Hello Family and Friends!

 

This week has been awesome (like always)!  We've been working hard here, in Lutsk.  I'm just absolutely loving the fact that it's sunny out, and everyone is outside enjoying this fantastic weather!  I'm not even wearing my massive overcoat for once!  WHOO!

 

A rather dissapointing theme of this week has been the continuation of people agreeing to meet with us... and then never showing up.  This can be a frustrating thing, but at the same time, it's a huge motivator to keep searching for those who are sincerely searching for the Gospel of Christ! 

 

We have, however, found TONS of small ways to serve those around us!  

 

Stories;

As we were walking down the road, I saw this little old man with 3 big bags that he had managed to get up onto the curb.  His last step, was getting himself up onto the curb.  He was just kind of sitting there.... staring at it.  I stopped, and in UKRAINIAN (someone please be proud of me!) Asked him if there was anyway we could help.  I didn't understand his response (Doh.) Elder P. Did though, and he explained to me that we were now going to be helping this man move 3 bags filled with bottles for him.  Now... this is where I really got confused... because he only asked us to move them about 10meters, and then asked us to put them down.  He was REALLY grateful though!  I'm still confused as to what his intention was... since the bottle return was nowhere near where we stopped, but he gratefull shook our hands and bid us "Good health, boys! Thank you!"

 

We (on this same walk) saw an old woman gathering sticks from the path in the back woods near the river.  We commonly used this path as a shortcut to the church, and generally didn't see a whole lot of people using it.  We stopped, and helped her move all of her branches (which I had assumed would be firewood or for something useful)... to the side of the road... where we dumped them and left them. She was really grateful for this favor(?).  She took a Book of Mormon though, and was so happy that we stopped to help her out, even though we were "dressed so nicely".  She was really sweet.

 

Since we haven't got a whole lot of investigators who are progressing now, we've been trying to get more people to work with!  ONTO THE STREETS WE GO!

 

There are a lot of different people in cities like this, and it is SO COOL to be out and talking with the lot of them.  What a great experience this is!  I love being a missionary.

 

Transfers happened... I get to stay with my trainer, which is cool.  There were 3 missionaries who left though, and I loved each of them, so it was sad to see them go! I loved working with them!  I hope I get the chance to work with them again too!

 

I've been studying "Jesus the Christ" a lot lately, and trying to learn more about the Savior.  It's nice to have all the information layed out and to understand factual instances and logical patterns of our Savior's incredible role our salvation... but I've found more solace lately in prayer.  Honestly and truly, I feel more personally close to Heavenly Father through those prayers where I just pour out my whole heart.  The scriptures are so incredible, and really contain the words of life!  I love studying the Gospel, and I've found that it's really these primary answers that brings about our continuing conversion to it.

 

Challenge; Keep up the prayers, and pour out your heart sincerely to your Father in Heaven! He wants to hear you! 

Then, open the scriptures.  Really dig into them, searching for answers, comfort, and direction.  You will find things which you have never known before, and messages that feel like they are meant just for you!

 

Because asking and knocking is how we open up the windows of Heaven in order to behold the great and marvelous light therein!

 

I know that this is true, because I've done it for myself.  It's amazing!

 

Much love,

You are all in my prayers, and I wish you the best,

 

Elder LeBaron

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

Miracles My Friends, Miracles

Allo, family and friends!

Well, a whole lot of great things happened this last week, and I'm pretty excited about those people that we have the opportunity to work with this.  Ukraine has plenty of people who have been prepared by the Lord... the trick is finding them.

Or not...

We recieved a refferal from a woman, over the phone (randomly), to teach her 13 year old son the other day.  Bam.  Insta-investigator who is way cool.  We're pretty confident that he'll get all the way to baptism and onward with his attitude.  He reads the Book of Mormon! By himself!  At HOME!  Oh my goodness.  I can barely handle the miracle-ness!

We were walking down the street behind this man... who suddenly flipped himself around, looked at our name-tags, and spilled out his life story about how he had a problem and he needed Christ to help him fix it.  He wants to meet with us soon.  He asked for a Book of Mormon.  What?

We called someone out of our Area book... and he agreed to meet with us, at the church, and he accepted a baptismal date on the first lesson.  POW.  Not to mention that we had a ward member from Kiev there who spoke fluent Ukrainian to help us deliver the message of the restoration.  DOUBLE-POW!

