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.