Letter #13

hanks for Leslies E-mail I will look into the people she gave us. The work is so great and crazy right now. We have over 550 refferals from the temple. We have so many people interested we don't even know what to do them. We are doing our best to contact all of them. (I don't feel super busy because i can't make any of the phone calls so my poor companion is just getting whipped into shape) Okay well I am going to give you a low down of my life. I wrote my day to day things i wanted to tell you and brought it! Yeay for good thinking!

Tuesday- We had District meeting and while we were spending hours sorting through all the refferalls two random people came into tghe church wanting more info. Sandra is from India and she is visitng her son that lives her and brought his freinds Natia and Sandra only spoke English and Natia spoke Ukrainian so I taught in Rnglish and Sister R taught in Ukrainian. It was so sand because she wanted more info and to come to church but she was going back to india before Sunday. I was stupid and didn't get her contact info but hopefully we can get it through her son. After we taugh another lesson in English to Maria. it was sweet she just wanted to be our friend but as a good friend would helped her by giving her the gospel. It was an incredible lesson I really felt the spirit. I told her she can have help with making decisions throught the Holy Ghost and read moroni's Promise with her. Even though it was outsid eand it smelt nasty and there were limping stray dogs barking and roaming around and the noise of the street and people giving weird looks I still knew the spirit was there. It was incredible.

Wednesday- I WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!!!!! Oh wow! Thats all I can say it was the most amazing experience. I was so touched by the dedication of the Kiev people! The whole temple was full for the session. Of course it is smaller than any you have ever been in but it was outstanding. I had headsets so I could listen in English but wow it was just amazing to see the power of the people here. There was so much love there. The missionaries that serve in the temple are so cute. It hard to run the temple because of the language barrier but they are getting it to work! Its funny though the english ladies are the sweetest! So after the temple we had tons of meetings set up but there was a lady that walked into the church wanting more info too. We gave her a BoM and told her we would meet the next day and them we went off to our lessons. We taught a lady while walking around in the woods while her childern played. It's hard not knowing what is being said and not speaking it frustrates me but I can feel the spirit during the lessons so tha is great. We then called maria from yesterday. She was so excited. She recieved an answer she knew what she was going to do with her life but most importantly she prayed and knows the BoM is true! Wow it was so cool. She said she was feeling so much peace and contentment. :) I was so excited for her! Then we mentioned baptism and she got a little iffy she knows she would have to change her life too much I think. So we are trying to work with her more.

Thursday- Zone conference. 1st Zone Conference was good. I am not scared of President Steinagel He is so great. I loke him a lot he has a lot of enthusiasm for the work and loves to tell stories. He is wonderful. We are working on the new way to do Preach my Gospel. There was a lot of new stuff we are working on like- teach by reading the BoM together and baptise everyone :) ha ha I guess that hasn't changed but its just being stressed more. We had the best Pizza ever. I love Pizza! ja ja Oh that reminds me Sister Robinson is good at Eating healthy. So I am being more healthy but we do love us some Peanut Buuter. :) ha ha some Americans brought us it. It was the best thing ever. I thnk that will be one of the things i miss the most! :) Well after ZC we were going to meet with the lady fromt he day before. She came in and gave us the BoM back. :( I know sad. But she seemed so perfect it was really interesting. But we told her to keep the book and read and she said she would and left. I am sure it would not be as confusing if I understood Russian and Ukrainian but I don't yet so I just watched and made up the conversation in my head. It is more interesting that way sometimes. ha ha ha ha I feel like a little kid except that I understand I am incompitent and useless. I think I would choose to be ingorant to my incompitance but thats okay. Ignorance is not bliss but neither is not knowing the language you are surrounded by. :)

Friday-I was dead tired and irratated by everything, I wanted to cry, instead I laughed. We got loast and walked around for a hour just in order to get dogged by a lady. ha ha then we went to meet with a lady and it was incredible she read 1ts and 2nd Nephi... the both th e WHOLE books! Incredible right! wow! she is amazing but then half way through talking with her, her friends grabbed us and took us to her apartment upstairs and had us eat and drink and talk but then said she didn't believe in God and it was such a woerd incounter! She seemed nice and then mean. But its funny I always think that the people here are angry and getting mad at us and then I talk to S.R. and she said wow that was awesome they are so nice and I am thinking to myself. This language just sounds mean when people talk fast and don't smile. I get so dang confused! Then we met with a lady and she spoke english she said she had already been baptised and I pulled out the story in john about christ being rebaptised. It was quick and not to hard or mean but sister robinson said i was offensive :( oops

Saturday- I cried of frustration. I hid it though then i took a nap and woke up happy. Yeay for naps they are great! I love naps. We had appointments to meet with 4 people the next day and we got ditched by 2 of them. don't people know we have the key to enternal life and if they meet with us they can too. ha ha joke! but seriously!

