Yep, I Fell Outta the Club

Privet family!
 

Wow, I can't believe my first week has come and gone already. It was definitely not what either of us expected/would wish on anybody. Beginning of the week was fine, we did get pizza with James and Shelly (they invited us again tonight for the final time, they're leaving tomorrow and everything's in order with their adoption). And then Tuesday is where things got bad.. for breakfast I had a banana that we bought at the store but it turned out to be unripe, still green. I didn't think it was that green but I shouldnt've eaten it. I felt progressively worse throughout the whole day but was still going fine though. We had a lesson with an investigator named Denis, then a recent convert lesson with Ruslan and family night with President Gushin's family. By famiy night though I was in a bad way, like chills and headache and stomach pain. At the end of the FHE branch president's dad asked me if I was alright and I said I had a headache and then everyone just started going crazy and worrying and all of a sudden he got out a blood pressure thing and was taking my reading!! He said that I had a really bad reading because my heart was beating super fast and then asked me what I had been eating. They found out about the banana and said I shouldn't ever eat the bananas here in Mariupol because they're death! So it was probably the most interesting FHE I've ever been to haha. But we came home, I felt like crap, then slept. In the middle of the night I felt awful and couldn't sleep and threw up, but that felt good though. So now it was Wednesday and I woke up feeling like a train ran over me. Basically Wednesday I slept on and off and when I wasn't sleeping I was in the bathroom, it was bad! And I wanted to study but had a bad headache all day so it was miserable. And then Thursday Elder Sanger started having the same symptoms as me and we were both going in and out of the bathroom. Even worse! Thursday I felt better though because my headache went away. And Friday we planned on getting back to normal but Sanger started throwing up Friday morning so Friday was out as well. We called the doctor in Kiev and he had us drink a concoction of water, salt, sugar, and baking soda. It was nasty but helped us stay hydrated. And then Saturday we basically got back to normal for the most part, had district meeting and talked to people again on the streets. Through this all though Elder Sanger and I did some great bonding though, maybe the best bonding at the start of any of my companionships haha. But please don't worry about us, we're back to normal now except for Sanger still being on crutches. He still has 4 more weeks of that. The branch has been SUPER HELPFUL especially President Gushin and his family, they bought things for us and made sure we were fine. But yeah, not anything I would wish on anyone. I think the banana started it but I really had the flu though because I passed it to Sanger. Fun times.
 

Not regarding this though, we had progress with investigators and building the relationship with the branch.
 

Nina - She is beyond ready for baptism BUT she doesn't want to get baptized until her family understands her decision. This means Saturday isn't going to happen. She said it will be soon and wants some time. She'll make it :)
 

Denis - He is an invalid that the sisters found through contacting his mom on the street. He is 35 and did some hardcore drug usage in his life and is now a vegetable. He can't move on his own and sits at home all day. It's so sad. We weren't sure about his level of understanding because he wants to get baptized but one of the requirements of this of course is repentance so we prayed and studied about this topic and his situation and met with him again last night. We both felt that he has good enough understanding to repent sincerely and follow Jesus Christ. We set a baptismal date for him for March 16! We will need to get him to church somehow, probably carry him into a car and then get a wheelchair, but we're faithful this can work out. He's super humble and enjoys our meetings. I hope he can get baptized!
 

Now for some comments/tidbits. The Mariupol branch is gung ho about missionary work, it's amazing. The members absolutely love missionaries and are willing and ready to help. We are getting to know a recent convert named Ruslan very well. He got baptized 2 months ago, is now a branch missionary as of yesterday and came on 2 lessons with us after church. He's 22 and wants to go on a mission. Awesome! We're very grateful for the members of this branch, I hope we can do a ton of work and help several people come to the waters of baptism. Mom, tomorrow I'm starting my D&C Countdown. Start at the official letter #2 and read a section everyday backwards. It's scary I've only got the D&C left for time. I'm doing my best everyday to use time wisely and learn the things of importance. That's crazy about the meteor in Russia! I did not hear about this, first time.
 

I love you all so very much! Thank you for your love, prayers, and support. Have an excellent week and I'll talk to you later!
 

с любовью,

Старейшина Каун

Украинская Донецкая Миссия
 

(from Mariupol) with love,

Elder Keown

Ukraine Donetsk Mission

Hello from Left Bank, MARIUPOL!!

