YAY Zone Conference!

June 28, 2007

Alright so first off I should explaine why you are getting this thursday instead of wednsday. So this week we have zone conf (actually bi-zone conf for all of kharkov) so we all have to get interviews with president. So because president didnt get here until today they moved our p-day to thurs so we wouldnt waste a prosiliting day doing inverviews. so yea thats about all about that. Now for my life...So this week has actually been pretty uneventful (and VERY wet) its been raining alot here which of course makes the bottom of my pants just look amazing (as well as my shoes but their already shot). So I've decided I'm pretty much wearing one of the two black pairs of pants I have everyday except sunday when I wear one of my other suits cause if I destroy my black pants I can get knew ones (yay for missionary mall 2-year guarentee :-D). but yea thats made our activites, like tracting and getting out to our contacts who live 10000 miles away, alot of fun. But something pretty cool did happen this week. We actually had too many people to meet with for once, cool eh? We are trying to set up splits with the branch members but if thats difficult to do in the US missions its miserable here where you only have 6-9 priesthood holders. So we are learning the importance of schedualing but our area is huge and everybody in the country works during the day so everybody wants to meet with us between 630 -830...fun fun. Ok so now a lil update on some of the people you've been hearing about. So first off Christina is doing really well. Her family situation is much better now, her mom actually asked her last week about her baptism and asked her some other questions about it and then told her that she was very sorry that she reacted the way she did and said she was glad that christina had found something that made her happy and said "I wish something like that could happen with me but it cant"...so hopefully christina will work on that and we'll have a new investigator in a few monthes ;-) Now you've also heard quite a bit about our ribbiata that we teach. So it started out as pretty much just Natasha (the artist), and her boyfriend (who is no longer her boyfriend) Michael, and then others who would randomly be there and randomly not (zhenya, natasha (#2), anton). Natasha (the artist) and Michael are actually not moving very much. We still teach them regularly but they arent coming to church and natasha only reads every once in a while, while michael doesnt read at all. But about a week and a half ago we started meeting regularly with Natasha (#2), who originaly told us she was an athiest. But has since actually gotten very interested in what we have been teaching her and asks some AMAZING questions. Its actually very enjoyable (wow such a russian way of saying that) to teach lessons to her because of how interested she is in what we say and how she picks it apart with questions so you KNOW she really is interested in understanding it all. so that was really cool to have her really express that to us this week. So the OTHER interesting person we started meeting with this week we actually met through trackting again and his name is Michael he is like 85 (or so) and actually is still VERY sharp. He lives with his wife (whos name I cannot remember right now) and they are both just old classical russians, which we knew pretty early on since they were so excited to have visitors. His wife is lossing her hearing and she has diabetes (altho I doubt she knows that) so her eyes are not very workable and her feet are in very bad shape. But Michael is actually served in the Soviet Army during WWII and was part of the forces that defended Kharkov. (which was actually a very important and sad battle that most americans will never hear about) it was acually because of that that he moved, after the war, to Kharkov cause he fell in love with the city. But he was very interesting to talk to about his life and his family. We gave him a book of mormon and he told us all he does is read and that he was really excited to have somebody give him something to read especially since we promised it could make him and his family happy. So that was way cool...there are certain people you meet here you would never have a chance to anywhere else.But yea thats about all the exciting news for this week. I hope all like billion people that are getting my forwards are doing well haha. Thanks for all that are writing to me its SOO nice to hear news from home and all you who are gunna be involved in steves wedding I expect a full report! haha take care!

Ct Ctat

p.s. So ma if you get a chance (and your email starts working again) a copy of your lassagna recip would be MUCH appreciated :-D but no hurry.