Week 2 in Ukraine! :) I love this country! :)

Dear Everyone, 

This week I have grown to love so much about Ukraine!  I want nothing more then to have all my family and friends come so I can show them everything that I love!  I love the beauty,

 I love the people,

 I love the stray animals,

 I even love the weirdness, 

the occasional ghetto-ness,

 and the scary moments! As I'm sitting here at the computer, I'm trying to think of something that I don't like... I think there is only one thing, the large amount that people smoke.  It is a little gross but hey, I can teach them all about the Word of Wisdom! 

This week I have so many miracles and little great things that happened that I don't even know where to start!  

I guess just with last Monday.  We had choir.  I think I might have mentioned how choir was scary because we didn't know what she was saying (The choir director is a recent convert named Cveta, we call her Cveta Music) and I guess Sister Hunt and I weren't singing super well... so she made us sing like a one-on-one lesson with her.  Super scary!  She has a love for long extended metaphors and when Sister Busch would try to translate them, we would die because they were so crazy sounding.  But anyways, after choir, we were supposed to have a lesson but the girl never showed up.  We had a member there, Masha.  Masha is AWESOME!  She served a mini mission in Kyiv and wants to serve a full time mission!  She speaks quite a bit of English.  Since our lesson was a no show, we went out and did some contacting for our English class! Masha and I did member splits together.  It was crazy!  She told me what to say and then I did it.  We got to the point (because my accent is pretty awful) where people would just come up to me and ask for a card because they could tell that I spoke English, not Russian.  It was so cool and we handed out every single English card we had.  I even had some teenage boys tell me that I was cool, which is a big deal.  They don't like to compliment other people here so a "Tea klasna" was AWESOME! :) So our awesome day of contacting made Monday awesome! 

The next morning was my first meeting with my new district. I feel like cards have been flipped because instead of there only being 3 elders, there are now only 3 sisters!  But we have an awesome district!  It is a great testimony builder to me to see and hear the testimonies of the Elders around me.  I think that our mission has the best Elders!  Seriously! 

The other thing that Odessa has that are awesome is a great YSA program!  Seriously! The youth here are so strong and I am so blessed that I get to see there examples!  They are super active and so sweet and nice!  They all want to serve missions and they all want to come out and contact and teach with us!  It makes missionary work so fun for us!  They invite their friends to all the activities so we always get to go and get to know them!  They are so eager to share this gospel! 

This week, we had a Patriarch visit Odessa.  The Church has traveling Patriachs that give blessings in areas that usually don't have a Patriarch.  So Brother Rogers, from Utah,

 came out and is traveling throughout our mission, giving blessings to the Saints here.  The rules for the church ask that a single woman isn't alone with the Patriarch so they asked us to sit in on blessings.  what a cool experience.  The spirit was SO strong, even though I don't understand the words.  It was so great to see Recent Converts and such receive blessings and come out with a visibly brighter light in their eyes!  There has been a big focus on patriarchal blessings recently and how they can bless your life when you receive them!  So it was awesome to be a part of that! It was also a great opportunity to meet strong members from the whole district! Also, on an incredible cool side note, Brother Rogers said that all of the 12 tribes of Israel have been found in Ukraine.  It is such a cool and clear gathering of Israel here! I am so blessed to be here! Also, I was able to help Brother Rogers (because he is quite old) do some of the electronic part of the blessings.  While I worked on that he observed that Odessa, more then anywhere in Ukraine, has super strong, motivated, missionary work focused members.  It helped me realized how it is a blessing to be here!  for sure!

This week we met with the ward mission leader!  I'm not sure it is possibly to be more focused on missionary work then we are, but if anyone can do it, it is him!  He is AWESOME!  We set up a program to encourage families to give away copies of the Book of Mormon, so we are excited to see how that works out!  But he is so excited to share the gospel!

Thursday the weather was crazy! 

 It rained so much!  thank goodness for my rain jacket,

 although I didn't wear my rain boots that day.  Bummer!  But we headed out to our other area for the first time.  I hadn't realized how nice Center is, but it is super nice.  Suborskey is nice too, but not quite as nice.  We went to meet a less active member and because of the rain and the crazy musutka-bus ride, we were a little late. The lady FREAKED OUT.  Scariest moment of my life.  So freaky, but then she fed us and let us share a spiritual thought.  But that was freaky!

