Never Marry a Teacher, Boys

Прівит, Everyone I love!!

This week has been a great week.  

Our mission goals from Zone Conference have mostly encompassed working with members -- which means we've spent the last week working with our members!  This entails family nights, spiritual thoughts, and eating food.  I can handle that I think :)

On Monday, we went over to Brother Sodovie's house.  We bought a big packet of vanilla ice-cream to share with him, a spiritual thought was packed away in our bags, and we also thought we could read something from the Book of Mormon with him -- it's good to read with members to help practice reading (they love to correct you!) -- He was so happy to see us.  He let us in, was excited to have the surprise of us wanting to have family night with him!  He wasn't as excited about the ice cream... at first.  "I can't eat cold things, boys!".  That was sad... at first.  Then, we sat down, and split up a bit of the ice cream between Elder Peterson, Myself, and His mother (who is not a member).
DISCLAIMER** living with your mother is not weird here. ** 

Anywho, he ended up eating ice cream anyway, despite what he had told us.  He told me that I'm a bad eater, and that Elder Peterson needs to teach me how to eat faster.  Pfft.  I totally got a bigger helping of ice cream.  Now, we're going to be coming by a couple times a week to read the Book of Mormon with his mother! So cool! 

We have two investigators with a baptismal date;  One is a 13 year old boy, and the other is a cool 26 year old man with a sweet beard.  The 13 year old is probably the first Ukrainian that I have upheld a solid conversation with, and I actually love talking with him!  He's really great, and I found a friend in him!  He's steadily progressing towards his baptismal date, and we're really hopeful for him!

The other man is so busy all the time!  We haven't had a meeting since we set up his baptismal date!  It's really hard, but he earnestly is trying to meet with us, so I'm sure everything will work out soon enough!

We taught our English class the Star Spangled Banner, and sang it with them.  Is that a bad thing to do in a foreign country?  I don't know.  Most of them seemed to like it.  Only one man complained... and he said it's because he hates singing.  

Bohdan, the man who was just baptised (like, my 3rd week here) let us come over to visit with him the other night!  He's so cool!  He's been trying to throw us into situations where we are with his family members, and that night, we had dinner with him and his wife! They joke and laugh at eachother all the time, which is really cool to see in a couple who has been married for as long as they have.  She teachers school here, and has a big class full of 11 year-olds.  Bohdan gave us what he considered to be solid advice, "Never marry a teacher, boys".   Elder Peterson and I laughed really hard... and Bohdan just got a spiteful glare and some sort of rebuff in Ukrainian that I failed to catch.  He was still laughing though afterward, so it can't have been a fatal mistake.

I love the people, the culture, the heritage, and the MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH in Ukraine!  This place is incredible!  Even though I still have a hard time understanding and talking with people, I'm seeing miracles here all the time.  The Lord has prepared the people out here to receive this incredible message, and I'm so glad that He sent me out here as one of His representatives.

Thank you for all your emails and prayers!  I'm so grateful for all of you!

Much love,

Elder LeBaron