Happy Mother's Day

May 13, 2019
Happy Mother's Day! It was so fun being able to talk to my wonderful Mama and Grandma this mother's day. I love them so very much.

The rain came down, and the floods came up.

This week has been really difficult for missionary work because it has been raining so hard. It seems that every time we walked outside rain would start coming down. Sadly, Ukrainian people's mood seems to be highly affected by the quality of the weather, so these poor conditions make for some really poor contacting. Hopefully when it actually starts to feel like Summer the contacting will be a little friendlier. The rain has made this just such a difficult week because everyone loves to cancel because of the rain. This next week will be a lot better because we have interviews, zone conference, and a temple trip! I'm so excited.

Something that was really fun was Elder Whiting's trainer, who is Ukrainian, came into Kyiv to visit and eat lunch with us while he did some business things. It was so fun to do some roleplays with him and practice Russian because it was an opportunity to try to teach a real Ukrainian without any of the actual pressure of a real investigator! Helped me realize even more how far away I am from having good Russian. Maybe someday though. Gift of Tongues is real, but it's still a process. I'll keep plugging away.

Elder Whiting's Ukrainian trainer wearing his old nametag as he eats with us. 

There have been some really incredible miracles this week. Something that was so awesome was an investigator who had recently dropped us called us Saturday night and said that he wanted to come to church on Sunday! He came for both hours and it was so great. Was a big testimony builder than when we always work hard we can bring about miracles in the work.

Something that has been so much fun this week has been memorizing scriptures! I have made it my goal to start trying to memorize a scripture along with my Russian and God would bless me with better memorization skills. So far it hasn't been super useful for my Russian, but one of the verses I memorized this week has brought great comfort to me:

Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life. (2nd Nephi 10:23)

 How joyful it is that we get to choose for ourselves which pathway to take in life! God loves us so much he has given us the ability to act for ourselves. Of course, we don't always make the right decision, and that is why the atonement of Jesus Christ is so vital and so crucial in our lives. The ability to repent is the greatest blessing that we have ever received from our Father in Heaven. I'm so grateful that our Father in Heaven loves us so much that he sent us his Son, Jesus Christ, who took his sins upon us. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that through Him we can once again return to our Father in Heaven and receive eternal joy.

I love you all so very much! I hope that you have a wonderful week!