wow.. what a week! I'm glad that I was able to hear from some of you this week. Thank you dad for the pictures! that was really cool. WOW shaleena "is all grown up... and savin China!" (what movie?) its good to know everything is working out for them down there. Thank you Taleya for finally writing me! goodness! lol and thanks for what you wrote. In fact you kind of inspired me to write a little bit this week about whats been going down in my head. but before I put you all to sleep I just want to say that this last week it was -24 degree's outside... and this week its going to get to -32 WOOF! that's like -24 or -25 or something. we had finally a week in our Area and we have been struggling.. one being nobody wants to stop and talk to us in that kind of weather... and unfortunately tracting is always through the door. Its pretty funny the word for missionary in Russian is close to the word Police .. and if you put a nice 4 inch thick piece of door in the middle of you and the person your trying to talk to who will not open up the door because they want to know who it is first... things can get a little difficult. I've learned alot this week.. and to move on to what I wanted to talk about today... I have been really "hoping" for the best.
President has wanted us to have our own goals and what not so that we can be ready for not just the rest of our mission but for our lifes! I have thought about after the mission and I'm not sure what to expect or to what environment I will be going home to but I have really been seeing that I'm strongly hoping that everything will be alright. hope is a big thing! hope is the definition of faith! according to alma. "therefore if ye have faith, ye hope.." I notice I have alot of those small hopes, you know those ones we have about hoping the everything will be alright, that the family will be happy, that I'll get to work on time or study. those things that are in proximity to a few days or weeks or even years away. I have not Idea what to expect there in Florida and I guess thats one of my proximate hopes now, that everything will be just grand. Here on the mission I find that alot of those things that dont happen, that disappoint me, are the debri of those hopes that never came through. I read up a little bit in the scriptures about hope, and its purpose and how can hope of all things fail, but in the scriptures it talks about an even greater kind of hope, a total or ultimate hope. This hope is eternal, and connected to Jesus Christ and the blessings of the Great Atonement, blessing resulting in everyone being resurrected and the opportunity that there by provided for us to practice repentance, making possible what the scriptures call "a perfect Brightness of Hope" 2 nephi 31:20. even Moroni told us what we should hope for" behold I say unot you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ". so real hope is not associated with those things with an end, but rather with things immortal and Eternal! and of course it has to be intertwined with the doctrine of Christ. especially Faith and patience. faith, hope and charity and patience. I have learned that you have to take care and .. build those qualities, whereas doubt and dispare like weeds or dandelions need little encouragement in order to sprout and spread. It stinks but dispare comes so naturally to the natural man, but patience helps us to deal more evenly with the unevenness of life's experiences. Its kind of like our Anchor, I heard a song recently about the Gospel being the anchor of our souls, and then in Hebrews I found it talking about it "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul..." its cool to think about because it really is, and our faith and the companionship of the Holy Ghost help us retain it. but in contrast, if you look at life without viewing the prospect of immortality it kind of kills hope, and not only that but accountability. those small hopes we have are very vulnerable to all the unexpected. there are lots of things in the world that have a great sense of despair. even those who might be spiritually safe, or at least feel that way they can sense that there is that "chill". speaking of this we had a J-dub convention in our city! oi!!!! so upsetting! another group of people believing they have the way to God! rather create one path to God then except the one He has given and laid before them. but like Elder Maxwell said "secular knowledge doesn't pretend to give us the answers to the great why's anymore than you or I would read a phone directory in search of a plot."
