Random miracles

Dear Family,

This week sounds like it has been busy and full of lots of things, Well that's the same for me too, when i look back at the time that i have spent here in uzhorod it feels weird and i dont think that i like how fast time is going. Its also weird cause I have been working on school applications and it was weirder to have elder callister tell me that he is signing up for classes. Man real life comes way to quick and sometimes people think, If only i can make it to the end of my mission, or the end of school or this or that it will all be better and easier. That is not the case we have to let ourselves to be happy now because god intended us to be happy now and for us to see the beauty now.

This week we had a few visitors including the zone leaders for exchanges and elder tribett for de-registration. The zone leaders were sort of fun because we had elder terry back and all the members wanted to see him which is always fun to be with those missionaries and hope that the members would do the same thing for me if i ever come back.

We had some really cool miracles this week one of them including one of our members bringing one of their friends back to the church. She had already been taught most of the lessons but then fell off the map but now she wants to be baptized so we know how to provide that service. Its really cool cause she just dropped out of nowhere so we are going to do all we can to get her in the water.

We also had our first mutual activity with the 2 young men in our group where we had them invite their friends to come play soccer with a few Americans and we played them and its a good thing that elder callister can play soccer or else it would have been really embracing. well not really its not to hard to beet a few 12 year olds. Ok yeah it is they were really good.

Something happened this week that was sad and well at the same time unexpected and the same time very expected. So this week we were told that the mission pres. 1st councilor was coming down to talk and to teach us but we called him on Saturday and he told us that he wasn't coming so yeah i had the wonderful opportunity to prepare a 20 min talk man was it hard and i hear my talk was a bit long but i made it.

Well thats about it family there were some great miracles this week but no time will tell you next week.

Love Elder Naumann

Weeks of Firsts

Dear Family, 

Well this week has been fun we have really had some good success with investigators and alot of them area coming out of english and they are really interested. We have been having some phone problems this week well honestly since elder vernon got here just like in brovary everything goes wrong, This week we had the sisters lock their phone and the other elders get their phone lost and us having to go buy one, and the sisters multiply times have left their phone at home so yeah we are having fun. 

This week we also had exchanges and it was great being with Elder callister and elder johansen we had some interesting experiences together. On tuesday me and elder callister got together and worked on Wednesday and it was great elder callister congratulate you kim on the mission call he is super excited for you and hopes to see you at his home coming. I was also on a service project with elder johansen out at a members house but this time we built him a cabinet and it was funny because he wouldn't listen to us so we just did our best and learned patients and we spent about 4 hours with him, afterwords we talked with each other and we thought wow we could have done that in an hour and a half but thanks to the half crazy half blind member we got to have fun for 4 hours. 

We also visited a member who is in the hospital and has Cancer which is really sad and we just found out today that she herself doesn't know that she has Cancer, our doctor friend told us and it is sad she is 69 years old and really frail and its sad to see her but she is a trooper and is doing her best in with what she has and her daughter was there so we met her too. 

English was really good this week we have decided to change really everything cause we haven't really been finding investigators from English so we changed that and we found 4 investigators this week just from English and its great. 

This week was my first regular week to conduct sacrament and it was all set up with a member of the mission pres. coming down to speak but 2 days before he called and canceled. So we had to do some quick prep for some talks but they were fine. And this week I taught G.P. and the subject was eternal marriage and i got to say i dont like talking about stuff i have never done. 

Thats about it im glad to hear that every thing is going great. keep it up. 

Love Elder Naumann

General Conference in Ukrainian

Dear Family, 

Well this week was really good we got to watch general conference in ukrainian, and this was my first time that i had watched it inukrainian and not for language study. We have been watching it for comp. study at home on our tv but we only got the first session so far but its great so far. Watching it in ukrainian is really hard, Its like listening to someone who speaks like they were reading a collage paper and not the conversational words that i know so it is hard but it was fun. 

We have also been meeting alot this week with one member who is a recent convert and has been struggling with his addictions and so to help him we have been listening to the 12 step program of recovery that the church has so it has really been helping him and its really a great program. 

This week we got to play base ball again and it was way fun these Ukrainians just dont know how to play they want us to train them but none of us really know how to play but thats ok we spent some time talking about the Gospel and there were some kids who were like yeah i will come so that was cool. This one kid we talked to said that he is Greek Catholic and that he tried going to another church but they kicked him out because he was Greek Catholic. so we of coarse invited him to our church because we are always happy to take people in. 

We also spent some time doing some service with a member, this guy had us help him move logs that he was cutting down with a new chainsaw and well to give you an idea of this man he only has one good eye and lets just say that he had no safety equipment (dad you wouldn't have liked that) and he may have fallen a couple of times with the chainsaw going so yeah it was fun. Dont worry family I have learned my lessons of safety and didnt do anything stupid. 

