Week 39: I'M HAVING THE BEST TIME OF MY LIFE

Happy Monday e'erbody!

    How are you doing, cause I'm doing great!
    Man, our trio is WILD! Sister Thompson goes contacting crazy and I admit I have learned so much from her. Contacting can be fun and is actually really enjoyable!! My companions are the two loudest sisters in the mission. I swear we are always screaming and I'm just honestly surprised that our neighbors haven't come upstairs ready to kill us. Maybe that apartment is vacant or something....

    Anyway, the work is BUMPING thanks to my girl, Thompson! We met with a blind woman, Tatyana, who has come to our English practice for years now and has met with the missionaries a couple times. She has the most heart-wrenching story I have ever heard. She is 59 but looks 70 because her neighbors were drug manufacturers and they basically poisoned her with the side effects of these drugs, and therefore she is blind as well. She had to leave her home to escape these effects and has been homeless since. She thinks God did all this to her to spite her and thinks He is just cruel- which kills me. She is so angry at God right now and she cannot believe that He loves her. It makes me so sad how little hope she has. We told her she could live forever with her Heavenly Father and she said she doesn't want to ever live with Him or even live at all- I kid you not we cried with this woman both times we met with her. She is progressing little by little though. She is already recognizing the miracles God has sent her and she told us three good things about her day and one of them was that she got to meet with us! She is so cute! I just want her to be happy! At the end of every meeting, she already smiles more and is just a little happier. It truly reminds me why we are here.
    Anyway, now the BIG STUFF- ELDER COOK CAME AND WE HAD MISSION CONFERENCE AND IT WAS AMAZING! I learned so much about how to better serve the people in this area! We are all doing our best when we are working our hardest and we shouldn't get frustrated with ourselves when we aren't perfect, because it is a lifelong process. I needed to hear every word Elder Cook shared with us! He also shared the firmest testimony with us that I have ever heard- He said, "I know His face, I know His voice". I can't say anything more powerful than that.
    I was very thankful for the opportunity to see all my old friends again! I finally have people from the MTC I can have reunions with! I'm no longer lonely!!
    I love my mission so much and I can't imagine doing anything else right now and I am just so thankful and sure that I made the best decision I have ever made my whole life!

Have amazing weeks everyone!

Sister Vehar

 My MTC group!! RIP I'm the only Sister

 My companions! (Soucie, Vehar, Thompson)

  The entire Ukraine Kyiv/Moldova Mission *first time together since becoming a new mission on June 27, 2018

All the Sisters with Sister Caron.

My Baby Moore!!

Week 38: I Woke Up in Ukraine!

Happy Monday everyone!

We had a really packed week including two back to back exchanges, so Sister Soucie and I weren't companions for almost three days. It was pretty wild.
    The first exchange, I left to Pechersky (Center Kyiv) and Sister Soucie stayed in Kharkovsky. It was so much fun! I was with Sister Daines and we contacted a ton (witnessed a lady do a photo shoot for an hour with a leaf- I was unaware of how many angles there are) and ate lunch with their investigator. They also have a fry cart there- I was in HEAVEN!
    Our second exchange was BOMB in the sweet land of Cherkassy! There were so many TREES! I love FALL! The trees are so colorful here- I know this sounds so pathetic, Arizona girl- My favorite color is now gold! hahaha Basically, it's just gorgeous here! I love it. Cherkassy was just such a small town that reminded me of Stars Hollow (Gilmore Girls)- the people there were like family. I would definitely be so down to serve there.
    We are actually in a trio all of a sudden with Sister Thompson! She came in with Sister Moore and it is tons of fun! She will only be here for a week before she gets a companion and goes back to her area.
    The subject is from Sister Soucie when she woke up on the bus and saw all the beautiful nature. Haha love that girl!
    Oh also, I HIT HALFWAY TODAY! It's okay, we're just not going to talk about it! Anyway, I love all of you and hope you all are doing well! Have amazing weeks everyone!

Sister Vehar

 Sisters Vehar and Soucie

 Sisters Vehar and Slocombe

Week 37: "Jesus is a good driver"

