Top of the mornin' to you!

Week 48

Please excuse my british, but we met a man who was on vacation from england this week.  He is a new investigator, and is Ukrainian, but you wouldnt be able to tell, because hes lived across the pond so long that he just sounds like a brit, even when he speaks Russian.  We cant tell how interested he actually is but he is going to play tennis with us.

​Lena is a sad story again.  We taught her about eternal families yesterday, Vika was on the lesson, and she is still smoking :( only one a day, but we need 0.  I asked what is written on every cigarette pack and she responded "Smoking Kills" I then asked "Do you believe in that statement" She burst out "No!!" and began explaining how smoking is healthy for you because it is like cleansing your body with fire, which is why you get relaxed.... I hope you sense my frustration through the monitor.... After explaining what smoking actually does to you, I asked what is more important to you.  A pack of cigarettes, or an eternal family. Her Mom chimed in "Yeah, is that cigarette more important than me?" She replied "no of course not." She agrees she needs to quit smoking, but she still isnt quite there yet.  Vika suggested she replace the bad habit of smoking with a good habit like running.  She rejected the idea at first, but I think she will warm up to it. ​we arent giving up on her yet, but we wont be meeting her nearly as often.

Vika is going on a mini mission, which is something we dont have in America, basically she will be a missionary for 3 weeks and then come home.  It is really helpful, she will be serving in Kharkiv with Sister Bollingbroke, and Sister Morris.  She will be a good missionary.

I love you all!

Hi buddy,

So this Tuesday is me and Dad's 20 year anniversary!!!  Can you believe that?...I mean I know you are almost 10 so that probably makes sense to you, but it is blowing my mind!  I can't believe I only got 7 1/2 years with him in marriage:(.  This Tuesday also marks 11 months for you!  That is just as crazy!

I am sorry I missed you by just 10 minutes last week on your question. You told me I can't have conversations with you so I don't usually wake up in the middle of the night anymore, cause it keeps me up after.  Randomly I woke up last week and got it, but was just late I think.  I hope you got your watch...I am assuming you did because I noticed you withdrew money from your account.  You can count it as a birthday present, so I put more money in your account from my bank account.

I was really worried you got heat stoke last week and ran out of water.  Are you feeling better, and can you get more water delivered so you don't run out again?

Well,  we have had a super busy week...again.

We had a playgroup for Jacob on Thursday with the neighborhood kids.  This week is Jordy's playgroup.  We helped a lot with the funeral for Tacie.  

We went to the cabin on Friday to say goodbye to G&G for the last time.  Grandpa was pretty down about still having to do the finances for the mission.  I am hoping that when he gets to Fiji (which was today) he will feel the spirit of missionary work and be up for the job.  I am really excited for them and super proud of them and you!  It is fun to have so many missionaries serving.  I think Cam and Kaes are going to start thinking that everyone will be leaving for a mission.  

Cam got a strange sickness but I think he is getting better.  I thought he had heat stroke...it's been over 100 for a while now.  But then Thursday night I noticed a large lump under his ear.  We took him in and they think it is some crazy infection so he is on some medicine.  It has gone down in size quite a bit, so I'm hoping he gets better soon.  

Yesterday Dad and I went to his 25 year high school reunion!  It was up in pocatello ID.  It was a small group, but was nice to go on a little road trip again.  We had a good time.

Josh is really getting strong with this workout that Mikey has him on and has some definition in his arms now.  He is feeling pretty good about it.  Mike works him pretty hard.  He is noticeably happier as well and has better endurance for things.  He is way more active now and the boys play soccer everyday together.  It's a great change.

Jacob is a little sad about G&G.  It will be the hardest for him to adjust.  The Tboys couldn't come this weekend.  Dad did take Ethan out to lunch on Friday.  They are all doing good.

Our lesson in Sunday school today had a lot to do with Missionary work, planting seeds of faith for  ourselves and also in the mission field.  It was a neat lesson to hear all the different experiences of others.  I am so proud to be part of that through you.  It is awesome to think about how many seeds you are planting on a daily basis. Even if you never see the full extent of how you helped.  I am really proud to have 2 sons on missions and feel very grateful.  I love you very much.

