family and friends,

it was another good week and it is still cold, and will get colder! there is a bit of snow and a lot of cold wind. it's starting to feel more like the holidays so that's good!  so, transfer news came..or rather didn't come! haha i'm staying in Nickolaiv until the end! this will be my 7th transfer here! obviously there is work for us to do here and we are determined to do it! now i don't have to pack as much :)  i'm glad to still be with sister dickison!  well, we did have a good week, always full of hardships and laughs, but good overall. our greatest "success" this week was with less actives actually.  there are plenty of them here to find, and we have yet to have found all of them.  we stopped by one woman and her daughter, and they let us right in and it was awesome! her daughter was about to have a baby in the next few days and was really nervous about it, so we prayed for her and the mom really was happy and calmed the daughter down haha. they asked me what my first name was so i told them amanda..big mistake! they called me amanda the rest of the night! haha looks like i will have to correct them on that.  but one thing i learned from that visit is how much the SIMPLE truths of the gospel bless our lives! the lady told us she went inactive because she just has "so many questions" that couldn't be answered. but the more we talked and talked about simple truths, the more all of us realized how we can understand a lot through the simpleness of the gospel.  we had another lesson with a less active girl, and she confessed how she has been missing God in her life and how she misses the spirit.  it was great to talk with them and work with them, so i was happy!! 

we met with ludmilla twice last week. she is doing really well and even though she has interesting ideas, it's great to help guide her in the truth.  she wants to get baptized, but wants to do it with her husband. he loves us, but we are not sure yet if he is going to take our message seriously or not..so we will see! her husband had a little fallback with some vodka, but she chewed him out pretty good and it was not only entertaining, but inspiring! she is wonderful but we still have a lot of work to do.  we are still doing a lot of finding, but we are having a hard time just getting people to stop and talk to us and have a conversation. so hopefully soon we will have some success with that and get some new investigators! we got to see our visa man from the office named Vova, and he is awesome! he went to lunch with us and finished up some document work with us. he kept us laughing with some hilarious stories of his kids!  so besides random people calling us by our first names, we had some more awkwardness with a few of the english guys asking us real casually if we can go on dates here. haha looks like we need to review our purpose as missionaries for a spiritual thought.  also, we are becoming more creative with our budget and food here, and we whipped up this awesome vegetable soup. i'm a chef!

anyway, things are picking up and we are trying to work closer with the branch to have more success! i really feel good about staying here for my last transfer and i hope that we can see a lot of blessings in the time coming up.  i have a great love for the people here and i love serving them!  missionary work is harder than anything i have ever done, but we try to keep it positive and fun.  sister dickison and i are working hard and loving it! even though sometimes it rains for 3 days straight like it did last week, and the cold wind blows and my ears feel frostbitten, it's great!  i really love this gospel and everything about it.  it brings so much peace in a turbulent world. even though there are horrible tragedies in the world that sometimes leave us thinking "how could that happen?", we can be assured that God loves His children and He is continually watching over us. He knows us, He loves us, and He will never leave us.  everyone has their agency and a lot of times others' agency affects our own, we can still use our agency to choose how to react to a situation. i know the book of mormon can change lives, i have seen it change mine!  i hope the true spirit of the love of Christ is with you all, and i'm so thankful for all of you and your love and support! i am so blessed! i love you all!

cectpa demille

sister dickison and i in all of our matching stuff--hats, scarves, and cool rings hahaha. i look sick, because i am sick.