Miracles my friends, miracles.

We also had ZONE CONFERENCE!!!  Whoooo!  It was way cool.  On thursday, we hopped on an автобус (a weird travel bus) which traveled into L'viv.  The road from Lutsk to L'viv is a mess.  It was so bumpy.  Elder Peterson got kind of car-sick.  I just fell asleep...  because there was nobody on the bus to talk to.

In L'viv, we had a couple hours to just go out and get something to eat, and take a look at the city.  What happened in our couple hours was pretty nuts;

First of all, Elder Peterson was DETERMINED to find the Souvenier рінок in L'viv.  We ate at McDonalds (MCDONALDS!  I ATE A CHEESEBURGER!)  on our way out... and we ended up not finding what we were looking for.  We found a this cool Greek food place - - this meant that we had to eat the cool greek food there.  It was a pita... filled with pork, cabbage, and french fries and some magical sauce.  What? I don't even know... but it was good.

As we were happily munching away on our spoils, we were met by a Ukrainian woman who was interested in talking about our foriegn-ness.  The situation rapidly changed (not for the better) when she declared that she was actually a Jehovah's Witness.  Oh man...

We exchanged numbers with her, committed her to pray about reading the Book of Mormon, and then kindly left her by walking off the opposite way.  

I loved zone conference!  There was just this magnificent spiritual uplift and a whole lot of loving missionaries were there to talk with.  I really just felt loved, appreciated, and united there.  It was great!

On the way back from L'viv, I ended up sitting next to this woman on the bus.  I was so pumped about missionary work, that I felt like I could just proselyte to the whole world -- which means I obviously I had to talk to this lady.  Only one problem... I don't speak Ukrainian very well.  

My Spirit brain thought better than my earth brain.  I just started talking with her.

She helped me practice my Ukrainian -- I shared a small part of the Restoration -- she took a Book of Mormon with the Sister's number in it.  

What does this mean?  It means that the Lord knows what we're capable of doing, and that He will only give us commandments that he knows we can fulfill.  Remember, He knows us, loves us, and wants to help us grow!  I love the Gospel, and I'm so glad that I have this chance to be out here serving the Lord.

I love you family!

I wish you the best, my friends!

Once upone a time...

Elder Peterson and Elder LeBaron were out on the streets of Lutsk, happily proselyting and smiling, because during planning, they had settled that they were going to teach an english lesson and have a member present lesson with their new investigator who had a baptismal date.  Suddenly, they recieved a phone call from their Zone Leaders that everyone needed to go home to the apartments, stop by a grocery store and get 2 days worth of food, and STAY INSIDE.   Nooooooo!!!!

We had to cancel our awesome lesson with Sasha!

I was going to actually going to be able communicate with Ukrainians! (We had the Advanced Class that night at English).

So much dissapointment!!

So inside we went... and inside we stayed for about 48-ish hours.  It wasn't anything that was WAY long, but it was incredibly inconvenient.  Why did this happen?  Because of political stuff.  That's really all I know...  Sorry to make that seem so much more intense than it actually is.  We have been out proselyting again, and though some of the material that we are allowed to distribute has been declared "against the rules", we also can't hand most anything out on the street... or go tracting...  We are still being missionaries!  A smile can go a long way, and many people have been coming up to us and talking to us of their own free will!  Just the other day, some random lady came up to us asking (in russian), "Hey, smoking is forbidden, right?  You're not allowed to smoke? It's bad, right?"  Luckily, Elder LeBaron remembered the Russian word for forbidden, and was able to respond in kind.  "No, smoking is not allowed.  It's bad." (Because I speak like a toddler, I'm probably the most graceful missionary that ever was).  She then insisted that we talk to her friend.  We invited them to church.  We also gave them a Restoration Pamphelt!  Cool times!

We also had a random man stop us, and in FLAWLESS (okay, broken, but it was understandable) ENGLISH, he asked us, "Hey boys!  Do you know the city "eldersburge" in the state of maryland??"  We both responded in the negative, and he instantly broke off communication with us and proceeded on his way.  What?? What is in Eldersburge? What does that mean!? Who are you random man?? I may never know.  I should have stopped him before he ran off.