Bolshoi privet family!
 

This past week has been insane, I don't even know where to begin. I'll go from this last Tuesday night after Elder Harrison and I received transfer calls. We were both bummed that we got whitewashed (this means both companions transfer out by the way) but feel like we left Daky in good hands. Wednesday (last P-day) was spent packing all day/we went bowling as a district one final time/met with the Heyleaks. They weren't very happy to hear the news but they understood that it's just part of the mission. We taught them about the faith process (Alma 32) and left our testimonies with them. Sergei bought Elder Harrison and I a gift as well- a bottle of Ukrainain cologne! Haha. I really hope that they keep meeting with missionaries, if they come to church they'll know it's true and get baptized. But now seving in Daky are Elders Robison and Newey so we feel that they'll take good care of the investigators and members there. OK so Thursday we had transfer meeting in Donetsk. President announced news in the mission (27 investigators on date!) and then the APs announced transfers- I am now serving in Mariupol with Elder Sanger! He is from Oregon and is going into his 7th transfer. So far we get along great. He was just serving in Kharkov and had some bad luck and slipped on the ice up there and messed up his foot pretty bad though so he's on crutches for this whole transfer. But this isn't stopping him from working though. He's a trooper. It just takes us a lot longer to get around but other than that all is well. So along with my new area came more leadership- I have been called to be Zone Leader! My Zone has 6 missionaries (4 elders and 2 sisters). President has called zone leaders in the outermost cities and then in Donetsk and Kharkov the zones have like 20+ missionaries. So it is very comparable to a district but since we're so far away from everyone we also function as a zone. As part of this calling, I attended Zone Leader's Council at President's apartment Friday morning, so Thursday night I stayed in Donetsk. By the way, the other members of the zone here are Elder Bolingbroke, a mini missionary from Saltovka named Elder Zabutiluk, and Sister's Wagers and Erekson. The mini will only be here one or two more weeks though because then Elder Bolingbroke will train a new missionary who didn't come in on time due to breaking his foot at the MTC. But back to ZLC, it was a great meeting. There are tons of responsibilities being a Zone Leader, I basically oversee the work in Mariupol and conduct training as needed with our weekly meetings (like district meetings). The other big part of Zone Leader's Council was emphasizing the fact that we should make the branch we serve in OUR branch, just as we would at home, and have the kind of relationship with the members as we'd have with our families. The next ZLC is the beginning of March so I just pray I can fulfill this calling to the best of my abilities down here.
 

Mariupol is an amazing place, it might very well end up being my favorite area (and possibly my last one on my mission). We live about 15 min. from the Azov Sea and the branch is amazing. It is like a huge family. And yesterday I had to give a talk (again) haha. The elder who got transferred from Mariupol passed me the assignment but it was fine though, my talk went better than I thought. I talked about D&C 4:3 and what it means to have desire. The branch welcomed all of us very warmly, it might be the best first day of church I've seen on my mission. The branch president is awesome, his name is President Gooshin. He's 25 and just got back from Novosibirsk mission a year ago. He lives 5 minutes from our apartment and has helped out a ton so far, plus he knows perfect English. I'm sure we'll get to know his family very well. And you might find this interesting, all the snow has melted down here! The sea is still frozen but there is absolutely no snow. It's cold because we're by the sea but that will go away pretty soon probably. This winter has been weak, last winter was 10 times colder. AND one more awesome piece of news-- Elder Sanger and I put an investigator on date last night for February 23!! She's golden, she is a member referral from the Gooshin family and the sisters taught her basically everything except some commandments and then got transferred. Her name is Nina. She is 73 years old, loves church, and has been inviting friends to come each week. So mark the date! And there's one more investigator on date as well in the Center area for next month. The work is progressing down here, that's for sure. They already had 3 baptisms in January. We will keep it up!
 

Now for some comments/tidbits. Elder Harrison got transferred to Kharkov, the Alekseevka branch and HE IS TRAINING THE RUSSIAN ELDER FROM SAMARA! I'm pretty proud of him, he's going to be a great trainer. I didn't see him doing anything else, he's born to train and lead. They'll do some great work up there. It sounds like Joe's ready to enter the mission field. I can't believe that his time has come now. Tell him good luck for me. Here's a question for you - was I an active child growing up? I told a member here when my birthday is and she said there's some belief that if your date has lots of 1s it means you were an active child. I told her I'd ask haha. And this is also interesting- there is an American LDS couple from South Jordan in Mariupol right now adopting three kids. They've been here for a month now and are leaving next week. They come to church and I met them yesterday because I translated for them. I don't know their last name, perhaps I can find it out. But they invited us to get some pizza with them today so we'll be doing that. It's a small world!
 