We also did service for a member of that branch.  She can't walk but her testimony is so strong.  We helped her clean her kitchen and talked to her.  On a side note, in the bedroom, where we put our coats, there was a TV.  When we were leaving, it played the Old Spice commercial- the I'm on a horse one- in Russian!  That was pretty awesome!

We also taught English for the first time!  It was SO fun!  I really enjoyed it! :) We just talk! We have about 15-20 people everytime which is an awesome turnout.  They are really hardworking dedicated people.  We always invite them to church and activities which is fun!  The younger ones always have questions about our missions, which are fun to awesome.  One day I had a group of like 8 people listening attently to about when I opened my mission call!  They listened to my story and then they asked me a lot of questions.  It was SO fun! There was two ladies there, Luba and Yula.  We invited them to a church activity, and they came-- I'll explain that story later!

On Saturday, we had the great activity to go to a district activity.  It was celebrating 20 years of the church being in Odessa!  It was so fun to hear from the first members, to see pictures and to hear musical numbers.  We sang in it,

 and despite our singing talents, it went really well!  It was really interesting for me because I had thought that it would have been fun to serve in Nauvoo because I love the Pioneers.  But now I realized that I am surrounded by Latter-day Pioneers.  I often look around me and am shocked by the grossness of society here.  It is worse then anywhere I have been before.  But these latter-day Pioneers have figured out how to wade through all the grossness and still have super strong testimonies!  I love them! 

 This was the activity that Luba and Yula came to.  I admire them, the activity was 3 HOURS long, but they stayed the whole time.  And afterwords, we were talking to them and one of us was holding a Book of Mormon.  Luba looked at the book and said, "Is that your book?" and we were like, "yes"  and she said, "I've read that book.  I believe that it is true, I want to be baptized."  and we were speechless. I've heard of things like that happening but I still can't believe that it happened to us!  She didn't even remember where she had gotten the Book of Mormon from!  We taught her yesterday and we teach her again tomorrow and are hoping to help her get a baptism date tomorrow!  They are both wonderful women! Yesterday we taught some of the first lesson.  Sister Hunt shared a super powerful testimony of Joseph Smith and then we talked about how we can know that the Book of Mormon is true through the Holy Ghost and Luba was like, "That makes sense".  She loved the promise in Moroni 10:3-5.  We asked them to read and pray together and they both said that they would!  it was awesome, we passed them later that night in the park and they were reading the Book of Mormon together! We are excited to teach them tomorrow! 

Also, all three of us spoke in church yesterday and we did a musical number.  Afterwords, a member of the District (Stake) Presidency stood up and said, "I hope you realize that this is historic.  We just heard from the first 19 year old sister missionaries in Ukraine, in Odessa, and in this branch.  This is a great time to share the gospel because we have these missionaries here.  Help them, help them with the language, give them your referrals, invite them over to teach others." So I'm basically famous...tell all your friends that you know the first 19 year old sisters in Odessa, I'm sure they will be impressed :) 

So anyways...I am loving Ukraine!  I can testify of the power of the gift of tongues and the power of the Spirit!  I love being a missionary and serving the Lord!  I know he is aware of me and is blessing me!  Everything that I am doing is only possible through the Lord!   Pray for me and pray for those that I am teaching!  Share the gospel with your friends!  It will bless their lives! I'm grateful for this opportunity!  I know this church is true and I love it! 

Love

Sister Ford

(random pictures she sent without any captions)

PS- my mission president letter:

Dear President,

This week was really good.  I finally felt like a "real" missionary which was nice, mostly because we had some lessons and spent some time contacting and looking for new investigators.  This week had some unusual things happen like the Patriarch coming but I feel like the Lord blessed us for the service that we did helping Brother Rogers. 

This week we were still adjusting to the missionary lifestyle. I think Sister Hunt and I finally got to the point where we remember to take food with us when we leave the house so that we can eat even if we aren't home.  

This week I had a huge testimony builder in doing missionary work despite the other activities that we are doing.  Several times this week when we would be walking home at night, or today on P-day, gospel conversations start and we have the opportunity to share a message.  I'm grateful for Sister Busch because she is always ready to share the gospel.  One night especially it was a little bit past nine and we were trying to get home after a lesson.  When Sister Busch started talking to this lady, I was slightly disappointed because I didn't want to be late.  But then the lady committed to come to English, and even gave us her phone number to meet with her and talk about our beliefs.  So it testified to me that the Lord will place people in our paths no matter what we are doing and we need to be ready to share our message at all times! 

