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 

Speak your Language (from Sept. 23)

Dear Family 

I will first answer moms questions and then tell about my week. 

How are you?  Im great. ok but really im doing good. 

How is your new area? It is just as good as the hipe from the other missionaries. The people here are few but they are really strong.

Did the baptism take place that you told us about a while ago? Well the 2 small boys got baptized but the mom hasnt got baptized yet.d

 How is it being in the leadership of the branch? its funny and harder and easier then i thought i dont know how that works but its great. 

 What is the weather like right now? It has been raining this last week alot and aparently the winter is going to be a fun one im not looking forward to it. 

Do you have a new favorite food other than borsch that we could try? well i really like vereniky with sour cream but you really shouldnt try anything new while im not there you will probably make it wrong. 

This week we had our first real zone conferance which was fun and funny the things that pres. lattin think are problems and what he wants us to change so i will tell you about that. 

So on monday we had exchanges and i was with elder tribett we met up at the end of the day and planned to spend tuesday and wednesday together so that the people in lviv would be happy with us and wouldnt have to fight over us. On tuesday after english practice we walked home thought and it was raining and the walk home takes about an hour but we hit a terentral rain storm which hit us so hard and we were soaked even with unbrellas so that was a fun experience especialy since we had to use the shoes we had for the next day and they were water loged but we found others to use so that was good. 

So some new things from zone conference is that we will now be SYL ing all day everyday so yeah it will be fun and we are now banned from spending any time other than missionary work time with sisters. its a social activaty if we do. so no more district unity building lunches on pday and no more haircuts from sisters which sucks cause one sister here really likes cutting our hair so yeah. And no more excersising together. I think he is worried that by the end of the year with 29 elders and 26 sisters we will just be dubble dating. 

So our 2 investigators are doing really well they are reading and this time they had their brother sit in and he was interested too hopefully they will take a baptismal date the next time we come. they love having us over and we love being over we are just woried that we will get stuck in the friend zone and we dont want that to happen we want them diving deep into the waters of baptism. 

Yesterday and the day before we had president lattin here to teach us and teach the members and we really had no idea what to do cause he is here for like 4 days and didnt tell us he wanted to be on lessons or any expectations so its really weird he really strugles to tell us concreet things he is nothing like president k but i like him, he just barly studied with us and it was good he is working really hard on ukrainian so he is great.

Love Elder Naumann

Here he comes again

Dear Family,

Well this week is the week we got transfer info, and well it was interesting. So first let me give you a backround in what a typical transfer of president K goes, you stay with a companion for 2 transfers and in totall 4 in an area about 6 months and i like thismethid but now having pres. lattin as our mission president everything has changed. He likes people to only be in an area 2 transfers and with companions for 1.

So my companion is getting transferred to become a zone leader and im staying to become the group leader and to again to serve with you guessed it elder vernon the man i spent 6 months with already in a small cold town called brovery and now we are back together, He is the district leader and all the surroundings that we had in brovary like a big branch, cold ugly apt. and no languageskils. now we have a really small group and the language is good and the apt. is great so yeah it will be fun. It leads me to believe that i will be leaving uzhorod in 6 weeks.

Also something cool is that elder callister is coming into our district and will end his mission here with me and that will be cool it was funny because we had a lunch with a member here who does our registration asked us if i was serving with callister or vernonand i was like well i guess elder callister because i already served with elder vernon but i guess that doesnt make a difference to the lord. but as a consolation prize for not winning elder callister i get him in our district.

So mom you ask me about what i want in my Christmas package, and well you already know about the brown sugar and the peanut butter and you ask about anything else and well to be honest with you, I have clothes for the next year i have 4 suits (2 were gifts from a rich friend) and now i have an extra coat like a big guy also from that rich guy so i really dont know what more i could need. My good friend elder johansen just made a funny comment, We dont live in a third world country. I wasnt going to say anything but any country without peanutbutter is a third world country.

Well this week was uzhorodes 1120 birthday so that was cool except for the extra dose of drunk guys on the street but whatever. So something cool this week we had 3 Americans come to church and they have been coming here for this like children's help program and they were here 15 years ago when the branch here had just opened and then closed. They told us why the missionaries were taken out 15 years ago, its because the mission pres. wanted the big cities to grow and so he let this city die. they said that they have been praying for 15 years for this place to open again and now it has.

Well thats about all this week im glad everything is good at home and tell grandma i love her.

Love Elder Naumann