dear family and friends

the last week of my mission was AMAZING!!!  there are always miracles everywhere and i feel so lucky to have served here.  words can't really describe how i'm feeling...confused, i think would be the best word.  i'm excited, sad, nervous, etc.  

basically we stayed busy all last week and i didn't have time to think about anything else. we finished off our time together so well, and i'm just happy with the work that we have done.  i have reflected a lot on my mission this past week. everyone that i have met, everyone that i have taught, all the members, companions, etc. and i realize how wonderful it has been. the Lord is involved in this work and He is so mindful of His missionaries.  i remember how hard it has been, but the joy is more. i feel so blessed. it is starting to hit me, and i am sad, but i am just so thankful

right now i'm in Nepper and tomorrow will be my last day in ukraine.  it's crazy! i can't believe 14 months ago from today i was on a bus to Zap.  i will have my final interview with president van bruggen tomorrow, and then we will have our final testimony meeting.  packing was horrible as always, but hopefully everything will go smoothly heading home!  

i shared my testimony with the branch in nickolaiv yesterday, and i will tell you what i told them. i know that God lives! i know Jesus Christ is our savior. i know that we can know "the truth of all thing" through the Holy Ghost. i love this work, it truly is the Lord's work! i will miss so much the people and preaching the gospel.  i can't wait to tell you about it all in person!! i love you all, i can't thank you enough for your support, love and prayers! this has been an experience that has changed me and forever will change me. i love you all!! SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!  or sometime soon after that if the weather doesn't cooperate :) haha jk!! see ya!!

cectpa demille!

family and friends,

it's crazy snowy here in ukraine! it was so warm and nice last week, then we walk outside on friday and it's snowing soo hard! it snowed alllllll day and it probably snowed like 10 inches. i like when it snows though (as long as there is no wind involved) because its warmer and pretty!  well i'll just get into the details of the week.

friday night was the craziest friday night of my life. words cannot adequately explain the adventure we had, but i will try. so we had an appointment with a less active and we waited for a bus for like an hour, and finally got one (she lives in a village outside of the city). we called her to tell her we would be late, but her phone was off. so we get to her house and it's a straight up blizzard. even worse out in the village. oh, and the power was all out. and her phone wasn't working, she doesn't have a doorbell, and she has a huge dog guarding her gate, so we couldn't get in her house even if we wanted to haha. so we just decided to bag it, and head back home. but there were barely any buses going back to the main street. we had no choice but to walk back to the main street and get a bus from there. it was nuts haha. we were running through knee deep snow, in a blizzard, in a dark village with no power, on a friday night, in ukraine. we were so full of adrenaline and it was crazy! it was probably between 3-4 miles, and we just booked it haha. it took us about 45 minutes. we weren't cold though and it was pretty hilarious!  so there's our adventure for the week.

the rest of the week wasn't as epic as that. it was kind of a slower week, no one could meet with us except vika. we met with her twice and i just love her, she is great :) i just wish her parents would let her get baptized. we did a lot of finding but it was all basically unsuccessful. but it's okay, it was still a good week and it went by really fast.  the weather was a hinderance, and no one came to church because of it.  but this week should be a lot better, everyone was telling us last week that they wanted to meet this week, so we are hoping for the best haha. there is still a lot to do and i'm anxious to do it! 

last night we had a great activity and did a "cookie demonstration" haha. basically we just showed them how to bake them because we made the dough beforehand. we made snicker doodles and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. our lesson was about the ingredients of the restoration with some scriptures explaining all the principles we need for the recipe of the gospel. it was cool! and everyone loved the cookies. one of the young men in our branch Alex, kept trying to just steal the dough haha. he was like "why do we need to bake them, they are already good like this! let's just eat the dough!" and alex's little brother was a little scoundrel and kept stealing dough and cookies right when they came out of the oven. he was a cookie hoarder. and then there was little Eva who was like "those cookies were soooooooooo good!" and i asked her which ones she liked better and she said "all of them!" haha. so the cookies were a hit, and we are going to translate the recipe. it was good to see the members come together and it was fun. we are having another activity this week with our english class, so that should be fun too.  

it's crazy this is the last week of my mission! this last little while has gone so fast and i can't believe it. honestly it hasn't really hit me yet and i feel great. i will feel ready to go home next week, but i still have some work to do here. we will head to nepper next monday and stay with the Van Bruggens and do all my final interview stuff, then we fly out wednesday morning.  i feel great right now, but i have mixed feelings about my mission ending of course. i love the people and i love serving the Lord. i love the simpleness of life here on the mission, we have one purpose and we try everyday to fulfill it. i feel like i will always have left a part of my heart here in ukraine! but i'm ready for this week to do work and finish my mission of with a bang! i love you all, keep us in your prayers, and remember the Lord loves each of you!

cectpa demille



Sis. Gottscheck & Sis. DeMille




Sis. Kochel & Sis. DeMille




i'm petting the mural kitten for megan



some shots from the activity last night, with 2 of my fave girls in the branch



we tried to get a snap shot of me running through the snow, its pretty blurry but it gives a bit of the effect of what was really happening haha. notice the snow is up to my skirt. enjoy!