I think the thing that is stressing me out the most is the language.  I really struggle because I don't understand or know how to say very much and it is hard because a conversation will be going on and I don't want to interrupt it with questions about something that I didn't understand.  But the Lord showered me with tender mercies of people that needed help with the gospel, in English this week.  I had the opportunity to help a man named Isaac search the scriptures for scriptures about love (in English).  I felt helpful which was nice because usually I feel like I can't help much.  Something I did learn was that when I testify in Russian, the Spirit can testify to the people.  It always touches me when I bear my simple testimony and someone is really touched.  I realize that the Spirit is teaching them, I feel blessed that the Spirit can work through me. 

This week we meet a lady at English named Luba.  We invited her to a ward activity and after she told us that she has read the entire Book of Mormon and believes it and wants to be baptized.  So we are excited to help her!  We taught her yesterday with her daughter and we teach them again tomorrow! 

Anyway...It was a good week! I love serving the Lord in this beautiful city of Odessa! I feel so blessed! 

Sister Ford

Week 4! 1 month down...

This picture is especially for Sydney!  She sent me a heart, so I thought 

I would repay the favor!

  

:) Dear Family, Friends, Everyone!

 

How is the outside world?  Can you believe that I have been on my mission for 4 weeks!  In fact, this Sunday (the 27th!) is my one month! I feel like I should have a party or something!  Feel free to send me letters or packages of congratulations!  Haha :). 

 

Here is my letter to the Brach Presidency this week:

"This week, our teachers are all switching up so we as of right now we are only teaching Sasha. Our last few lessons with him have gone really well. We taught him about faith and and a little bit of repentence. We are excited to teach him about the Atonement later this week! We are really excited that we can tell him all about Christ and how he atoned for our sins and how through him, we can be clean and pure. I'm especially excited about how sometime soon, we will be able to explain eternal families. He has a wife and a child and at the moment, is living in a different city from them. I think he will really love that he can be with them forever.

We also started an activity this week where we are teaching other companionships in our class. We pretend to be someone that we know from home and then they teach us. I am so excited to teach and to be taught this way. It is really interesing to imagine and try to act that the person that you picked. I've learned a lot about teaching by being taught. It is really awesome how the Spirit can teach me, even though I'm pretending to be someone else! In this activity, we will be teaching a girl named Tonya, and a lady named Christina. We haven't taught them yet, but we will teach them this week.

Something excited that I have done for personal study this week is to read all of the Preach My Gospel lessons (including all the scripture references). I've been marking the scriptures according to what lesson it is from. An insight I gained from doing this is realizing how related everything is that we teach. A scripture that explains part of the Restoration, also explains part of the Plan of Salvation, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I think that it helped me realize that our message really is quite simple. This isn't complicated, and the base of everything is that through Jesus Christ, we can return to live with our Father in Heaven again.

This week, I have also been thinking a lot about the people I will teach in Ukraine. It is weird for me to think that I will actually be doing missionary work in Ukraine. I am so excited to teach them that sometimes I just want to leave now. Of course, sometimes I feel so nervous about going that I think I would rather stay at the MTC forever. But usually I just want to be in Ukraine! It is crazy to think that we are almost halfway through our MTC time! It has gone so fast!"

Seriously though, this month has flown by!  I can't believe that I only have 17 more months left.  Plus, I imagine it will go even faster once I get to Ukraine!

This week was so good.  There were a couple of things that made it hard, but overall it was so good!  The Spirit at the MTC has been especially strong since Elder Scott was here.  It just makes me smile! 

Ok...first of all.  I hear people want to hear what I do all day.  If you want the short answer, it is class and studying.  That's about it!  But I will share the longer version too!  Our schedule changes a little bit depending on what day it is, but we do the same activities most days.  On Monday, I took pictures of almost everything that we did so I will explain Monday in depth then talk a little bit about our other activities. 

