Nov 16 - Mud, Mud, and More Mud

My new comp is Elder Clarkstone from Niagra Falls, Canada, as you already know. He's cool and we've been having fun together. I'm putting him to work and I'm going to have him perform a musical number on the piano his first Sunday here. It'll be good, we're going to have a great transfer. . . mostly of tracting and finding investigators, but great nonetheless. This weekend was District Conference (Stake Conf) for all of Harkov, so that was cool to see such a big gathering of the Saints here. The talks were good, I hate translating though. It's such good practice, but it's so draining, I feel like I can't remember anything they talk about because you just are so focused on trying to spit out the right words and you only focus on a phrase at a time. But I'm sure the talks were really good. I translated for this cool kid I'm good friends with, Guillermo. He's a student here from Ecuador and Saturday night he opened his misison call. He's going to Ecuador but a different place than where he's from. The Galapagos Islands are in his mission, how sweet would it be to serve there? Anyways, training has been fun, he's a very chill, down to earth kid. Ha, and he's a fearless contacter, it's so great to watch. He like jumps out in front of people so they can't really walk around him and he yells hello with a huge smile and even a bigger American accent. It's awesome, I love it. Our first day together was crazy. Our phone is broken and the alarm didn't go off, even though it was set. So we didn't wake up on time, but it's not like we slept in late. I still woke up then let him sleep longer because President tells us to let them get their sleep to catch up on jet lag. It was funny though because no missionary wants to not wake up on time his first day in the field, so he jumped right out of bed once he woke up and saw it was past 6:30, like he had just done something really bad. It was so funny, reminded me a lot of when I first came here. Then District Conference was in center, which is far away from our apartment, and Guillermo opened his call afterwards. So we were coming home late and the girls from our branch, Veeka, Fatema, and this investigator in our branch that they are good friends with, came home with us, well, to the subway because we all had to go back to the XTZ area. So we're all talking and laughing about stuff, but of course he doesn't understand anything because these girls are the fastest Russian speakers on the planet. It was fun, but then we got off the stop and we are walking back to our apartment by ourselves now. It's already way late, and it's so muddy everywhere because it's been raining for a few days straight. And when it rains here, ukraine becomes one of the muddiest places in the world. And you probably guessed it already, as we are walking home on my comps first night in country he slips and eats it into this huge mud pile. he got duked in mud and it soaked through his suit and it was even all over his garments. ha ha, it was so funny, we were laughing so hard. I'm glad I have a comp who could laugh it off and not get upset about it. So yea, great week. We have another good week set up, meeting with lots of members and trying to find those elect.

Nov 9 - Happy Birthday!

It's been a pretty crazy week. My birthday was a lot of fun, I was on a split and me and Elder Steele both forgot it was my birthday that morning until someone called to wish me a happy birthday. That was funny, and then we had an awesome district meeting (Elder Greener's last one because he's flying home tomorrow), so that was cool. And that night we had a lesson with the coolest member family, and Veeka and Fatema came too. They made a cake with candles and sang and stuff. The cake was like a big, home-made twix/snickers bar. It was way good. Sister Veeta is like our Mom out here, my greenie is going to love him. Oh yeah, my greenie. So the next day Pres Fry called to wish me a happy birthday and said he's going to give me my birthday wish and let me stay in XTZ. Then, he said he wanted me to train here next transfer. His name is Elder Clarkston and he's from Niagra Falls. We don't have any Canadians in the mission, so I guess that'll be cool. I asked President if he likes sports, because I kind of wanted to train an athlete, and so President just read me his profile. He majors in the Bio-medicine stuff, he's a pianist, and he has like 100 scholarships. . . . . so we're like pretty much the same person. Ha, no, it'll be a lot of fun. But my comp has been really sick the last few days and we haven't been able to do anything, it stinks so bad. It's so boring, but he's slowly getting better and better. He managed to make it to church yesterday, but that's all we've done the last couple weeks. I would really like to find just 1 investigator. That's all we're working to do, our goal is just one investigator to strengthen this branch. President didn't want to train here, no one in the mission has ever heard of someone training in this area because it's been so dead for the last several years. It's a good thing I'll have a very undepressed, excited to work greenie. Because it's getting more and more miserably cold each day, it already gets dark at 4, so people get mad when you tract at 6 and say it's too late. Life is great, we are going to have so much fun

