Wednesday, March 26, 2008

To those that love me (or those just want to hear about me) here is some more news about what's going on in my life...

We have 2 investigators with baptismal dates and yet they are sending both me and my companion somewhere else! I am going to an area nearby called Chernivtsy (I think that's how you might spell it in English). It will be fun! My new companions name is Elder Kaufman.

Well yesterday was fun and interesting. We had a full day planned at the church with the President of the Mission, President Davis. It was cool... we set up meetings for him and helped translate for him. It was fun, and he knows an okay amount of the language, but still needed the translation. It was not bad though.

I wish I could stay in my current apartment, but going to this new city is something I have wanted to do. I have heard a lot about this city. It is not flat like this city I'm in now (Ivano-Frankivsk); it has a lot of hills from what I understand. But I think I will be okay. The work is doing well here and I hope everything will be okay when me and my companion leave Ivano.

Nothing too crazy has happened... we had a party for our English class. We watched 'Charly' in Russian. Not the best translation, but it was fun to watch. We ate pizza and we played baseball in our suits and managed to not get dirty. It was not planned - we did not think a lot of people would be coming. I thought they might, but my comp thought not enough to get a game on, but it was all good. I hit a few home runs and it was fun.

We have changed the way we work a bit, not bad at all though, just a new way of looking at things and it seems to be working.

I have taken a few pics; we have a duck and a Book of Mormon in Ukrainian; what is in the book? I know what it is, but what do you think? A pic of me having a juice box and reading the Book of Mormon in Ukrainian and my comp is in the background (Elder Lewis). Then there are 2 pics of where I live - one looking at my apartment building and one looking out from the kitchen window and in the last week the snow was nice but the sunny warm weather was nice too. My apartment is on the 2nd floor (pink thing) and the kitchen is the left window.

Well, I am off until next week! Then you will have an update of what has happened in the new city. Папа! (Bye!)

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Hello everyone! I am just saying 'hi' and 'I love you' and I hope you are all doing well!

I am doing great! This week was the first time I had to teach the whole hour in a lesson! There was a weird thing where the other Elders had a lesson to teach, but my companion and Elder Hurst of the other companionship had to be in a meeting. So the new missionary and I went to teach the lesson. The new missionary is very limited to what he could say and they had to have 2 on the lesson, so I took Elder Hurst's place and gave a lesson that was not planned. It went well though!

Man, I do not like pigeons! The other day I saw 2 kids dropping food and having like 50 pigeons follow them down the road. It was really cool. I've never seen them do this before... I hope they led them to a trap or something! :) And it has been weird weather this week... for example today its snowing and I see the sun out.

I wish I had more time, but I don't. Next week I will work harder to give you guys a better message!

UPDATE -- Cody didn't take that picture...I googled it just to jazz up the entry...sorry! :) ~Heather

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Well, like always I am rushed. We have an investigator that needs to be met within 20 mins and so I have but a few minutes to tell you about my week.

We had an exchange and I went with the 3 week old missionary to a small city 3 hour south. It was hard for him and I didn't translate while we were there,but he did understand a lot of what was said. It was cool... the family down there is one of the strongest in this area but they just live so far away, so we held a sacrament down there. It was lots of fun and luckily it was done in Ukrainian. It was almost done in Russian, but i said something because Russian is hard for me and almost impossible to the new missionary. I took a pic of him sleeping on the bus on the way there, and one of him at the bus station not really knowing what was going on. :) It was tons of fun.

We had a Zone Conference that was great. We spoke about 80% in Russian and Ukrainian (mostly Ukrainian) and it was lots of fun. I took a pic of the way we went there. Sorry its so blurry, but the bus was running late and we had to rush and we have bumpy roads.

And I have a pic of my companion and I at our investigator's house. He has a solid baptismal date for the 22nd of March (or 22ого березня). He is a great guy that found us at a perfect time. More things have happened this week, but maybe you will have to hear about them another way...I am out of time!

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

I found out that I am a Jedi today...I will show you in a pic. I think it's cool and even though I am a Jedi, I still get burned when baking in the kitchen. :) I think the Branch President's kids are cute... Slavic, the older one and Lubamir, the younger one. Those are my pics for the week.

But anyhow I am doing well. I have found that I love waking up early! I wake up 30 mins earlier then normal and I just feel so energized. I get extra things done around the apartment and I get a wonderful workout. I am now seeing the fruit of my workouts.. how is that not cool? Or in Ukrainian... yak ne krutee?

Well this week will be a good one - I have Zone Conference this week, so I will have a wonderful time I know it. If you want to know about my language, this has been my best month so far. I have learned a lot, memorized scriptures, and other things. I've had my most effective studies and I think it's partly due to getting up early. I am more alert in the morning.

I would like to say more this week, but my email has been tripping out on me and I am losing my emails. I will do more next week. I love you all! Until next week...I will have a better update.