The Ukrainian Flu

Monday night I was stricken with fever....and it lasted allllllll week long. 

We tried to do a little bit each day, until Wednesday night when I crashed and basically didn't wake up until Friday night. It's not that much of an exaggeration. These Ukrainian germs are like the Russian Mafia and took out my entire immune system. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever been that sick in my life. I had a lot of time to study and think. Having "thinking" time as a missionary can be a very dangerous thing. If you've ever been a missionary, you know what I'm talking about. The adversary sits and waits until you have a dead moment and attacks you if you're not careful. I can testify that I went through somewhat of a refiner's fire as I was laying on my humble couch in Lutsk (did I mention I sleep on a couch? Well, I do. Like a real couch, not a pull out bed. It's fine). 

I realized a lot of things about myself and got to pretty much relive every memory that I've ever saved up in my head from the past 21 years. It was an interesting time, and it was hard not to feel homesick and want to be back in America with american medicine, real water, warm apartments, etc., etc. But after reading around 20 conference talks, I realized that there's no where that I'd rather be than in Ukraine, and this illness would pass eventually. On Friday night I woke up around 530 and then got to spend the next 7 hours wide awake in my bed because I had squeezed out all the sleep that my brain could handle, and there wasn't much I could do. So I made a list of things that I'm grateful for on my mission.

1. That my couch is somewhat comfortable.

2. That I've only had to eat "holidets" once so far (It's meat jello. They make it out of fat, and a little bit of meat, and gelatin. So.....ahem. good?).

3. I have the greatest companion in the world who finds things to do while I'm pathetically lying on my death bed. (She was sick for a few days, too, though.)

4. That I can almost understand some things people say to me in Ukrainian.

5. That I got letters this week.

6. That a Ukrainian taught me how to split an apple open with my bare hands. Look out world. 

There were more.

Anway, one of the days that I dragged myself out of bed, we had an interesting meeting with a 7th Day Adventist. If you don't know what that is, I'll paint a picture for you. If at anytime you are in a meeting, and someone tells you that you don't follow the 5th commandment. Leave. As soon as possible. All they want to do is bible bash and tell you how your church isn't true because it's not held on the "Sabbath Day" which historically speaking is supposed to be Saturday, I suppose. On teaching records, former missionaries write at the top, "Warning: Adventist....of the 7th DAY!" 

We were in a meeting with one of those. He pulls out the bible and tells us about the 5th commandment and I thought to myself, "Oh boy. Here we go!" And my companion was trying to get out of there quick. I had the impression to just stay and talk with him (luckily this was in English. My territory, and area of expertise...if I do say so myself). He was going on an on about certain things that he has a problem with in our church, and I interrupted him and said, "Excuse me. Can I just say something really quick?" And then I testified like there was no tomorrow. It was short. It was powerful. And the Spirit was so strong. He was baffled and just sat there for a minute. He tried to say something and then just stood there. Then he went to ask a question about something else, and I answered the question then went back and testified some more. Let me tell you....he felt the spirit. He sat there and just shook his head and said, "I've never thought of that before. I just can't....where is that in the bible?" I told him where he could find it, but didn't pull out the bible. I continued to talk to him and then said, "Well, if you ever have any questions, you know where to find us." And we left it at that. He was stunned. My companion said, "I can't wait until you can do that in Ukrainian."

Another cool experience we had. Our investigators, Ludmilla and Pauvlina (the one with a baptism date and her daughter) invited us over on Saturday for dinner. Pauvlina warned us that they didn't have any lights in their house, but we didn't care. We got there and had a candlelit dinner and had the most memorable, wonderful night. It was my favorite night in Ukraine so far. They made such good food and they were great company. Their grandmother lives with them (side story about her: She was really against our religion, until Pauvlina left her Book of Mormon out one day. The babusya said, "what is this. A book about mormon? who's mormon. What is this. Pauvlina bore her testimony to her, and the baba said, "A book about Christ? Well alright. Lets read it." YES) she loves us now. So maybe we'll have the whole household baptized this year. That would be awesome. Anyway, sitting there with this family all I could think about was how blessed I was to have this experience. This mission is changing my life. 

