There is a holiday for a holiday, Ukrainian Rule of Thumb

Dear Everyone!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope it went well for you all and your not to tired. As for us on the 31st we were in by 4 o clock but we didn't let the schedule stop us. That morning we were about 30 min away from the temple contacting around our apartment when the temple front desk calls and says "hey! there is a man here that wants to get baptized". If there were ever more perfect words for a missionary to hear I do not know of them. We stopped what we were doing immediantly and booked it to the bus stop almost considering just taking a taxi. The bus finally dropped us off and we ran as fast as we could to the temple (it had been about 20 min driving there, we only hoped he was still there) so we are running and running... honestly a lot more than I'm usually used to. In fact I became very aware of the geography of the Temple grounds as the pitch in the ground ever so slightly started rising up and up as I paralleled it getting more and more tired... aug! we finally got to the doors of the temple breathing as if somebody just tried to drown us. "good (breath,breath) morning (breath breath breath) where is (breath) he?. The gentleman was waiting patiently in the temple waiting room (go figure). Apparently he had been taught before earlier this last year and wasn't ready to get baptized at the time. Now he felt ready and wanted to do it.. we didn't know anything about him and as much as we had already decided in our minds to baptized him on the spot something told us to give him a week or two. It was way cool! and an awesome start to the day and end of the year. His name is Ihor and will be getting baptized on the 18 of Jan if all goes well. After we went out and tried to find some of our lost sheep (innactives) we looked forever for this one guy. We finally found his street and he happened to live at the other end of. To our surprise we were met with the ruins of a burnt down house. lol as much as we should have been sad for he mans loss our first thoughts were... REALLY?? all this way for a few pieces of burnt wood!? lol we spoke with the neighbors and ended finding this guy who not only knew the man who had the burnt down house but bought him a new Apartment to live in after the catastrophe. Way nice guy who helped us figure out where to go and then gave us a ride there.. it was way cool! then next part of the New Year was honestly really boring. Elder Saltmarsh and I tried to keep busy and entertained. it was way hard. I'm going to send you a picture of our doings. So that night we are sleeping and we already planned on getting woken up because of the Fireworks... however we heard them in the distance so everything was fine. And suddenly they were right next to our house! BIG ones! I thought world war 3 had just started! it was nuts! woke me up and I realized that my stomach was killing me!!! so I get up to run to the restroom. meanwhile as I'm leaving we get a call from a crazy drunk guy wanting to talk to me wishing people a happy new year. just alot of different sensations all at once! lol those few minutes were all a blur to me. and so here I sit! tonight we are headed to Odessa to start our exchanges. Hopefully we will plan part of the mission tour with president today but who knows. So yeah Chris about your Visa stuff! you have to get that sent in Yesterday!!! because they have to register you not only for your passport, but they use the passport to apply for the visa. so you have to hurry up and get it done or there going to reassign you for a while! and believe me! staying at the MTC after 12 weeks you will be chomping at the bit to get and finally do something. so get er done! and the acceptance letter and all of that is way easy, you give them your testimony kind of, tell them you want to go and have bishop sign it! vuala! easy! anyway keep me posted on all that stuff! keep sending pictures to! The office staff thought paisley was so darn cute! lol I love you all and am greatfull for everything you all do! keep your head in the scriptures!

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Старійшина Джонсон

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Dear Elder Johnson,

Well I am sure you have heard by now where Chris is headed. Let's just say that your dream that you had has become a reality. This is our HUGE news for the week. It was too funny the first thing that came out of the envelope was passport papers. I said well we know one thing for sure you are going out of the country. LOL his face got white. He was so funny he was so nervous you know how you can hear it in his voice? I think that day he was nervous, scared, excited and feeling about every emotion in the book except for the negative ones. I am thinking today it has sunk in more though. I don't want to tell you exactly where he is serving as I am trying to get him to e-mail you. I think there is a good chance he will. I truly wish he would of been in contact with you more while you were on your mission but you can't force it. I am excited as that is one language you can help me with while you are here and he leaves on his. Oh BTW I am STOKED we will have the 3 of you boys home for a week you come in on the 18 of April and he goes out the 25. It truly is a bitter sweet as a parent. I am so excited for him though. Like I stated with you I couldn't be sending him in better hands. His mission is HUGE I can't believe the areas it covers even Finland. It is amazing. I feel so blessed as a parent to have young men that have choosen the things that Heavenly Father would want them to be doing right now. Feel so blessed. I know we all have our agency, but I feel that if we could try to give back a small part to Heavenly Father to show him the appreciation and respect that we have for Him. Also if we could only have the patience with one another that he has for us. Wouldn't the world be a better place. It would be incredible to raise children. They wouldn't have to worry about doing the wrong thing or saying something that would make others or their parents mad. If we could only be more like him and have everyone in the world with the same goal. WONDERFUL guess I want a little bit of paradise down here on earth.