So on Mondays:

6:20 - Wake up.  We wake up and go get in the line for Sack Breakfast. Sack breakfast is just cereal, bagels, doughnuts, fruit...basically just a continental breakfast.  Missionaries are not allowed in the main cafeteria if they are not in church clothes, so we go get Sack Breakfast on days that we are in jeans for awhile.

(in line for sack breakfast)

(eating breakfast)

 Mondays we have service in the morning so we stay in our pants for that!  Then we usually eat our breakfast in the Hallway of our dorms!6:40-8:40 - Get ready and Personal Study.  Every morning we have personal study for an hour.  

(studying before gym.  sister hunt and I)

We read scriptures by ourselves, review lessons, pray...just whatever we need to work on and want to do.  It is usually very relaxing.  Mondays we have 30 minutes to get ready here but usually we get ready after Service and Gym, so we have some personal time.  

(in line for sack lunch)

We can talk, study, take a nap...whatever.  I like to paint my nails during that time. 

8:45- SERVICE!  Every missionary in the MTC does 1 hour of service per week.  Each district has an assigned area that the report to clean.  Ours in 1M, which is the big building with the offices, chapels, and main information desk.

(service and studying before gym.  sister hunt and I)

is the best place to have service!  A lot of missionaries have dorm buildings, so they scrub showers and toliets.  We get to wash windows, vaccuum, and other fun assignments.  It seriously is one of my favorite parts of the week!  Plus new senior missionaries come in on Mondays, so we get to talk to some of them!  This last Monday, we had the BEST assignment.  We got to pick 32 flags from whatever countries we wanted

(hanging up flags for service!)

(my artsy picture of the flags!)

- Ukraine first of course -- and then hang them up outside!  It was so much fun! Some of the flagpoles cranked, so it was an arm workout too!  It made me happy!  We finished that a little early so we got to vaccuum too.  There is never very much to vaccuum though because it is done several times a day, but it is fun!

9:45 - We have a little bit more free time.  I studied some more and prepared for a lesson I was teaching that afternoon.

 (we are learning some russian!  We use the dictionary to translate 

words we don't know while we read the BOM in Russian)

10:25 - GYM!  If we are inside, then I run on the track

("running" in gym.  ;))

 (Me posing while playing four square!)

(the whole gym)

 for awhile and then play four-square.  It is actually a very intense game! haha This week, it finally got warm enough, so we had our first outdoor gym!  I loved it!  I played soccer.  Another sister tripped me though, and I fell hard!  My leg is all scraped up and bruised!  It hurts, but it was worth it to be outside! 

11:30 - Lunch!  Today we also got sack lunch because we were in our gym clothes!  They have Sandwiches and salads, chips, etc.  Just normal lunch stuff.

11:45-12:30 - Get ready.  We get all dressed up and ready for the rest of the day. 

12:30-3:30 - Class!  We have a teacher for 6 hours every day. 

(practicing our teaching!  In russian!  That book is our little cheat sheet! )

(studying with sister hunt)

We practice teaching, we learn Russian, we goof off (a little), and we sleep -- haha just kidding about the sleeping part!  

("sleeping" with sister Hunt)

We were just pretending to be asleep!  I'm actually super proud of myself because I haven't fallen asleep in class or studying yet! Class is long, but super productive.

3:30-4:45 - We always have at least an hour of dedicated language study time.  We work on grammer, memorization, verbs...etc.  It is good!

4:45 - Head to the Cafeteria to eat.

  

dinner...swedish meatballs!  Also lots and lots of croutons!  :) 

They have a lot of different options.  Usually I get a salad, and any main dish that looks good.  

(dinner!  With Sister Lee)

They have custom made wraps you can get that are pretty good!  I really like the pasta.  On this day, I tried the Swedish Meatballs, they were ok!  We love dinner becuase it is a nice break!.

5:00-9:00 - More class.  Same as above.

  

(the sword of the spirit and the shield of faith that our elders made!)

Usually we get a little crazy by 8:00.  

(we mess around a little!  I'm not in this picture because i was actually 

teaching!  i came back to about 20 funny pictures on my camera!)

 

If you know what I'm like at 2 in the morning, that is kind of what 8 pm is like for a missionary!

9:00-9:30 - Planning.  We always plan what we will do the next day.  It helps us be more focused the next day!

9:30-10:30 - Get ready for bed.  Open packages, read letters (We can only open them after 9:30!) Write in our journals.  Quiet time is at 10:15, lights off at 10:30.  I'm usally pretty good at that!