Sunday- Good news we didn't have any crazy preachers interupt our meeting or any men hitting on me. HA I don't know if i told you abbout that but oh wow it was weird and funny! I had no clue what was going on but he wouldn't talk to my companion and he would only talk to me but it was my first day and I didn't understand anything. He was an investigator. but yeah. I sat by a member by myself and had NO clue what was being said at church. I still can't figure out if people are speaking in Russian or Ukrainian. ha ha ha Oh man! But yeah after church we went to a beautiful little town and had two lessons with less active memmbers. they were good and short. We met our goal for the week thats was nice. We had 15 lessons this week. I understood 3 of them :) (because the were in eglish) I have never been so quite in my life ha ha

Dad I went to a cute town one day and it made me think of you when we would tavel Europe. It was awesome. We grabbed some food on the street like some wrap sausage thing, Ha it was totally something we would do then we followed it with some ice cream. I took some time to send some love your way. Of course I always am doing that but It was so extra for the occasion.

I love you all so much. I love where I am and then things I am doing. I can't wait to love it more when I am actually understanding what is going on and even talking sometimes! That would be neat! But with time. Its frustrating when my comp keeps telling me I know so uch less than she did when she left the MTC. I am like yeah I know I should have stayed there for 12 more weeks then makybe I would have an idea of what is going on. ha ha oh well I am here and now I got to learn quick and I am not really sue how to do that. Chard and Jordan- What did you do to learn your mission languages? I need all the help I can get. Well iI need to go help with the reffereals. So I love you all. Feel free to e-mail me more about what is going on in your lives. Everyone is allosed to send e-mails and I think what I said about Dear Elders was wrong I don't get throse until 2 weeks later! I love you all so much thanks for the prayers I feel the strength and and using it! LOve you love you love ouy love you!

Sister Schmidt

Letter # 12 first letter from Ukraine

-Guess who is chilling in Kyiv! Yeah thats right I am!!!! Ha I made it! I I am so excited. Great news, I am now given a whole bundle more or internet time! I have an hour and fifteen minutes every P-day So to do that math. I have 45 additional minutes! Yup that means you actually get to know what is going on in my life now. So here is goes.

-We woke up at 3 AM on Friday morning and got ready to go to Ukraine. We were at the travel office by 5 and then on the way to the airport. At the airport I was still over weight with my two bags and two carry ons with an additiopnal BYU bag with my new shoes mom sent me. I totally threw away all my shampoo and something else that had no importance because I can't even remember what it was! ha ha I barely made it.

-I sat next to a man on the way to visit family in Sudan (sp?) He was a muslim. We talked about sugerbeats because he lives in Idaho Falls and does REseard on Sugar beats. Interesting but not as interesting as the islamic religian. We talked all about our religions. I had no idea they are so simillar. I guess I should have talked to Bakay more about that. I am sure he knows the deal. Well anyways that was super stellar. I loved it. I love learning. I think I foget how much I love it because It seems like a chore when it comes to school. But his religion is almost identical. He went to the temple dedication in idaho falls and has bet with the missionaries before. He said that he liked the missionaries but wanted them to tell him something more something that was different about their church. Of course I tried to find out what that difference was and it was kinda difficult. They do so much the same except the authority of a modern day prophet and personal prayers. I am sure there is a lot more but I didn't really get into it with him. He brought up a question/concern and its one I have never thought about..... Why do LDS family adopt black children? WEll that wasn't really the exact question but he felt it was the church recruiting blacks for diversity and by adopting them they are forced to grow up in it and are not adults to choose for themselves. I totally see how that could look bad especially from a black man outside of the church. It was interesting. Soemthing to chew on a bit.