As long as we have hope, ultimate hope our ship is safe and secure. thats why its so important that have that ultimate hope because when hope is stripped away thats when Paul says then comes the tendency to "eat drink and be merry" reasoning that" for tomorrow we die" driven by a stupid conclusion that "when a man is dead" that is the end thereof. as much as I have not liked the opposing forces or storms on my mission there will be some usefulness in them. Events will help draw attention to Gods higher ways and His kingdom. but its in His own time that He brings about His purposes. because God wants us to come home after having become more like Him and His Son, kind of the development process I guess you could say is showing unto us our weaknesses. So I figure if we have that Ultimate Hope we will be submissive because, as its says in the scriptures, with His help those weaknesses can even become strengths. that has been a giant kick in the pants on the mission finding out how incredibly inadequate I really am. and on top of that its not an easy thing to be shown ones weaknesses, however as I have learned it really is part of coming unto Christ and its way important, as important as it is painful, and believe it or not, it is part of Gods plan of happiness. Something that President said a while back is that "by pressing forward hopefully, we can, repeatedly and joyfully, stand on what was yesterdays distant horizons, which helps us find hope in our own experiences. Granted those with true hope still see their personal circumstances shaken at times - like a kaleidoscope. Yet with and "eye of faith" even in their changed proximate circumstances they still see Divine design." its been way tough out here, feeling that my one "shovel" or whatever in the field of 1000 acres is going to do anything for anybody. but if there is one thing that I have learned its that we may not be able to fix the whole world, but we can strive to fix what may be missing or wrong in us and thus making the world a little better. a book I read once said that "its not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. what weather they shall have is not our to rule" I know that we can do something for those generations looking up to us in years for "clean earth to till" whatever we can do in, in Pauls' words we can "plow in hope" not looking back, refusing to let yesterday hold tomorrow hostage. I suppose you could say this is a part of my testimony.. that I'm sharing with you. having that hope that Heavenly Father see's us much more than we are, and having faith, patience, and charity to get to that point is really life's journey. I pray and "hope" yours is going well. that your finding joy in the journey... because I sure am! :D hmm... wow that turned out pretty nice.. I might use this in a talk sometime! way to go Taleya, nice move... keep writing! and I want more pictures from everyone!!! thank you Uncle Kelly, you are pretty consistent :D
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Старійшина Джонсон
Старійшина Джонсон
) I'm sorry for changing the schedule, it seems that all we really do here. We found out that the 15 new Missionairies that are suppose to be coming in on wednesday are not coming because of political problems... so now come march we will be getting 26 new missionaries lol yikes! 
My week went well for the most part. We were on two different exchanges, helping out elders in their area's. Yeah mom we have a holiday called "the old new year" on the 14 of January. Then there is Christmas that happened on the 7th of January... there is ALOT of holidays (reasons to drink) in this country. Church was awesome! one of the talks was on trust and how when we have a hard time trusting other people we should think of the trust Heavenly Father has given us here on the earth with the promise that we would come back... she said we should think about how trustworthy we are being with Him. Are we going to church, reading the scriptures everyday, magnifying our calling. She said so the next time you have doubts about trusting someone... think about Heavenly Father and how He has complete trust in us, and what we are doing with it. It was a really cool talk and I really liked how she put things. Also on a more random note there was one of our members sitting in front of us with his wife. They will be expecting a baby soon, anyway I don't know if I have ever commented on the really cool things they do with their hair here but on Sunday my companion and I saw the coolest one yet! lol as they sat in front of us we were just baffled. It was this brade that started on one side of the front of the head went around the front and down the back where it met ANOTHER brade that was done backwards haha I dont know how to expain it but we complemented and commended her for her efforts. Because of our exchanges we had to put everything on sunday so we were VERY busy yesterday. Hmm lets see, oh yeah we also made Borsch again, that was good... but we did it wrong so we are going to do it again next week. On a note more closer to home I need your help. I have to get an ACT test done if I want to apply to any colleges because I dont think I ever got it done. I'm sad that I will not be able to do any study for it so I will totally be leaning on Heavenly Father. My question is though that it costs money to do it, I can do it here in Kyiv but I have to register by March 9th. I believe it is a $40 fee and then the test would be taken right before I went home on the 14 of April sooo yeah could you get back to me on that ASAP? This week we had our Baptismal Date guy pop back up on the map! he had a family emergency and had to leave to go to take care of his mom in another city who is now I guess in the hospital. it was really nice to hear from him and know that he just didn't ditch us. I really love ALL of our members here! they are sooo cool! and I'm finally getting around to knowing them all.. (there is alot.. 200-250 in one ward and 700 on the ward list :S) Its been a great week and I hope this next week will be just as good. This next week I'm going to head to L'viv and then on to Lutsk and then back again.. we wont get back till thursday morning. We are taking a train to get out here because mother nature decided to wake up and bring in the snow which we have been waiting for for forever, so its pounding us right now and wont allow ... er well we just dont feel comfotable flying there... the train will just bust on through no matter the weather. so yeah! I hope everyone else is doing well.. hope you enjoyed the pictures aswell. We also just found out our new missionaries coming in this next week are not coming in... all 15 of them and we are losing 9.. so we had to completley redo trasfers this morning... I actually just barely got back from it. I really enjoy serving next to him.. and considering when the new guys come in President really likes the idea of sending on of his assistants out to Train so I might do that my last transfer :D that would be fun! ;D well I love you all and hope everything is going well... just so you know Utah State right now is screaming my name.. you should see there flight program! its way cool so I'm looking into it.