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