There was a huge Soccer game in Kiev between Real Madrid and Liverpool. That is why our train was so late.

05/28/2018

I won't bore you with the lame stuff that happened at the beginning of the week. Let me just skip to the cool stuff.

Friday even we had planned to roast smores with our recent converts and other investigators. The other elders found a good spot in the forest by their apartment and so we went with Katya, Nastya, Ira, Sasha (all recent converts), Viola (another member), Nastya Volos (our investigator), Vova (Sasha's friend) and Metco (a guy who comes to English Practice and Youth Night religiously). We had a great time and had a good spirituyal thought besides all of the tasty ukrainian smores.

Early Saturday morning we got up and got on a train with Katya, Nastya and Ira to go to Kiev to the Temple. It was so great. We got there in time to stay for a little bit of English Practice in Borschagovsky where Sister Sutton is serving. Sister Sutton previously served in Vinnistya and was the missionary who started teaching Ira. They were all supoer excited to see each other.

We did baptisms for the dead and it was a very wonderful experience. 

After that it was around 3:00 - 3:30 pm and had a lot of time left before our train. A lot of time. Our train was for theat night at 11:45 pm and so we had some time. We walked so, so much that day around Kiev. That was some of the most walking I have ever done in my life. We were all so dead tired by the end. Some of us got a little bit of sleep on the train. We got back to Vinnitsya at around 3:00 am and had to take a taxi which is a pretty rare occasion. And we were lucky to find one that could fit seven poeple. I didn't sleep very well at all and then we had to get up for my before church meetings with the Branch Presidency. Yeah we were pretty tired. 

President Kumferman with Sister Kumferman and Maggie came to our branch and spoke. It was really great to see them all as well as Zhenya the mission driver and his awesome and hilarious wife, Sveta. Nastya Volos, our investigator was unable to come to Sacrament meeting due to her helping her nine year old brother back for his chess turnement and also due to the fact that her mom took her keys with her and she had to wait for her to get back before she could leave. But she did come in time for Sunday School which was lead by Viola and Natasha who are preparing for missions. We talked about why scripture study is important and more on how we can improve our studies. After we had our monthy branch lunch which President Kumferman was very please to find out about. After that we grabbed Nastya, Viola and Natasha and had a lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was so good. Natsya has such a good understanding of gospel principles and we can tell that she is really growing. She had already agreed to be baptized but wants to read the Book of Mormon and receive her witness but on Sunday she agreed to the goal of being baptized on the 24th of June. She is so great we are confident that everything will work out. Tonight we are taking her over to the Bevsyuk family for a family home evening and things should be great.

We took lots of pictures this week. More correctly, Elder Clifford took lots of pitcures this week.

But he forgot his camera and since mine is beasically a toy camera I don't have pictures this week but next week there should be. 

This week we have a mission wide conference where Elder Calister and president Martino are coming and so we are going to Kiev again. In preperation we have been asked to reread certain talks by Elder Calister and all of them are just awesome and testify so boldy of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the calling of the Prophet Josheph Smith. If I wasn't already convinced before all of those talks I am now thouroughly convinced of the thruthfulness of this all. 

Please make the Book of Mormont the "corner stone" of your testimony as it has been made mine.

Старейшина Класон / Elder Clawson