I got an awesome email from Sister Sullivan this week telling about the tender mercy of the a/c unit and packages.  What a blessing for both of you and E.B.  I am so glad you got your package early...but also worry that now you won't have a new package on your birthday.  At least save the cake mix for that day!  Did you save any of it to open on your birthday, like the envelope?  If not I want details of what you thought of the package and the envelope.

The Voice Recording last week were awesome!!!!!  First off it was a mini miracle that they came on EB birthday and they were both him speaking the whole time.  I was able to send them on to his mom that day and she LOVED them.  It really cheered her up.  They went and ate burgers and drank Root Beer for his birthday and listened to the recordings.  The later that night Vika sent me a photo of the birthday party you gave him and I sent that to Julie as well.  She was so happy.  Good job for giving him a party, I won't ground you when you get home haha;).  I loved that when EB read that to you your response was, "She's not kidding".  You know me well:).  We drank root beer too and got free refills.  We often listen to dad's patriotic mix so we did that for you as well.  What I really loved about the recordings though was all the personality we heard from both of you.  It picked up your voice to so we could hear you laughing, joking, teasing and interacting with each other.  It was a blessing to hear how fun your relationship is and that you are still the same you, happy and having a good time.  So I want more messages like that.  The two of you talking and telling stories together.  We all laughed so hard...Jacob did his uncontrollable laugh.  It was so fun.

Your letters arrived in the mail this week!!!!  Thank you so much!!!!!!  Seriously it was such a great surprise.  I loved reading it.  I am not concerned that you are "obsessed" with Sarah, I just want you to keep an open mind.  I loved the part that you said, "keeping her in my heart helps with the fact that Ukrainian women and very attractive".  We laughed about that!  I love Sarah too.  Keep sending more letters if you can.  It is really so helpful to get any extra communication or stories from you.

Questions...

1-Package details

-were you surprised and excited to get it?

-how was it delivered?

-did you open it?

-did you save any to open on your birthday?

-Did you love it?

-What was your favorite thing in it?

2-Lena???  Did she quit or did you have to give up on her?

3-How did EB birthday go?

4-Vika did a post on Facebook and Sister Sullivan said, "you will make such a great missionary"...is she going on a mission now?

5-Any new investigators?

6-Funny story?

7-special message for me?

8-Any trips to the mission home/zone training coming up?

9-Still happy, positive and loving Sumy?

10-Is the a/c unit helping?

11-Can you get more water so you don't run out again?

12-Are you feeling better?

I gave Janika your love and got her email  janikas33@gmail.com  Send her an email:)  The funeral was really sweet.  Her and kyndra both spoke and did a great job.  

I miss you and love you.  Thank you for serving a mission so faithfully.  Thank you for being obedient out there.  It brings me comfort knowing you will be blessed for it.  You're the best!

I love you,

Mom

I loved the package, especially the protein bars, they taste so good.  I was surprised and excited.  The Ukrainian post system.  Yes.  No....... I meant to, but then I had nothing to do for a few minutes and lost control...  I loved it.  Probably the carnation and the Protein bars, I gave vika some poptarts because shes never tried them before.  She didnt quit yet, but we think she is on the way.  It went good.  Yeah I explained That in the big email.  Yes, one English dude, and one indian woman.  There are a lot on the recordings, so I will just send those.  I love you and you are so special to me!  I miss you so much, your the best mom in the whole wide world.  No, zone conference is in Kharkiv, in august.  Yes except it cooled down as soon as the ac unit got here, we still like it though.  Yes we actually had too much this week.  I am feeling way better.

Everything is really going well I love you.

Who turned on the Sun??

Week 47

Yeah it is blazing hot here. I actually got heat exhaustion a few days ago. I am better now, and they are sending us an AC unit from Dnepr.  If the heat wasnt bad enough we ran out of drinking water, and so we have been living from bottle to bottle here.  IT has been tough pickings contacting with it being so hot, so  we have converted to tracting,(with the hope we will be able to sit in someones nice air conditioned home) that hasnt turned out a whole lot of sucess yet, but we will stick to it. 

Mini rant: I am losing my english.  Success has two c's and two s's, there are many other words like this that I can no longer spell, Colege wil be realy fun.