I'm finally feeling like this language thing is coming. I can understand like 30% of what people say, which is a ton compared to where I was a month ago. It feels familiar and doable. I think I'll be okay with the langauge one day. I can't wait. Our companionship made the goal of speaking the langauge at all times, and my head feels like it's going to explode by around 2pm, but I know it'll help a lot. Missionary work is hard. It's not for wussies, that's for sure. I love you all, and I'm so grateful for the support that I feel from all of you. You're in my prayers constantly. Also Madi! So excited you're going to NC today!! :) I can't believe it. I'm stoked for you. You're going to be the greatest missionary in the world. Good luck my dear. :) 

All my love,

Cестра Вебер

ps. Dutch quote for the week:

When my companion was sick, her whole body hurt. She thought the word for muscles was something other than "Muscles" and when the elders called to see how we were doing, she said, "All my loins hurt." I almost cried I laughed so hard.

pps. Trevor Smith. You're the greatest. I got your dearelder this week! I can't tell you how much I loved it! I'm writing you a letter today.

Lacey--I cried I laughed so hard at your letter. Your story about the Napolean kid? hilarious. Keep em coming. It's the best. Good luck with your new batch of kiddos this semester. I hope you survive.

A Baptism, a baptism, we have a baptism

That's right. We met her less than 3 weeks ago, and we set up a date for Feb 23.WOOOO!!!

Her name is Luda, and she's the woman who came into the church a few weeks ago who wanted us to teach her daughter english, and how to come closer to God. Through some very skillful planning, my companion and I were able to figure out a way to start teaching her. She ate up everything we had to teach her, and we've met with either her or her daughter at least 4 times a week since then. Our branch had a baptism on Saturday (the Elder's investigator) and he wanted to keep it really low-key, so we weren't allowed to invite our investigators. On Sunday they confirmed him and he received the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was cool to have Luda's daughter, Pauvlina in church to witness that. She was really interested in what was happening.

In RS we had a lesson on Baptism and the Gifts of the Spirit and they mentioned the baptism from the previous day. I was sitting next to Luda. Halfway through the lesson I could tell something was really upsetting her. At the end of the lesson, my companion came up to her and started talking to her and she was ticked. She said, "If I had gone to the baptism yesterday, could I have gotten baptized too?!" We looked at each other shocked, and we told her that she needed to be ready to be baptized and decide for herself if this is the true church.

Luda stood up and said, "I'm here aren't I?! I choose this church! I want to be baptized!" It was so funny. Ukrainians. Holy smokes. So we set up a baptismal date, and she was wanting it to be sooner, but we felt that it was good for now to set it so far away. 

In our mission when a companionship gets a baptismal date, we call president and then there's a text that's sent out to the entire mission with the companionship, the date, and the investigator's name. After we hung up the phone with president we waited by the phone in anticipation and then danced around the apartment when the text came. It was a joyful event, to say the least! I'll attach a picture (dont' mind the fact that I don't do my hair on my mission. It's fine.) 

Anyway, so that's that. Hopefully her daughter wants to be baptized too. We're making such great progress with her as well. She's 13, which is hard because we don't have any active young women in the ward. So we need to find her a friend ASAP.

Also, I survived my ukrainian sacrament meeting talk. PHEW. I was so stressed out about it. Afterwards one of the Elder's in my district told me I did a great job, and he said, "I could actually understand you." gee, thanks. He's on his last 2 weeks in the field and is a master at the language. One day, one day.

The other day we got a call from President. Always somewhat intimidating. He was just calling to see how training was going, and such. Then he informed us of our sister's conference in May (where all the sisters in the mission go to Kiev, get to go to the temple, and have a spiritually incredible time with the president's family), and then said, "You'll all be training by then, so you better get used to the idea." I tried really hard not to throw up right then. I know I've been told a million times that I'll be training soon, but after my 3rd transfer? Still a greenie/no idea how to speak the language. Life comes at you fast.

Lets see.....OH! I had the best borscht in western ukraine this week! I had no idea that borscht could even be good. It was wonderful. Our investigator filled my bowl up every time I emptied it, and finally my companion said, "If you finish your bowl, they'll fill it up. You have to leave something in there if you're done." buuuut, I kept emptying my bowl. Fat kid at heart. 

Today we're going to the famous Lutsk Castle. I'll take a bunch of pictures and send them to you next week :) 

I'm glad Madi is doing well. Her letters sound great! Haha. Thanks for being the means of our communication. It's rough.

