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