Birthday Week

Hey everyone!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! It was definitely an interesting experience being away from home and in Ukraine, on a mission for my birthday. But it was a good day. My companion was a rock star! She spent the whole day saying happy birthday. 

 Birthday morning! Opening presents! :)

Some of the highlights from my birthday were when Zhenya, a recent convert from our branch called me to say happy birthday! He works some nights from 8pm-8am but called at 8:05 in the morning! Even after work! It was sweet! And when I saw him the next day, he gave me a present, a picture frame. 

 picture frame from zhenya! 

It was really nice. I put the picture of Sister Hunt and Busch and I from our first transfer but when I get a picture of Zhenya, he will go in it! Hhaha, so I never forget! Also, our ward mission leader called and SANG! It was so cool!  I had a good day. We did some contacting and did weekly planning. We also ate some ice cream. All in all, not a bad day!

birthday shakes! :)

This week, besides my birthday was also good. Kinda a weird week. Lots of little miracles but in between every miracle was about a million instances of "only in Ukraine" or "only because we are on a mission". I'll try to do my best to explain the miracles and the funny moments. 

 - This week, on Monday night, we went and visited a old lady named Elena. She is old and can't ever leave her house because she is in wheelchair and the elevator in her apartment building is broken, and she lives on the 6th or 7th floor. So we went to go leave her a spiritual thought. What an experience. So to set the scene, she is pretty deaf, so we had to basically yell everything that we said. Also, she has very strong opions about everything. So for almost everything we said, she had something to counter back with. She even changed the wordings of the scriptures to match her views. And we didn't even talk about anything that was controversial or anything. Just about how God loves everyone one of us. So we are yelling "I know that God loves us all." and then she would go off about how He only loves some of us. Oh, and to top it off, she would speak half Ukrainian. But despite all that, the spirit was still there and strong when we testified, and I felt so strongly that God loved me and cared about me individually. And I know that is true! God loves everyone of us and wants us to be happy! He has a plan for us! We finally were able to bring in the Spirit so that Elena felt it and we closed with a prayer. She asked me to pray. I prayed in a very loud voice and when I finished, Sister Kelly and I said "amen" and looked up. Elena just kept her eyes closed and her arms folded. Sister Kelly and I looked at each other and then I said again, really loud, "amen". Sister Kelly started laughing so hard and Elena, looked up and with a really confused look, said, "Amen." Such a funny moment. 

- This week we had another meeting with President Klebingat. It was really good. He talked about planning and setting goals. He has a really interesting point about beginning and setting goals with the end in mind. I really liked that way of thinking. I became really interested and rededicated to setting goals, not only for my mission, but for my whole life. And planning for my whole life. Thanks to my mission, I'll probably plan out every minute of my life (with back up plans and goals). My friends will think that I am insane. But I will be motivated!! :P

Oh boy. So small miracle- our English group is starting to be really big and successful. "Only in Ukraine" moment- inevitably, some creepy man comes and makes comments like, "Sister Ford, you have beautiful smile" and "Sister Ford is my favorite teacher ever" and "Sister Ford, I like when you talk" and "Sister Ford, I love you", which makes Sister Ford blush and awkwardly change the subject while the other people at English all laugh. But the good news, we have a lot of new people coming to english and they are really enjoying coming and being at english! Hopefully we can make the transition to teaching them the gospel!!! :) 

Saturday we had another Pancake Night. On my. Sister Kelly and I had to make 50 Pancakes and 50 crepes. There were close to 800 pancakes and no leftovers. It was insane! I haven't heard a guess on how many people were there, but probably over 100. It was crazy! It was so cool because there were so many investigators there. We took 2 people from English with us and there was also 2-3 other nonmembers from our area there! It was fun to talk to them. I met this one lady, Anya and talked to her for awhile. She loves missionaries and she thought my jokes (as lame as they are) were hilarious! It was fun! I also talked to this lady from Ecuador! She is here studying and has had a really hard time here, because the culture is so different! She told me how at the pancake night, she felt more love and friendly-ness then she had the whole time in Ukraine. I told her that our beliefs in our church help us to be able to love one another. Then she said that she would be interested in learning more about our church. Sadly, she isn't in our area so another set of sisters will teach her. But she was so sweet :) 

Tender Mercy- Daylight Savings Time. I didn't know that they had it here, but it was so nice to have an extra hour of sleep! :) 

Yesterday, Sunday was quite a day. I translated during church for 2 hours. It went better then last week but was still really hard. It makes my head hurt but I really like the challenge. And it helps me with the language. After church we had cake for the old branch president and his new wife. They get sealed in the Kyiv temple tomorrow! So exciting! Then we had branch council which was SUPER long and then MCM! By the time we finished all those meetings, it was 7:00! At night! Ridiculous! We had just a little bit of time so we decided to stop by a less active, Valentina (the one that we visited for her birthday at the beginning of the transfer). We felt really strongly that we needed to stop by. So we went and knocked on the door. And she opened it, told us to come in and quickly shut it. Then she started talking really fast. I couldn't understand all of it, but I did hear several times, Я не хочу! which means I don't want it. So we both kinda thought that she didn't want to talk to us, which was unexpected. But then she told us to go into her bedroom/living room. We sat down and asked if we could share a spiritual thought. she said yes, but i am tired right now, so we started anyways and asked her to pray. During her prayer, she started crying. After the prayer, she told us how she felt and knew that she needed to return to church. She told us, how she had a son, that was often drunk and abusive and how over the last week, that situation had solved itself. Then she said that she felt that she needed to return to church and would absolutely be there next week! And that she would find her Book of Mormon and read from it! It was really cool to see this new light in this lady's eyes! I can't wait to see her on Sunday! :) 

Today we had a fun P-day! We went into Center and did some shopping at a outdoor flea market thing by a big church. I bought a Martroshtka Doll that is Odessa themed! 

my dolls, they have the opera house, 
the saint katherines statue, 

the odessa staries, the canyon, and the 
lighthouse on one side, 

with a sailor, and then on the 
back are painting of ships! 

 

also I got a hair clip :) 

 and pday fries! :)

It is so cute! :) I think that pretty soon I will be leaving Odessa so it was nice to get something to remind me of all the time that I spent here! It has paintings of all the major landmarks, which is cool because I have been to almost all of them! It is so cool! :) We almost got cursed by a gypsy though! This man totally saved us. He told her that we didn't know any Russian and she said "yes they do" and he started arguing and then she left. It was really nice of him! 

I love you all! I am enjoying being here on my mission! It is so fun to see miracles every day! Thanks for your prayers and love! Know that I am praying for you to have missionary opportunities everyday! :)

Love,
Sister Ford