ballet and baptism

Nutcracker

Nutcracker

Nutcracker

picture of our zone, elder and sister merril (office couple, love them) and president and sister Nielsen

friends, family, and everyone!

This week was BUSY! Busy, wonderful, and fun.  Busy because we had zone conference.  Nepper trips are wonderful, but make the week crazy.  We headed to Nepper tuesday afternoon and came back wednesday night.  Our district was combined with the district in the most northern city in our mission called Poltava.  Sister Lacy and Sister Kochel are the sisters up there.  It was great to see them again and meet the elders in their district.  Zone conference was amazing.  Full of wonderful ideas, thoughts, and experiences from Pres/Sister Nielsen.  They are the wisest people I have ever met! Zone conf. is a good way to motivate yourself and give you a boost to work harder. 
On Thursday night we got to go to The Nutcracker by the RUSSIAN BALLET!!! Oh yeah, the russian ballet.  We bought our tickets awhile ago and we took time out of P-Day so we could go. It was awesome! When the two Russian dancers came out, everyone was so stoked. haha they love their Russian heritage here.  It was really beautiful though and so fun.  We even did missionary work there and talked to some adorable theater-goers.  Good times in Zap. 
The baptism on Saturday went smoothly and was great.  We had a good turn out and it was great to see Olga finally make that decision after 2 years.  We had cake, cookies, and chai after and it was a good time all around.  Olga is so funny, she is so little and the baptismal jumper was like 2 feet too long on her and she kept laughing and laughing about it. It was really wonderful.  I forget how important baptism is.  
We had a couple of good lessons last week. One with a less-active named Cveta. We were talking to her about coming back to church and repenting and everything like that.  We shared with her part of Elder Christofferson's talk in general conf. about the Donner pary and the man who can barely remember the horrible winter they went through, but remembers the beautiful morning that he saw.  I agree with Elder Christofferson, we all can and probably have felt like that-that the burden of sin can be lifted, and we can forget everything horrible, but remember the beautiful morning of redemption.  I feel like that about my mission.  There is a lot of sad, hard stuff that we go through, but there is always morning after night, no matter how long or dark that night is.  It is truly a priveledge to see someone pray for the first time, or realize the importance of the Book of Mormon for the first time.  I also had that experience last week.  An investigator named Ira came to the baptism that we haven't seen since October.  She is really busy so it's hard to meet with her. We were talking with her after the baptism about the Book of Mormon, and how it is true and is another witness of Christ.  She was deep in thought, truly contemplating what we had to say.  She said "I have gone to church my whole life, and I have never heard about this book before.  I have never knew this before" we explained to her why we are here and our purpose.  
Sometimes I don't know how much "good" I am doing here, but I bet the missionaries who first came to Russia/Ukraine felt like that too, and now look how much the church has grown here.  I feel like Ammon and the Sons of Mosiah: "we can look forth and see the fruits of our labors; and are they few? I say unto you, Nay, they are many.." We are gathering the elect, helping with the gathering of Israel.  One cool thing that I learned in Zone Conference is that in the scriptures it says that the tribes were spread "due North of Israel". If you look directly North of Israel, it's the Crimea, part of the Dnepropetrovsk mission.  I feel so blessed to be laboring in the land that people never thought would be open to missionary work.   Russia used to be untouchable, now we are invading like crazy trying to help the work move forward.  I testify that ALL missionary work is no effort wasted.  We are all making a difference.  I appreciate the support, prayers, and love. We need it! This work is the LORD'S  work. I love you all so much! I'm so grateful to have been born in a country where we can have the freedom of religion and for the opportunity to take that across the world.  I love you all!

Cectpa DeMille