Nov 2 - Refiner's Fire

That's awesome that you guys are all doing great and had an amazing weekend with perfect weather at the beach and stuff. Ukraine is pretty much not that. It's already getting miserably cold to the point where you have no desire to walk outside and is starting to snow. There is this swine flu thing that's killing all these people in Chernobyl and around Kiev. It hasn't got to Harkov yet but everyone is still freaking out about it. People are walking around with those doctor masks and stuff. It's pretty crazy.

And as for the Greatness that is the XTZ-Proletarska area, I have nick-named it “The Refiner's Fire: Where Champions are Made.” And that's exactly what it still is. This has kind of been a tough week, but it's an experience that I've realized I need. We dropped our only investigator on Tuesday, which is probably the last thing you want to do as a negative 30 degree winter is approaching and you only have 5 members in your area that will meet with you (But hey, on the bright side, that’s more than we had a few weeks ago). But he wasn't going anywhere and it was time to drop him. He's a great guy though, hopefully one day he'll get it.

But of course the Lord will immediately reward an act of faith like that with a golden investigator just waiting to here our message, right? Ha, yeah. It really makes you think a lot about things, about everything. About what you're doing, what you could do better, how you could better use the Spirit in your work. We started praying more, and more sincerely, and then looking at the map to see where to go. We still don't know if anything has come from all the tracting we've done this week. I was thinking about what it was, I just know there are people ready here, but I couldn't figure out why we aren't finding them. I knew it was our faith, we know we can find people. We're both confident people (probably part of the reason right there). But then I asked myself where my faith was. I thought of Alekseevka. And started to think of who it was that really went into that area and brought it to life. I realized that part of me still felt like I revived that area, I found those investigators for baptism. I got my comp working again. This might be a small exaggeration, I knew that it was a blessing from God to teach those people and have success there. I know that everything we get is from Him. But, I don't know, I think that just made me realize that maybe not all my faith was where it should be, maybe part of it is still in myself and my abilities. So, I figure once we are humble enough and rely on the Lord as much as we should, those investigators will be right there waiting for us. Or, I’ll just get depressed like everyone else here in the winter time. Ha, I'm kidding, but it is already too cold for me, and it is not hard to believe why winter is not the happiest time of the year. But don't worry, me and Elder Moon are anything but depressed.

October 26 - Meal appointments!

…. This week has been great. We set up 2 new weekly meal appointments with part-member families- and weekly meal appointments are more rare than investigators in Ukraine. We are so excited about that, especially with winter coming. It's already way cold, snow will come soon. I can't believe it was 98 in Vegas last week. It was closer to 38 here. And we broke 30 this week at church! We had 31 people in attendance, but 2 of those people came after the sacrament was passed. Overall, this week could've been great, but we're getting stiffed on our investigator lessons. Nothing's coming easy, but we just got to keep doing better and working harder each week. I feel like we're so close to busting open this area, but it's just not happening. We made a great member area book and map that should help this area for a long time, and we're visiting a lot of inactives, because that's pretty much most the members in our area. I really liked what Larry said about focusing on the positives when talking to in-actives. That'll come in handy this week, because we'll be visiting a lot. That's about it for now. I want a good investigator pool SO BADLY though. But this transfer is flying by, way faster than last transfer, because we're working really hard. So we're just going to keep it up and find those people who are waiting for us.

