Possibly Insightful Ramblings

I had the first baptism of my mission on Saturday! It was an older woman named Nina, and she is so sweet. I've only taught her a couple times, but I love her so much. Her story is pretty neat. The elders were tracting one day and they ran into her and asked her if she'd heard of the Book of Mormon. She replied, "Oh, yes. I've read that." The elders incredulously asked what she had read of it and she replied, "All of it. And I've read the Doctrine and Covenants, too." She is an incredible scholar of religion and has an entire room in her apartment dedicated to her books and magazines on religion. During lessons she sits there and takes so many notes in one of her numerous notebooks and just accepts everything you tell her. She's wonderful! And she's really good at ping-pong - she gave me some good coaching as we were playing in the branch the other day before her baptismal interview. The baptismal service was wonderful! We rode a marshut...

I'm in Ukraine! We left early last Tuesday morning and drove to the Salt Lake Airport. It was exciting to be in a bus full of missionaries as we all headed out to our respective corners of the world. Our flights were good - we were able to get a little sleep and also talk to people. Sister Dimick and I had a conversation for at least an hour with this Jewish man in the back of the plane on the way to Austria. That was definitely an eye-opening experience for both of us. He was completely floored that two young women were giving up their lives for 18 months (and paying for the privilege!) to go to Ukraine and talk to people. He couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that we would heed the call of a prophet like that. He wasn't interested in meeting with the missionaries or learning more, but at least he's been introduced to the gospel, and maybe someday he'll be interested. It was really exciting to exit the plane in both Austria and Ukr...

You can write to Sister Missionary Sharisa Nay at these addresses! Thanks for being her friend! She loves to hear from you!  Mission Home Address Sister Sharisa Joy Nay Ukraine Dnepropetrovsk Mission Karla Marksa 27A 5th floor Dnepropetrovsk, 49044 Ukraine Pouch Mail info on pouch mail http://www.ldschurchnews.com/ articles/51446/ Pouch-service-has-new-regulatio ns.html Sharisa Joy Nay Ukraine Dnepropetrovsk Mission POB 30150 Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150

I can't believe I will be in Ukraine in a week! It's still not quite real yet, but it's becoming more so everyday. I can't wait to get to Ukraine and begin teaching people, but it's also a rather bittersweet feeling because I've forged a lot of deep friendships here that I'll miss. But luckily all of us in my district (sans one) are going to the same mission, so that's definitely happy. Today was/is our final P-day. It was very bittersweet to be sitting in the temple for the last time for maybe a year or so. There's nothing like knowing you're not going to have that opportunity any longer to make you really pay attention and try to get everything you can out of it. This Easter was incredible. We had a giant Sacrament Meeting with President Packer. I doubt I'll ever be in a Sacrament meeting again where the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is presiding. That was a really neat experience. There were about 65 elders who administ...

Despite the fact that I know English very well and can communicate in it (unlike the Russian that we're trying to speak), I don't think even English words can quite capture how wonderful this past weekend was. I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to sing in the choir at General Conference. All 364 of us were pretty excited to be loading buses and driving outside of the two-block radius that has been our world for the past little while. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a drive between Provo and Salt Lake quite so much in my life. :) We were able to listen to part of the morning session of General Conference as we drove up there, and something about sitting in a bus full of missionaries listening to Conference was really neat. We rehearsed for a little while in the Little Theater, which reminded me of Steven's choir concerts so that was fun. Then we got to go through this secrety tunnel and up into the choir loft. As I walked out into the loft and the thousand...