We met with some investigators this week and had a really cool experience with this new investigator. So this man has been coming toenglish club for like a month and then this week out of nowhere when we were leaving a store we see him and he tells us that he knows a man in lviv who is a member and he basically just asked how does one become a member. Miracle right!!!!!!

So update on the whole group leader thing and branch situation with finances and all that fun stuff. So i have been talking with pres. Lattinthis week alot and now we area not part of the lviv branch we are now part of the lviv ukraine mission branch and pres. lattin will be our branch pres. and i will be a councilor and we wont have really any money but at least it will be by the rules. 

Thats about it this week family love you. 

Elder Naumann

Becoming what the lord wants

Dear Family, 

This week has been sort of stressful and full of new things and old things and things that i wouldn't have wished upon myself but one thing that i learned this week was to trust in god and to know that whatever he does and whatever he asks you to do he prepares a way for you to do it. It wont be easy and it will take time and will take effort but he is always there. 

This week i got myself a new and an old companion. Im back with elder vernon and its funny to see how we have changed and how we have stayed the same. We have spent some time this week contacting and teaching people. We have both noticed that when we were in brovary we taught with the most unity and with the most power, That was interesting to me because we didn't know the language and we didnt know what we were doing but we trusted in the lord and knew thats where we should be. 

I am now the acting group leader here in uzhorod and its scary, i conducted the meeting this week and i had to make it all up for the paper that we use was gone and we still cant find it so will have to make a new one. 

On top of running the meetings i also have to deal with all the money. I received a call from the mission pres. and he told me that i wasn't doing it right, unfortunately i was just doing what my 4 fathers told me to do and what they have always done. In my knowledge they didn't just do it blindly they asked up and the answers built up into my knowledge of how to run the branch, unfortunately we have to now change that oh well it will be hard but whatever

Spent some time with elder johansen this week while we were waiting for our new companions and we made the fun fetty finally, it was his 1 year mark and it was close to my 18 month mark, which was weird cause my sisters from my mtc group went home they went home............ I wasnt ready for that, i remember like it was yesterday that we were all in the mtc speaking awful Ukrainian and now one of our sisters is in Israel and is translating for 6 ukrainian women who live in her group. 

That was weird to me to hear that there was nothing at conference cause last year was so big i guess theydidnt want to do something crazy and big so soon after last years announcement, The sisters in our district are both 19 and they have only been out for 6 weeks they are stressed but they are celebrating their 1 year from the announcement date they were rather excited. 

Well thats it family mom its getting a bit colder but who know what will happen on this side of the mountains, and im curious to see what will happen with transfers too because pres. lattin is a stickler for money and once he sees how much money he is spending he might change his mind. and mom the lord really does know your knees....... 

Love Elder Naumann

New law (from Sept.9th)

Dear Family,

Well first things first this week we received an email telling us that we cant email pictures home or tell about peoples personal information like names or things like that and especially not letting family put things on facebook or blogs and other things like that so kim sorry take down the blog.  So family i will tell you things but i will leave out alot of things so bare with me.

Well this week has been really good and at the same time really long its weird the whole time warp that the mission creates but i like it. Well on monday we had not much but i did get a new dictionary its for polish and i got to say i like polish but we will see how much i study it along with ukrainian its just so easy. ok so the reason why im learning polish is unknown to me but im doing it for some reason.

We had something fun this week we got an announcement that we need to in the next 2 weeks have as many verities of fruits and veggies so guess what we did went all out we have had all together 45 different fruits and veggies and man it was hard for me to eat all those veggies raw but i got to say mom that i like squash but for the most part my taists buds just delt with the veggies calmly.

We also had english on tuesday and thursday and it was good our english program is really good the people love it and the people are really funny sometimes and something cool that happened this week we got a call from this woman who wanted us to come to her english club so that natives can come over so this week we should go.

We had a really good exchanges this week with the zoneleaders and i was with the elder who served here first so lots of people loved him and really well everyone knew him on the street i hope that when i leave and get the opportunity to come back that people remember me too. we also had family night and alot of people came it was fun we made air plains and tried to get eturnal life it was fun.

So on saturday we had a really cool picnic where most of the members came and also some people fromenglish came and an investigator from lviv who useto live here so yeah we had about 20 people there and we mad them american hamburgers which me and my companion made for them they loved it and they made us shashleky which is ukrainian shishkabob they were way good we had a really good time next to the river here.

We also after that had a really good lesson with 2 people who were really interested in the gosple which was really cool they were asking great questions adn it was fun. the guy works as a black smith so that was cool.

We had a good church meeting this week too some members didnt come so that was sad but its interesting when in lviv some church members dont come its not a big deal but when it happens here we find them or at least look for them so thats what we did.

Sorry everything is not very detailed but thats all i can do sorry.

Thats crazy about the weather at home who knew that that would happen after you took out the ugly bush. glad you all had a cool fireside and everyone is doing good, mom sound great.

Love you all and have a great week.

Elder Naumann