Okay, how are you doing? How is everything there? I am so sorry the I didn't email you last week. I totally got caught up in everything going on and I thought about it then I forgot about it. Things are going really well here. Dad has I believe 8 companies backing his school up. Modis, Verizon believe it or not called him, TW Telecom, TA Transit, Meritek, can't remember the other ones. Idk if you can go onto the web but the web address of his school is www.vitekllc.com it is amazing!!! I am so proud of him. Right now things are kind of tight as the school doesn't start till the 24 of January. But I know that everything will happen in His time. I am so thankful for this knowledge. I have been so frustrated at times and then the Lord has enlightened me to see why things have progressed the way that they have. There have been reasons and answers to almost every question or concern that I have had. I truly do support him in all that he does and is currently doing. I pray for him all the time as the stress he is under in incredible. We are all running on faith at this time. Faith preceeds the miracle right? I do know and have a very comforting feeling. Wish others could see it from my point of view. I wish others could of been there at the temple when the temple president gave him a blessing. That was incredible. There were answers in the blessings that after it

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dear family!
WWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so stinkin excited right now! haha that is so cool! however NOBODY has told me where he is going! He didn't write me and I want to know where he is going!

That is so cool! mom has told me that I need to help her with the language that he will be learning so she can learn it so I took advantage of my privileges and went to the church site. I can check who is coming into our mission, who has there call, who is in the MTC, and who is coming into the field. So I know he is not coming here, and then I read that it covers Finland soo ... I'm going to go for the Baltic States, Russian Speaking is my guess! I'm so excited! that will be so much fun! and the fact that I get to see him off is just Awesome! ah man I'm so excited! wow that is so cool! please tell me more so I can know! I'm so excited for you bud! we will be talking soon.
so this week was crazy! we had a LAST minute mission conference! president had us at the very last minute call 100 missionaries and plan travel for them! my brain exploded that day. Our conference was with President Bennet. He pretty much threw down on us all! he told us something cool, I have shared this with you before, you know in Jeremiah 16:16 where there are fishers and hunters, well if you read verse 14 and 15 with it talks about the north countries... do you know that Ukraine sits right above Jerusalem? it was a cool thought. so anyway yeah my week was all last minute... president also called me towards the end of the week with a request to escort a missionary to the airport.. that was weird. oh yeah this Sunday was awesome! we had an awesome sacrament meeting, and for the third hour.. haha get this! I translated for a def brother into Russian sign language! ha ha we have been teaching them lately and learning alot! so third hour we talked about the ascension, or the raising up.. however you say it, the last lesson in gospel principles.lol I had so much fun and we are headed there way this week to teach them again! it was cool!. Elder hofelings group went home this week! that was really weird! ... haha we stuffed 14 missionaries luggage into the van and were really proud of that! i'll send pictures of that too! so now we are the oldest Ukrainian group! I'm glad that i"ll get to see Christopher before he goes. Its a good thing that the day after we send some home that we receive some new ones! it was a way fun day! I love getting new missionaries. I cooked with sister Klebingat for the dinner and helped her make Lasagna, and you know I might learn something from her ... if she would use measurements! lol pinch of this, dash of that and it turns out perfect!!! lol she is a way sweet lady! The Klebingat Family is absolutely awesome!

Elder Saltmarsh and I had a very tought week! one of the days we went out and did tracting for like 4 hours because we hadn't found anyone to teach and we didn't have anything better to do.. we tracted about 100 doors and received a nice slam from everyone of them save for 2 who gave us a few more seconds than the others after we stated who we were. it was SOOOO hard! I felt like I was fighting myself the whole time. AFter a litle bit of not feeling effective I felt like doing something else. I wasn't really going to the next door with the faith that they would accept us, but I was hoping like crazy! its interesting and pretty tough trying to put off the natural man. its alot more than just paying your tithing, or going to church, or reading the scriptures. Its pushing yourself spiritually until you don't want to go anymore... and then do it anyway!

