Hello Family!!
Well we had our first snow here in Sumy!! The temperature outside is at about 2 Celsius so its getting pretty chilly! Earlier this we my companion and I went and got some clothing to keep us warm. I got a pretty good coat thats been keeping me warm. I also wear a beany and gloves to keep my ears and hands from freezing. SO, this week has been AWESOME!! On Wednesday we went out to a city about two hours by train called лебедин were we visited a very faithful member of the church, a deaf man in his 40's. He actually had a wife and daughter but since he lost his hearing from swimming in cold water and infection, his wife left him. He is a great guy though and takes the 2 hour ride to Sumy each sunday for church. He's great!! On thursday we went out in theh same direction by train to the branch presidents farm about an hour from Sumy. It was Thanksgiving so we had mashed potatoes and chicken and compote ( homemade juice that is pretty good). We also went to the tiny log shed in the yard and chopped some wood for their fire which was great fun as we all took our turns chopping these frozen logs. It always amazed me how self sufficient our branch president was. He has a huge farm and does pretty much all the work himself! He's a great man. After that, we went home and cooked some more pies and potatoes for district meeting where the senior couple made the chicken and we had another HUGE meal!! it was great:) This week with our investigator we also made some great progress! We started teaching a Nigerian man named Ken here studying finances at the university. It has really amazed me thus far at how open the african people we meet here are about religion and just love everything we have to tell them. It is really a nice break to be able to teach them because there hearts are open to the truth and have been taught from their childhood to believe Christ. He is making great progress and just this sunday, our second meeting, he was saying that this is probably the reason why he is here in Ukraine and not somewhere else, to hear the gospel!! He is doing great!! Just last night we had a lesson with a great family where the mother was an English teacher and the father was a translator at the local banking academy. It really has been a tender mercy of the lord to have so many people to teach in english. Its helped release alot of the stress i feel from trying to get this language. Anyways, this is also our second meeting with them and the father Con (Constantine) and wife Ena are golden! Con told us he felt like we were messengers from God and that we just glowed. He said there was so much darkness here in ukraine but for the first time he could see the light that radiated from us. When he said this i knew we needed to extend the commitment to be baptized. I looked him square in the eye and asked him that when he received the answer he had been looking for, would he be baptized. He staired at me for some time and i could tell he was thinking very hard about what i had just asked him. After about 15 seconds of us staring at eachother, he slowly started nodding and said yes!! At that moment was probably the happiest moment of my life!! Our prayers have been full of thanks to God for blessing us with his spirit and guiding us to that family. This work is so wonderful and i am so glad that God has allowed me to be a part of it!
It sounds like you all are having so much fun at home having sing alongs and going to the cabin and making forts!! I'd love to see some pictures of all of those fun things you've been doing. You all must be very busy! Keep up the good work their at home. I know that the Lord blesses the pure in heart and those who exhaust themselves in His service. From the looks of it, i think you are all doing really well:) thanks for sharing those inspiring stories about those pioneers Mom. It really is amazing how much they sacrificed and its helped me realized that this work is relatively easy compared to what they had to do. I've definitely been counting my blessings this past week! Well, i love you all and i hope you have a wonderful week ahead of you. Oh, I got the two packages you sent!! Thankyou SOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!! Its so nice to have those spices and treats here to cook with. Its hard because the money they give us monthly really isnt enough to eat all that healthily. They've kept our funds the same for the last couple years but since then prices have inflated nearly to 4 times what they had been on some products just a year ago. I'm trying to budget my money now so i dont end up having to using my own. Thanks again for all of that food! My companions also say great job!:)
~Elder Ostler
