Christmas Day In Odessa

Christmas was awesome it was so good to hear all of your voices. I can’t believe that I have already been gone for six months. Wow where is all the time going!!! The best gift that I got this year hands down was being able to talk to you on the phone. Our family is the greatest thing that I have and is the greatest gift that I have. Isn’t it wonderful that Heavenly Father has giving us the Gift of Eternal life and the opportunity to live with our families forever. I really don’t know of anything that is better than that.....well it’s because there isn’t anything better than that.

The first thing Elder Western and I did Christmas morning was jump out of bed and open our gifts from home. After that I made pancakes and homemade maple syrup. Next I took a quick shower since the hot water is LIMITED it was very short!! Later in the morning we headed over to the church for the baptism of a little girl in the branch.



Later that afternoon was our branch Christmas party. In Ukraine Christmas is celebrated on January 7, but the branch party just happened to fall on our American Christmas day. The branch members acted out the nativity, Sergi was Joseph and his wife was Mary. After the nativity the branch had a dinner. After the dinner I went back to my apartment and my family was able to call me!!


The day after Christmas I made Christmas dinner for myself and Elder Western. My mom had sent a package with all of the trimmings, pumpkin cheese cake mix, potatoes, yams, stuffing and cranberry sauce.

Our Christmas tree is funny looking but I will always remember that tree and my first Christmas in Ukraine.

Merry Christmas from Ukraine

Please take a few minutes to watch this video of Elder Larimore's time in Ukraine so far.

Merry Christmas

I know that the Church is true and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true. I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that He loves us all very much. I know that He knows us personal. He really does. I know that He loves us so much that He sent His son to suffer for us. I know that Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. I know that He loves us as well. What a wonderful part of the year it is that we have to remember Him. Everyone has the chance to remember Him and all that he did for us. I am so lucky to be here at this time sharing with people this Good news of the Gospel. It really is good news. I miss you and I love you all. I can’t wait to talk to you this week. I am so excited. I love you all and know that you are all in my thoughts and prayers. You are all in my Heart. I am so blessed. I know that our Redeemer lives.
Merry Christmas
Elder Justin Larimore

Grocery Store In Odessa

I thought you might enjoy seeing where I buy my grocery’s, It is nothing like home but this week we found Vitiam water at our little store!!!!! We bought 20 of them, they are about $.50. Back home I would wait for them to go on sell for a $1. When we bought them the guy that worked at the store got kind of mad because he had just put them out. Funny thing to be mad about right? Ukrainians are funny like that sometimes.

Odessa Opera

This week I went to an opera. A sister that is serving here in Odessa is going home next week so we went as a district to the Opera. The building was beautiful, the Opera was kind of boring, it was in Latin and they translated it into Ukrainian. I didn’t understand much beside that the people in the Opera were in love and they both died in the end. It was a cool experience and it cost less than $5 American dollars.

Urban Decor

These tires are everywhere in Ukraine. I call it Ukrainian Urban decor.

A Bird In The Hand is Worth More Then Two In The Bush!!

Elder Western and I were walking through the park and we saw a Babushka, Grandma, just standing there with her hand out. Elder Western and I just stopped there and watch and see what she was doing. Soon birds started landing on her hand and were eating out of her hands. We thought it was so cool so we started talking to her, we talked with her a little about the church she and her husbands were really nice. I wish the story had a happy ending and that I could tell you they had become investigators but Elder Western and I had fun feeding the bird.

Odessa Branch Members

Vladic he is 15 and he is a member, we teach him English every week. He is one of my favorite people in the branch

This is Vladic’s grandma, when she see us at church she always says "Hello my name is Lucy" in English

The asadchees, they are a strong family in the branch and we visited with them ever so often

