dear family and friends,

We have been working so hard in this area, and it's paying off!! Good news, Sister Johnson and I are both staying in this area again :) this will be our 4th transfer together, crazy!  I will give you all the highlights from last week. We went to Simferopol (a city down south about 6-7 hours away from us) for zone conference.  We took a train on the way down there, and a bus on the way back.  We stayed with the sisters down there and we went on splits with them that night, it was fun, it was my first time doing splits with other sisters in ukraine.  It was a long 2 days of basically sitting on a train, then in zone conf., then on a bus, but it was great.  Zone conference gave us a good opportunity to discuss what is going on in our mission, how we can improve, and how we can re-dedicate/re-committ ourselves to the work.  We talked a lot about Consecration and Sacrifice.  President Van Bruggen just asked us to think in every situation "What would a consecrated missionary do?", so we are working hard and loving it.  We are doing a lot more night contacting and we meet a lot of great people, along with some crazy creepers, but it's all in the experience haha!

There are of course, a few funny things that happened.  The elders in nickolaiv said they were contacting the other day and this drunk guy approached them and they just told him sorry sir, you are drunk and walked away. Then the guy yells after them "no, YOU are drunk!" haha i'm so glad i follow the word of wisdom.  Also, we have our lovely/funny investigator in Kherson named Luba (love, in english).  We went and saw her and she was showing us around her house, and she has a shrine in every room of icons that she prays to! Haha it was no good.  Then we are asking her about this cute little kitten that was at her house the previous time we were there.  I was like, "where's the kitten Matilda?" and she was like "Probably, she died.  I cried. I can't find her :(" and i was like "well i want to cry too, Matilda was cute." and she was like "sister, don't worry. don't cry. i still have the man cat here" haha i laughed, she is so hilarious.  Then later we were telling her we had to go back to Nickolaiv and she asked us just to have a sleep over at her house and we told her we couldn't.  Then she was like "ok, i see that you have to go. but i will miss you so so much." haha and she was like almost crying. We love her haha!  We were contacting last week, and we met this guy and gave him a church invitation, then he said to us "I'm Jesus!" and we were like say what? and he was like "well, you know, He's my brother." haha then he said the same thing like 3 more times "I'm Jesus! well you know, He's my brother." I love meeting people outside.  We have also recently made friends with a lady who sells flowers on the side of the street, and she thinks it's so great that we are from America and that we like Ukraine haha.  So we are talking to her last night, and she is like introducing us to everyone that walked by saying "come over here! these 2 girls are pure, natural americans! can you believe that? and they actually LIKE ukraine! wow!" haha we tried not to be a little embarrassed and just laughed! 

We had a cool experience yesterday on the way to a lesson.  We were walking through this park thing, and I saw this guy on a bench and he was reading the Bible.  So we went over to him and told him who we were and told him about the Book of Mormon.  He had such a light in his eyes, even though he was telling us that he had recently lost everything and is going through a difficult situation.  It feels so good to testify about the Gospel and tell people that we know that our message can help them.  We also met with an investigator named Valentina.  She has an addiction to smoking (again, i'm SO glad we have the word of wisdom), and she is looking for a new path in life.  She has great faith and loved and believed the story of the Restoration.  We gave her the 12 Step program in hopes that it will help her with smoking.  We had a great lesson with Vika last night about Sacrifice (talk by Elder Oaks, last general conference).  She still is scared to get baptized, but we encouraged her to keep reading the Book of Mormon and praying and such. 

Well, i just want you all to know that i love the work!!! It's hard, but great.  God protects us, supports us, and watches over us in our part of His vineyard.  It feels good to know that I can labor in this part of the vineyard a little longer!  I love the truthfulness of the gospel.  We were talking to a woman the other night and she was a Jehova's Witness.  We told her that we KNEW our church was the only true church on the earth, and we both felt so much joy as we testified that God restored His church. It was interesting as we were talking to her because she wanted us to see how her church was right, but she never once said she knew that her church was true, or that it was the only true church on earth.  It feels good to know that we have the truth and I find so much joy in it.  We are trying to bring people to Christ, even if it seems like an impossible task.  I love you all and I'm grateful for your prayers and support! Keep up the good fight!

Cectpa DeMille



Sis. Johnson, Sis. Maxwell and Sis. DeMille