family and friends,

IT SNOWED!!  i was shocked! it snowed for 3 days straight, so i'm thinking it's here to stay.  i was surprised, last year it didn't even begin to snow until christmas eve and then melted and came and went a lot still...so it's cold right now, but it's beautiful! i love the winter wonderland...even though my feet are usually numb within 3 minutes no matter how many layers of socks i wear!  so we have plenty of christmas activities planned. today we are going to Kherson for a christmas eve lunch and watching the christmas broadcast, tonight we are going to a part member family for a lesson/celebration, tomorrow we are having christmas breakfast with the elders and this couple in our branch, tomorrow we all get to skype, then tomorrow night we are going back to Kherson for a christmas mini-zone conference on wednesday morning. it will be busy, but so fun! we are excited. i love the christmas spirit!!

the work is going! haha unfortunately there wasn't much to report. around this time of year it seems like everyone is sick or too busy to meet until after the holidays. we are doing a lot of finding (tracting, street contacting in the snow), and we still are having success with meeting with less actives. so we are trying to find those who are ready and i hope that we will find some people soon who are truly ready and interested in the gospel!  it's hard sometimes because i know what we have to share is more important than anything in the world, but everyone has their free agency and we can't force people to believe it.  we had an interesting experience though. last week the elders met this girl named Ling who is from china but teaches english here. so we gave her a call and she said she is not religious at all, but wanted to meet. so we gave it a shot and met with her in a little cafe and it was actually really cool! we told her exactly what we do here and she never said anything about not being religious to us face to face. she thought it was crazy (but cool) we were here and really liked us, so that was neat!  

we met with a less active last night and we were talking about faith and why we need to have faith. she asked us to share how faith has helped us, and it was cool to bare testimony about faith with someone who hasn't been to church in years.  she told us she doesn't believe in just one true church, and that she thought God loves everyone the same and accepts every church.  we explained lovingly/boldly that God does love everyone and that we believe religion in general is good. it makes good people better, bad people good, and keeps people believing. but, God doesn't want His children to be confused, therefore, there needs to only be one church. God has always revealed His gospel when people were ready, and He revealed it the last time through Joseph Smith.  I'm so thankful to a loving Heavenly Father who gave us the clear, straight, path back to Him.  I'm so thankful that He sent His beloved son Jesus Christ, to earth so He could know how to "succor" us. He truly is our Savior! He lives! I love that our message focuses on His life and His resurrection-not only that He died.  I love this special time of year to reflect on His life.  I hope you are all filled with the Christmas spirit!  Do something nice for someone else, do what Christ would do! Then the true christmas spirit will abound.  it's wonderful to be His representative and share His message with these people. even though it's not easy, I still love it! and I love you all! i hope you all have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!  and remember our Lord, Savior, and Redeemer--Jesus Christ!! i love you all!

Sister DeMille