Lena is still smoking and we may need to drop her if she cannot quit.  There is not much we can do at this point, I dont feel like she actually wants to quit.

While tracting yesterday I learned something: HOw to deal with JWs, or any other person who "knows" the bible. TO preface: Elder Biesinger and I have been studying the bible like crazy lately, there is a large well from which the Holy ghost can draw to help us teach people. But sometimes people dont want to be taught by 2 18 year old young men(understandable, what do we know anyway?) Well we tracted into a JW, and we started off friendly, and normal.  We gave him a restoration pamphlet, I could tell due to the questions he was asking that he was a JW, and so we started talking.  HE rejected our ideas and instituted some of his own claiming "I only read the clean bible" So we had a bible bash, we tried at several points to invite the spirit, but he wouldnt have it.  After kicking his butt from Genesis to Revelations, we left.  What did I learn: If they say no to a prayer, or try to rebuke what you are saying rather than listen, it is not worth your time.  Bible bashing gets you no where, even when you win,  you still lose because that took 30 minutes, and there are 40 more doors to knock on.

I love you all! If there is anything you can do to help right now, it would be to Pray that the people of Ukraine will soften their hearts, and that the missionaries here will be able to help them!

We had a pretty full week!  

The biggest thing was me and dad having our anniversary trip.  I sent a ton of pictures of it.  We flew into portland oregon on Tuesday night.  We drove the next day to multonova falls.  It was beautiful.  It's just about 20 minutes east of portland.  Then we headed west to the coast.  We stopped at Cannon beach.  It's the picture on the ocean with the giant rock.  That is called Haystack rock.  During low tide there are a ton of tide pools that you can see all sorts of sea creatures.  There was a ton of Jelly fish washed up on shore too.  Then we drove down to Newport Oregon beach.  We stayed the night there right on the ocean.  It was so pretty.  The sunset was amazing.  

The next day we drove to Crater Lake.  Hands down the prettiest lake me and dad have ever seen!  It was royal blue and just breath taking.  You have to hike a mile down to it and then hike back up.  The guy said, "Its a mile down and feels like 10 miles coming back up".  He was right!  It was worth it though.  Then we drove past a couple small water falls and on to Mount Shasta.  We stayed overnight in a lodge there.  

The next day we headed on the long to Burney Falls.  It was so spectacular.  That hike was much easier as well.  Then we drove to Ferndale and stayed in a victorian Bed and Breakfast.  It was the cutest little town.  We loved it.  The street was all old victorian buildings.  The cemetery was super creepy with graves above ground.  That night we saw a woman at the bar and she was from Russia.  I talked to her a bit and showed her pictures of you in Ukraine.  She thought it was awesome that you were doing it.

The next morning we drove to the Redwood Forest.  Wow...the trees were unbelievable.  No way to even describe it.  There were miles of forest through california, but the trees in the Redwoods were crazy big.  We were able to do more hiking through that.  Then we drove to Glass beach.  It is a beach that over 100 years ago the towns people would throw their trash over the cliffs into the ocean.  They did it for years until in the 1920's they made them stop.  They were able to clean up a lot of the garbage, but all the glass was everywhere.  Over the last 100 years the beach has become a beautiful beach covered in sea glass.  There was more glass creating the beach than sand or rocks.  It was so pretty.  After that we drove the rest of the way to Oakland California.  

Today we woke up to an alarm going off in the building and had to be evacuated.  Luckily it was a false alarm.  We had a leisurely morning and then got some lunch at a cute moroccan restaurant and then went to the Oakland Temple until leaving for the airport.

It was such a great trip.  We drove between 4-7 hours everyday.  We loved every minute of it.  I'm so glad we went.

The kids were able to play with baby deer yesterday at one of Grandma/pa's friends house.  Mike and keely watched them for us.  There is a new pokemon go game out...it's gone crazy in just a week and EVERYONE is playing it.  Well the kids were playing it and went on a walk.  Josh, Jacob and Jordy.  They were down by the Russel's house and some dude was out across the street.  He started yelling at the kids wondering if they were playing it.  He threatened them that he has a gun in his pocket and would shoot them if they got on his property.  He got up in Josh's face and apparently dropped too many F Bomb to count.  Jacob and Jord were terrified.  Mike had to call the police and they did a report.  I'm super bugged and am going to do some more about it tomorrow.  Who does that?  I guess he was drunk.

