New Transfer!!!

Dear Family and Friends, 

Today begins a new transfer! I'm excited to get to work in Suvorosky! I hope all is well for all of you! School is starting now...study hard! BYU has their first game this weekend, or so I hear! I'm cheering for them from Ukraine! :) 

 

 On my exchange with Sister Gillespie and Hunt! 

 

(My last day with Sister Hunt! I miss her so much! I was actually homesick for her this week! But I saw her today so all is good!) 

This week was so good! It was crazy because it was transfer week, but it was still really good! I spent a lot of time with various companions in various appartment because my new companion, Sister Nielsen was up in Kyiv sending Sister Busch home! Like HOME! AMERICA! So that was weird. But it was fun being with other sisters. One sister in our zone is Sister Gillespie. I hadn't really gotten the chance to get to know her super well but we were together for a few days. Turns out that we are RELATED! What?!??!? It's kinda random and long, but there. (Her mom's cousins and Lance and Heather Clyde...) We made the connection while riding on a Tram.  We were so excited but none of the Ukrainian people around us understood. 

 

 Saying goodbye to a less active member, Riasa

This week was also crazy because every morning and every night we travel an hour to get to our area. It's a lot of time on buses. Today my bus hit a car. That was unfortunate. For how crazy they drive, it's a miracle every time we get off one alive! :) 

 

 

 house sandels. They are a thing here. The sisters have them in their new apartment. I need some! haha

Everything has been splendid so far, at least as far as our companionship. We shared a room in the MTC so it is fun to be back together. We used to joke that maybe we would serve together and now we really are! So I'm happy about that.

 

 Walking to my new house. I only saw the outside though and couldn't take a pic! NEXT WEEK though :) 

The branch in Suvorosky was so happy to learn that they will have sisters all the time. I was told by several members that they have work for us to do! So I am so excited to help them and to help people there come unto Christ! We were able to meet with the Relief Society President this week. We told her that this transfer we want to focus on serving as much as we can. She gave us people to serve in the ward and then asked us, as a service to her, to try and think of a new and creative Relief Society Activity idea. We suggested doing a Question and Answer Discussion on how to be a good mother, and she loved it! It was fun being at church and hearing them announce that activity for the middle of September!  If anyone has any good activity ideas, let me know!! 

 

 and when we didn't have keys or a phone and I needed to knock on the door! Don't look down, 

it's like a 20 foot drop! All was good. And now we have our own keys!

Another goal that Sister Nielsen and I have is to do a creative finding activity every week. The one we tried this week was a Free Kompot table. We thought it went pretty good. We discovered that if the elders did the table with us, then no one would come up and talk to us. However, if it was just Sister Nielsen and I, people would come up and talk and we would be surrounded by people who wanted to talk to us. We discovered that people, once they discovered that we were missionaries, were more interested in talking about the church then the free juice and would often leave with a Liahona, Book of Mormon, or Pamphlet, but no juice.

 

 

 

 US going shopping this morning with SIster hunt and Gillespie. 

We headed out to 7k again! Still just as sketch haha :)

Something that I have become aware this week is the reality of the gift of tongues! I am serving with a sister and combined we have been learning Russian for less then 8 months. Yet we can go talk to people and invite them and teach them! We have had great lessons this week, and I know it is the Lord blessing us! He LOVES me and will not let me fail! :) The gift of tongues is real, otherwise I would not be able to be doing this work! 

I don't have very much time today, we went shopping this morning so now I am in a hurry but I love you all! I'm so grateful for all that you do! You are examples to me! Do missionary work! Enjoy school! and work...if you don't go to school. and home too! Enjoy everything! 

Love Sister Ford!

Love From Ukraine!!

Dear Family and Friends!

This week was awesome! I don't even know where to begin! I guess it wasn't that different from weeks in the past, but it was still a really good week! I hope that everyone at home also had a good week, despite illness, leg infections, broken bones, and anything else that may have happened!  

So the highlight of this week was that we found FIVE new investigators! The Lord blessed us so much! It was a testimony builder to me because we didn't spend 20 hours every day trying to find new people to teach. Instead as we went around to visit less actives, or do other activities that we needed to get done, the people that were interested in the gospel landed in our path. So we are excited to teach them and serve them this week! Their names are Nastia, Neonela, Vlad, Nina, and Laressa! Nastia was a referral from a former investigator, Neonela we talked to on the street, Vlad and Nina were referrals from a member, and Laressa walked into church on Sunday. 