Well, I love the gospel. I love being able to see the tranforming power of the Atonement work in the lives of our investigators and less actives. I love seeing the changes that are happening in my life as well. A mission is the most incredible thing, I can't believe I ever thought I might not actually serve one. Ukraine is a crazy, wonderful, beautiful place. And still cold. (You all can stop complaining about the weather. Try doing missionary work outside in the freezing cold all day long. ;) But I love you all.)

I'm constantly amazed with this experience, and I still have such a long way to go. It's great. 

All my love and prayers, 

Sister Webber.

This says Katya in Ukraine

This is part of the cemetery we were at last week

Cultural event in Ukraine

The text we received about our baptismal date!

Where to begin?

Happy Old New Year's Eve! So far every pday I've been in the field has been a major holiday in Ukraine. I don't even know where they come up with this double holiday ideas, but I love it, and I also think America should do it too. The kids dress up and go caroling door to door and people give them money and food. It's bizarre, but we were at an investigator's house last night when it happened. I got a video of it, I'll show you in 15 months. Haha. :) 

Anyway. I should think of clever ways to say, "This week was crazy!" because I want to say that every week since it really was. Where to begin.

You keep telling me how cold it is there, and I think it's pretty funny that temperature wise, it's warmer here. I heard from one of the Elders that Northern Utah got like 2 or 3 feet of snow this week! WOW! The other day it started to rain and my comp and I just looked at each other in shock. We couldn't believe it was "warm" enough to rain. Jokes on us, it just turned the city of Lutsk into an ice rink the next day. They should include an olympic sport called "Stilletto Skiing", because the Ukrainians would spank everyone in the world. Every woman wears these 5 inch heels and they walk so briskly, IN THE ICE. What is that all about? It's insane! I'm wearing these clunky 2 inch heeled boots that are ready for Sibera, literally, and I'm still slipping around sometimes (Thank Noni for those little boot claw things she gave me).

My companion and I have called this the transfer of inactives. We're trying to get all the inactives and less actives back to full activity in the church. The first Sunday I was here, there were 3 women in RS besides me and my companion. We checked the records, and there are SIXTY WOMEN in this branch. Where are all the people? So we've been hunting them out and trying to figure out why so many people are inactive. We were so happy when we had 4 investigators in church, and about 9 less-actives there. So we brought 13 women to church, it was exciting!

We've had a lot of interesting experiences this transfer. My companion says this is the strangest, most adventurous transfer she's ever had, which I'm not sure if I'm the reason why it's so weird....but who knows. One woman we talked to told us she doesn't want to read the book of Mormon, because if it brings her closer to God then he'll tell her what her weaknesses are and she just doesn't want to know! How honest. Another woman told us that we're probably right, but she's too old to change faiths. Another one prayed for about 10 minutes outloud with us, and prayed that if we were wrong, that we'd be blessed for at least trying to spread the gospel. Haha...I'd be here all day if I tried to list all the funny things that have happened. 

We were at this woman's house for tea (they're obsessed with tea here. You can't do anything without having tea with someone. It's fun to try to explain that we only drink herbal tea, and then they bring all their different kinds of tea in. 10 different black teas, 6 different green teas, and 1 herbal tea. Umm...we'll take the herbal one. thanks. haha). we were sharing the first lesson about the restoration with her, and there were a hundred distractions. She kept interrupting us to give us cookies, to answer her phone, to give us more tea, to show us her bible, to go check the door to see if someone was there. It was bizarre. Then right when my companion was telling the first vision story, she pulled out this sheet of paper and starts to sing this prayer that she learned in church. In the middle of our lesson. I wasn't sure what was going on, and my companion was so aloof to it, as if it was normal. She waited for about 3 minutes until the song was done and continued with the lesson. It was the strangest thing in the world. Then we finished up (after about 10 people had come to the door), and her daughter came in. We talked to her for a bit, and turns out she was a former investigator! We're going to get her to be a current investigator, she just radiated with the light of Christ. I wonder why she stopped meeting with the missionaries. Anyway, if her mother is less than interested, than we'll just move on to the daughter! haha.