Pictures from previous weeks that I was unable to post



Cool lighted flag





vika and us!




the world's biggest beet that cost me 25 american cents..made a good pot of borsh!




us with vika and dasha..yes they never smile in pics, only in real life




creepy dog that always sits on the stairs in our apartment building   





 

my favorite and most awkward district. elder garrett and i always joke about being cousins now hahaha

my FAVORITE piece of graffitti in nickolaiv. it means "all will be well" love it!

dearest people in my life,

this week was another great week. i love this work. the Lord continues to bless us. i always mention this, but even with the ups and downs, i always feel good at the end of the day. i don't think i've ever been so stressed out in my life as i have on my mission, but it's been such a priviledge to serve the Lord and be on His team.  our district here is working hard with our investigators, hitting the streets a lot, and working with the members more.  we are trying to utilitize our talents and just be who we are in order to serve the best that we can.  the people here with their faith amaze me and i will be eternally grateful for their examples!  

we had success with meeting with Vika more this week! She is doing great and is so willing to meet and come whenever her parents allow it. she is such a great example of continuing on even though things can be hard around you.  we had a great lesson with a less-active (she comes to church but is struggling behind the scenes) that we usually meet with every week. it was a great lesson on how we can see the blessings around us, following the spirit, and striving to be obedient in order to bless others' lives.  i love her a lot, i have worked with her a lot my whole time here!  and another miracle was, we got to meet with ludmilla and her husband. we kind of just laid it all out, told her that she had a desire to get baptized and asked her what's going on with that now, told her baptism in our church with proper authority is the only way to live with God again, and that she needs to seriously think about that. she has so much faith and is an example of believing in Christ and His words! but she just needs to ACT!  we all know that "faith without works is dead" and i'm so glad that our church believes in believing, and also acting on our faith.  we hope to see some progress with her soon. she has come to the realization that her husband isn't really into changing (although he is hilarious and really likes us) and that she might just have to get baptized by herself. but ironically the next day, her husband called us and asked if he could come to church haha. ludmilla was gone helping their daughter with something, so he just came by himself and it was pretty funny and good.  the elders found us a new investigator named Daria. she is sooo cool! in her 30's and is just down to earth. she came to church last week, also to english, then we met with her this weekend. she understands the bible very well and doesn't affiliate herself with any church. she was very curious/excited about the book of mormon. we love cool people!  

the sisters from kherson came over this week and we did a 24 hour exchange. it was a blast! we love them. we got some good lessons with members in, and a lot of street contacting. the only contacts we got though were slightly creepy men. one guy kissed my hand, then sister gochek's hand (new sister from france), and then decided that wasn't enough so he kissed both of our hands again. we got his number and then he started to lean in to kiss me or something and i dodged that and walked quickly away! good times.  we learned a lot from each other and had fun on splits! we made borshe for them and they loved it! they have to come over to nickolaiv again tomorrow to do some registration stuff, so i'm excited to see them one last time.  

it has been so warm!!! it feels like spring!! i know it's not gonna last long, everyone is saying it will be in the negatives again this weekend, but it has been so nice and i've been lovin' it. we have even seen the sun a few times, we are so lucky. last week it rained a lot though a few days in a row. but we will just wait for the snow again....  so last night i had to say goodbye to one of the girls in the branch (dasha) because we had a sister in our mission go home for health stuff, so they called dasha on a "mini-mission".  i was so sad to say goodbye to her! but i'm so happy she gets to experience mission life for a few weeks, in preperation for when she will serve full-time.  

we have a few awesome activities coming up! i am going to demonstrate how to make cookies next week, and then we are doing a youth activity next week as well. it's going to be a blast! i have so much left to do here that i haven't really thought about going home, but i have come to the realization that it's getting closer. mixed feelings!  but i love this work and it has forever changed me. i love the people i have served here, and i feel like i have been the one who has learned more from them than they have from me haha. but that's how life is! i'm eternally grateful to our Lord and Savior, and He truly knows how to "succor" His people. i'm thankful for so many wonderful people in my life who support me! i love you all very much!  keep the faith!

Cectpa DeMille



everyone,

this week, we saw miracles! it was a very rewarding week.  we always have ups and downs, but the ups usually outweigh the downs haha. we found a few new investigators this week (adding to our investigator pool of like 0 haha). one is a younger girl, (veronica) about 32 and married. she is baptist, but SHE set up a meeting with us when we contacted her, and it was great! she totally accepted the book of mormon and was great. another one was an older lady that we met with a few times, but then dropped because she wasn't really super interested, but at least we are giving people the chance!  we had good success with less actives again, and talked to what seems like 500 people on the streets haha. 

