Sister Amanda DeMille

dear family and friends,

i hope you all had a super merry christmas! it was a super fun christmas here and so nice to celebrate! we had a blast of going to Kherson last christmas eve for lunch/christmas devotional, a lot of food with some members here, and back to kherson for a zone conference on wednesday. it was so great! and for zone conference lunch, pres/sister Van Bruggen made us hamburgers! it was so delicious. it was fun to be with all the missionaries and spend time for the holidays. Christ's Birth is a miracle and the greatest gift to us! I'm so thankful for Him! So, all in all it was a good week. We didn't have hardly any lessons, but we are trying to move forward. The day after Christmas, all of the snow melted. it was crazy! so warm, it felt like spring again. and it's still gone! no snow yet for the new year. i haven't minded, and it was fun to have a white christmas. it has been super foggy though. last week driving home from kherson at night was sketchy. we couldn't see anything in front of us and our driver was driving like a madman! we all said a prayer and were saved.

so a few funny things. we have a religious english class on thursday nights, and a few people came, and we decided to talk about family history. they loved it! i brought my pedigree charts and they were amazed i had ancestors from everywhere. and another funny thing with that was that elder garrett (my district leader from cedar city ut) was looking at my pedigree chart, and lo and behold, we are related haha. we laughed pretty hard and we argued who gets to steal which names from our family. we are related on my dad's side of the family and his mom's side of the family. funny, such a small world! but i loved talking about family history and it was a great discussion.

another funny story. we had some men hit on us last week a few times and both times the elders were with us. one of the times we were in kherson on a marshutka and it was a crowded one, so i was standing kind of by the driver and he started chatting with me. i was just responding being normal and friendly, and he started to flirt a bit, so i went and sat down because a seat cleared up. then he turns off the music and says "demillechka, where did you go? why did you leave? come up here and talk to me!!!" i look at the elders and sister dickison and they all are just laughing, and i'm just super embarrassed haha. then he yells again "come on for one minute and talk to me, i have something i want to show you that i can't tell you, you just have to come see" and these 3 ladies on the marshutka are like "is he talking to you?" and i was like yes, and they were like "well go talk to him!" and i'm like "no way!" and they all just kind of shake their heads haha. so when we got off the marshutka i had the elders make like a barracade and i snuck out haha. good thing they are both really tall, no one will mess with them. but i was so confused why the ladies didn't have my back, they were trying to send me to talk to the creeper! haha life as a sister missionary.

people have already been doing fireworks for like 3 days. ukranians LOVE fireworks. i don't think they have restrictions on them either haha, they are huge. it will be fun trying to sleep tonight :) we are on lockdown for the next few days basically. we have to be in by 3 pm today, and can't leave our apartment at all until after studies on wednesday. we have a lot of activities planned and good food to cook haha. and a lot of cleaning of course! we are pretty excited haha.

i felt like i grew so much spiritually last week! in our mission we are focusing on consecration and charity, and as a mission we are going to read the book of mormon. we are taking to marking pencils and one color will be charity and one will be consecration, and we are supposed to highlight every example of those qualities. i'm so excited! i truly know that sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. i'm so thankful for the missionaries here that i serve with, they are such examples! we thought a lot this week how we can help the branch here in Nickolaiv, and the 4 of us missionaries came up with a branch mission plan, and we are going to start teaching the branch members out of preach my gospel. i hope we can see some fruits of our labors here through working more closely with the branch members. we are excited to make a difference here! i love this work and i know it's true. the gospel is so beautiful and we would be no where without it! it's so true. Heavenly Father loves us so much, and i'm seeing more and more everyday that "the worth of souls" are truly great in His eyes. with a new year coming up, i challenge you all to think of ways to strengthen yourselves spiritually. we all know taht "this life is the time to prepare to meet God" and we never know when that meeting will occur. i love you all, and i know this gospel is true. keep the missionaries in your prayers, we definitely need them. with love and lots of it,

cectpa demille