Well, I hope this email has answered some questions for you all. Missionary life is a roller coaster. One moment you are very comfortable with your area and then all of a sudden you end up by the Azov Sea wondering what happened haha. It will be an interesting first week figuring the area out and meeting people but all will be just fine. I love you family! Know that you are in my prayers and thoughts everyday. I hope that all is well with you. Have an excellent week and remember that God lives, Jesus is the Christ, and the Book of Mormon is true. Talk to you next week!


с любовью,

Старейшина Каун

Украинская Донецкая Миссия

Wait, what?

Privet family!
 

It's great to finally have P-day, I've got a few things to tell you haha. Well, first off, Elder Harrison and I BOTH received transfer calls last night. We're getting whitewashed! This isn't what I expected, I really wanted to stay one more but the Lord has different plans for us. Elder Groothuyzen and Newey are also whitewashing, but Elder Newey is coming to Daky so I feel good about leaving it in his hands. Hopefully him and his companion can get these people baptized. We love them so much. And Elder Carley got transferred only after one (he's not very happy) and Efoshkin's staying for number 4. Their area is on fire right now. FIVE people on date- Godwill, Dayo, Nastia (9 year old), Denis, and Lubov. I don't have tons of time to talk about them but basically all the African brothers are really catching on to the gospel. And Bonaventure got called to be a ward missionary this last Sunday. And he's applying to BYU-Idaho for next year. I will miss talking to the "brothers" each Sunday and translating for them.
 

Here's some updates about our investigators in Daky:
 

Valentina: She got a new job and hasn't been able to meet or come to church. It's rough. She knows everything is true just can't kick the smoking habit. The last I heard the branch will choose some home teachers and teach her and her husband the 12 step program and go from there. She's so close!
 

Yuri- We met him on Saturday and finished Plan of Salvation. We also talked about what it will take to get baptized, mainly with word of wisdom. He wants to quit drinking and smoking and really wanted to come to church but it didn't work out because of work. However, Elder Newey was with me on a split so he knows him now which will be good. He mainly just needs to get to church and meet other members to really see how the church works. His date will get moved back a little bit as well.
 

Heyleaks- We taught them last week with Elder and Sister Southam. We reviewed the Plan of Salvation and had everyone there except Dima. Sergei still has tons of questions. Basically he said "I grew up in the Soviet Union so all of this stuff is completely new to me. It's easy for you to say things like 'Yeah before this life we lived with God' because you've already been in the church a while. For me it's hard." BUT he still wants to keep meeting and has a desire to know if it is true. We're actually meeting him tonight for the last time before we leave tomorrow and are planning on sharing Alma 32, the whole faith process. They'll get baptized when they know its true.
 

We also found a new investigator, Evgenni. He's about 35 and is married with an 8 year old daughter. We met him last night and left a BOM with him. He wants to start reading and is a great guy. Unfortunately I'll never meet him again but I'll let you know the progress with him as I hear it.
 

I really don't want to leave Daky, it's been a great area and I've learned so much. First training Elder Harrison (I've learned enough from him to last me the rest of my mission haha) and serving as district leader seeing the progress of our district. We have 6 people on date, it's amazing. And we're all really good friends. Not to mention growing spiritually each day. But the main thing I've learned here is that Jesus Christ really is with us in the work, on our left and right. He knows us personally and will comfort us when we need help.
 

I'm out of time!!! Until next Monday in a new area and with a new companion! Love you all!!!!!!!!


с любовью,

Старейшина Каун

Украинская Донецкая Миссия

The best week in Makeevka so far!

Privet family! Thanks for the emails, I always love reading about things at home and hearing from you. That's crazy about the snow and ice storms. We got a pretty good storm here Friday night, about 7 inches, but it's not super cold.. yet. This past week was awesome, here are the details.
 