Elder Cluff me and a member E-lee-a

Sergei's Baptism

Well I am sure all of you are just dying to hear about the baptism it went great and Sergei is solid. That is what all the missionaries have been saying that meet him. He knows the Gospel so well and really has a strong testimony. Heaven Father must have some big plans for him later on down the road. Well anyways Saturday was his baptism. Rueslawn baptized him. Rueslawn is a really strong member in our branch. Well anyways if you don't mind me saying Sergei looked great in white. I was so happy. I almost can't even explain it. It really is amazing to see how the Gospel can take someone’s life and change it. I feel so blessed that I was able to help Sergei along the path to the waters of baptism. We had members give talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost. It went really well. Sergei had to be dunked twice. I mean just look at him. He is a big guy. His toe came out of the water. I was able to be a witness. That was really neat. I could feel the Holy Ghost so strongly. There really isn't any better work on this Earth. It really is worth everything. It really hit me hard at his Baptism. Well after he was wet and we were ending the service the power went off right in the middle of the song. I just kind of stopped singing but all of the Ukrainians kept on singing so I pulled out the cell phone and used the flash light on it and continued on. Almost all the cell phones here have flash lights on them. anyway the baptism went well. Get this, Sergei and his family only had enough money to make it to the baptism and on their way to the baptism Tanya, Sergei's wife found 10 griven on the ground. That is just enough for them to travel back home. What a tender mercy of the Lord that was. He really does look after us when we do what he wants. Sergei is planning on being sealed to his wife and now his daughter sometime in the next year. Wow this is amazing; this will bless his family forever into eternity. Now that is rewarding.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.....or Not

It might look like snow but it is sea foam on the beach.

Sergie Is Finally Married!!

Sergei is finally married!! The branch threw him a little party and it was really nice. His wife was crying when they walked into the church. You could tell that it really meant a lot to them. We started planning for his baptism on Saturday and he has his interview on Tuesday. Things seem to be really come together. It is so nice to see the change that has taking place in Sergei's life. It makes all the hard times worth every single moment. Missions aren’t easy but they are worth it!!

You've Got Mail!!

When I got to Kyiv for Thanksgiving I had three packages and a whole bunch of letters. I got all the Dear Elder mail that was sweet; I also got a letter from Nathan. The day after I got back to Odessa the zone leaders called from Kyiv and told me that there was a "cow" at the mission office for me, ha ha!! They brought it down for me, it was my Christmas package!!! I made a deal with the zone leaders that if they brought my package back to Odessa I would make them chocolate chip cookies with the brown sugar and chocolate chips my mom sent (you cannot get either in Ukraine).

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in Kyiv was great! It was nice to see everyone here in the mission. I saw everyone I was with in the MTC with and that was great. I forgot my pie in Odessa in our freezer :( I was bummed but there were a lot of pies there. Someone even made a mac and cheese pie. It was interesting and my new companion Elder Western tried some of that one. We each got half a chicken to eat. We also had a fruit salad and bread. It was a lot of food but it was so good. My companion and I ended up eating the pie I made when we got back to Odessa and it was really good.

Thanksgiving in Ukraine

All of the missionaries in the mission are going to Kyiv to the mission home on Thursday they are having a huge chicken feast. Turkeys are in short supply in Ukraine so we each missionary gets a full rotisserie chicken instead. Each missionary was given a pie pan and asked to bring a pie, so there will be over 100 pies. This is a picture of the banana cream pie that Elder Larimore is going to take.

Fall in Odessa

Here in Odessa it was pretty warm last week, I made a guess about a month ago in English class that it would snow by November 13......well it looks like I was wrong. I am not even wearing a jacket right now but I am going to put one on for tonight when we go out.

Can You Guess What This Is?????

Elder Cluff

Elder Cluff is from Mesa and he is next door neighbors with the Fletchers that use to be in our ward, small world. I had so much fun on exchanges with him; it was fun being with an Arizonian. Elder Cluff is a really outgoing person and one of the ways that he contacts people is by making balloon animals. He has no fear of just walking up to people and talking to them. Even all the bobs aka grandmas will talk to him. He can get anyone to smile.

Elder Newsome's Area

It takes about 40 minutes from my area to get to Elder Newsome’s area. His area is named Ilyichevsk and it is the furthest south you can get in the mission. It is a really small town and has a lot of young people. My area is a lot of retired older people. I really like the small towns. Well the apartment there is awesome. It is on the fifth floor and has an ocean front view, it is cool. In the morning the sun rises out of the water. For exercise we went for a run on the beach, rather a walk.