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.

Laundry Day......???

Or is it fishing day?????



This picture was taken outside Elder Larimore's apartment building. He said at first glance he thought it was someones laundry but a after taking a closer look he realized that someone had hung fish out on the clothes line!!!

Sergei

Sergei (investigator who has committed to baptism) always walks us out of his apartment to the gate and shakes our hands and stuff. Well this time he came out and told us that lesson was just what he needed. We read 1 Nephi 3:7 with him and it hit him really hard. He said that he knows that God will give him strength and that everything will work out. He said that we bring a light into his home every time we come over and he can see it. WOW that made me feel so good and was one of the best moments since being in the country for me. It really picked me up. Yesterday we went over to his house after church and watched the restoration DVD with him, he loved it. After he testified to us that he was thinking about it and he knows that the Book of Mormon is from God, that man couldn’t have wrote. WOOOW. That is music to a missionary's ear and can I just say golden.

Elder Larimore's Mission Cars (NOT)