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