Hey Mom,
So happy Fourth of July to you as well. I completely forgot about it until after I wrote last week and so then we decided to go celebrate along with the Assistants and we got a burger at McDonald's. That is about the most American thing we could get. So how are Kathy, Dean and Josh doing? I am excited to see them again when I get back. It sounds like you had a lot of fun together, even if you allowed yourself to get fried. (Kathy, Dean, Josh, Rachel and boys and I spent the day at Ogden at the farmers market and I ended up with a good sunburn.) It is a lot of fun to be able to see all of the family isn't it. I also have no tan by the way, because it has been so wet and overcast here...and because I am a missionary and have so many clothes. It is getting really hot here though which is fun, but tough at the same time. I don't know if I like a cold summer or hot summer more. So, do you have pictures or not? (My batteries died on my camera.) I was confused by what you said. I hope you do ;) Oh and that is cool that Randi and Monique are pregnant. Grandma and Grandpa's family is getting so big. How many great-grandkids are there now?
So that is crazy that Caitlin's computer has been such a piece of junk. I am sad that it hasn't been working for her. I haven't heard from her for a month now, so I don't know what is going on. Why isn't Caitlin getting enough sleep? I think that my mission has taught me that 11 is about as late as I can get to bed....getting up early and then going to bed early is truly a correct principle. I am probably going to be waking up at 5:30 or so at home to get an hour of exercise and then an hour of study in each morning. That is the best way to start off a day. I am glad that all is going well and that you are staying busy, and it sounds like you are doing as President Uchtdorf taught and focusing on the important things. Anyway, keep on staying busy and having fun there, even if it is just the two of you - that means you have more time to go to the temple, right?
Hey, so who was the convert that spoke? Is he/she originally baptized in the Garden Park Ward and was it a member's friend or just someone the missionaries found or what? That is cool to hear that the work is still going on there at home as well. I am glad that it was a good meeting and that you all got to hear Sam as he spoke about his wonderful mission experiences. Members really are the key all over the world, and members referrals have an incredibly higher chance of both getting baptized and staying active in the church. I know that President Klebingat has some great plans to make member/missionary relationships even stronger and luckily here in the Borshahivsky ward, we are some of the privileged few to test out his ideas in the stake where he doesn't have as much say in member missionary work. He is already working very well with the Stake President and it is exciting. We had a great meeting yesterday with our Bishop and started to coordinate some of those plans that we want to get rolling here and it is so very exciting to see that the work is just going on.
We had a pretty good week and found a couple more new investigators and Igor is still coming along. He probably won't be ready as fast as we were hoping, but he is already building great relationships with some of the members and he is slowly starting to understand what Christ is asking us to do. Also, another investigator of ours came to church yesterday and he loved it. He has a young family and we are hoping to be able to teach them. Also, we had a huge miracle - three hours of church in the newly renovated chapel. It was sad that we went for so many months without three hours of church, but we are finally back and ready to receive all the blessings of church. We had a member of the stake Presidency talk about that and how we need to prepare each week and it was really good. It is tough, because most of the meetings are in Russian and I am not used to it, but it is good practice too and I need it.
We also have a couple of inactive members that we have gotten in with the past two weeks and we are starting to build relations with them and it is so wonderful. They are awesome and although they have their problems, I feel that God has led us to them for a reason and we are going to be able to help them make the fundamental changes that must be made. I love working with members and getting to know them and serve them.
So yes, President Klebingat has three children, Katja (17), Daniel (15) and Alexander (11, I think) and they are all really cool. They are all going to be in school here in the Kyiv International School where Katja and Daniel went about 6 years ago when President Klebingat lived and worked here in Kyiv. The Steinagel children went there also and there are lots of members that work there too. President Klebingat has some big goals, which I don't really know yet, but he is definitely going to lead us to be very successful in God's work. We have been able to eat lunch with him a few times already and it is always so cool to just listen to his ideas and plans for the future. He went to Lviv and Odessa this last week and has met all of the missionaries now, and this week I think we will see a little more of him. I will let you know more as I find out more.
Thanks for being such a good mom. I love you so much. I know that this Church is true, that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that Joseph Smith is the Prophet through which God restored His true Church. Thomas S. Monson leads the Church today, and this work is God's great work and glory. How lucky we are to be a part of it!
Love,
Elder Jones
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