I know that I like to be comfortable and will do what I can to remain that way... small things, I dont like to sweat, I like to have a full nights sleep, I like having time for myself at night. I noticed that ever so slightly I reserve myself to be comfortable. I hold myself in reserve and therefore Heavenly Father cannot hold me in reserve to be called on when he needs me.

I also attached some songs, they are from my companions dads band! they are called the nashville tribute, and all of these songs were dedicated to missionary work! I really like them!

so anyway! christmas skyp! ok so that you know that 7 oclock doesn't really give me a whole lot of time to talk to you! about 1 hour slightly more... so its up to you. but I can do 7. yeah I love you all! please tell me where chris is going! I want to know! love you all!

body

Dear Everyone!

WAHOOO!!! I got both packages! I was so stoked! the socks were "soley" needed . I loved it all! thanks for the seasonings! those will last probably till the end of the mission. Speaking of which. Yes I know that the date was changed... I have been getting a lot of thoughts about staying lately.. I thought about it, prayed about it and asked President for his advice and well you know what he said. so yeah... here I am staying. I'm happy I am staying.. I'm sorry to be a bummer but I don't think that It will be 4 years until I see those two. honestly Christopher will get his call and if he is not English speaking than I think I will see him again.. and bryndon diffinently will be seeing again. Tell Chris thank you for the journal... I thought I was going to have to go buy another one from L'viv again. so yeah this week was nuts! I cant believe how fast it went and this next week is going to be even faster! we have transfers, an area presidency coming, president family vacation, and the new transfers... we have 14 new missionaries coming in! ... our mission is getting young REALLY quick. Also we seem to have an epidemic here... lots of our missionaries are getting appendicitis, the stupid part is is nobody knows why appendicitis happens... so I'm scared! I'm being way careful! I hate doctors!!! and to have to go have surgery in Ukraine!!!! NO WAY! I sent a bunch of pictures... one of them is our recent convert next to the Christmas tree.. he just went to the temple right next door and did baptisms... then he was confirmed for 60 PEOPLE!!! ha ha and he was way happy about it. the rest is me and Elder Hofeling.. also our district. the one on the tractor is our original district.. save for oleg who is in the picture. and then the one on the wall of the church is our district for this week... it was huge! almost the size of our Odessa zone! lol it was way funny! anyway so yeah excell just about killed me today... certain cells were not working out, the macro's were all deleted! I wanted to shoot myself in the foot! anyway so anyway ... I cant think right now.. my brain is a little fried.. all I see is numbers. all of our missionaries are going home.. everyone in Elder Hofelings group. its weird! but I don't have time for it to trunk me out... honestly it makes me nervous and then happy of my decision to stay! I hope everyone is doing well.. I know dad is doing well. and that's about it! so guys come on! email me!
love you all! please tell me when you want to Skype!

Zone Conference

Message body

Good morning everyone!

wow.. so this week was probably one of the fastest weeks I have had of my mission. we just finished the Zone Conference round of 4 different conferences. Yeah Odessa was fun! and so was the plane there :D I loved it. it was interesting to see all the different conferences, all were the same but there was more given of different points in each of them. I actually wanted to share a little bit of it in this email and the weird part is, is that I think it might help. I also included Presidents letter in the email so you can read. He sends one every week.

so yeah as we were flying to Odessa I was just kind of thinking about the mission... how we can be better, how I can be better, because we all do have those times where its like "GOOD GRIEF!!!" you know give me a break. but I've learned a lot serving by President Klebingat. We have been talking about discouragement and disappointment and how they are different and should not be seen as the same. Discouragement is when you you lose courage.. exactly what and how the word is spelled "Dis-courage.." when you give up, and disappointing happens at a certain point, hence "disa-ppoint-ment" but its then that we feel like all the missionaries who ever lived.. Alma, Paul etc.

