THIS IS WHAT WE WOKE UP TO TODAY

MeRRy ChRiStMaSThe view from our balcony

Looking out our kitchen window

we love you all and are wishing you a joyous New Year filled with love and laughter

CHRISTMAS IN UKRAINE

We celebrated Christmas with the missionaries in the Donetsk area on Sunday night with a fireside and a very nice dinner. After the talks that were given by the Senior Couples including President Fry and Sister Fry the missionaries were given gifts of handmade scarves that Sister Fry made. They were also given gifts that were donated by Sister Fry's daughters, mother, her neighbors, missionary moms, and ward members. Sister Fry made beautiful blankets for the Clark's and for us which will always be a special treasure.Then on Monday we spent the whole day together. We met at the church for a few hours to play some fun group games. You will see from the pictures that the missionaries had a great time. Then we had a great lunch and then boarded a very nice bus for a trip to Makeyevka to visit a Boarding School. The children live at this school. There were over 100 children of all ages who have been removed from their homes. They were not orphans they just did not have parents who were capable of taking care of them. The children were developmentally delayed. We divided the missionaries and the children into three groups and they were able to play together for an hour. We brought puzzles, board games, and balls that we played with and then left for the children. It was so much fun and the missionaries did such a wonderful job jumping right in and having a really good time with the children. In the one room with children who seemed to be between 4 and 10 years old where I spent most of my time they started out playing with puzzles and then balls and by the end of the hour there were about 20 children in a big circle playing duck duck goose. The director told us to "please come back anytime" she said, "you don't have to bring gifts the children just love the attention". I could tell it was so hard for the missionaries to say good-bye. It felt like the time just flew by. The Elders that live in Makeyevka are going to try to go back and visit on a regular basis. We encouraged the other missionaries to find orphanages, or boarding schools in their areas and do service there. We sang Christmas Carols on the way home. It was a very special Christmas one I am sure the missionaries will always remember. I know that I will.

CHRISTMAS GIVING

As the Christmas Season Approaches you may be finding yourself trying to find ways to help your family focus on the true meaning of Christmas. During the month of December we turn our thoughts to the Savior. We reflect on his glorious birth and what his life meant to each us personally. This is a time to commit to living a more Christlike life. This is the time to show our love and appreciation to our loved ones, our neighbors, or to the kind people we come in contact with on a daily basis who make our lives easier. It is a time to say thank you to people like our postal delivery person, the young person who delivers our newspaper and carefully places it on the front porch so that it doesn't get rained on, or our children's teachers or bus drivers. It's a wonderful time of year when we gather in the kitchen to make holiday treats to take to these special friends and neighbors. These traditions that we share with our families help to teach our children the true meaning of Christmas. The scriptures teach us that when we serve our fellow man we serve our God.

"I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your god. " Mosiah 2:17
What better way to celebrate the birth of our Savior then to serve him.

While we have been on our mission we have received letters from friends and family who would like to help with our Humanitarian efforts here in Ukraine. . We are so grateful for your sweet offers of service. As Humanitarian Volunteers for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-fay Saints we have been instructed not to accept personal donations instead to direct people to the church's Humanitarian Fund to make donations. It is not that your help is not needed or appreciated it is just that it is best if it goes through the proper channels. I would like to encourage you to go to the church's website and read about what the church is doing worldwide and how you can help personally or as a ward or stake, or any other group.You can help by organizing friends, and family or fellow church members to do service projects that can be donated to the Humanitarian Department. You can make a personal donation on your tithing slip or by going to the website here and your donation will be used as part of the Humanitarian efforts worldwide. They can't guarantee where the donation will be used but it definitely will be used to do the types of projects that you have read about that Elder Kinghorn and I have been involved in.

I have included a list of organizations here whose focus is to help Ukrainian Children. There are some wonderful ideas of ways that you can personally support an organization here in Ukraine or you could get a group of friends or fellow church members to work on a service project together. Some of these organizations were started by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints however these sights are not endorsed by the church. Thank you for your kind offers of assistance. I know that we will all have a much more meaningful Christmas season as we turn our thoughts to the Savior.