I went on a split with Elder Efoshkin in his area because their investigator Sage needed a baptismal interview and I hadn't gone with Efoshkin yet. It was a great split, he is an excellent elder. We found them two new investigators, both brothers from Africa. One is named Dayo (he came to church yesterday and loved it) and the other Godwill (he is Sage's roommate). Every week at church now we have a brother corner in the back haha and we translate for them. Pretty soon we're gonna have to start doing sacrament in english for all of them. We taught a great first lesson to Dayo and he was excited about the BOM. This is funny, Sage and Bonaventure (recent convert that Fish and Efoshkin baptized, I'm pretty sure I've talked about him) forgot that Thursday we were doing the interview and dogged us! So we had to reschedule it for Friday night. It was an awesome experience though. It was my first baptismal interview I've conducted and it was being translated because Sage doesn't know English. So I sat in their hostel room with Bonaventure and Sage and held the interview. I studied and prayed that I could memorize the questions in order to focus on the interview more and this prayer was answered. Everything went fine and I even understood sometimes what he was saying in French. His baptism was on Saturday but unfortunately we didn't go because no investigators could come with us. However, we congratulated him yesterday at church and he got the Holy Ghost of course so all is well.
 

While on my split Elders Harrison and Carley met with our investigator Yuri. He is the one we found tracting who smokes, drinks, worships icons, etc. HE ACCEPTED A BAPTISMAL DATE FOR MARCH 2! It is amazing progress! We have lots to do with him but if he really quits everything he will be baptized. This week our goal is to get a member with him, probably Brat Velikanov.
 

Now some comments/tidbits. My next P-day will be next Wednesday, FEBRUARY 6, not Monday. The APs and President are trying something new and transfer calls are not coming out this upcoming Friday, but next Tuesday night. This leaves only one day to get packed and write family, instead of having 6 days to say goodbye to members/investigators/get ready. It's going to be interesting, I'm not sure how I feel about it. The possible scenarios of transfers are as follows: I stay one more, Harrison leaves; Harrison stays, I go; or we both go, which has happened to other trainer/greenie companionships even with people on date. My guess is that I'll stay but we'll see what happens. I can't believe it's already time for transfers again. Elder Harrison and I have grown a lot and are going to work to make this last full week together better than this one. Last but not least, we had a missionary fireside yesterday. It was pretty successful and I think we got the members more excited about missionary work. Elder Southam shared an experience of when he was stake president about how the members got better at sharing the gospel. In everyday conversations they would say "One reason I like my church is..." So we practiced situations with the members and it seemed to go good. We also sung "Come Thou Fount" as a district with Sister Southam playing piano. It was great! I forwarded some pictures she took from this week. Enjoy.
 

I love you all so much. Know that you are in my prayers and that God loves you! Talk to you next Wednesday!


с любовью,

Старейшина Каун

Украинская Донецкая Миссия

Meat jello, anyone?

Privet family!

Thanks for all your emails, it sounds like things are going good at home. This upcoming week the weather's supposed to be in the negatives so we'll see what happens. It's been pretty warm, like mid 30's or something. I'm glad you got the furnace figured out, that's a miracle the second guy was smarter/cheaper. Our past week was good and bad, mostly good though haha. None of our investigators could meet BUT we did find two new ones- Svetlana and Sergei. Svetlana is a former investigator and has read the BOM already. She is probably like 55 and is a teacher. We're not sure what she really wants from meeting us, we had a very short lesson just to get to know her. More about her next week. And Sergei is 26 and works for a door company near our apartment. We see him everywhere and finally got his number to set up with him. He's not the most religious guy ever but is interested to know more about the Church.

 

Last Tuesday we had interviews with President. Before our interviews though the Southams got permission to make us a lunch and invited us over to their apartment. They are amazing people and love having missionaries around. They have added a new level of spirituality and fun to our district as well as the branch. Elder Southam is very knowledgable with the scriptures and can answer basically any question. He's written several documents, one of which is called "How the Book of Mormon proves the Bible is true" I need to send you a copy, it's very well written. He also does magic tricks so all the kids in the branch love him. I sent some pictures from our lunch so enjoy. My interview with President went well. I asked him two questions- 1) How to get investigators on date when they don't accept a date and 2) How to stay focused for the final push until the end of my mission. He basically told me to get tons of investigators and think about them all the time to stay focused because if I'm focused on them then I won't be concerned with matters at home. President is a great man, I love him. It's weird that I only have one more interview with him and then my exit interview. The time is flying!