Also, There was a wedding!  The groom is a member of the ward named Serhi, and he wanted his reception themed after - - BUM BUM BU BUM!!! - - FAMILY NIGHT!  

WHAT? Who does that?  I don't know, but the missionaries were SO EXCITED.  We all showed up, and we had a battle strategy to work this to our advantage.  He even, of his own free will, wanted to show two mormon messages about Marriage. What manner of man is this!?
They had this awesome ring ceremony that I didn't understand a word of... and then suddenly, out of nowhere, the Bride gets up, and starts this song on her ipod, and RAPS to her new husband.  SHE WROTE HIM A RAP.  HOW COOL IS THAT??  It was even cooler to me, because I got to hear what a rapping Ukrainian sounds like.  So cool.

Afterwards, we met a lot of cool people, I talked to the other Elder's investigator Dieter, who is from Germany.  He speaks a blend of Ukrainian, German, and English.  I understand him sometimes.  That's more than can be said for most of the other Elders.  Whoo hoo being useful!

Anywho, I just want to testify to you that I'm really being assured everyday that the Lord is preparing ways for us to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our friends, neighbours, and family.  If you haven't already done it, get a chance with a ward mission leader, work with missionaries in your area, or just invite someone over for food and share a bit about your beliefs, and what you know (your testimony and witness are very powerful!).  Who doesn't like food?  And the Gospel? (Everyone really liked the idea at one point; Otherwise, they wouldn't be here on earth!) When they're combined, it's a win-win! If that sounds WAY to uncomfortable... well, it usually is a little bit uncomfortable at first.  That's okay though, because it'll be a great experience!  Just tell them how much you love the gospel! I love the gospel :)

I also love food.

Luckily, God gave us both :)

I love you all as well, and I pray for you constantly!  

Continue to be good examples!

Continue to smile often!

And continue to send me emails and such.  I love hearing about everyone!

Your's truly,

Elder LeBaron

Hello beloved family and friends!

I just would like to say;  I love you all!  Thanks so much for the support that you've provided for me out here! You're all being such great examples of charity and Christ-like care.  It makes me want to be better every day!

Now... I know that you've all heard that some crazy stuff is going on here in Ukraine.  I would like to tell you that it will be important to pray for all of God's children out here.... and that the worst of the difficulites is actually over. The situation never stopped the work from progressing here in Lutsk, and we were actively involved in proselyting for the most part of last week.  I fear that there was a lot of sad things that happened here and in Kiev.  It's been a very rough time for Ukraine, but the members are now very hopeful for the future of the country.

As for me and Elder Peterson, we're getting along just fine!  We work hard, we look for opportunities to share, talk, and teach every day!  We pray hard.  We work hard.  I couldn't have asked for a better trainer. 

We have so much work to get done all over the world! It's a good thing that so many people have responded to the call to serve a mission!  To all of my friends, you are amazing! I've heard so many reports of paper submissions and active work in serving the Lord.  Man, this is just a super cool time!

Not a whole lot of new stuff is happening in our work.  We're still working with the same people, and we're working hard to help them progress.  It's been difficult to set up meetings with a lot of them, but this week is looking hopeful.  Tonight, we're going to be having family home evening with the Danko family.  They're just awesome! 

Something kind of interesting did happen actually.  See, we have this investigator named Sooliman.  He's from Jordon.  Yeah... like, near Israel, full blooded Arabic, Muslim born.... He's super cool.  He's reading the Book of Mormon, and has about a ZILLION questions.  He speaks english... not much Ukrainian, and he thinks it's funny that we don't drink coffee, and laughs each time he invites us over for juice.  I think there is going to be a miracle happening with him soon.  I just feel so optimistic all the time, know that the Lord has provided people who are ready to hear the message!

I love you all so much! I think about you all often, and pray for you every day!  

Much love,

Much thanks,

Many miracles!