We also had some tragic neighborhood news yesterday.

 Tacie Sorenson (janika's sister that is Cam's age) was hit by a truck yesterday in front of her house and killed.  It was just awful as you can imagine.  Everyone is really sad, it has shaken the whole neighborhood.  The family is holding up ok, but I'm sure it will be rough.  Poor Cam cried quite a bit when I told him.  It was really sad.  I know they could use extra prayers.  If you want I can get Janika's email if you would like to send a note to her.  Let me know.

Sorry to have to tell you something so sad.  

Fun news was that Grandma and Grandpa saw Trevor at the MTC several times.  I told them to watch for him and Granma was like, "I don't think we will recognize him".  I said, "he is 6' 5" and has red hair...I think he will be easy to spot".  Lisa was so excited to get that picture of him.

Questions for the day-

1-Are they going to change your mission name from the Ukraine Dnepropetrovsk mission to the Ukraine Dneiper mission?

2-How are you doing?  Happy, positive?  Are you enjoying Sumy and E. B.?

3-How are you celebrating E. B. birthday?

4-Did he get his birthday package?  I'm thinking you guys will get your packages together.

5-Please tell me that Lena stopped smoking and is getting or got baptized!!!???

6-Do you want Janika's email?

7-Is there anything I can do for you?

8-Are you still loving Sumy or are you hoping for a change next time?

9-Is there something wrong with your camera?  Why aren't you sending many pictures?

10-Is Vika still getting married?  She took all the pics of him and her off Facebook all the sudden.

11-I love the recordings...keep them coming.  I love when I can hear E.B. laughing in the background!!!  Send more.

12-It was Ethan's birthday so give him a shout out.

13-Will your mission be getting more missionaries soon?

14-Special message for me.

I love you so much and really miss you!  Sometimes I can't believe I have survived this long without you.  I am really proud of you for serving a mission.  With you, Dakkon and G&G out, I'm a little jealous.  I want to go out and serve a mission now too.  

We are all doing good.  G&G leave Sat. for Fiji.  We will miss them, but we will survive.  Thanks for being amazing.  I love you.

Love mom

Wow sounds like you did a lot of stuff.  THose TREES ARE HUGE!! I cant even believe it!  Lots of pretty places, I am sure you and dad had a good time.  I dont know if they will change the name, we say Dneper now anyways.  I am doing well, my work out watch broke and I want to get a nice one that wont ever break.  I love Sumy and EB.  He doesnt like celebrating his birthday, but I made him let me buy watermelon(Which I like now) and I am trying to pull something with the members to get a surprise bday party for him, but its not looking like it will work.  He didnt get it yet, but as soon as someone comes back from Dnepr we will have it.  Lena still hasnt quit, and cannot be baptized, Thursday is the Do or Die day for her, she will really have to choose.  Yes send me her email and tell her I love her.  Give me permission to buy a good workout watch and thatll do it for me:)  Camera works, I just am still sad that elder biesingers camera is better. I have a ton to send today.  Yeah I dont know if it is still happening, she got a little irritated when I asked about it, but she is doing okay.  I dont know if we will get more missionaries soon.  

I love you so much mom and that trip was way cool! What is the Pokemon game? and what is the big deal with the guy? I will find him, and I will find him, and I will say scary things in Russian to him, and if he was drunk, then I know exactly how to deal with that.  I will send that birthday shout out to him.

I am so happy you are my mom, and I cant wait to be back home.  I love all of you so much and I know we will be a family forever.

So can I buy the watch or no? Elder biesinger is getting one today, it could be like a birthday present, please respond to this!

Yes!! Love You!!

Transfer 6: Completed

Week 46

This week went well, had a new investigator, went to Kharkiv for zone training, went on Exchanges, and did other typical missionary activities. We got transfer calls on Saturday, and guess what! I am staying in Sumy with Elder Biesinger! I am so happy! Me and Him get along pretty well.  So that new investigator is kind of a funny story.  

