get settled in. We have 8 missionaries in Zap now. They say the work is going well and they are pushing hard to get more baptisms by the end of the year. The weather is cold, but there is no snow. It is definitely the wind that hits you hard. They say the work is going well and things are progressing. I might be here for awhile because i think president likes to keep missionaries in an area for awhile to get things moving and gain trust. The missionaries i have met so far are all solid, fantastic missionaries. I am so blessed to be here and have this experience. It's been a little bit of a culture shock, but i love it. It looks like europe a lot, but just older. I am alive, doing well, tired, but ready to get to work. I appreciate all of the prayers towards our visas and for the missionaries everywhere, we truly need it! It is amazing to be united in bringing people unto Christ. I love you all, and I will have more updates after my first week in Ukraine!
Love, Cectpa DeMille
Saturday, December 3, 2011
ARRIVAL!
Dear Brother and Sister DeMille,
We are delighted to let you know that your daughter is here safely (sitting
right here beside me!!) She looks great and we are looking forward to
getting to know her and enjoying doing the work here.
She says to tell you P-day is Monday.
Thank you for your support of her and this mission.
Sister Nielsen
We are delighted to let you know that your daughter is here safely (sitting
right here beside me!!) She looks great and we are looking forward to
getting to know her and enjoying doing the work here.
She says to tell you P-day is Monday.
Thank you for your support of her and this mission.
Sister Nielsen
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