Family Home Evening

We had a great family home evening last night. We had the Assistances(Elders Andrus and Permenter) over with an investigator, Alexander, and a member of the branch, Tonya. We watched the movie, The First Vision. Then we all wrote down a question of the soul and took turns sharing our questions and getting into a discussion. It was great to watch the missionaries work with the investigator. Their knowledge of the scriptures and where to find exactly what they needed was great! We also had 2 other misionaries their, Elders Riley and Gwynn. Alexander is amazing. You can tell he has been waiting for the gospel. The spirit was so strong and watching him respond to the gospel teachings was incredible. Elder Andrus asked about being baptized and he said he would like to be baptized! August 10th is the date they are working towards. Alexander has been attending church, the english classes and even a branch picnic. He loves how the church is so strong in the committment of families. He said that families are an important part of society. Elder Andrus met Alexander on the street and they started talking and hit it off. He said he wasn't happy and wanted to be happy. Elder Andrus told him he had a message to share with him that has brought happiness to his life. And here we are now!

WE'VE ARRIVED

Dear Family and Friends,

I hope this works this time. I wrote another one and it didn't post and it only saved 2 lines. Anyway, we've been here for 4 weeks now. We've met all the missionaries, some of the members and some investigatiors. We've traveled to the farthest point north of our mission which is Sumy(7 hours fom Donetsk) and then south to Mariupol(2 hoursfrom Donetsk). The branches are wonderful and the saints are warm and friendly. We have 17 branches and many of them struggle mainly for Priesthood leaders. The Elders help out quite a bit but it makes it hard to work at finding more investagators. Our 4 couples help tremendously! Now if we could only have 4 times as many couples.

The country here is beautiful, so green. The summer has not been too bad. It gets hot and humid but not like the mid-west. I expected worse but it has rained once a week and cools things down. The people have been through a tremendous amout of changes and it has taken its tole on many. They just need good examples and the saints here are just that. They are small in number but the faithful are so strong. Visiting the branches is humbling yet the spirt is strong. I will write more later. Love Pres. and Sister Fry