I CALLED IT! ;)

Dear Family and Friends,

 

Happy General Conference! 

I have only seen the Saturday morning session, and the part where they call the new general authorities, which we watched yesterday morning with our district. 

 GENERAL CONFERENCE LIVE :) (7 oclock at 

night here is 10 in the morning in Salt Lake) 

We watched the part where they call the new general authorities about 20 times. And then we would get really excited and pause it and watch it again and again and get so happy every time! Why?? 

...because they called our mission president into the 1st quorum of the Seventy!!! 

Wow. You may be wondering.... hmm...shouldn't he be in Ukraine right now??? Well...sneaky president. :) He emailed us all and told us that he was going on vacation with his family this week, but so that he could really relax, he wouldn't answer any phone calls or emails or anything. So ok... But then we started thinking, about how no one knew where he was on vacation, or about how he only had 2 months left, or about how in 3 weeks, his other kids come back to Ukraine so they could do a family vacation with all of them then. Then we thought about how general conference was this weekend and all the sudden everything made sense. I definitely wrote in my journal Saturday night (Saturday morning in America) how I thought he was going to get called into the Seventy that day. AND HE TOTALLY DID! 

 

 

 The text revealing the big news :) 

Basically, We are the luckiest, because instead of him going home and then moving the Germany and living in some little village there where no one can ever visit him, he will be in the 70! He will write things in the Liahonas and Ensigns and those will be like our weekly letters. He will speak in general conference (!!!) and it will be like when he spoke in zone conferences! And since members of the 70 serve until the are 70, we have like 24 years of him in the 70. Yay! Also, everyone else will get a chance to know how awesome he is. Because he really is the best. :) So that was FOR SURE a big highlight of my week :) And he is coming back to finish his time as mission president... yay :) 

In other news, this week was really good! I really enjoyed it! I am loving cute little Brovary and we are seeing a lot of miracles here! We are having a lot of really great opportunities to serve and help others, especially the members! It is planting and gardening season, so we have done a lot of work with that! We did some planting and transplanting of strawberries this week. That was really fun. We also burned some yard waste. so that brought out the fire-lover in me. Everyone in Brovary is constantly burning something so it always smells like fire. My hair seems to smell like fire very easily so for the past week, I have just constantly smelt like I came from a week-long camping trip! 

 Our whiteboard, now completely decked out! 

wow. so much planning :)

 The other major theme of this week was general conference. In almost every lesson we taught, we talked about conference and how great it is! We taught about how if you have questions, they can be answered at general conference. It was always a really powerful moment when we could share how our questions had been answered at general conference. I LOVE CONFERENCE! I can't wait to watch the rest of it this weekend! If you haven't seen it, watch it! If you have seen it, watch it again! General Conference is the time when the prophet speaks to us! And when we listen, we hear what the Lord wants us to do! :) We even got the chance to watch GENERAL CONFERENCE LIVE, which our recent converts that speak english! It was super fun :) I made cinnamon rolls, so they all enjoyed that :) 

 Cinnamon rolls, rising all nicely. :)

 

A couple fun miracles from this week:

One occurred when we had the opportunity to talk with a lady. We invited her to church and she said she would come. When we told her the address, she said, " Oh, the Mormons used to meet there, they are horrible people. I'm so glad they left" and she went on about them and how awful they were. We then took that moment to introduce the Book of Mormon and explain how Mormon is sometimes used as a nickname for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. As we talked and testified of the Book of Mormon, she asked for a copy and agreed to meet again. She apologized for her rudeness towards 'The Mormons', explaining that she just didn't know who they were. I found it so interesting that she was so against the church without even knowing anything about it, and it only took 5 minutes on the street to completely change her perspective and for her to not only be friendly towards the church, but to actually want to know more about the gospel. It is a great blessing to be a missionary and to help people come to know more about the gospel! 

 

 Sister Farnsworth and I had an 

awesome exchange this week :)

On Monday, we were walking to a Family Home Evening, when I noticed this man walking really close. So I started talking to him, only to find out that he had lived in America and knew English very well. We ended up walking through the whole park together, just talking with him. He started asking us about why we were here and if we were scared at all of being in Ukraine. And we told him how we were here as missionaries and we have trust in God and his hand in keeping as safe! We asked about his belief and he said that he wants to know more about God. I was able to testify and explain a little bit more how God is our loving Heavenly Father and how he loves us and has a plan for us. The man then asked, "Do you really believe that?" and I was able to answer and say, "Yes, I believe that. I know it is true". And I could see the powerful effect of that testimony on him as he teared up and told us about how he feels like something is missing in his life, and he thinks that we have it. And of course, we loved hearing that, because we do have something that is missing from his life, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ! So we are so excited to teach him and his family! I know our message will bless their lives and help them find the peace and happiness they are searching for! :)  

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! It is the best thing ever! I love preaching and helping and lifting and smiling and I never want to stop helping the Lord with his work! :) I'm grateful for our living prophet and apostles and the leadership they have for us! This week I'm especially grateful for my mission president, and his amazing example! I have been so blessed to serve in this mission and to get to know President Klebingat! He's so awesome! I love this gospel, this church, and the message I share, and I KNOW that it is true! 

Have a great week :) Watch conference :) 

Love, 

Sister Kati Ford