 the biggest miracle was church yesterday. Pres. and Sis. Van Bruggen were in town and they were speaking in church, and we thought that 3 of our investigators/contacts would come and the elders thought 4 of theirs would come. well we had 9 non-members at church!!! it was awesome!!! we had 3 former investigators just pop in out of no where, and a few contacts.  it was so great!! we also got blessed with a surprise lesson with Vika!!! sister dickison and i did a musical number in church yesterday so we were practicing with the branch pianist, Dasha, who is friends with vika. we walked into the branch and vika was just standing there!!! it was so good to see her, i love that girl! she said her parents let her come. it was a tender mercy from the Lord! so she also came to church.  All in all, it was a great sunday!!!

our musical number went well i think! i was so nervous and shaking really bad haha! but we sang a medley of "come thou fount of every blessing" in UKRANIAN! (it's only in the ukranian hymn book, not russian) and we put with it, "abide with me, 'tis eventide".  dasha is brilliant and just came up with a good medley on the piano. we had a few people in tears, so i think it turned out all right!  Pres. and Sis. Van Bruggen talked a lot about ancestry work and how we are all children of God.  they both gave great talks of course and it's always amazing and a priviledge to get to know them more.  i really just love them and respect them a lot, they are making a huge difference in our mission and i love it!  

we are doing a ton of work with the branch here to just get the work going. i have been encouraging the relief society to do more activities and to gather as sisters more. so we had a few meetings with the relief society pres. and such. she mentioned that she doesn't know how to make cookies or anything like that, so i suggested i teach them how, and that could be an activity! she was shocked that that could be considered as an activity haha. needless to say, we had many conversations about it and i hope it will help. the relief society pres. had a lot of questions for Sis. Van Bruggen and that involved a lot of translating from me! haha my brain was fried after, but it was fun.  

last week we also got to go to Kherson for a zone training meeting, and it was great. Sis. Maxwell made orange rolls that were out of this world, and we set some great goals as a zone. it was wierd that that would be my last zone gathering ever!! the sisters from kherson are coming over this week to do splits with us as well.  it should be a good week hopefully!!  i have been LOVING reading the conference ensign!! i am amazed and inspired by all of the talks and how different they are, but how each talk can touch our lives. i am touched by the many personal and spiritual experiences they share and how trials and experiences shaped and changed their lives!  we are so blessed with wonderful leaders of our church.  i'm so very thankful for new revelation and how we are so blessed by the prophet and apostles.  the gospel is so perfect and i'm thankful for the scriptures.  i hope the gospel continues to amaze you as much as it amazes me and also gives me peace at the same time!  i thank you all for your support and prayers, i am a lucky missionary!!  keep the faith and stay warm! but when you are cold think of us in ukraine haha! just kidding, i feel bad it's cold in STG i hope it warms up before i get home :) much love!!

Cectpa DeMille



family and friends,

well this week started off a new year and we were on quarantine! it was pretty awesome. we did a lot of cleaning and organizing, ate a lot of good food (scones/honey butter, wassail, chicken with potatoes and carrots, and some chocolate). The fireworks on new years eve were CRAZY. It was a warzone! I woke up out of a deep sleep and thought we were seriously being bombed. Then i remembered if i was not a missionary, i would be out with the normal people watching the fireworks! I got up and took a sneak peek and they were pretty. Ukranians love fireworks, and the bigger and louder, the better haha. They are still lighting them off every night haha. But it was pretty funny, just really loud. It was hard to get back into the swing of things on wednesday, but it was a good week.  The "work" is still moving slow, but we are having some luck finding old contacts and investigators, and our less-active work is on the up and up. 

I love my district here (which consists of myself, my companion, and a set of elders haha) and we are calling ourselves "the january district" haha. we made a lot of good goals this week as a district and for the branch, and we are determined for fulfilling the goals!  My district leader also decided to make a "fun" goal, which consisted of-and i quote!- "sister demille baking treats for the elders every week." hahaha gotta love it.  

We had a great lesson with a less active this weekend, and she was expressing how she wasn't really happy when she was active, and went through phases of happiness/unhappiness.  So we posed a question to her, "what is happiness?" i thought about it a lot. like real, true happiness, what is it? i came up with a lot of different answers because it depends on the phases of life we are in and such, but i can honestly say on my mission i have been TRULY happy. it doesn't mean it hasn't been hard and i haven't been bubbly/cheery all the time, but i have really been happy, and i owe it all to living the commandments of the gospel.  commandments truly make us free, instead of restrict us.  I see the real effects of sin around me and i am more grateful everyday for a Loving Heavenly Father who knows us better than we know ourselves, and He has given us a plan to be truly happy.  The gospel is perfect! It isn't easy proclaiming the gospel and teaching and calling people to repentance, but it really is the ONLY way we can return to Heavenly Father.  I hope the new years thus far has treated you all well, and it's going to be a great year for the work of the Lord to move forward!  I love you all and you are all in my prayers!!

Cectpa 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



Soccer Jerserys-Presents to ourselves:)




Christmas Eve with  a Ukrainian Family





Christmas presents




Christmas breakfast with the Elders




Sis. DeMille and Sis. Gottescheck a friend of a friend from France



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