 

This last week we made some cookies and took them to some investigators we haven't met with in a while, Oleg and Valentina (the old Valentina, not smoking Valentina) At Oleg's house we didn't know the code to get in so we prayed that we could open the door. Right after we said amen two little kids ran up from playing in the snow and opened it! I asked the one for the code and he told me. It was pretty cool. And then at Valentina's she wouldn't let us just drop by and so she offered us some food. After lots of hesistation we finally said OK, we'll eat something really quick. So of all things she gave us each some holodets. This is the meat-jello stuff that's really nasty. Elder Harrison liked it and downed it pretty quick, I only ate like a fourth and couldn't do it anymore haha. I don't think I'll ever try that again. Ask Lena about it, maybe she could make you some :)

 

We've been doing lots of tracting (knocking on doors) in the night time because it's cold and it's more effective than walking the streets. We pray that doors will be open and walk around in the areas we pray about until we find an open door. Inside each stairwell are 15 doors. We walk to the top then knock all of them until the bottom, then find a new stairwell and repeat until about 8:00 because people hate it when you knock after 8. I don't know how many doors we've knocked, maybe like 300, and of all of those we found 1 lady who took a BOM. We still need to go back there and see if she wants to meet. I can't really explain tracting that well in words, but I actually like it though. It takes some luck, skill, and the Spirit but is rewarding when you find someone.

 

And yesterday morning we got up and Elder Harrison felt that we should go finding before Church. I told him I've never been finding Sunday morning my whole mission and didn't want to. But then I changed my mind and said "Alright let's go but we've gotta be quick though to get ready for church." Elder Harrison in his prayer prayed that we'd find someone ready to talk and that they'd be wearing red clothing. So we went out and after 10 minutes stopped a nice lady. It turned out she is a missionary as well from the word of life church. And she was wearing red! We talked for a while but her main concern the whole time was that we can't prove that the BOM is an inspired book. We bore testimony, read Moroni 10:3-5 and explained the whole prayer process, but in the end she rejected it. The whole time I was trying to find 2 Corinthian 13:1 but forgot where it was and felt like that would've backed up the BOM but really it just comes down to people's free agency and sometimes it's really hard to find someone that seems like they would accept it but then reject it. But next time she finds missionaries perhaps she'll have a change of heart.

 

Now for some comments/tidbits. This Saturday Sage will be baptized! Thursday I'll be going on a split with Elder Efoshkin to interview him but all is in order for Saturday. Our district is doing good, we've made amazing progress since the beginning of the transfer, it's cool to see this.

I love you all and hope you have a great week. Know that you're in my prayers and that the work is moving forward every day. I know my Savior lives and loves each us personally. Talk to you next week!

с любовью,

Старейшина Каун

Украинская Донецкая Миссия

A Crazy Week of Firsts

Privet family, how are you doing?!
 

Thanks for your emails, it's always great to read and hear how things are going at home. I have tons of stuff to talk about from this past week so we'll see if I can fit them all in!
 

Last Monday, January 7th, we didn't have any plans and were just planning on finding on the streets and tracting. About 4:00 Sergei called us and asked what we were doing that evening. I told him nothing, so he invited us over as guests for Christmas. We knew that we'd be eating a lot of food but I didn't know it would be THAT much haha. His wife cooked some soup kind of like borsh but without beets, then we had mashed potatoes and fish with bones in it everywhere, there was a white beet salad, pickled tomatoes and cucumbers, then apple cake and a dish called kutya (accent on the end of word). Kutya is cooked rice with honey, walnuts, and poppy seeds. They make a ton of it and leave it on the table for New years and Christmas until it's basically all gone. It was a huge meal but tasty. We talked about a lot of stuff with them but unfortunately didn't really get a chance to fit in a gospel message. It just didn't seem right for some reason. I love this family so much but I fear that our relationship is more of "hey come over and eat and talk with us" instead of us teaching them. They've been really busy and haven't had time to read. Sergei should be coming to church soon so this is our focus with him, as well as getting them to pray. They told us if we ever come back to visit after we go home that we can stay with them. This is my favorite thing about these people- they are really closed when you first meet them on the street but after you get to know them you are basically family. They are awesome and we keep praying for them to be opened more to the gospel.
 