Elder LeBaron

Family and Friends of mine,

I can't even describe the weird awesomeness of this past week.  I'll try to though, from the beginning;

So, the first part of our week wasn't super eventful.  We attempted to visit a couple of area book contacts, and most of them were unsuccessful, if not just altogether uneventful.  We went to one household on Tuesday to try and meet with this older woman, but she wasn't home... or at least, we never got the chance to find out.  Her drunk son actually came out first and started chatting with us.  He was one of those funny, still pretty coherent but not so productive people to talk to.  At least, that's what we thought at first.  He totally gave us a referral.  He gave us the address of his X-wife, told us that she had talked about religion and searching for truth before.  BAM.  So, we'll be contacting her soon.  We know that the family has had contact with the missionaries before, so this is actually a more legitimate lead than just a drunk man's referal.

Next big thing that happened was that I went on exchanges!  On thursday, I was with another Elder in our District named Elder Molinette (I think that's how you spell it).  He's basically the biggest ray of sunshine taken and wrapped up in a human body.  He's amazing.  We chatted with a BAZILLION people.  Most weren't interested, but we had about 6 meaningful conversations throughout the day, and shared a whole lot about the Book of Mormon.  We ended our day with a sketchy meeting with some guy in front of the Tam-Tam (Aka, Ukrainian Walmart).  I hope that his companion and him get a chance to follow up with that one.  The man we met with (whose name evades me because it's a big Ukrainian name that isn't Ihor), was sincerely interested in learning something about our church.

My Next exchange was with Elder Jolstead, and he is a zone leader.  He has been out for a year and six months I believe.  His Ukrainian is really great, and he understands almost everything that's going on, even Russian sometimes.   Which makes this next part actually funny;  We tracted into this apartment with (what we saw from the doorway) a woman and her kid.  She at first said, "NO!" and slammed the door.  So, we just turned and started knocking on her neighbours door... just in time for her to stop us by opening the door and inviting us inside.  We discovered that this was actually a Valentines day pity party that we had stumbled into, between her and her very drunk, very russian friend.   They were both not entirely co-herent.  Elder Jolstead tried to tell them that we don't drink, simply explain the gospel, that, no, we don't drink, we haven't got much time to stay and party, and no... we don't drink... again.  Then the woman who let us in flat out asked him, "Will you marry me right now?".   I was surprised by the quiet dignity of him telling her, "No ma'am... we're missionaries... that's against the rules."  Honestly, I don't remember how we made it out of there.  But we did.  

And then.... YES! We had a baptism in Lutsk! Our investigator, Bohdan, had finally gotten through all the lessons, so he could be baptized after an interview.  He basically would have been baptized on the first lesson if he could.  I think he may have been baptized right on the street if we asked him to.  He's a genius man, and figured out the first principles and ordinances of the gospel by reading the Book of Mormon, not by us telling him.  After he went into the water, he came out and told us all that, "You are all looking at a new man!".  He's just flat out incredible.  We will get the chance to teach his family soon.

We also met a man Named Artur.  not Arthur.  Artur.  He has a serious belief in God, and after explaining the authority of baptism, agreed that he would be baptized again if he knew these things are true, and then he invited us back!  We get to teach the Plan of Salvation! YES!~

Anyway, A lot happened this week, and I wish that I could explain everything that happened, but I haven't got all the time in the world! 

I love you all, and I'm praying for you!

Elder LeBaron

Hey Family and Friends!

So, I'm finally in Ukraine.  This place is amazing.  

I'll just give you the story of the MTC to here.

We got up on Tuesday morning, at 3 AM.  Bleh.  And then we got into a white van that took us to the Airport.  We then flew... and flew....  From Salt Lake to Denver, Denver to D.C, D.C. to Munich, and Munich to L'viv.   We arrived on Wednesday at 12:00pm.   I was basically a zombie by this point.  

Then, it was our job to go through customs (entirely in Ukrainian), find our bags (everything is still in Ukrainian), and go through customs (you guessed it, in Ukrainian).  It was nuts.  

President Lattin was on the other side of this whole fiasco, waiting at the exit to grab us, take a picture, and then throw us into a van filled with Ukrainian members, and two other new missionaries who are actually FROM Ukraine. They had trained in the spain MTC.  One of them spoke English.  That was a nice change of pace.  I, however, was bunking with the one who did not speak english.  He was quiet.... which is kind of expected when you suddenly are trapped in a room with an awkward american boy who knows almost nothing in ukrainian, like myself.

We spent the rest of the day learning a whole lot of technical administrative missionary things, and being introduced to the mission assistants and the mission office people.  That was pretty cool.  They fed us these funny little chocolate stuffed crescant things.  I don't know what they're called.

