Lasts and Firsts

Week of September 7-13, 2015

love rainy days!

This week was a series of lasts and getting ready for firsts.  Our Elders go home on Monday so all week long we were spending their "last....." with them.  We had our last District Meeting.  You can see in the pictures how we have District Meetings.  Skype allows us to meet with elders in a neighboring town 3 hours away.

District Meeting via our apartment and Skype.  Tuesdays at 11:00
then, yes, lunch, while we plan the rest of the week together.

Meet Elder Palmer on Right he has been in the mission
Six weeks on Tuesday and will be training this next transfer!
We lose 14 missionaries this next week and get 16 new ones
Every elder is training including the AP's!

They had their last visits to the villages and were excited to get some good hard work in before they left.

They dug out then poured the cement for the new front step as well
as a drainage ditch while Ned helped to lay brick around a new
doorway into the house where they are expanding a kitchen.

More work on the greenhouse.  We should be able to go
back to work there soon.  Summer work is over now.

Then the Branch President asked us to create a room for winter donations, which gave them a first before they left.  They hadn't been asked to do this one before.

the shelves are already filling up with leftover
missionary cloths from many missionaries serving
here the past few years.

Then we had their last English class.  What they didn't know, though, was that some sisters had planned a good-bye party for after class.

They showed a Miktech video then had a race between the classes
to see which could wrap their teacher like a mummy first.

The sign says Thank you Elders!  We echo that saying also
They have been so good to us we would be hard pressed to
Do half the stuff we do without them!

Saturday brought another first. We had a baptism scheduled for one of our sweet little 8 yr olds.  Everyone was so excited for her, and then, we had an investigator, who has known for quite some time that she wanted to be baptized, decide that she was ready and this would be the day. AWESOME! We are so excited to watch her testimony blossom.  They are both fine young ladies.
Baptisms are different here.  Everyone in the branch attends (when possible) and they bring treats.  We had over 30 people there with enough to feed many more.  It was a beautiful service with many strong testimonies born.  What a great day for those families and for the branch!  And you would have been so proud of Elder Mikkelsen.  He was asked to baptize both sisters, so all week he practiced (our sweet Sister Alexandra grilled him on Tuesday) so his Russian would be understandable.  Then, just before the meeting started they gave him the sisters full names, which he would also be expected to say flawlessly.  His prayers were heard and when he opened his mouth, his words were heard in perfect Russian (at least it sounded perfect to me).

Angela was baptized!  She was so happy.  She was laughing as she
came out of the water.  She is a beautiful, talented young lady!

We are so happy for Diana!  She too, is an amazing young
woman.  She doesn't realize it yet, but her life has just begun.

These were the two speakers at the baptism. They did a great job!

Several people left before we could get a picture but here are most
of the attendee's

Melon, cookies, cake, pie, candy, fruit!  It was all quite вкусно-
tastey.  It wasn't till we got home that i realized what was wrong
with my cookies this time.  The soda and the potato starch come
in bags that look exactly alike but the starch bag is just a little
bigger.  I had forgotten that i'd taken the soda into the other room.
Starch just isn't the same when added to chocolate chip cookies.
Someday I will make a good batch!  Hopefully, at least once before
I leave. 

Today we had our last Sunday dinner with them.  We had two of our wonderful бабушки come.  They are all such amazing women.  They told us how they found the church.  The first said she had been praying to find a church.  First one, then another had come into town and then left.  None of them felt right. Just days after she had quit going to the last church or they had left somehow, the missionaries knocked on her door.  Whoever answered saw they were missionaries and called for her.  "Here's another for you", they called.  The minute she saw them, she said she had a warm feeling wash over her and she knew they were good people. This was in the early spring and 3 months later she was baptized.  She and her friends are the foundation of the branch.  They used to go to the temple in Germany together as often as they could until the temple in Kyiv was built.  Now they are regular attenders.  Our other sister had a similar story.  She wanted to read the Bible but she couldn't afford one at that time so she was looking everywhere and praying that she would find one.  She came upon a man pulling book from a garbage heap so he could resell them at the market.  She asked for the Bible and offered to pay him for it but he just gave it to her.  She gratefully took it home and began her study but struggled to understand it.  She searched and prayed for a church to help her.  There were many who said they were the true church and she would try them but she didn't like what they taught. the Jehovah's Witness missionaries told her they could teach her the Bible.  She started going to their meetings and liked them until they taught that after death, there was nothing.  She said she got up, told them they were wrong, and never went back.  She prayed again for someone who could come and teach her.  Two days later the missionaries knocked on her door, gave her a Book of Mormon, she read it, discussed it with them.  She said she wouldn't cook, she couldn't do anything but read the book.  She found in Alma where it explains life after death and she was so excited she felt like running through the streets shouting that she had found the truth, the answers to her questions.  She was baptized a month later, two months before the other lady Natasha.  They told us how hard it is to do family history work here because of destruction during the war, poorly kept records during the Soviet era, and said that headstones in cemeteries are only guaranteed for 50 years.  After that they can be just wiped away. Here in Vinnitsya there is an archive with records back to 1875.  Sister Natasha found her grandpa there but only because he lived to be 103 and they mentioned him in the records.   It is so much fun to hear the stories of our guests when they come to dinner.

It kind of seems odd that we are paying so much attention to the last days of this set of missionaries, but as they leave, so do all the missionaries we have worked with so far, except for one.  It seems like the whole mission is leaving so this is kind of like a good-bye for all of them-  Elder Porter, Elder Kerr, Elder Brough, Elder Hunt, Elder Golling, Elder Gorbekenyenko, Elder Zuniga, Elder Jensen.....
We wish them all the best- всево вам добрава!  And, we are looking forward to working with all the new Elders and Sisters as they come to join us as well.
It's been raining all day.  We love the rain! and we love all of you!  Have a wonderful week!  Be good!
The Miks

Our Baby is growing fast she is with her new cousin.
Remember the days when you were that flexible!