Week 14 in Cold Mountain

Hello family! Thanks for your emails and the pictures of the Christmas party. It looks like everyone is doing good. It was so great to talk to you all on Christmas Eve! I hope we get to Skype again. I don't really have anything to tell you for this week because we talked about pretty much everything over Skype haha. The only thing I really have to say is just how Christmas was here yesterday. It didn't seem like Christmas at all because there was no snow and everyone celebrates Christmas on January 7 but we had a really cool experience at the end of the day that brought Christmas to light for me. At Church we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional except it was in Russian so I understood very little haha. Whenever something like that is translated the translator always uses really big words and talks pretty fast so it's hard to understand stuff. But from what I understood it was great. A little later in the day we got to go to the Burr's house for two hours to do a Christmas dinner. She made some amazing tacos and then we got to watch some videos about Christ's life that are on lds.org. Apparently all of them are filmed on the west side of Utah Lake and that area has been built to look exactly like Jerusalem. The videos are the Church's gift to the world and they film 1 or 2 every month and put them online. They want to have 50 I think by the end of it all. They are really awesome, you should check them out when you have time. So anyway, we watched those, and then later on we got a call from the branch president to come open our door. So we went out and him and his wife were standing there and wanted to get into the Burrs' house so that they could sing a carol for them but their door was closed. So we called the Burr's and had them open their door and then we went back inside. Probably about 3 min later Elder Burr called us and said "Come translate for us!" (that happens a lot haha) So we went over and were able to translate back and forth for the Burr's. The Miroshnichenko's are very fond of them and brought them some food and a nice card. They told them that they were grateful to them for coming to Ukraine and for teaching them how to love. Apparently Elder Burr's testimony helped Valera get baptized so they have had a good friendship since that. And then they sang "What Child is This?" for us. It was really cool. It kind of hit me at that time just how blessed I am to be here at this time and to be serving the Lord's children in a place that really needs the gospel.

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. He lives and is at the head of this Church. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a living prophet and that through him we can know how to progress and become better members of this Church. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. It was written for our day and contains the fulness of the gospel. I know that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet. Through him this Church was restored back onto the earth. I know that prayer works. God hears and answers our prayers in his own ways and timing. He knows us each personally. I know that missionary work is the most important and rewarding work on the earth. It has changed my life in a very short period of time and strengthens my testimony everyday I am here. And I know that the Lord blesses all of you because he loves us and wants us to be happy. How awesome is this? The Church is true, I know it with all my heart! What else is there to say? I love all of you very much and am grateful to be here at this time and to be serving these people. These things I say in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

Have a great week! I'll talk to you all later. Love you very much!

с любовью,

старейшина каун

украинская донецкая миссия