Happy Monday everyone!
    It's already been another week- trust me I'm shocked too. We shared lots of laughs this week! It was just one of those weeks where everything is hilarious and you constantly are laughing, which I am always happy to have!
    I love the people in my area! Unfortunately, not a lot of those people are those who we are teaching- our teaching pool is so small I might go insane, but it's okay because we are learning to find people better since we are doing it so much recently!
    One of the finding activities we do in the Kharkovsky area, now that it is getting colder and darker. is Bible videos! We project them on the wall of the church and it is so cool. This week we made hot cocoa to give out to people and it was a HIT! We will be doing it as often as we can.
We meet with an adorable less active family about every week named the Daniels (they're half Welsh) and they have a 4 year-old, Ethan, who is honestly the love of my life- he is the cutest and the source of this week's email's subject line. As part of our spiritual thought, we asked what characteristics Christ has and precious Ethan's first response was, "Jesus is a good driver- the best people always are and Jesus is the BEST"! This kid had me dead! This was honestly the highlight of my week other than the womens' session- those talks were BOMB! I don't care if you aren't a woman- go watch them. They are very secretly talking about missionary work and we can all improve on that.
    If we're going to be honest, there were a lot of downs this week, but I know that my Heavenly Father loves me because He also gave me a lot of ups- just a lot of small tender moments that made each of my days; such as Jesus being a good driver. Heavenly Father knows just exactly what we need each day and we can choose to focus on the good or we can just take a second to enjoy the tender mercies and just revel in how much our Heavenly Father cares for us. This world is amazing and I am reminded of that as I look around and see the trees changing colors or see a bunch of cute little puppies. So who cares if it was a rough week. This world is gorgeous and wonderful! We are so lucky to be here! I love you guys and so does Jesus!! Have amazing weeks and remember the tender mercies!

Love,
Sister Vehar
1. Selfie
2. Sister Soucie is a model
3. Modeling continued
4. Our Bible and hot cocoa night
5. Our book table

Week 36: What even is time??

Hello everyone and happy Monday!

    короче, this week has been insane and I have felt like I haven't had time to do anything whatsoever- which is really ironic because in zone conference this week President Kumferman focused on time management and told us the 5 myths about time and the most emphasized one was "We cannot have or not have time". Regardless of what I learned, I still had no time this week.

Zone Conference was bomb, except for the fact that we had to prepare for 15 minutes of it as well as a role play #sistertrainingleaders. We'll have our first exchange for the transfer this week so we'll see how that goes.

    With zone conference comes interviews which was just so great especially since we didn't have any last transfer. As STLs we also went to MLC which I thought I was going to hate because it's just another long meeting, literally I loved it so much because I swear any meeting I have with President is just so spiritually uplifting.

    Yesterday, one of our potential investigators just randomly showed up to church after not answering our calls, and agreed to have lessons and we're just really excited for this work to pick up.

We had a musical concert on Saturday- your girl sang in it and it was tons of fun! I can't guarantee the quality because I haven't listened to worldly music in 8 months and we practiced literally once because sitting down six busy missionaries at one time is nearly impossible. But, it is over now and I have time to just relax and just start over and have a normal week. Hahaha if only, we can only hope.

    The highlight of my week was just sitting down and watching General Conference, where we get to hear from a living prophet every six months. It is a wonderful opportunity to learn how we can improve ourselves and apply the Lord's teachings in our lives. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have that we still receive direction from the Lord in order to run His church exactly how He needs us to in order to prepare us for His coming. It is because God loves us that He continues to provide revelation to us through His prophets, and I cannot express how grateful I am to have a Heavenly Father who loves me. He loves each of you, and consequently sent His only begotten Son to suffer and die for us, so that we would never be alone and that we could have the opportunity to live with Him again. I've just been thinking about this a lot this week, especially with conference and I just can't get over how much our Savior loves us.

    I hope you all had the chance to watch conference and that you loved it- I certainly did! I love all of you and I hope you all had amazing weeks! Talk to you next week!

Sister Vehar

Our band!

https://youtu.be/nqEgkWZolXg

The elders were pretty sick too.

https://youtu.be/xKDjEtgdvgM

Week 35: I hit my 8 month mark this week!

Hello everyone!

I've got quite the surprise for you this week...I am low on time! Haha jk nothing new at all. Anyway, not a whole lot of typical missionary work happened this week because our only investigator was sick and somehow between the service and who knows what else, we weren't able to do a whole lot of contacting either.

Service was really cool because I picked beans for hours in the freezing cold! It was lots of fun and we were fed well for our efforts. I also got to witness a cat eat a mouse. It was way anticlimactic and faster than I ever imagined it would be.

We didn't have time to go shopping on Pday because of our band practice- which, by the way our huge music festival got rescheduled to a Sunday because of the rain here and therefore servants of the Lord couldn't participate, bummer- so we had no food all week basically. The elders literally came in clutch and brought lunch to the church for us yesterday. We also had wafers for two meals this week which is really funny because Sister Soucie is on a no sugar diet. They were absolutely delicious though.

I'm hoping the work picks up or I at least figure out how to pick it up. #IknownothingandI'mliterallyoneoftheoldestsistersinthemission. Life is fun. It's getting really cold all of a sudden- so cold I voluntarily put tights on. The bishop told us it's going to be the coldest winter yet! I hope he's joking because these two Arizona girls are going to freeze our booties off! It's gonna be a ton of fun- especially since Ukrainians literally disappear when it becomes slightly colder!

I hope you all have amazing weeks and I can't wait to talk to you all next week!

Love,
Sister Vehar
1. Two former investigators who will be baptized!

2. Check those clouds!