Goodbye Bila ... Hello Kyiv!‏ E-mail July 9, 2012

Hello Family,

Well as the title suggests I have been transferred, or will be transferring on Thursday. I'm moving to Borshahivsky which is the home area for the mission. I'll be at the building where the temple is, have a full ward, and the international branch, which is in English! As you can imagine it is kind of sad for me. Bila is a beautiful place with awesome people and I have no idea what I'm going to do with nearly a fourth of Kyiv! I also get Sister Moore for a companion! Yep, back with my MTC companion, we'll hit our halfway point together. Most importantly, I'll be at home base so I can get my birthday package when it comes in! I did get my pens it came in on July 3.

As for the triumphant return of Elder Daniel, I want pictures of mom hysterically crying and John just chuckling in the background! I can't believe you're almost done! I hope that you hold on to all of your stories for about 9 months, then we'll swap and just share stories for a whole week! Plus watch movies, I'll have a lot to catch up on!

So this week was awesome because we got to go to Kyiv to do baptisms for the dead at the temple with Angela! I can't believe she's been a member now for over a month, time flies! She's totally determined that she wants to serve a mission, and she really wants to serve in America, she has a few years yet, but she's totally on her way. She's super strong and has a ton of good friends in the church. Plus, Sister Ebeling will be staying here so she'll be taken care of.

So the elders made us American cake, Funfetti and chocolate for the Fourth of July. We have music night on Wednesday nights, but no one came this week, so we sang American songs together to commemerate. It was the most interesting Independence Day I've ever celebrated.

It is so hot here and we're outside all of the time. I have a really nice tan, but I can't wait until fall rolls around, it's absolutely brutal when you don't have air conditioning and just fans.

Other than that, all is good. Have a good week!

Sister

Park Alexandria, Bila Tserkva, Ukraine‏ - July 2, 2012

The Manicure Miracle‏ - E-mail July 2, 2012

Hello Family!

First of all, will you pass along a great big "Happy Birthday" to grandma for me. I've just decided that I will try and send cards for birthdays (Zach I hope you got yours, sorry it's in Russian and not Ukrainian, I couldn' t find any in Ukrainian here in Bila). But as for presents, I'm just going to buy all of you special gifts from Ukraine and give them to you at the end of my mission.

Mom, thanks so much for the setting apart, I got it and was able to open it. Also  ......

So I realized from Mom's emails that I haven't been keeping up with my time schedule here in Ukraine. Right now, we've just started week 5 in this transfer which means we find out this week where we'll be for next transfer. So I'm still in Bila Tserkva with the amazing Sister Ebeling. Life here is great, we got a break in our heat wave and had a comfortable week. But like all Mondays, it's back to being extremely hot again today. Bila is a very green place, we have this extremely large park called Park Alexandria and it is absolutely beautiful, I'll send you some pictures.

This week has been really fun. I want to tell you about the manicure miracle.So last p-day we got a call while we were paying for our internet from a very mysterious fellow named Volodimir. He told us that he had this friend a girl, and he gave her a Liahona (Ensign) and she's been reading it! Well, this particular woman is a manicurist and he didn't want us introducing ourselves as missionaries and going from that route so he ordered us (no asking, they don't ask here) to set up an appointment to get manicures and talk to her there. Well, backstory: Ever since the beginning of my companionship with Sister Ebeling I've wanted a manicure, just a strange desire for one, and she's never had one. So we called this lady and went and got manicures! She wasn't super interested in the gospel but it was a really cool experience and I couldn't help but think how ironic it was that I had to come to Ukraine and speak with her in Ukrainian in order to actually understand my manicurist. (Any of you who normally get manicures will understand how strange it is to actually understand your manicurist.)

So we did our duty and then Volodimir called, and he's called every other day asking us about her. We still don't know exactly who he is because he's not a member here in Bila, my vote is for one of the three Nephites, but Sister Ebeling is taking the practical approach and says he's a member from Kyiv.

So that is our manicure miracle. We recieved a referral and got to get manicures!

Everything else is fine, I'm excited for Zach to be home too, it will just be really weird.

Have a good week!

Sister Daniel

Meaghan and Pasha's daughter..Liza!

Wedding Scene.

Bride and Groom with The Missionaries!