October 19 - More Teaching, Less Tracting

…As for me, everything is just steadily improving. Zone Conference was good but I’m glad we don't have anything else like that this transfer because it took up a lot of time. The branch president's son-in-law finally moved into a new branch, so that’s great for both branches. And this week a few (which is a lot for Ukraine) in-active members came back to church, and they all live in our area. So we have member lessons this week! YEA for less contacting and tracting. :) But I am really getting excited to work this area. I'm going to ask President if I can stay, which means I might train here and be here for a long time. No one wants to be in XTZ for a long time. But I don't know, I just really want to turn this area around. It's been completely dead for several years now and, I don't know, I can't really describe it. Maybe it's partly because I know we can, also because I'm afraid that they might not get the greatest elders in here once I leave. They tend to sometimes do a little damage control by sticking not the best elders in a place together, for example, in XTZ. And it's true that the work is really slow here, we're working really hard and only seeing a little progress each week, but we'll get there. I know we will. So I'm going to ask President to stay, but if I have to train next transfer, I might leave. They never train people here because they don't like missionaries to get depressed their first transfer. Ha ha, it's funny because it's true. This is a good branch though, they just need a lot of help and I feel like we can give that to them. Or at least be a part of it. And I figure that XTZ can't ALWAYS be completely dead, it has to start getting better sometime, might as well be now. I just hope my crappy piano playing doesn't scare away any investigators. People on a volleyball court in front of 100's of people and I would love it and play as best as I could. But put me on a piano in front of 25 Ukranians and I get so nervous, I don't even know why. Elder Moon and I are still having a blast and working hard.

October 12 - Working hard

....This week has been great in the fact that we've worked really hard, the hardest working week I've had in a long time. But we still didn't have a lot of lessons. We only have one investigator, Gareek, who's really cool but isn't progressing until he comes to church. And there are only 4 active members in our area, 1 we can't meet with, and 1 who's always too busy to meet with us. So it leaves us lots of extra time to find new investigators. We just need to turn our contacts into investigators. And we want to visit more inactives but our branch president isn't the most on-the-ball guy and we still need to go over the branch list with him to find out who these members are. We have an old list and I'd tried to just call people from it and it didn't work out. That's about what we're up to right now though. This week will be busier though because we have zone conference and interviews and stuff. So we'll just keep working hard and try to make things happen in XTZ, Heaven knows they're long due for something. Elder Moon and I are having a blast and are staying focused. This will be a great transfer, especially if we can find more investigators. I love you all.

October 5 - Ukranians love Bunco

…. I wasn't expecting to be DL and don't want to, but it's fine. It's no big deal, especially because the other 2 elders in our district are way old, one is going home in 4 weeks, the other in 10. But they are awesome. Elder Ketchum came to Elder Greener, which is also what we wanted. Everything went perfect, this is the first time transfers have ever been good to me, and our district is so cool. Everyone is excited for this transfer; it's going to be awesome. Me and Elder Moon get along really well and have a lot of fun. It's going to be a sweet transfer and we're going to work really hard. In Harkov, we actually watch Conference. There were a lot of amazing talks. I've never looked forward to conference as much as or enjoyed it as much as I did this time. It was really cool, and sadly it was probably the first time in my life that by the end of the meeting, I wasn't ready for it to end. I felt so bad for Pres. Monson's daughter; you guys can't honestly tell me you didn't laugh as she talked about 7 people falling hundreds of feet to their death with that big, happy smile on her face. We were all laughing so much, I felt bad but we couldn't stop. . .

Everything is amazing here and we're loving everyday in the dirty drty XTZ. Ha, oh yeah, Ukranians loved Bunco. We were in charge of a Harkov-wide youth night activity. A lot more kids came than usual and they said it was the best one they've had in forever. It was a lot of fun, they really got into it. That's about it for now, we're going to go play sports. Elder Moon is so excited to be in Harkov and finally get sport P-days. He was 2-time basketball player of the year in Idaho, so I told him they sent him to me so I could humble him :) we'll see how that goes…..