We wanted to be extra diligent this week, and we got tired.  SO I said Elder, I need a bench.  We found a bench and proceeded to sit thereon. During this time a young man, who had clearly had more than one beer, began talking to us.  He asked if he could tell us something about science. A second man walked up and listened in on it. He continued to cite "The Oxford University of America" (I didnt have the heart to tell him oxford wasnt in America) We let him finish his shpeel on photons and electrons and heat exchange...... We really showed our diligence by not falling asleep, then I asked "Cool, can we explain something spiritual to you?" He and the other Man both sat on the bench.  We taught quite simply the principle of Repentence and a little bit about the atonement of Jesus Christ.  Then they started arguing about why we were there.  I piped up "Can we tell you why we are here?" They responded yes, please do! We taught the restoration, and gave each of them a book of mormon.  THe older man (Not the science from oxford university of america one) started talking with us more, and he asked about church, and said he would attend. That was a good night.  

Besides that we had an Exchange with Elder Montgomery, He is our district leader, and it went well.  He showed us that he loved us and that is what my definition of a good district leader is, so I trust him.

We tried the balloon thing again, and it went pretty well.  We got a referral from church Headquarters today from Mormon.org, which we wrote on the balloons, so I hope that we made an impact with them.  

I love you all! I know the church is true, I am going to tell everyone about it! But maybe right now just the people in Sumy.

I am super excited to hear about transfers.  I really hope NOTHING has changed for you!  Area or Comp.  I am hoping maybe they sent a couple more missionaries your way.

Well, Grandma and Grandpa are officially missionaries!!!  We went up to the cabin today for the Stake presidency to set them apart.  It was really nice.  They go to the MTC tomorrow morning.  They will be there for 1 week and then the next week they will spend up in Salt Lake for the nurse training.  They fly out to Fiji on July 23.  I am really excited for them.  I think Jacob will struggle the most out of our kids.  I think Cam and Kaes are going to assume that everyone just goes on missions all the time at this point!

We had a big birthday party yesterday for Cam, Kaes, and Zach.  It was a BBQ and swimming party. I sent pictures of that.  Kaestli is super excited to be 5 now!  She is 5 going on 15 at this point.  Thanks for the birthday wishes for her and Cam.  

Dad and I have officially been married over 10 years now.  We are heading on a anniversary trip on tuesday.  We are flying in to Portland and renting a car.  We will drive down the coast and enjoy a bunch of different sites and then fly home from Oakland CA.  We are really excited and definitely in need of some quality time away from all the kids.

We are all enjoying summer.  It has been strange to have everyone home all together.  Mikey has been working Josh out every morning at 6:15 am.  He is really starting to look good, and is growing tall.  The Tboys have been coming around a lot which has been great.  Ethan brought 3 girls home on the 4th and then the same girl home last night.  I think it's an official girlfriend at this point.  He went to dinner at her house tonight.  She seems nice and is the daughter of the bishop.  We had Jordy chaperoning them last night...haha.

Everything else is pretty much the same.  I'm hoping things slow down a bit.  I'm not ready for summer to be over and it seems to be flying by.

How is everything going with you?  I want all the details of this new transfer if there are changes...again...hoping for no change.  It has been funny to be Facebook friends with Vika.  She is so cute and seems really excited to be getting married.  Dad was teasing that you are upset because you were hoping to bring her home since she is so pretty.  When is she moving?

Alright...questions-

1-Transfer info

2-are you getting any mail at all?  The package is on it's way...it's your birthday package and your hump day package.

3-Did Lena come to church today?  Is she on target for baptism?  I have been praying for her.

4-Have you heard about the new law about missionary work in Russia? / Do you think it will affect your mission?

5-What is your favorite part of Sumy?

6-What do you do on Pday?

7-Can you go see any sites?

8-Now that you are in Sumy would you want us to come pick you up?  Is it safer/prettier?

9-Are you guys doing ok up there alone?

10-Do you have much contact with the  Sullivans?  

11-When will you travel back down for a meeting?

12-Is there anything I can do for you?

13-Are you healthy? Any problems with feet legs etc?