Vlad and Nina have a really cool story. They are friends with a member named Katia and every time they are in Odessa they meet with the missionaries. They are really interested in being baptized, but there are no missionaries in their town (called a selo here). In fact, from what I understand, they aren't even part of a mission at all. It is so sad. So we are trying to teach them as much as we can before they return home. Vlad is only 11 and he is the cutest kid ever! I will take a picture with him next time we are together! He loves the missionaries! In fact, not only did he tell us that he wants to serve a mission, but he said that someday he wants to marry girls like us! It was so cute :) 

I don't know if you know this, but now that there are so many sisters serving, there is a missionary leadership position called a Sister Training Leader. They basically do what a zone leader does, but for the sisters.  Sister Leavitt is a sister training leader, so the next few weeks we are going to do a whole bunch of exchanges because she has to be with every other sister. So that is a little crazy! So we did our first exchange this week and we have another one starting tomorrow. I've gotten much better at packing lightly, thanks to these exchanges! 

 Sister Robertson

 Service during our exchange! service was wallpapering but then it got cancelled.  

 

On our exchange this last week, I started a conversation with a lady! She was super interested in the gospel, but the problem was that every 5 minutes, the conversation would start over because she didn't remember anything from before. I think that poor lady had short term memory loss. The positive news is that she wrote down our number like 5 different times, so hopefully someday she will call! 

 

 Odessa is bursting with tourists right now, which is kinda fun! We had an older couple come to church yesterday! They were from Las Vegas, only here for one day on a cruise stop. I thought that it was very cool that they came to church even though they didn't speak any Russian! We tried to teach them how to say Hello, but they couldn't even learn that! It was a good effort though! 

We are teaching an older couple, named Valia and Meheighal.  They are so sweet and always worried about our safety. It is cute :) Meheighal came to church yesterday, even though His wife had to go to the doctors! We gave them some banana bread so hopefully they enjoy it! 

Other news from this week... We spent a bunch of time trying to find less active sisters. We always take a member of our branch with us, which makes it so much easier! But it is such an adventure! Many of the sisters don't live in the same place anymore, which is sad, but good to have an update. On Saturday, we went with a lady names Galina. We went into like the oldest building I have ever been to in my life (Probably older then America..seriously) and climbed up these sketch stairs, and then come to a padlocked door. We can't get through so we just stuck an Liahona magazine in and a little note. It was so sketch! Seriously, part of the floor had fallen through!! CRAZY! 

Also, the Elders in our branch had a baptism this last Saturday. it was an awesome service! I was asked to play the piano for the opening and closing song so I got all ready to do that. Then while they were changing after the baptism, a member was like, "ok, Sister Ford will play and we will sing". So I picked a couple of songs that I knew that I could play, then towards the end, The member (Lisa) started saying no to every song that I offered. So I asked her what she thought and she picked a song that I had never played before! I was so nervous!! But the Lord blessed me because I was able to sight read better then anything that I had ever sight read before! It was a little miracle in my life! 

So... I am so excited because this week, English starts again! I am so excited! We have been doing a lot of advertising for English, which is fun! 

 

 Getting my haircut in Ukraine! So scary! the scarest part was when she styled it! It was SO ugly! Luckily it looked ok once I fixed it! We found like the nicest salon in Odessa, and it was only 100 g. So like 12 dollars! crazy!

 

 

 celebrating the 1025 (i think) anniversary of when the Kyiv empire became a Christian empire. It was a celebration. It was cool. We just walked by but the choir sounded so pretty! 

This saturday is Sister Leavitt's birthday! We are going out to eat next Pday! Also, this Thursday, our landlady is giving us Pedicures!  Also, today Sister Leavitt and I are going to go SHOPPING in Center. They have all the good stores here! Most are SUPER pricy but there are some cheaper ones too! I don't know if I will buy anything or not.

 

 

 taking pics before church on Sunday 

unfortunately, my clothes this morning. I don't know if you can tell, but it is pouring rain. I hope they will dry again someday. 

Sorry I don't have much to say this week! Just know that I am happy and enjoying the work!

Write me :) 

Love you all! 

Sister Ford!