Merry Christmas Again....‏ E-mail -- January 7, 2013

Hello and Merry Christmas!!

Today is traditional Ukrainian Christmas and last night for their Christmas Eve we got to go carolling on Khreshatik (Ukrainian Times Square). It was really fun and the street is just gorgeous. There was a nice light snow and it really felt like Christmas Eve as we sang our traditional Christmas carols in Ukrainian as well as some traditional Ukrainian carols. Life in Ukraine is one big party right now. I've never seen so many smiling Ukrainians all at one time...they're all so happy. This is unusual because overall Ukraine has a hard time feeling hope. Most people we talk to don't have much hope for the future, they feel very limited and very oppressed.

For our English group last week we watched the Mormon Message about the 9/11 survivor and we talked with one of the guys there about disasters here in Ukraine and how people have been effected. Interestingly enough, he didn't really mention Chernobyl, but he did mention an artificial famine that occurred here in 1931? When Stalin took all of the wheat from Ukraine to feed the rest of the Soviet Union. Something like 10 million people (1/5 of the population of Ukraine) died. Petro (the guy we were talking to) said that entire families died out because of it. He said that his grandparents still talk about it.

It's always interesting to me that a people can be so beaten down and still be the most generous, helpful people you will meet. These people literally give clothes off their back to complete strangers, walk grandmas home in the ice so they don't fall, and the kids can't accept anything without first giving something. It's absolutely amazing to me.

Mom- I did get Jessie's letter, I keep meaning to write her back but p-day time just flies here.

I also saw the picture you sent from Cincinnati, Kharkiv is in Eastern Ukraine, the Donetsk mission, but I've heard it's a beautiful city. It's just cool that Cincinnati has a sister city in Ukraine. You have to let me know as soon as you know who the new bishop will be, the mission has to know the change of information.

Cool story, we've been teaching Luda for a while now, well she went home to visit her family for the holidays, well we found out she's been reading the Book of Mormon every night with her parents and sister. They all went to church in her home town this week! The coolest thing is, the town she lives in doesn't have missionaries yet full time because we can't get permission, right now the elders just go every Sunday to go to the branch there. It was such an answer to prayer and fasting.

--
Sister Daniel

An Early P-day Morning‏ E-mail - December 31, 2012

Hello Everyone,

Well, Christmas (our Christmas) has come and gone and the good news is, Ukrainians celebrate holidays the whole month of January basically. Jan 1, tomorrow is New Years, the big holiday in Ukraine. Then the 7th is Christmas here, then the 14th is Old New Year. Basically January is one big party. This can also make missionary work more difficult and we've been warned to keep all diligence in the month ahead.

It was so great to see all of you! I didn't get in trouble, it's just that Sister Ebeling wanted to skype and then she told that to Sister Klebingat and I had no idea how long I had been on, so it was just coordinating with everyone.

So right now we're in a "tripanionship" Sister Ebeling is with me, but we also have Sister Karpenko with us, she's waiting on her companion, she'll have a short-term missionary this transfer and they'll be ready to go in a couple of days. It's been to merge personalities, but honestly I'm getting to the point where there is just too many people in the apartment. It's amazing how much junk you have when there is just one more of you. That and I've just been really easily annoyed all week. That might have been because I've been like deathly ill.

Basically, Wednesday night I just crashed. It was a flu bug and I was up all night throwing up, I can't remember the last time I was that sick. We ended up having to stay inside for  two days straight. Luckily we have some awesome members who came and would take Sister Ebeling to a lesson and bring her back. Our elders were also really helpful in giving blessings and bringing medicine and sprite.

But as for Christmas, we woke up and opened presents. Sister Karpenko didn't have anything to open and is not used to the American celebration of Christmas so we made her open a few of our presents, she thought it was fun. I was so happy with all of my presents, thank you so much.

Just before Christmas we had a baptism, her name is Valya and she is so fun. She showed up for her baptism in leather pants. We knew she didn't have any skirts so we gave her a few from the office, she seemed really happy with them and showed up to church the next day in a skirt, only it wasn't one we had given her, and it was leather. Fun.

Sending you a couple of pictures...I hope, okay so I forgot my cord to connect the camera to the computer. I'm so sorry please don't kill me. I'll try next week.

LOVE YOU!!

--
Sister Daniel