dear fam and friends,

last week was so fun and went by so fast!! we got transfer news, and then we geared up to go to nepper last week. monday night we made a quick trip to Kherson and stayed there that night, then got up early on tuesday and went to nepper.  tuesday we met up with Sister Van Bruggen, then contacted around, got some food, and then went back to the Van Bruggens.  It was SO fun to be in nepper again! We hadn't been there for 6 months and it was so fun to see the city in the fall time..i had only seen it in winter!  We got to see a lot of the sisters and some elders we hadn't seen in awhile, and it was so fun.  We stayed in nepper from tuesday until friday morning, so we got to spend a lot of time there and spend time with the Van Bruggens.  They are amazing and my love for them grew a lot last week as i got to know them more.  It was such a good opportunity! President is so funny, he gave us coconut ice cream every night and did companionship study with us every day haha.  One morning he even gave us ice cream for breakfast, it was awesome!  So wednesday i was in a training meeting for awhile and it was just 6 elders and i haha.  We went and got some lunch together, and it reminded me of when i traveled over here with only elders.  Then later that day we got to meet our new companions and get to know them a little bit.  My new companion is Sister Dickison from West Jordan, UT.  She is awesome!! We have already settled in with each other and it will be a great companionship.  She is catching on quick and is such a trooper! I'm lucky to have a great companion!  We got to do a little tracting in Nepper and it was fun to be out in the country in nepper.  We also got to go to the "Welcome Party" for the new missionaries. One of the branches put it on, and it was so fun! They did a little skit, sang a few ukranian songs, and then fed us delicious Borsh.  Also, one day sis johnson and i were wandering around and we were hungry for dinner, so we got a Sharma...which is like a burrito kind of, but ukranian style and delicous.  Then we wanted a drink, so we went into this grocery store and we not only found drinks, but DONUTS!! I haven't had a donut since the MTC and it was sooooo good. The little precious things in life :)  then we sat down and ate that while we watched this guy play the violin in the main square..it was pretty perfect!!  Needless to say, the nepper trip was awesome and I learned so much.  We got back to Nickolaiv on Friday afternoon and got to work.  We did a lot of contacting this weekend and it was good, but tiring.  We found a new investigators that the elders gave to us, her name is Janna.  We had an awesome lesson with her! She told us before that she was kind of athiest, but after the lesson with us she told us that she really feels that God is her Father.  She came to church yesterday and liked it, and we made plans to meet again this weekend.  We haven't gotten ahold of our golden investigator Ludmilla which makes me kind of nervous (we can't lose her!!), but i hope and pray (a lot!) for her that we will get in contact with her soon.  We are going to be doing a lot of finding and hopefully we can find those who are searching for the truth.  We all heard about the conference news about changing the ages for missionaries, and we were all SO stoked!!! It's such an amazing time to be apart of the Lord's work and I hope there will be a lot more missionaries heading out.  I bet more missions will open up and we will see the prophecies come to pass that the word will spread forth to "every nation, kindred, and tongue".  The Lord's work is not easy, but I have learned more doing this work than I ever imagined.  We are so blessed and I owe my whole life to the gospel!  I hope you all enjoyed conference, we will get to watch it this weekend I think.  It's fun training again and it will be a good experience!  I love you all, the work moves forward, and the gospel is true!  LOVE

cectpa demille