The other week we met this one woman Lilia. It's a crazy story as to HOW we found her, but that's for another time. She was absolutely delighted to meet us, and found it so great that a girl from Holland, and a girl from America would learn Ukrainian and come talk about our Church. She was golden. Lilia told us to come back after the holidays, and we went back a week later because we forgot to get her number/invite her to church. She said, "I only go to my church! I'll see you after the holidays" and shut the door. I was devastated. We finally met with her this week and she talked about her religious background. She grew up in the Ukrainian church (they call it the "Of course church" like, "Of course I go to the Ukrainian church." "Of course it's the true church" "Of course"....who knows) After she told us about her background, my companion and I shared each of our parents' conversion stories, and began teaching her the first lesson. After everything, she stared at us and said, "I believe you. This is hard for me because I grew up in another church. But I believe you. And I want to go to your church." 

WHAT!

We were so excited. I wanted to cry and hug her and cry some more. But I held it together really well. I felt like Elder Calhoon from the Best 2 Years, all starry-eyed like, "My first baptism" :D. But really. I felt like that.

Today we had a funeral for a man who was in the branch. It was really sad, and will be burned in my mind forever. In Ukraine when someone dies, they hold the funeral outside of their apartment. Outside. Of their apartment. It was freezing, and they opened up the casket for it too. He was the only member of the church in his family, so they had members of the church there, as well as this pastor man. He began talking in english with an irish accent, and this man was translating for him. It was not what I was expecting at all. Then we rode this bumpy bus with the casket to the graveyard which went on forever. There had to have been millions of  graves in this site. I'm not even exaggerating. It's been around since the 1200's or something. This man's brother came up to talk to us and was really grateful we were there. The pastor just talked about death and sins, and the fall of adam, and then one of our missionaries gave a talk on the Plan of Salvation. It made me really thankful that we have the knowledge that we can live with God again. 

Things are going so great. We have a lot of investigators that we've found in the last few weeks, and it's great. There are many people who have been so prepared to hear the gospel. Sometimes I meet people and I think, "How are they not already LDS? They just LOOK Mormon." Mormons just have that look. You know what I'm talking about. Oh...pray for me. I have to give a talk on Sunday in sacrament meeting. Ahhhhhh, in UKRAINIAN! (obviously, but it's going to be soooo hard)

Well I love Ukraine. I love being a missionary, and I'm so glad I'm here. I'm learning so much about these wonderful people, and I can't believe some of the things people have seen in their lifetime. I'm definitely among some of the great and noble ones. It's going to be a fun ride during the next year and a half! I'm so happy that Madi made it in the MTC safe and sound :) I'm so glad I got out of the MTC in time for the big rush of women to get there. Phew! It sounds nuts already. Will you forward my email to her, and vice versa? Thanks :) 

I love you all, and I'm so grateful for everything you do for me! You're the greatest. 

All my love and prayers, 

Sister Webber.

Ps. I think I'm going to include a funny "Dutch" quote each week. My companion is hilarious and says the funniest things that get lost in translation from dutch to english. Today she said, "It's so funny that Americans call it 'Whipped Cream' it sounds so awful." I asked what she calls it, and she said "Beaten Cream". I told her we should just meet in the middle and called it "Abused Cream."

I love my companion so much. Haha.

Pps. I have a few shoutouts to give, of course.

Lacey--Email me the second you find out the gender of your baby. Thanks for the letter! It made me laugh so hard. I think you know how I'd respond to Tyler's question he asked you. Obviously. :) 

Emily Griffiths. Email me ASAP if you're reading this. I am stoked for you to come to KIEV!! AHHHHHHH!!! I hope Madi told you that I cried when I found out that we're going to be mission sisters. President told me I might be training Russian speakers this summer, so that would be crazy if we got paired up. :) 

Brownies--Acacia, thanks for the email! As to your Q about cafeteria seating in the MTC, the Russians/Ukrainians still claim their territory in the fancy glass side of the cafeteria, we just sat in a different spot that day.

Dal-I can't believe you haven't written me yet. But I get enough of the screen shots from your snapchats that it feels like I have. Email me stat, aight?

Angela....I need to hear from you asap. You know why.

Merry Christmas again!

Sister Webber and her MTC teachers

Sister Webber and Sister Garrett (another favorite teacher)

Sister Webber and Sister Olds Leaving on a jet plane.....

That's a lot of garbage!

Sister Webber in Ukraine

Sister Webber and Sister Van Stokkom

Today is Christmas in Ukraine. The town is SHUT DOWN. I'm surprised we found an internet cafe. 
Okay, I spent so much time reading through emails, so I'll try to be fast and get through as much as I can.