If you think about it, before everything great comes something tough to kind see how bad you really want it is a way of looking at it. When we try to do what is right, when we try to change or continue doing what is right of course we wake up adversity and honestly that is not really news. Jesus Christ was tempted when he went out into the wilderness to converse with Heavenly Father... The starting of the Restoration began with an attack on a persons life.. to shut his mouth... I kind of thought about this from another perspective, his one is to Bryndon and Christopher for prep on the mission haha I took it as a video game analogy. you know if you were trying to stop somebody from going somewhere on the game map, as if it was your sole purpose to stop a people, or an army and and destroy them. would you not put up outposts, walls , barriers, opposing forces in place or in their path to slow them down? and would you not place those "trials" on the tops of hills therefore trying to take the advantage and break the moral of those people? knowing that if they took these hills from you that they would have a better view, a better understanding of where they are on there journey, receiving a better sight and even a boost of confidence with the sight of their end journey up ahead. And if they continue on taking and making advantages would you not at that point gather your forces and unite them for a last desperate attempt, at the gate of their goal, and with all your might fight and break moral so that they might pack up and go home, retreat, and not get or catch the sight of how far they have actually come. Indeed it is with the children of God and all his future, present, and past missionaries on our journey to the awaited kingdom. And its going to be like that before the mission, on the mission, and after the mission. The message has been given, the decree has been sent all throughout the land on how we can return to the kingdom of heaven. We are to gird up our loins and put on the breastplate of righteousness having perfect faith in our Older Brother to lead us and give us the map and compass of how to get there.

The mission has really been struggling on that note.. you know just getting down when trouble comes. "hanging down our heads" as Alma says. And honestly its natural to get disturbed, and disappointed. but if the devil can discourage you than your done. Also on another point we can get discouraged sometimes because righteous decisions do not work out the way we want... something we have to remember is that the Lord is the Lord of the Harvest. We may think that if we do this, this, and this, Heavenly Father will bless us with this, that and the other. Honestly 1+1 does not always equal 2 right away, He will grant unto us what He seeith fit, not how we add it up. And all throughout this we have to remember that the Gospel is still true.. no matter the opposition. as alma says "it mattereth Not". Our homework is to do it how it has been given to us or not to find our own way around Gethsemane or Calvary because we will all go through it. That's the beauty about the gospel is its "yes or no" not a "well I would like it this way" gospel. When Copernicus went on about telling the world that the world was actually round he ended up getting burned for it because nobody believed him and hated him for his beliefs but his last phrase right before he died was "but its still round!" lol you see it mattereth not, everything is still true and happens for a reason. Heavenly Father wants us to learn why we are here on the earth,... a lot of things may be hard, and we may want to get out of whatever it is... Joseph Smith after seeing Revelations and be visited by not only Heavenly Messengers but by God himself, he found himself in a jail cell with a bucket for a toilet wondering where the Lord had hid himself. The Lords response was "peace be unto thee my son" Peace be unto you does not mean OK I'll get you out of this, it means hold on , stay faithful, your doing whats right, and don't let the circumstances try to tell you differently. Hold on with your teeth!... because the Lord is close by. And even when we do all we can and expect the results to happen as fast as process went... we should not limit the Lord in giving unto us our reward ... success should not be confined at all. We are not only storing up treasures here on earth, but also in Heaven.. its His call on when we get them.

I had this thought that came to me as we were flying to Odessa...

A pilot will fly at the indicated airspeed through the sky, he will rip through the clouds, adjusting for micro bursts and tail winds. And at times if needed he will increase and decrease the airspeed as President Uchtdorf informs us. At times in our life as we fly through we will have our fair share of clouds and micro bursts that will trouble us and try to knock us off course. They will try to discourage us and make us retreat, turn around and go home, or even worse just stop! lol a pilot knows that that is not even an option :P . We have prepared our vessels as the brother of Jared speaks of and we know where we are going. It would be foolish to waist it all, the effort that was taken to get you off the ground because of a few bad looking clouds or a few air pockets. "Let the wind blow" president Klebingat says. Its honestly going to be a huge factor in making your fly higher, the altitude of blessings will keep coming, the more faith you use to keep going the further and higher will be the result. so how will you use your wind? are you going to let it push you around? will you worry about the weather of life outside the windows? or will you prepare and adjust for the coming storms that in reality will bring you to a knowledge of God's "higher ways". We can be surrounded and will be by life's lessons, and at times it may seem that some are coming at you out of order or to many at one time. the scene will tell you to "go around" when you dials and altimeters will tell you to increase your speed, line up, adjust the flaps, and keep going!

