Week 18

hello all of my lovely friends and family!!

i am grateful to be writing you from the new perspective of transfer number 2....i think the spinning in my head has slowed down and i can focus a little better on my calling here, my purpose, and how i, sister little, can touch the lives of people. Some advice i recieved in the mtc is to really look people in the eye when you talk to them. which is hard enough to do among people you know in your own language, and talking in russian i am always looking around in the air when i talk thinking that the grammar chart is going to appear out of nowhere to help me when i speak or that the word i am looking for is written on the building over there or something...anyway this past week and a goal for this tranfer is to really look people in the eye when i speak. i tried to do it last week and i really saw a difference in the way people responded to my message and testimony. its like the honest and the holy ghost can move pupil to pupil and you can tell they feel something. i still struggled to speak, but at least this way they can tell i am serious about what i am talking about. still get rejected a lot this way, but i can see that people are more sincere and almost sorry they are rejecting us, like they know what we have to say is important. i hope to develop some kind of way to 'rebuttle' their rejections and give them a better opportunity to hear our message....anyway. transfer 2...i was able to actually set goals and know how to set smaller goals to help us get there. its maybe even getting exciting and i hear it only gets better from here as i get more adjusted and familiar with the work. My companion did not get tranferred, and i am super grateful for that. our area is so big and i still don't quite know my way around yet.

This week i received my letters from the bermuda ward :D!! thank you all soooooo much! i loved them and your encouraging messages, and really just seeing everyones names again and remembering this is where i came from and all the great families and youth that are in the bermuda ward. you guys are awesome! i do have to mention something that makes me laugh a little bit....MULTIPLE people said in their letters that they coudln't write anymore because Madison was distracting them with stories from prom apparantly...funny because that is my way of knowing that, yep, madison is still so good at being madison, and secondly it means that madison was at that activity and yet...no letter from her in the package :) thanks. j/k i know you love me and i don't need a letter to prove it :) plus i got an email from you today so you redeemed yourself :)

i wish all of you could take a field trip to the ukraine and see just what life is like here...bermuda ward field trip..do you think the ward could budget that in next year? If you could all come, i think the first lesson you would learn would be to keep things SIMPLE. One of our wards had a ward picnic on saturday and it was so simple and so fun. We just found a spot in this beautiful park, threw down a blanket on which the food was put and everyone sat around this big blanket on the ground and ate together. there were no barbeque chips, no casseroles, all there was to eat was fruits and vegetables. they just bought a bunch of tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, bananas, and a couple other veggies, washed them in a bowl of water right there, sliced everything in half and it was ready to serve. One thing that doesnt change i guess is the priesthood gathered around the grill. we did have hot dogs and it just made me laugh as i watched the men of the ward try to cook this hot dogs in their 'secret recipe' way and then drop a few in the dirt and laugh about it and pick them up and throw them back on the grill then check to see that no one saw...so funny . and keptchup, keptchup doesnt change. gotta have keptchup here too. there were about 40 people there and this activity was dedicated to mothers given that mothers day was just here. each auxillary did a short performance dedicated to the women, the priesthood sang a ukrainian song accompanied by a sort of ukrainian accordian, the young women read a poem, it was so cute, simple and fun. my time was spent playing frisbee with the five year olds because you don't have to have a lot of language skill to do that :) luckily i know how to throw a frisbee or else i would have really been out of luck.

As far as a report on the work....while we always trying to find new investigators and teach the gospel, our biggest success this week was that two different inactive sisters came to church. YAY! one hasn't been in nine years and the other hasn't been in a few years and yet has a super strong testimony and actually two of our active members in the ward now found the gospel through her. part of missionary work is working with the inactive members about a fourth of our lessons each week are with different inactives. we have been meeting with these two since i got here and it was just so cool to see them come back. and they aren't strangers, everyone from the ward recognized them and welcomed them with open arms. it was awesome.

We have had a couple "unity days" as a mission to help reignite our efforts as a mission. one of them was our "selo day" a couple weeks ago. another one this past week was in one day we set a goal to contact 1000 people on the street. this should be happening everyday, but we've been slacking. we did get 1200 on that day though, so we can do it, it is just a matter of making a habit of it each day. yesterday our unity day goal was to try to get as many referrals at church as possible. we have a weekly goal as a mission to receive a certain number of referrals each week (i am sure this is a goal for all the missions around the world-so please help us out and give the missionaries names of people who you think could be interested! the most prepared investigators always come from member referrals! okay..done with my plug...) we did get four from sat to sun which was way more than expected and quite a blessing..we are working on contacting them now.

i am doing pretty well...what makes me most happy is the weather. i love that it is getting warm. i can get rejected a hundred times on the street and still be happy because i don't have to wear a jacket and scarf and boots, and i get to wear short sleeves and feel the warmth of the sun...i don't know how i am going to make it through a winter...but my thoughts about it are that by the time winter comes around i will know and understand a lot more of the languages here and therefore not need only the weather to make me a happy missionary. don't let that sound bad..i am a happy missionary, especially yesterday how two members in particular were genuinely excited to see me and report to me on how their families were, etc...a good feeling of being accepted into the ward and swimming through the language barrier.

one funny thought about swimming...this is me tuting my own horn and just sharing something i said that i think was a 'good one'...but this morning we were doing some investigative work in the area book and found out that two other less actives we are trying to work with are actually related and the family drama they have expressed to us are actually about eachother...anyway...we really want to help both sides come back to church and know with the lords help, we can influence them for good, but its a pretty sticky situation to attempt even in a native language, so i told my companion, "wow, i feel like we are about to jump into a pool with this one, and we don't know how to swim in this language" smile. be proud that i came up with that one, and don't worry, we'll have the ward members help us out with this one :)

i love you all!!! thanks again for the letters and support and i hope to see the whole ward here in ukraine some time soon!!! :)

Sister little

PS: AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING NEWS....moscow is being organized into a stake in the beginnning of june. rumors have been around a long time appartently, but its for sure happening! :) how amazing!! you know what comes after a stake? a temple!! who could have ever thought! i am so excited for the members there and the missionaries i know there :) so amazing!

PSS: happy birthday Kate :)