14-message for me;)

Well,  I miss you like crazy.  I realized the other day you are now older than I was when I married Dad.  How is that possible???  It blows my mind.  It will be our 20 year anniversary on the 26th which just seems impossible.  It's also sad that we were only married for 7 1/2 of those years.  I miss him a lot.  I love your voice recordings so much.  You sound a lot like dad.  The stories this last week were awesome!  I loved hearing E.B in the background laughing at you.  Keep sending those!  It is awesome.  Also I need more pictures:)

I love you so much!  Keep being awesome and crushing it out there!  I am so proud of you!  You're the best! 

 Love you,

Mom

Same stuff.  Yes I got 3 letters at zone training on Friday.  EVERYONE is way jealous of it.  The Sister Training Leaders actually asked if they could read it and pretend it was from their moms, it was really funny.  Everyone really thinks it is ridiculous, until they dont get a letter.  Lena did come to church, and she will get baptized next Saturday hopefully, she has learned all the stuff she just needs to finish quiting smoking.  Yeah I heard about the church thing, and no, it wont affect us unless Ukraine does the same thing.  Probably the people and how clean it is.  I really like Sumy. WE study, email, shop, and then we try to find stuff to send to our families, it is hard.  There are a few places, but they are too far away from everything else.  Yeah if we could go to Sumy, Dnepr just isnt the ideal "I want my family here" vacation spot.  IT is safer and prettier.  Yeah, it is funny, we feel so isolated sometimes.  Yeah president Sullivan gives us a call everyonce in a while, and Sister sullivan always cares, we call her "Mom".  I dont know when we will travel back down, if we need something I guess we could always do exchanges.  Nope I am good.  Yes I am healthy and no problems with feet or legs.  I love you mom! I got permission from Elder Mccleary to write letters after Planning, so I am going to send a lot more now.  I probably owe you somewhere around 200 letters.

Dear Jax,

I love you so much!  Thank you for being nice to me before you go on your mission.  Jax, and thank you for playing mine craft with me.

Love Cam and our family

Your welcome I love you!

Dear Jax,

I hope you have a good summer.  It's my birthday today...so Happy Birthday to me. I'm opening my presents, so I hope you have a good summer with me.

I love you too so much.  I love you so much!!!  

Love, Kaes

Your welcome sis I love you!

Моя Родина (My Home land)

Week 45

Well, it has been 8 months since I have set foot on American soil, and I will never take that for granted again.  When you are away from it, you really start to miss it.  For all of you still living in the best country on earth, drink a rootbeer for me, and take a good long look at that flag.  "And The Star Spangled banner in triumph shall wave, over the land of the free, and the home of the brave!"  

Well back to Ukraine, everything here is going pretty good, I love all of you and think your are amazing,  We worked hard this week, tried new contacting ideas, talked to families tried(It is very seldom that we succeed) to help people.  

Craziest thing that happened this week, one of the young single adults Vika, walks into church with a ring on her finger.  Neither I nor elder biesinger understood what was going on.  And then a man wed never seen before walks in and he has a ring on his finger, and she is showing us her hand and freaking out and we are standing there like "Error 301: YOu are missing something huge!! please reboot and try again"  He is an American soldier, from Sumy, that went to high school at West Jordan, then Graduated at East Highschool, and i was really taken back when he spoke english like an American, and just last week we thought she was single and that we had to baptize a young guy for her to marry, but nope Facebook works wonders, and now she is getting married.  Unfortunately he is going to take her back with him to america.  THis is unfortunate becasue she is a strong member and this happens to like everyone who is a strong member. We need strong member more in Ukraine than in America, but that is whatever.

Ukraine had their "Constitution day" On Tuesday, may I just say, they dont celebrate it nearly as correctly as americans do. 

Lena, our investigator didnt come to church, but she has quit smoking, so now she just needs to come to chruch one more time, she really wants the gift of the Holy Ghost.  We will work with her.  Everyone in our english class was way happy about the sullivans coming, they all commented about what was said and how it felt.  I think they all felt the spirit.  ONe of them, Nick, is actually reading the book of mormon on his own now, we plan to help him become converted. 

I recorded a couple stories on the voice recorders, Ill type one of them up.