Elder Kunz and Elder Harris

Elder Harris, Sisters Chidister and Jackson, Me, Sister Clark, Elder Clark and Elder Hammond
December 23, 2007

We invited Elder’s Hammond, Harris, Benson, and Kunz, and Sister’s Chidister and Jackson, and the Clark’s to come to our place for dinner. Elder Kunz has been telling us how he loves to cook, so we said, “great, what if we pay for the food, and you cook it.” So, they arrived with everything we needed and made wonderful burritos; the best part of the deal was, we didn’t have to cook. Sister Chidister even brought brownies. We were very impressed, Elder Kunz even brought Mission Tortilla chips and Salsa that he got in his recent package from home. And to top that off they made a green salad with Ranch Dressing from America. I know that doesn’t sound so exciting to you but we were thrilled. It was like a lobster dinner to us. Elder Kunz was right; he does know how to cook; he even made refried beans from scratch. It was such a treat they wouldn’t even let us clean up. It was a lot of fun and we had a chance to visit and get to know each other better.
Sister Clark had been given the assignment of making Sugar Cookies (about 150 of them) for our Zone Conference the next day. Zone Conference is when all the missionaries come in from the various surrounding cities for a Mission Conference. Sister Clark brought the cookies over to be decorated. Our bedroom had cookies everywhere. We had so much fun decorating snowmen, gingerbread men, and Christmas trees. Some of the snowmen even ended up with ties. We could tell as the evening progressed that the Missionaries were beginning to get a little homesick. We were thankful we could spend this special night with them.These are the same Missionaries we went Christmas Caroling with a few nights earlier. It was so nice to get to spend this time with them. Elder Kunz is going home in a week. Elder Benson and he were companions in the MTC and served as companions when they first arrived in Ukraine. They are just delighted that they are companions once again just before Elder Kunz goes home. Elder Benson will go home in February as will Sister Jackson. Elder Kunz is from Utah and so is Sister Jackson. Elder Benson grew up on a farm. He is really funny. The night we were Christmas Caroling he just kept saying how he was so embarrassed. He said he wasn’t going to sing on the bus, and couldn’t believe we were singing in Lenin Square. Elder Hammond told me he hates to sing and probably sang more that night than he had in his whole life. It’s amazing how a mission forces you to stretch in ways you never would have imagined.
The above picture is everyone bundled up and ready to return to their domes. Nobody has a car, so they either walk or ride Public Transportation. This isn’t everyone who spent the evening with us, Elder’s Kunz and Benson had to leave after dinner to go to an appointment to teach. I was impressed by how obedient they were. I’m sure they would have preferred to stay with us but they went out into the cold night to do what they were sent here to do. They were great examples to all of us.
Thenext day we attended the Zone Conference, it was our first. I was so impressed to listen to the wonderfully inspiring words of these young missionaries. It was also Christmas Eve. It was fun to be in the office when the Missionaries were arriving from all over Donetsk. They are serving in little cities all around Donetsk Central and some of them only see each other during Conference or on Transfer Day. Some of these missionaries spent 13 weeks together in the MTC and when they arrived in Ukraine were sent to various cities here in the Donetsk Mission. So when they greeted each other it was with huge hugs and smiles and , “I love you’s, or I miss you’s.” It was really tender. I told Bruce that I knew this was a hard time for them many of them missing mom and dad and brothers and sisters. I was noticing Elder Hammond seemed a little quiet. I told Bruce, “I think Elder Hammond needs a hug”. Well I guess he did, because later in the day Elder Hammond found Bruce and gave him a great big bear hug. It was also exciting because some of the Missionaries had packages from home waiting for them and they had just sat down on the office floor and tore them open. They were gathered around looking at each others treasures from home. Most of them munching on some very coveted American candy of one sort or another. After the Conference we had our delicious Sugar Cookies. As all good things must come to an end we were done by 4pm and everyone went their separate ways. Bruce and I just came back to our apartment. Needless to say, it was a very long evening.

CHRISTMAS IN UKRAINE

Lenin Square



This was a very special night. Elder Kinghorn and I were invited to go Christmas Caroling with the missionaries. We started in one neighborhood with big homes. Nobody would open the doors for us. Elder Kunz tried to tell them we only wanted to sing to them but nobody would listen. We all gathered in the middle of the street and said a very humble prayer and when we were done we found this sweet lady walking down the street. She stopped a moment and sang “Silent Night” with us. When we were done she said, “I know about you, you’re the Mormons. We wished her a Merry Christmas and were on our way. I thought about that moment and wondered what brought her out on this very cold night all alone. As we walked away I felt, somehow the Lord had used us to touch this lonely woman, to send her the message that she is not alone. We spent the rest of the night singing, on the bus, (much to Elder Benson’s) embarrassment, and later at Lenin Square. Most people just walked right by, but the few that lingered I will not soon forget.