Thursday we had a Zone Meeting in Donetsk. I was expecting to hear a lot about missionary work as always and how to improve the work in our areas but the focus this time was our personal relationships with God. We watched Elder Bruce R. McConkie's final talk before he passed away and focused on his invitation "to know the Savior better buy learning of His Atonement and not listening to what the world says." The best way to come to know Him better is through obedience, and grace makes up our weaknesses as we strive to better ourselves everyday as we faithfully do missionary work. It was a very uplifting meeting. Afterwards, we had to take a taxi home because we had tons of stuff so we shared with Elders Efoshkin and Carley. The lady from the company called back to tell us our taxi was there but I didn't understand her and passed our phone to Efoshkin. He talked to her and said that the taxi was here and waiting in front of the office, so we all went and took our BOMs/water filter stuff with us. Basically we were really distracted and forgot to get the phone back from Efoshkin. So when we got back to the apartment we were supposed to have a less-active lesson but then I realized we didn't have the phone, which meant we couldn't call anyone and had no connection with the district or zone leaders. Pretty bad! So we decided to ask the less-active to use her phone and call zone leaders and see if we could stay with center elders Groothuyzen and Newey for the night to call in or else no one would know if we were home or not. So we got to her apartment and found that her main door was locked! of course! There was no domo-phone to call her on and so we waited to see if anyone who lived there would come by and open the door but no one came. We then decided to try Richard's house, the American peace corps volunteer. We walked there and miraculously his door was open and he was home. We knocked and asked to use his phone, he let us of course, and I found out that Carley and Efoshkin had already given it to center elders so I called them and then we traveled all the way to their apartment, we got our phone, called the less-active and explained what happened, and were home by 9! Pretty crazy stuff haha but I guess I'm just kind of used to things like this happening. Also something cool from this is Richard gave us a referral! A lady who works in a little shop by his apartment thought he was an LDS missionary. He told her no, but that he knows us and would pass the message along she wants to meet. We haven't been able to find her yet but hopefully we will this week.
 

To add to this our faucet broke on Wednesday hahaha. Part of it broke a few months ago when the APs came (maybe you remember my little flood story) but Elder Bolingbroke was able to buy a new part and fix it. Well this time the other side, the hot water part, broke off, so we made a contraption to catch the water into the sink and still use the water at the same time. But it was a really lame faucet anyway and leaks when the water's on everywhere on the counter so you would turn it on, wash a dish or something, then wipe down the counter every 10 seconds. Fun stuff. But anyway, we went to a little store nearby and they didn't have the part and said we could come back Saturday for it. So this was all good until the next day when our hot water stopped working in general because our pilot light went out! So basically we boiled water and used that to shower until Saturday. THEN Saturday morning we were very excited because the part should have come in, right? Well, it didn't. We went back and forth to different stores looking for the little part and everyone said they didn't have it and so we finally just called our landlord and said "Hey, we're buying a new faucet and installing it by ourselves. Also, our hot water doesn't work so come by whenever you can." So all morning we ran around, then bought a new faucet and installed it ourselves. It was pretty rewarding to do that I must say. I've learned a little bit about fixing stuff on my mission so some things I know how to deal with. So our water worked but there still wasn't any hot water. Elder Harrison then realized that HE turned the gas off thinking it was water for the sink!!!! So I turned it on, lit the pilot light, called the landlord and said don't come anymore, then we continued on with our day. haha I'm just laughing as I'm writing this. I thought that the gas just somehow got cut off, kind of like how sometimes our water just gets turned off but in the end, everything worked out and all is well in Zion again. :)
 

AND to add to this, for the very first time on my mission I had to give a talk in Sacrament yesterday! This is quite ironic because last week I told Brynn I will probably never speak but I spoke too soon haha. Our whole district was asked to speak and give 5-7 minute talks about missionary work. I ended up speaking longer than needed and the branch president passed me a note that said "Unfortunately you're time has finished. Please bear your testimony and sit down." The branch really enjoyed the talks though, we have a good relationship with them. Next week I'll send you my talk. I talked about how we can share the gospel just going about doing good, praying for opportunities to serve, and used Ammon's example of service first/building relationships then teaching leading to the start of missionary work among the Lamanites and many baptisms.
 

I love you all so very much! I'm out of time but please know that you are in my prayers and I am so grateful to be here at this time in Ukraine. The Church is true and the Lord truly directs His work in these Latter-days. Have a great week and I'll talk to you next week!