Well, the next day, they introduced us to our trainers.  My trainer is Elder Peterson, and he is one awesome guy.  He went to American Fork Highschool, he played Football and wrestled, and he's been out for 7 transfers.  So, when I have no idea what is going on (basically all the time), he's got my back... and front... and basically is helping me to learn how to survive here.

My first assigned area is the southern part of a city called Lutsk!  There are 2 sets of Elders here, and one set of sisters.  So... basically, we just split a massive city in half and call that our area boundaries. That's a lot of people, let me tell you!

There's a whole lot that I don't understand.  When people talk to me, I might get like... 3 words of it.  I honestly have no clue what is going on a good 80% of the time. 

So, I have a story about the title of the one;

Elder Peterson and I planned to go and visit one of our investigators, Arkadia.  We thought that it was going to be a great visit where we just talked about his reading and what he thought of the Book of Mormon.  Boy, did we think wrong.  It seemed like it might have been a trap...

We came into his house, and there was a couple of men there.  We were left alone in the room with these two, while Arkadia went off to go get something for us to drink.  The two gentlemen with us (who were speaking russian, so I got 0% of anything), were kind of discussing with us about their beliefs in Christ and how he had helped them in their lives.  Turns out to be a pretty good situation after all, because they listened to what we had to say, and had to leave shortly after we arrived.

So then, we figured it was time to talk to Arkadia... when surprise, again!  Two very religious looking gentlemen came in to greet us as well!  They were actually very nice and respectful... but they weren't very interested in our message.  We ended up explaining the origins of the Book of Mormon, how our church was restored through Joseph Smith by Christ, and how it was required to be baptized by proper authority. 

This kind of set of a couple red flags with them... 

I don't know that phenomenon this actually is, but this is the symptom;  Russians, when upset, start to leave their chairs and move into a sort of squatting position on the floor right in front of their chair.  So, as this man is trying to explain (in a sort of fired up way) how baptism is baptism and once you've done it you're good, he has managed to get himself into the squat like position on the floor... causing us to have to look down to look him in the eye.  All the while, I keep hearing (through is lightning fast jabbering), "Boys, Listen!",  and he would continue on his point.  I probably heard that phrase a good 20 times before he was done.  BOYS, LISTEN!  I had to keep myself from laughing a couple of times.  The whole situation was strange.  

I actually did testify to him that I knew the Book of Mormon was true.  The room was silent as I bore my very simple testimony in broken Ukrainian.  I told them that I knew this book was true because my mom taught me about it, and when she passed away, I needed to know that what she had taught me was true for myself.  I told them that this book was the word of God, and that I knew that because God had told me in my heart that it was.  I tried very hard to contribute and testify of the things that Elder Peterson was saying.

We concluded with a prayer... sort of.  The man says, "Now, we pray!"  and as we go to offer up a prayer, he starts chanting... the other pastor (who we've learned is actually just a very religious taxi cab driver) starts chanting at some other rate, ocassionaly shouting, "AMEAN!", Arkadia is mumbling in the corner... and there we are, two missionaires, just quietly offering up our own little prayers.   So strange.

Afterwards, we were going to be late to our next appointment... and we ended up getting a ride from the "Boys, listen"-man. We found out that his name is Anatoly.  He was very polite, and actually ended up taking a Book of Mormon from us to see what he really thought about it.  He even said that, "If this is all true, and God tells me that it is, I will be baptized."  So cool.

So yeah!  It's been crazy! I'm still adjusting to all the craziness that is Ukraine.  Elder Peterson is so patient with me, which is good.  I feel like I'm learning so slowly around here, and can contribute so very little to our actual missionary work, being as green as I am.  I will just continue to learn and try to understand, and I know the Lord will make up the rest.  He sent me here after all, so I know that he has a plan.

I love you all, and I'm thankful for all of your prayers! I can feel them across the ocean!

I pray for you oft, and hope for your health.

The Church is true no matter where you go, and I know that I'm spreading the true gospel of Christ.  I hope you all are appreciating the blessings of knowing these things!  Thank Heavenly Father often for it!  Know he loves you!

Be good! Be happy! 

Much love,

Elder LeBaron