hot weather and blessings

family and friends,

The work continues and the Lord NEVER ceases to bless us and surprise us!! I love it!! It is HOT and it is rough, but it's all good. I'm sure once it hits negative again, I will be wanting summer, haha but I want winter right now! Anyway, we had a couple of amazing things happen last week.  So we had a couple of long days of contacting and we have been searching through the area book again.  We found this section in our book with "only addresses", so we decided to check a few out.  It had already been a long day, but we stopped by a few before heading home.  We stopped by one, and it didn't work.  Then we went to the next one, and we called them on their domaphone. (domaphone-these little code pads that you have to call in order to get access into the apartment buildings).  Well, their domaphone didn't work.  So we thought what the heck, we will just try a random domaphone and see if someone will let us in.  Well luck was on our side, and we got in, so we went up to the apartment.  This lady answered the door, and was like "oh, missionaries! come in!".  So we went right in and her husband and their son were there.  They had golden questions and we had golden answers! haha it was a great little lesson and we ended with a kneeling prayer.  They are 7th day adventist, but had a lot of questions that we have the answers to.  Whether or not they will get baptized or not, it is an amazing thing to see the spirit of the Lord working on people and working through us to answer questions.  We met with them again and they are great. We will continue teaching them, and they seem prepared! I love it!  

We are continuing teaching our other investigators and potential investigators, and the work is moving forward quite a bit here in Nickolaiv.  Kherson's work has been slow lately, but we have been getting a lot of contacts from the elders and have a lot of potential.  Sometimes I feel like our lives here are back and forth on buses, but we love both cities and it's worth it!! The Kherson branch is struggling a bit though.  Unfortunately there are some members that are a little..well, you could say self-righteous and unaccepting of some of our investigators.  We need to do some righteous rebuking, and hopefully the work will continue and the branch will grow.  

A few funny things-we were heading to Kherson and on the bus was this drunk guy who kept trying to talk to us and tell us he knows english.  Haha so he looked over at me and is like "girl, did you know you have german eyes?" i was like "huh? like what's that supposed to mean?" then he just gives this creepy grin and is like "beautiful." hahaha oh gosh sister johnson and i laughed pretty hard.  We meet some of the most interesting people on buses and ukraine is full of funny people.  We did service in Kherson for this member and she is great, we do service for her about every week.  Lately we have been digging a trench, and i digged a lot on saturday haha.  At first she didn't know if we could handle it ("you're sister missionaries!", she said), but we proved her wrong and did some manual labor.  Gotta love it!! It really is great doing service here and service builds a bond with people that might not happen otherwise.

Here is my spiritual thought for the week.  One thing I have noticed lately is that our church truly has the FULNESS of the gospel.  We associate with a lot of people from a lot of different churches, and as they share our beliefs with us, I realize that other churches really have parts of the truth, but not the whole truth.  The restoration of the gospel is so logical!  God WANTS us to return to Him, so He restored His gospel again on the earth.  The earth had to be prepared for this restoration, and as we look at history, it is logical that everything was leading up to the restoration of the gospel.  The scriptures prophecy of it.  I respect other churches.  They are doing the best they can with the knowledge they have, and usually religion in general makes people better.  As a missionary, I just tell people we have more to offer and our church is the only true church on earth haha.  As missionaries we are probably some of the biggest offenders out there. The bolness of our message offends people and what we proclaim shakes their beliefs.  But as we know, Christ was the biggest offender of all time and it was because He was a perfect teacher and a perfect person!  The scriptures say that the truth cutteth the guilty to the very core.  As missionaries we make people truly think, we have answers, and a lot of time those answers and thought-provoking questions we ask, cut them to the very core.  But  we are authorized to do that because of our divine call as a missionary, and i love it!! The work is moving forth and people are feeling the power of our message.  

I love you all! I pray for you daily. I appreciate your love and support for me! I love this gospel and I feel so happy.  True happiness comes from righteous living, remember that.  Until next week!

Cectpa DeMille

they call pigeons here "the noble bird" and they build houses for them. no joke. I  thought Nick would enjoy that haha.  sunshine still beats all birds out there.

this is us doing service, digging the trench.  elder maxwell took these and he thought it was "so cute" taking them from behind the ladder hahaha,  sorry they are far away.

more service

more service

more service!

this painting is hanging about my bed.  I'm not sure what it's all about, sis J and I are still dumbfounded as to what it could mean.  like what's with the strange arabian man and the half naked white girl in the desert?  just thought you would enjoy the art-work in our apartment.  haha