Okay, this is the week madi goes into the MTC, so this email will probably be slightly overlooked. But I'm totally fine with that :) She's going to be great, and I'm so excited for her! I can't wait to share this experience with her! AHHHH missions are the best!!! Madi. Be strong. Keep your chin up, and just enjoy the last few moments you have with the family! It's going to be the best. I love you to the moon and back! You're my best friend.


This week was one for the record books. My companion said, "This is the craziest week of my entire mission. I can't even tell you." Maybe I'll have to just read you some of my journal entries from this week when I get back, because I can't even sufficiently explain all the weird/funny/crazy things that happened.

First of all, we went to L'viv. The beautiful city of L'viv. It's like Europe's best kept secret. Probably one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Seriously, my jaw dropped when we entered, and I couldn't get over it. It would be a hard area to serve in because of how incredible it is! My apt there went well, and it was back to our lovely area of Lutsk. It was good to be back, especially after the 5 hour BUMPY ride in their little bus.

We found not 1, not 2, but SIX NEW INVESTIGATORS THIS WEEK!! It was incredible! We prayed for 7, but 6 is such a great number in these parts. Holy smokes, if you only knew. We found them through such incredibly crazy ways. One of them was actually during our district meeting. This lady walks into the church, into the room we were in and says, "You teach english right? Will you help my daughter with her english, and help her come closer to God?" Um. Yes. That's what we're here for! So we have that woman, and her daughter now as investigators. They're eating everything up, and so interesting in the Plan of Salvation.

My companion is convinced that I'm lying to her about my lack of language abilities. Whenever we're in a lesson and she doesn't know where to go, I'll just jump in and finish the sentence somehow, or whenever we get a phone call in the middle of a lesson and I'm stuck in the room with our investigator, I'll just begin talking to them in Ukrainian and can suddenly understand them. The other day, this woman recognized me, and I recognized her, and she walked up while my comp was on the phone and started talking to me to see where she knew me from. Turns out, I carried on a 5 minute conversation with her in Ukrainian....it was so cool. We didn't actually know each other, so it was kind of funny that we recognized each other immediately (No coincidence. I'll probably end up converting her. Seriously. Haha). She said she met with a misisonary from another church for 3 years but it just wasn't the right church for her. Ta dahhh! Bingo.

Okay, so funny story. We met with this woman who's name was extremely close to the ukrainian word for "gospel" and while we were praying with her, I accidentally blessed the gospel instead of the woman. My comp snorted during the prayer, and I could hardly compose myself to finish the prayer. The poor woman just stared at us, not realizing what was happening. Good thing she really liked us and invited us back, or I'd have felt so bad.