-Then we had our flight to Kiev. That was neat too. We walked on the plane and I had Sis. Zenger switch seats with E Reynolds. SO we could comfortably sleep next to eachother on the plane. E Reynolds walked back and I guy sitting across the iasle asked what his church was and said he had questions for him and then asked if he could by a BOM from him. Of course e all that that was incredibly peachy seeing as we are all new misionaries. Ha ha I am all sorta of excited. They talked for a long time and he got the name of the Elders that "gave him such a wonderful gift" and then asked who he could ta to when he had more questions. Yeah this really happened I know It seems like a dream but it did. He then continued to read all the sections the elders gave him and moroni 10:3-5 and said that he would love to pray and find out if it was true. He was totally awesome! It was insaine. We also made freinds with an 8 year old girl named Vika She was super cute we shared snacks the whole plane ride! dad knows we had a delay and we were pushed back 4 hours which meant we got to kiev 4 hours late. Bummer but its all good then still found us. We only lost 2 bags which is really good i guess the two elders were a little edgy after that.

-We then met everyone and went and had a great dinner at the mission home wich is huge and beautiful. Then we went to the temple and the mission Office which are right next to eachother! It was beautiful. We got introduced to all the info and stuff and then went and met our trainers. As you already know I am with sister Robinson. She is a doll. We are servicing in Borshahivski. i have know I dea how to spell that. Oops. AKa I am in the Area of the Temple! And we get the brand new ward building. The ward is huge with lots of members. I tried my best to talk to everyone . I was kinda quiet. Everyone was very nive and told me my Ukrainian was beautiful. Its a good theng I came in with the attitufde that I wanted to learn both languages because I am surrounded by Russian. Its a challenge but nothing more than I can handle. I am excited to learn. I just smile and nod because I have no Idea what people are saying to be. ha ha Its way funny! I neeed to figure out how to learn the language I don't know how to study I should have practiced more when I was in College. Eh oh well that is passed already/ So If any of you have any suggestions I sure am in need of some help on learning a launguage and studying my scripts and everything!

-Last night we some how stumbled on a member lesson. We thought that they weren't members but the mom and daughter are but her sister, husband and son and other daughter are all non members. Don't worry we will baptise all of them! She spoke russian So I had no idea what was going on. Thank goodness for people that make gestures while they talk. Ha ha that saved me. I had this cool realization while I was walking in a grass area that reaked of pee and some random strey dogs walking around between two huge communist buildings, That I was so happy to finally be there. I just kinda laughed and was like I love it here. It is so much like romania to me that it is a home away from home.

-I am super excited to figure out this language so I can start doing my part in the work. Poor Sis Robinson is having to do all the talking. I soon will get it. I just don;'t know how ha ha ha! I am sorry for all my typos I think that I would be better because I had more time... FALSE I just wrote more. Well I have to go write my e-mail to the president. I don't really know what to say. Uh I am good. I don't speak the launguage. And I love life. Yup that somes it all up. just kidding I won't say that to him that would be bad.

-Turns out I do get them when you send them especially when I am here at the mission office as my area. So dear elder me! Especially my thursday that is zone conference! I want to hear from all of you! And everyone can e-mail me. and dear elders too! But I love you all so much thanks for all the love and prayers I sure do need them. But not really because life is good! I love it! Hop to hear more from you soon!

Sister Schmidt your favorite Missaionary ever!

letter #11

Hi family! How are all of you!? I am so great! I just got back from the temple which as always was a great experience! Everyone left either yesterday morning or this morning. It is kinda really boring without them. I am grateful for the extra days we have here but its sad with everyone I spent the last 12 weeks with gone. I am excited for all of them though! We will be doing all of our packing today and tomorrow and then we leave early on Friday! I don't know how to do calling cards so I will do my best to figure it out and call you! I am so excited! But I really an terrified! Yikes!