My message this week is keep going! dont get discouraged! I love you all and hope that your finding joy in your "flight plan" lol have joy in your journey. love you all

 

tell everyone that is writing from the ward thank you so much! and that I dont have anytime to write back... I'm way busy. Also I need to know when you would like to Skype on Christmas. schedule with everyone and then let me know what you want to do

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Старійшина Джонсон

Trying to be useful!!!

Message body

Dear Family
So wow! what a week! I enjoyed ALL of your letters! its good to hear everyone is doing well! yeah I think its funny/interesting that the missionaries are starting to do that there. We started something similar to that back in Sept. but instead of going to peoples homes we do it on the streets!!! the highest baptizing mission in Eastern Europe right now is the Russia Samara mission and so they have been sharing Ideas with us on how they are better doing the work there/. We have started praying on the "streets, and in their homes, .." anywhere and everywhere! and its brought about HUGE miracles and mighty changes of hearts among the people of Ukraine... and her missionaries :D This week was pretty crazy! we started off here in Kyiv. We did service in a hospital this week! that was nuts! there was 8 of us there and they sent us off by two's to the operation room, Neurology, Emergency room, and somewhere else. Elder Hofeling and I were sent to the Operation deck where we hauled people around in there beds for x-rays and what not! it was really cool! the week flew by and before we knew it, it was Thursday which ment we were on our way to L'viv with President in the van. Almost the equivalent of the Salt lake city to Boise trip but about an hour longer. It was really cool! we got to know president a little better, had a chance to pick his brain, he showed us pictures and video's of his family! it was way cool! I hope that his character can rub off on me before I go home! I really like the qualities that he has developed and the attitude he has towards things! Our zone conference in L'viv was really good! I went on Exchanges with Elder Wilson (Zone leader) you remember him? he is one of the members of my original district in the MTC. He is still really cool and I imagine we will be friends alot longer then just the mission! we found a bunch of people there, its unfortunate you will only be here for a few days! L'viv is definitely worth seeing. We headed back Sat. night on a train, unfortunately but fortunately they had NO tickets... in the regular 2nd class... and we are not allowed to take 3rd class. so guess what we got to do??? :D yep! first class! lol It wasn't anything incredibly awesome but it was a lot nicer! a lot more comfy I felt. However, that is not going to be compared to the trip to Odessa this week which will be by the means of a plane!!! YEAH!!!! I'm way excited for that! by the way Odessa is strictly Russian speaking... so Ukrainian speakers NEVER get to see what is down there... so this is a way fun opportunity! we have 3 zone conferences this week! one on Tues, another on Wednesday, and the last on Friday! and then on Sat we have new missionaries coming in and before i will know it I will be typing to you again. Hey mom don't worry about it yes we will be skyping! I'm surrounded by computers here in the office and the former Assistants from a while ago already set up the skype for it so no worries. No I'm trying not to think of going home, I honestly.... dont want to. I could easily do this for the rest of my life and not have a problem with it! Its way cool! and very... progressing.. if I can even use that word! we have started decorating for Christmas already! that will be really cool to see Christmas in Kyiv for the first time, but come next week we will have my new companion here with us in a threesome and I'll start making plans for our exchanges with the other zones including L'viv! I just hope that I remain useful! what I do now is what I'm told and I do it to the best I am able... however, what I have to do is not all on the brain yet.. so I know the how, but the what is still floating around up there. In fact right now President Klebingat is calling my new companion to tell him he wants him to be the new assistant hahaha poor Elder he has no Idea whats about to hit him haha. So President has told me that I'm probably going to "die" as they say it as an assistant because he wants me to be with Elder Saltmarsh (new comp) as long as possible to give him the downloading experience. I really like president Klebingat and his enthusiasm for the work and his family! Thats so weird! a safari Christmas???! no snow! what is this blasphemy!!! I'm going to call you all to repentance! lol its not Christmas without snow!
We are having big problems right now with the new missionaries because Ukraine made some new laws that are restricting more religions coming into Ukraine. and we have been told that its the Orthodox church (big power here) that presented the bill! :S but in the long run its going to help us out! anyway! so yeah president is a little stressed. He is a big family man aswell so a lot of the time he just says "well that's why I have assistants, so you guys figure it out" anyway! so yeah... we have a huge really fast week this coming week! before I know it Christmas will be here... wow! I love you all! and hope that you enjoy the email. I'll try and get some pictures from Odessa this week...
love you

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Старійшина Джонсон