Sunday was my first fast sunday in the field. Holy smokes. Sundays are already so hard...but it was fine. We came home, and I had saved that delicious tortilla soup that mom sent me for fast sunday because I knew we wouldn't want to spend time making food after church. My comp made tortillas (a dutch girl making mexican food. Hilarious.), and we STUFFED ourselves. As we were finishing up our meal, I panicked realizing that we were supposed to be meeting with a woman who always makes us eat a hundred cookies when we go over there. Great. We were so so so full. We make our way over there, and I was already dreading putting more food into my body. When we walked in, it was like horror music playing. The entire large table was FULL OF FOOD. It was seriously the worst feeling in the world. And it was a table full of dead fish, prepared 10 different ways. Horror music getting louder. Fried dead fish, dead fish sandwiches, dead fish soaking in something with raw onions, mushed dead fish with pickles, and something that looked like fish-eyes in poppyseeds and walnuts. I was dying. They still had their heads on, and scales, and bones. ughhhh. 
She was so happy to see us, and was afraid we wouldn't show up for some reason. She said she had stayed up all night cooking, and didn't sleep at all because she was busy preparing food for us. :( I couldn't believe it. She offered us wine, coffee, tea, and finally we just said we can't have any of that. and then we sat at the table and she poured me this yellow liquid, and was super excited for us to eat. My companion whispered "We can't eat half of this stuff" because the fish that aren't from the ocean are forbidden for missionaries. (radiation, freaky diseases, etc). So anyway, she explained to the woman which things we couldn't eat, and she was pretty disappointed. But the things we could eat....boy did she serve us a lot. There was this interesting stuff that tasted like nail polish that she plopped on our plates, and I was praying that I could swallow it. After 10 minutes I finally finished it. Then she said, "This is the salad of eternal life, and you'll be able to find a husband if you eat it!" Not one, not two, but 5 huge scoops later, my plate was full of this salad. I thought, I don't ever want to find a husband if I have to eat this stuff for it. I'm fine eating normal food alone for the rest of my life. My companion tried to stop the woman from giving her that much by saying, "Oh, just one scoop for me! One husband is enough!" but she plopped just as much. I was dying. we were so full already and she said she wouldn't let us leave till we ate the rest of the food on the table. Oye vey. She told me that I needed to drink the drink she poured me, and when I tasted it I looked at my companion with the least horrified look I could muster. It tasted like acetone. Apparently it's like sparkling water and yeast or something. It burned all the way down my throat. OH DEAR.
After an hour and a half, we finally explained that we had another appt to go to. She asked if we'd come back afterwards to finish eating. Oh boy. My comp said something to her, and the woman started putting food in bags for us to take home. Hahah...holy smokes. 
After that we went to the hospital to carrol to the patients. It was the most wonderful experience, after the worst experience ever. I was so happy and felt so good afterwards. I thought my heart would burst. They were so happy to have us there, and my heart went out to them. They were all sick, but the hospital wasn't the best. They didn't even have machines that they were hooked up to. They just had to lay on the beds. :( My comp was telling me how nice this hospital was compared to the one in her last area. She said it was the most awful conditions for sick patients. I am so grateful that I've never had to experience that before. It broke my heart.
My mission is incredible. I can feel my capacity to love increase like I never thought possible. I love being here, I love the people, and I love being a missionary. It's such an amazing thing. I can see the Lord's hand in my life every single day, and I can't imagine not being here. I know I have something so precious and so wonderful to offer these people, and I know this gospel can change their lives.
Good luck this week saying "see you later" to Mad. I pray for you by name each night, and always have you close to my heart. Thanks for everything. 
Until next week. :) 
Kate 

When the real Santa meets the fake one

WOWOWOWOW. This week was nutso. I'll try to tell you all about it in the limited time I have.

 

First of all. I figured out why I was so exhausted, and so freaking cold all the time (am I allowed to say freaking?). I was stricken with fever for 4 days. I thought it was jet lag mixed with the frozen tundra of Ukraine. Nope. Just a very very bad flu. Yay! So I've been dealing with that all week long, and trying to get over this nasty cold. But the work continues on.

 

In all my Christmas excitement last week, I failed to give a little shout out to my dear friend Elaine. She told me that she's been reading my letters. Just so you know, seeing you on my last sunday in the MTC was the greatest Christmas present I could've asked for. I'm so happy I got to see you and your sweet husband. It warms my heart just thinking about how much of a tender mercy that was. I love you forever! You're such an incredible friend and example to me. :)

 

So my companion and I have noticed that every day seems to have a theme. It's interesting. Some days, everyone is speaking straight up Russian. Other days, it seems like everyone knows English. Other days, it seems like EVERYONE we've contacted as met with the missionaries before, and other days, no one has even heard of our church. So we've made a little game to try and guess the theme of the day in the morning. It's fun, but we're usually wrong.

 

This week we extended a baptismal committment to an investigator. She was feeling the spirit so strongly, I could see it in her eyes. She got a little nervous when we asked her, and she started to explain how she wasn't ready. I could see her mind starting to close, and it scared me. With the little Ukrainian I knew (and she knew it was my first full week in Ukraine, so she was sensitive), I tried to tell her that I knew she was ready. I said, "I know that you know this church is true. I can see it. I know you're feeling the spirit, and I know that you know you need to be baptized. This is the right decision for you." She looked at me for a really long time, paused, and took a deep breath. She said, "Maybe. I'll fast and pray about it this week and let you know." That was really all we could ask for. After our lesson with her, she went on about how impressive it was that I could speak the language....I had to laugh because I have no idea what to say ever. It comes and goes like a light switch. Some days I can't say a single word it seems like.

 

This week we met with the first member ever in Lutsk, she was baptised about 14 years ago I think. She's been inactive for 5 years because of a fight she got in with a member, which is unfortunate. She's a wonderful woman, and even wrote our names down in her book of "favorite missionaries." There was 123 names written down! But she's only written 5 in the last 3 years....Bro. Adams and Bro. Feil were some of the most recent in her book. I thought that was cool!