That is so neat about Sister Robinson! I will have to keep an eye out for her! She will train either Carpenter, Zenger or I but I will for sure meet her! How exciting! Wow We will be in Ukraine in a week. I am freaking out. I am a little nervouse because I am not so hot at speaking Ukrainian. My memory is rough. I learn a lot of words and grammar concepts and I forget them. I think I am going to still blame that on Heather and the Brick! :) ha ha kkidding. But it is frustrating because my teachers tell me "come on you should know this." or "you gotta remember this stuff" As always I smile and giggle (my awkward unfomfortable giggle) and keep going. I am so blessed with optimism its wonderful. I love life and love all the challenges I have because I know that I am only getting stronger! What a blessing Heavenly Father can make even me, the weakest person and make me strong. With his power I can do anything. That gives me so much joy! As long as I am doing His work His way I can do all things! Hooray! I have the best companion in the mission. They Holy Ghost and the Armies of Heaven with me. Ukraine doesn't know whats coming! ;)

Today at the temple I saw Natalia. I am sure I always talk about her. But she started out as the living breathing walking fear I have. She would rip me apart for my language and for my teaching and make me want to cry if I wan't already doing it. But through it all she has made me so strong and for that I am grateful. I saw her int he temple today and waited for her to come over. I gave her a hug and told her how grateful I was for her and that I loved her and would be so excited if she came to Ukraine and I could see her there. Ot see her after. It was a great to see how I literally took on my greatest fear or combination of my fears and concord it. Now We are freinds! (even though she hated me for calling her the wrong name the first time I taught her) ha ha OOPS!

This week has been interesting with everyone leaving. We get to have ALL the Kiev missionaries in our class now. It was 6 and now there are 11 its packed! Its great fun though. Sister Zenger is out companion now and I love her so much! I really do! What a great girl! Her Russian is outstanding! I wish she knew how amazing she was at the language! It's interesting to have a 3some. I need to make sure I ALWAYS include everyone! I don't want anyone to feel left out! Thats stinks!

Mom, I will have more things for you that I don't need the package you will get is my "LOVE" package for the family! I meant to send it last week and never got incontact with Erica! Its great to see her I love her! It was funny I jumped on her the 1st time! But anyways Yes I need vacuum pack bags I think you can get them at wlmart but they aren't really vacuum packed you can rool them up and not use an actualy vacuum. That is what I need. If at all possible three or so! I need to get my coats and towels and robe and packed in my suitcase with all my new books and stuff! So 3 maybe even 4 would be SO helpful! Also this si last minutes so you probably can do it but I heard about "earth shoes" you can get them at University mall. They are for walking and strengthening your legs as you walk. All the sisters have them and there are even some cute ones. I figured that would be good because I really only have 2 pairs of shoes. I have all the cute ones you sent me but those aren't good for walking. and I feel my mission president wouldn't approve of the bright pink :( Let me know what you think

Dad, Can you send me the lyrics to the irish folk song you sang at my farewell. I REALLy wnat them. Dear Elder them to me so I can see them now. I would LOVE that!

Family, I love you all so much. I can't believe I have been gone for almost 3 months! Time sure does fly! I love what I am doing. I am blessed so much by It. I have changed a lot but I sure hope I continue to grow and learn and come closer to the spirit and my savior. I know that in order for me to teach I have to have to spirit with me at all times! The spirit is the true teacher and not me. If I don't teach a single thing but the investigator feels and learns of the spirit i will be happy. I love being on a mission. I hope all my freinds get to come do this. I know It is the best thing in the whole worls. And its only 18 months long. That is nothing in the eyes of God it is the least we can do to give back to our Savior. He has given us everything. He suffered for us. How dare I complain about childish things. My life is easy. We are all living amazing lives. Its our fault if we don't open our eyes and realize how lucky we are. Every night I write in my journal the miracle and blessing that happened in my day. They more you look for it the more you really have. I would encourage you to do the same. As you notice the blessing of Heaven, Heavenly Father will bless you with more.

I love you all so much. Thak you for your love and support I really feel it as I am struggling. Luckily, I know where I am and Why I am here and then it is all great! I am so excited for life. Things are wonderful. I can't wait to hear more about everyones life! Heather Yes you can just e-mail me. Everyone can in fact I would recommend it to everyone. That wya I know what Is going on. I don't know if I can e-mail friends back yet or not but I will find out in Ukraine this week. But I would Love to have e-mails from everyone! I will do my best to respond how ever I am allowed! I love you all. Thanks for helping me do this amazing work!

Your daughter,

Sister Schmidt