Wedding Bread!

MTC Class in Ukraine.

Home Made Pinata!

Sister's in Ukraine!

Hello!!! - E-mail - June 25, 2012

Hello Family!

So this week was really interesting. We had sister exchanges. We exchange with both Kyiv zones so you can go anywhere in the area, and Sister Ebeling stayed here and I went to Cherkassy! It's the farthest area out for sisters from Kyiv and is still in the Kyiv zones. We spend three hours on a marshutka that doesn't have air conditioning (it's about 90 degrees here) and it was just really interesting. I got to serve with Sister Chang. She's from Taiwan and is totally awesome! She knows English very well, went to BYU and lived in Australia so I think that helps. Kyiv is a flurry of activity with the EuroCup going on. It's kind of nice though that Ukraine is done, there's not as many creepy drunk guys that go around screaming "U-KRAIN-A".

I got kinda homesick this week. We were driving out there to Cherkassy and I we passed right by the airport, plus when we were driving through the countryside it looked so much like South Dakota I almost cried. It has a little bit of a European feel to it here though.

I can't believe Zach is going home in less than a month! That's so crazy! You'll have to send me pictures of the triumphant return. It will be weird when I can't tell people that I have a brother who is also on a mission, people like it when I say that.

Life here is good, the cookies are great, right now I'm eating my favorites, they're called ears! Because they look like ears!

I don't know what else to say, we're just trucking along in Bila waiting for our next elect person. Angela told us this week that she really wants to serve a mission! She has a couple of years yet but we're going to do temple baptisms with her either this week or next! We also get to have a sister's conference with president at the end of the transfer in about 3 weeks and we're all looking forward to it.

Love you all!

Sister Daniel

Another Week In Ukraine - E-mail - June 18, 2012

Hello Family!!

Well this week has been interesting. We were in Kyiv on Monday and then it was back to work. We're preparing for sister exchanges this week. I'll be in Cherkassy with Sister Chang, she's from Taiwan?? possibly. I'll tell you more about her next week.

This week seemed to go by really fast, well really time is starting to fly on the mission. We just got done with the very painful process of dropping investigators. It is always very sad when you realize that they're just not progressing. It's like losing a really good friend. But we do have investigators who are coming closer to Christ everyday and miracles abound!

Angela, our recent convert has decided that she wants to serve a mission! She's almost 19 so she's got a couple years yet, but she's determined. We are on cloud nine with that girl. We watched The Testaments with her and of coarse I cried when Helam's eyes were healed, like that's a change.

Other than that things have been mellow here. Not so much everywhere else in Ukraine. The EuroCup is being played here and in Poland and the whole country is going crazy!

Not much more time,

Love you!!

Sister Daniel

Mission Conference - Email- June 12, 2012

Hello!

First of all I'm actually really suprised that I don' t have a hundred emails from mom wondering what happened yesterday. I don't have a lot of time because I spent some getting the pictures together, but just want to give you some words from me.

We had mission conference yesterday in Kyiv, and all of the missionaries were there, it was so much fun to see everyone. I'm sure if you go on the mission website there are pictures up already. See Elder Christofferson came to stake conference in Kyiv this last weekend with Elder Rasband. Well, Elder Rasband stayed to speak to us yesterday, it was so cool.

We learned a lot. Like that our mission is one of the great finding missions in the church. We find investigators and double the rate of anyone in the Europe East Area! That was a great comfort because I know we both come home at the end of a day and if we haven't found anyone we're really depressed. We also found out that we need to work on actually baptizing those we find. Well, there's always room for improvement right?

This week was interesting. We had a ward activity where we went to this bird zoo thing. I sent a picture of the peacocks. We've spent a lot of time outside, I don't know if you can tell in the pictures but I'm quite tan. It's definitely summer here, hot and humid.

We also went to a rinok to buy things it was fun. (if you come to pick me up at the end of my mission we'll have to go rinok shopping) The shirt I'm wearing in the mission photos is what I bought.

The language is still difficult but it's getting to a point where I can't remember certain words in English, only in Ukrainian.

I don't really know what else to say.

Love you all!

Sister Daniel


PPS Zach - President says it's all about how you end your mission so make sure you make your last transfer your best! I know you've been an awesome missionary, just keep it up!