family and friends,
I think my memory might be failing, but I don't know if St. George ever got as hot as it is in Nickolaiv....I might have heat stroke! Haha jk, but kind of not really. It's really really really hot. But it's all good, we love missionary work and sweating to death! So this week included: hiking through a dusty village 3 different times to find an investigator, no baptisms, a really cute kitten, and some new investiagtors. The details: we have a rule in our mission that the sisters teach women, the elders teach men, no if's, ands, or buts. So the elders have been "passing" some women to us, and it's great, but we are soo busy!! But it's a blessing we have some wonderful people to teach and we get a lot of good experiences. One of the women, her name is Love. (a lot of women here are named love, hope, faith, etc..) and she kind of reminds me of Professor Trelawney (spelling??) on Harry Potter and she is so hilarious!! She had the cutest kitten and tried to feed us fresh goats milk and we graciously declined (it's totally against our rules to drink that stuff). We walked into her gate through her garden, and she comes over and is like "Hi girls! My name is love, and I love you!" haha she is great. After 3 times of hiking through a village, we found our next investigator from the elders, Tonya. She is way funny and speaks in half Ukranian, so I can barely understand anything. Those 2 women are both in Kherson, and then we have a new investigator here in Nickolaiv named Valentina. She is such a sweet and sincere woman who wants to quit smoking. I'm excited to keep working with her, she is great.
So our baptism didn't work out with Vika. We are going to keep working with her, but she is just scared and doesn't want to ruin her relationship with her parents. I was really sad, but we will hopefully move forward soon. It's all part of the ups and downs of doing the Lord's work. Our favorite young woman in our branch here (dasha) is so great! We are helping her study Preach My Gospel to prepare for a mission. She decided to go contacting with us last week after our lesson. We were handing out info about our church and free Liahona's. No one was really wanting to talk to us, and poor Dasha was so sad! She couldn't understand that no one would want a free magazine about Christ or hear about our church. She was almost crying, but we had a good talk about it and it was a good experience. We love her! A super funny thing happened last week. We were walking to our apartment and these Babushki that we always chat with called us over and we were talking about life, and they loved my outfit. I was wearing like this pink dress thing and a white shirt, and they told me how cute and bright i looked haha. Then they looked at Sis. Johnson (she was wearing a black shirt/grey skirt) and they told her she looked like a "dead tree" haha. They were so concerned and asked her if she had money to buy a dress like mine and she was like "yeah, i've got some money" and they were like "gather your people together and gather money so that you can buy a dress ok?" haha it was so funny! Then they told us that we should just take our nametags off and find husbands. Good advice, right? Another funny thing. We always walk this short cut way to the branch, and the elders called us one night and told us not to take the short cut anymore. We asked why and they told us this story that they were walking through the short cut and this guy comes out of nowhere (drunk) and is like (in english) "give me your money, i have a hun." haha a hun, yes. At first, i thought "a chinese warrior, sweet!" then i figured out that he meant to say Gun. haha. my bad!! So we don't take the short cut in case the "hun" is out and about.
Well the work moves forward and every day is a different challenge and joy, but it's great to be involved in the Lord's work. I really feel like these 2 cities have changed me and I love both of them a lot. The Lord's hand is in this work and He is aware of what is going on. I promise that He is actively involved in all of our lives, we just have to let Him in. I have been studying a lot in the New Testmant and Book of Mormon, and I love seeing the parallells and truths in both books. I really do love this work! I have already had a lifetime of experiences and Ukraine has touched my heart. I have recently paid attention a lot to how Christ influences our lives and how satan does as well. I am reminded of the scripture that says everything good comes from Christ. If we are filled with anger or doubt or impatience, all of those feelings come from satan. On the opposite, if we are filled with love and patience and humility, we have the abundance of the spirit in our lives. I am so grateful for the knowledge we have and the opportunity to better ourselves each and every day. The Lord knows us individually, and He loves us!! And I love you all too! I love this gospel. Until next week!
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