So anyways that is our typical, 16 hour day! Fun, right?!?

Other activities we do include, TRC.  That is where we teach real life people, not our teachers.  It is in Russian and one of my favorite activities.  Last week we taught, two people about prayer.  One lady was actually from Russia, and she didn't speak much Russian. She wrote on our feedback form that my Russian was really good! It made me so happy!  :)

TALL - that is on the computer. It is kinda like Rosetta Stone.

(TALL- learning my russian!)

I really don't like it that much, but it is helpful for learing vocab, like numbers!

Choir- We have choir on Sunday and Tuesday.  It is the best thing ever!  Seriously, if you are in the MTC and you don't sing in the choir, you are doing it wrong! I love it!

Devotional- We have a devotional on Sunday and Tuesday!  They are awesome!

On Sundays, we have personal study all day, except for Sunday School (which is a district meeting), Relief Society (With all the sisters in the MTC), Sacrament Meeting, and Temple Walk. We also have a devotional that night, then a movies (always a church movie!)

Anyways...that is it!  

Now onto this week:

(Yay!  I love Laekynn!  I see Sister Davis everyday!  I'm going to be so sad 

when she leaves! Plus- these clouds are awesome!)

It was awesome because I knew 4 people that came into the MTC so I got to see them all over the place! 

 (I also saw Cody.  It was good to talk to him! This was his first week.)

I saw Ben, Laekynn, Cody,and Allyscha all over!  It was so fun!  I've been able to see Laekynn every day, it makes me so happy!  She is awesome!

I feel like my language ability has improved so much over this last week!  I guess that is what happens when an apostle gives you a blessing that your language will improve!  I feel like I am starting to really understand a lot more Russian!  Forming sentences is easier also!

I checked out a violin from the MTC this week! It is a really nice violin!  I think I am going to play in Sacrament Meeting!  Scary right?! But exciting! 

This week was also Sister Clark's birthday!  She turned 21!  

(This Sunday was sister Clark's birthday!)

We decorated a little bit and sang!  It was really fun!

  (We had balloons and hats and I made signs!:)) 

It made a normal day just a little bit more exciting!

For Relief Society, a member from the General Primary Presidency (Sister Esplin) came!  It was so good!  We got to sing some Primary Songs, which was awesome! :) That afternoon, for the devotional, the BYU men's chorus came!  It was so fun!  I saw Kyle Johnson, who was in my ward last semester!  I told him to say hi to everyone from me at Ward Prayer, I hope he did!  That night we got to watch the Testaments. I had never seen it before but it was super good! 

Our devotional yesterday was by Elder Evans.  He is  the head of the Missionary Board.  He gave a really powerful talk about repentence, it was super awesome! 

Highs of this week! -- devotionals, seeing my friends, playing a violin, our lessons, TRC, service! 

Funny Moments - In TRC, our person, in Russian, told us ALL about how he prayed for his zits to go away.  We were like...ok...Then he was explaining what he actually said and we were dying of laughter!  It was so great!

The Asians on our floor had a party the day before they left!  They were going crazy! It was really funny!

On Friday, I got 4 packages!  How crazy it that!  It made me so happy! 

(packages!  4 of them are mine!)

(In the picture with sister clark, one of mine is missing!  I am so loved!  Y'all rock)

Sister Clark got 3 packages, and that was because it was her birthday haha!  It was so funny!  I loved the packages, especially the treats from both of my grandmas!  They were so good!  :) And the dictionary is great, thanks!!! 

One day I was testifying to random girl in Russian!  I was trying to say that I knew that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon.  The Russian word for translate is pairavestee (that is what it sounds like.  So I got a little confused and mixed the russian and english together and was like Joseph Smith "transvestite" Kniga Mormona.  I was about to die!  She thought that I was crazy because all the russians were dying of  laughter and she had no idea what was going on!

So I'm doing good!  I love being a missionary!  I'm praying for y'all!  Keep writing me!  I love mail!

Love Sister Ford!

I'll send pics when I go do laundry!  :)

 

(making my bed!  We have random cleaning checks once a week)

 

our teachers leave us russian notes... This says, "My missionaries. I love you.  

Work hard, ok? Brother Hofman" 

(Russian torture, the case chart!!  opa!)