 

we met with this woman named Katarina. She was hilarious. I made the mistake of telling her we had the same name, and the whole time she was yelling, "Katya! Katya!" My comp had to remind her 20 times that my name is Sister Webber. She had us shampoo her carpets while she sang to us. It was hilarious. She asked me if I've seen her videos on Youtube...which I was so confused about. It was so funny. She's this 70-something year old woman who doesn't come to church because of her health, but she's so funny. She showed me her pet leeches as well. Yes. You read that right. She also gave me the opportunitity to try borscht. That's going to be an aquired taste, for sure. Holy smokes. Mayonnaise goes on everything here, and it freaks me out.

 

We contact into a lot of babusya's here (grammas), and they are either soooo nice, or sooo not nice. Some of the nicer ones have so much to say, and start at birth and begin telling us their entire life stories. It's not a joke. One woman was so touched that we would talk to her that she started wishing us all this luck and all these blessings. She kept saying, "I wish you the best men in the world. You deserve the best. You're beautiful. You deserve the best men." My companion said, Yes...I believe we do! haha. Another woman kept calling us her little sunbeams. She said, "The world is so bad, and you are so good! Such cute sunbeams. little sunbeams." I felt like I was 5 after that. haha

 

Referring to the subject line--we were contacted by 2 missionaries for the Baptist Church. It was hilarious. We were buying balloons to hand out to kids on the street and give the parents Proclamations (because seriously, no one was talking to us. Everyone was in a hurry for the holidays. Christmas hasn't happened here yet). And these two men came up to us. One spoke english so I talked to him, the other Ukrainian so my comp talked to him. The man talking to me was talking about Jesus Christ and how he changed his life, and then asked if we wanted to meet up on Tuesday. I said, well....what do you want to meet up about? Do you want to talk to us about our church? and he said, "No, like meet up to go to a New years party, you know. Go eat food, go to a party or something." I laughed and told him that we don't do those things while on our mission. Then I heard my comp talking to the other man, "Yeah! Call us up on Tuesday and we'll get together!" I was staring at her, and told her we needed to go. Then I said..."Do you realize they were asking us out? They didn't want to talk about Jesus." she was floored. She's like...Man. I thought it was like the real santa meeting the fake santa, and we were going to convert them. Nope. They just wanted to take us out. Haha.

 

So I decided to include a scary story since dad thinks I'm in a city of robbers and thinks I'm withholding information from him. So every night there are gunshots, and we like to just pretend they are fireworks. It's a fun little game. (Okay, dad. that was a joke. They really do have fireworks every night. New years week is HUGE here. I don't have any scary stories...yet. love you.)

 

Oh! this week I made a connection with someone. I could see my MTC district elders just rolling their eyes if they had been there. This young woman in our branch served her mission with none other than Mr. Phil Crawford. I was so excited! I told her he had just spent Christmas eve with my family, and was telling her how he was my one connection to reality while I was in the MTC. Tell phil hello for me.

 

Well, I'm trying to get used to the sugarless food they have here, and all the walking I have to do. Between non-processed food, and all the walking, I'm dropping weight like it's going out of style. One of my teachers warned me of that. None of my skirts fit anymore. It's less than awesome. So Trevor, you thought I was going to come back a frumpy, chubby sister missionary. Turns out, that's not happening. Haha! Too bad.

 

Madi, I heard from multiple people that your farewell was great :) I'm glad you're the nervous microphone toucher. Haha! You're going to be so great in the MTC, and in NC. I wish I could write you every 5 hours like you did to me in the MTC. That was the best. Everyone needs to write you.

Harrison--hope your birthday was great!

Tiana--happy birthday tomorrow! :) I loved your pictures. Tell Mattie and Marisa they looked beautiful, as well as Court. haha.

 

Well I love you all. Thanks for all the prayers and support. I sure need it :) Life is great, the mission is hard. I'm doing all I can to be a good missionary, and things are going well. You can be proud.

Good luck with last minute prep with sending madi off. :) Don't forget to be patient with her, I know I was a mental basket case before I departed to the MTC. This is normal. Haha.

Lots of love and prayers,

Sister Webber