​​Walkin through center just my comp and me a few weeks ago, as usual approached by a homeless man "Hello" WE respond in turn with a "Hello How are you, can we help you?" He asks if we are americans (That is a big deal here (They still believe our streets are paved with Gold)). We respond affirmatively, then he asks, "why wont you help Ukraine?" We respond with something to the effect of "That is why we are here, to help Ukraine>" He says "No no no no, i mean military help. Do you know about Obama?"  we respond "Yes we know about Obama". "call him and tell him to help ukraine!" We say okay and leave conversation over.  WE see him every now and then and we try to share spiritual thoughts but everytime we see him he asks "Did you call Obama yet?" Well the other day I got sick of hearing "Did you call Obama yet? Why didnt you call Obama, dont your care about Ukraine? just call obama and all will be well".  I cant believe this guy thinks we can just "Call Obama" so we see him, he asks "Did you call Obama, what did he say?" I respond "He did not answer"  (No we didnt call Obama) that satisfied him, and I didnt lie, Obama really did "not answer" a phone call at some point in his life, Irritant neutralized. Pray for Lena and our investigators, and pray that missionaries around the world will  have a good week. Happy 4th!

As you can see from all the pictures we have had an insane busy, amazing week. In fact I'm typing this on my phone at bear lake. So sorry this will be short because I'm a terrible phone typer. The highlight was obviously Cams baptism yesterday. It was really sweet. It was also his birthday. We headed to bear lake for dads family reunion right after.  Cam is feeling so happy and important. They had a party at the reunion for him with a piñata. The kids had a lot of fun with their cousins. Josh and jord were enjoying the fact they weren't blood related to any of the girls. Jordy tried to get a number from one of the girls. It was funny.
We had fun at the Oakley rodeo this week too. Clint camped with the boys after.
I'm pretty exhausted from all the activities that we've been doing. I'm looking forward to a less busy week. We will go boating in the morning and then head home.
We all miss you very much but we are so proud too and really happy that you are serving a mission.
I'm excited to hear about your week.
I sent your birthday/jump day package this week. Only problem I forgot to add a letter from grandma and grandpa...sorry. I know they email you a lot though. I hope you get it before your birthday but I didn't really wrap anything. It's mostly what you asked for.
Kaestli has her birthday this week. Can you believe she will be 5!!!!  Crazy. She is super sweet and spunky!
Questions-
1rumor has it that some people already got a call about transfers...do you know anything about your transfer?  Do you think you'll stay in sumy?
2-did Lena quit smoking? I pray every night for her.
3-is she still set for baptism Saturday?  Who will baptize her?
4-how is tennis going?
5-how is EB and you getting along?
6-do you like that I send photos of what we're doing, or does it make you homesick?
7-is there anything I can do to better support you?
8-what are you going to do for the 4th of July?
9-are you happy and positive?
10-why did you have such little time last week?  Your emails seemed shorter.
11-when the Sullivan's came did they bring any letters with them?  I'm still sending about once a week.
12-when do you head back down for zone conf/etc?
13-special message for me.
14-birthday message for kaestli.

I love you so much. Thanks for being an awesome missionary!  You're the best!  I love you!
Mom

Yeah a few people got transferred quick because a new area open, I dont know anything, but I am pretty sure I am staying here in Sumy.  She has almost quit, but she didnt come to church yesterday so we have to change her date to a few weeks later, she is working at a cigarette stand but she is doing good She wanted me to baptize her.  Tennis went good, we havent played in a couple days, but we got pretty good.  WE are like two peas in a pod.  I love getting pictures.  WE bought two liters of sprite each and are drinking them and listening to the starspangled banner on LDS.org for the 4th, no fire works, or anything of that sort.  I am happy and positive.  COmputers were being dumb.  NO there were no letters with them, they may have forgotten, we are going to bribe the schumways to send our birhtday packages and letters to us through teh NOVA POSHTA mail system here.  We have a zone training this friday.  I love you so much mom, thanks for all the love and support, I know my mission would be harder with out you.  

KAESTLI! Happy birthday sis! I miss you so much, and I am so happy you are my little sister.  YOu are the best little girl in the whole world, next year you will be 6 years old and then I will come home right after that.  I love you!