Week 3 In the Ukraine   7/30/2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Well I love you all so much and I know that through your prayers and support that the Lord is helping me through my time here in the Ukraine. I love it here and it’s crazy to think that another week has already come and gone. It’s just interesting to me to see how quickly time does go. It’s true what they say, that days go by weeks but weeks go by days. Things are moving a long here.  There still is a lot of adjusting to do and figuring out what everything is and who people are. That is probably one of the hardest parts, besides understanding them. But that will come.

 I have been eating a lot of new foods.  I had some Borsch  (Hot borscht, the kind most popular in the majority of cultures, is a hearty soup. It is almost always made with a broth made of beets. It usually contains heavy starchy vegetables including potatoes and beets, but may also contain carrots, spinach, and meat. It may be eaten as a meal in itself, but is usually eaten as an appetizer with thick, dark bread.^{[citation needed]} )  and it was actually super good.
I have started to eat tomatoes and onions and all this other stuff that I have never tried because I was afraid to. So if the way I am expanding my food is any indication on how my mission will change me, I seem to be headed in the right direction.

The members are super nice and understanding when I try to talk to them. I am just doing what I can to get acquainted with the members and build their trust in me.  I want to help them out and also want them to be happy to help us out when we have investigators. We spend a lot of our days on the streets contacting people. We have gotten a ton of contacts, but just a lot of them have been pretty busy with things, so we have not had a ton of lessons. But that’s okay. In my eyes I hope every person I talk to, whether they except me or not, sees me as being someone nice. If they reject what I have to say, I just wish them a happy day and just move on because that’s all we can do and maybe they will accept it later on. There are people here ready to hear the gospel and as long as we keep working hard we will find those people.
Currently we have an investigator who has been investigating for over 5 years now. Yeah a long time and apparently he has progressed a lot these last couple of months since my trainer has been working with him and he came to church yesterday so we are moving in the right direction with him. We have quite a few lessons planned for this coming week so I hope that they all stick with it and hear our message.   I know it will change their lives if they will listen with an open heart.  I love being here and talking to the people, even though I don’t really understand them all that well, I do my best to just love them.
We ran into a few guys last night who were a little drunk but we talked with them for a little while and I actually had a conversation with one of the less drunk guys. It was really cool to see that I am learning this language and I can talk with people even with the little that I know right now. That was a great thing for me and lifted me up. One of the things we like to do is, when we see an African, we immediately go up to them because most of the time they speak English. They are very friendly and willing to listen and yesterday we had the opportunity to talk to a guy from Nigeria.  He knew exactly who we were and seemed interested but he’ll be leaving for a month so when he gets back we will give him a call. We also met an Indian who said he had friends who were interested in Christ but they also are gone until the end of next month, so hopefully we will be busy at the end of August.  It’s crazy to think it is August already. Well almost August.
I know that the Lord is always with me and will never leave me and no matter what comes my way he will be there to lift me back up and help me get through all of my troubles and trials. I know that the atonement is real and that Jesus Christ is the Savior and redeemer of the world.  I know that the Book of Mormon is a correct book and is another Testament of Jesus Christ and is 100% true. I know that Joseph Smith restored the true gospel back to the earth and I know we have a living prophet now Thomas S. Monson and that he leads and guides our church today through inspiration from Our Savior Jesus Christ. I know that this church is true and if anyone has a sincere desire to know that if what I say is true…….. Ask our loving Heavenly Father in Heaven, I promise you that he will answer you and if you have already done so, do it again because we can always build our testimonies stronger and stronger.   We should never stop building our testimonies. I am grateful for this gospel and the blessings of happiness and joy and hope for a better world (ether 12:4). This gospel blesses families and families can and will be together forever when they enter into the everlasting covenant of temple marriage. I love you all and wish you all the best and hope you have a wonderful day and continue to see all the blessings the Lord has given you in your life. You are all amazing and know that I love you all so much. Thank you for all that you do for me!

Love Elder Litchfield