с любовью,

Старейшина Каун

Украинская Донецкая Миссия

Happy 2013 from Daky!

Privet family! Cnovim godom 2013!

I hope that your new year was all that you could imagine it being and more! We went finding for three hours to make up for coming in early and got one contact, did shopping, wrote our families, went bowling and got charged an arm and a leg 170 grieven, then came in at 4:00, did our studies, made some mac and cheese (thanks for that by the way) then watched Legacy and went to bed. We were planning on getting up at 12:00 and having some Zhivchik (Ukrainian soda thats basically like Martinelli's) but we didn't hear the alarm so I just had some by myself on New Year's since Elder Harrison has decided to give up sugar completely from his diet. New Year's Day we had to go to the office and grab some supplies/more copies of the Book of Mormon but they didn't even have any so it was kind of a worthless trip. And we came in at 6:00 New Year's Day and had planned to do a few things but Elder Harrison has a habit of falling asleep really easily and was out until 6:30 the next morning haha. So I finalized some goals for the new year, did some studies, and that's about it. That'd be cool to go see a play for New Year's, sounds like that was fun. And it's too bad the family parties have stopped, but I guess life goes on, right?
 

Elder Harrison and I are continuing to work with our current investigators. We taught several of them this past week, not all of them though. Here's some progress.
 

Valentina- Elder Harrison and Efoshkin taught her because I was on a split with Elder Carley. They watched Finding Faith in Christ and had Sister Yana the Relief Society Pres on the lesson. I know I've said this already probably but she knows everything is true, just needs to make the decision for herself to be baptized and quit smoking. From this point on we've decided to just teach good spiritual lessons and ask at the end of each one how prayers are going about the decision to be baptized. She's progressing and reads the Bible and BOM everyday for more than an hour. She'll get there.
 

Suzanna- Harrison and Efoshkin also taught her. Elder Efoshkin was able to answer all of her questions since he's Russian haha and from what I hear she really wants to come to church this week, which is great progress since last time we talked about church she had no desire to go. Cross your fingers for next Sunday.
 

Ruslan- We taught him the plan of salvation with Sister Yana on the lesson. She knows good English and bore a great testimony. It was a very spiritual lesson and we're pretty sure that it was the first time Ruslan's ever felt the spirit like that. He had several questions about the next life and we were able to answer them with the scriptures and testimony. We gave him a soft baptismal commitment (If you find out that this is true will you be baptized) and he said maybe, he needs to think about it. He's making progress though! He likes practicing English but is starting to become more open. The only problem is that he goes to Gorlovka every weekend so can't come to church. We told him that there's a church in Gorlovka but he doesn't have time because he studies the whole time. He's a great kid though, he's only 22.
 

Now for lots of comments/tidbits. Elder Efoshkin and Carley put Sage on date for January 26! Sage knows very basic English (my name is, I'm 24, etc) and little Russian, French is his native language. So they teach him with Bonaventure and have it all translated. He bore his testimony yesterday in Sacrament so he talked, then Bonaventure translated into English then Elder Carley translated into Russian. It's pretty cool stuff. As district leader normally I would interview him but President Campero will be doing the interview and it will be the same set-up probably with translating since no one speaks French in Donetsk. The district is doing good, and now we have Elder and Sister Southam in our district. They were in Gorlovka but now live in Donetsk because Elder Southam's the only one who has been a stake president and is doing some training with the district presidency or something. Basically sometime soon in President Campero's time there will be a stake here, no doubt. I've been blessed to get to know most of the senior couples in our mission. The Southams are from Colorado and already served a mission in Novosibirsk. He worked as an attorney and is very knowledgable with the scriptures. It will be awesome to have them in Makeevka. FYI last year in our mission we had 62 baptisms! And this year we already have 3, with 10 on date for January. This is a record because the last two Januarys there haven't been baptisms. The mission just keeps getting better and better.
 

I love you all and will talk to you next week!
 

с любовью,

Старейшина Каун

Украинская Донецкая Миссия
 

 

And one more thing. We did tons of caroling this past week and got some members to come last night. There's a huge Christmas tree in center Makeevka and we gave out like 200 calendars that Pres. Campero made and got one new contact from it. It's not a very popular thing to go caroling but it's been rewarding and successful. Love you all!