City Conference

We had city conference yesterday. Which, being translated, means something akin to stake conference or district conference, except we have neither a stake nor a district in my mission. All three branches in Dnepropetrovsk met together and President Nielsen (the mission president, but in the circumstances of my mission, the equivalent of the stake president) presided. It was such an incredible meeting! There were more members gathered in one place than I've seen in a long time, and there was such power as we sang and worshipped together. Including the 20ish missionaries, there were 112 people in the meeting. I very much loved being able to see so many people I know and love gathered in one place. The talks were wonderful! I particularly enjoyed a talk by one of the returned missionaries. She served in Samara, and she shared from her mission and of her love of missionary work. It was very motivational. President and Sister Nielsen spoke at the end. They go home next week, so this was kind of like their farewell talk. Both of them spoke through interpreters (I quite love it when somebody translates - Russian is so much easier to understand if it's paired side-by-side with its English equivalents. ;) ). At the end of her talk, Sister Nielsen switched into Russian and bore a powerful, simple testimony that moved me deeply. There is such power in the Spirit, and eloquent words are not required to bring the Lord's presence nigh.

I ate my first Kinder Surprise this week! They're these chocolate eggs with a little toy in the middle. I, of course, selected the variety with the penguin toys in the chocolate . . . It reminded me of German class in high school and Frau Griffen describing these particular candies that you couldn't get in America, and I remembered being slightly disappointed that I would never get the opportunity to partake of that chocolatey goodness. So I'm quite pleased that I have now been able to do so. The penguin was cute, as well. :)

We had a picnic with one of our branches on Saturday. It was a lot of fun! We took a street car out to this remote park by a tributary of the Dnepr River - it was absolutely gorgeous! After a rather hot week (it reached 117 F one day) the weather was refreshingly cool, and I quite enjoyed helping with the food preparations and playing Ultimate frisbee with some of the other missionaries. One of our investigators was able to come to the picnic, and it was wonderful to be able to talk with her. Her name is Victoria, and she is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. She has such a solid understanding of life, and I feel like she would be an incredible member of the church. I'm definitely grateful to be able to get to work with her. I also enjoyed talking with the members. The members are so great to try to help me understand their Russian, taking time to write down words for me or seek the translation from a more experienced missionary. It's quite nice. :) (They also help me realize that one cannot say that one is "full" in Russian - it implies that you are fat. Good thing they helped me figure that one out before I said it to too many people. Hehe.) 

One of the less actives that we work with gave us the cutest little gift the other day. It's a little plastic flower pot that is solar-powered, so if you put it in the sun, the flowers dance. I don't quite know how to describe how completely entertaining it is. And, of course, being the missionaries that we are, one of the first things we thought of doing with it was an object lesson with one of our investigators who doesn't understand the role of proper authority in baptism - sunshine is like the priesthood, and only with it does baptism work. ;) My companion really loves object lessons, so it's a lot of fun to think of creative ones.

We met with Nina (who was baptized my second week here) like we do every week. After the lesson, she pulled out her huge collection of international money. She has coins and currency from all the places she's traveled (or had someone she knows travel to, I suppose) ranging from Afghanistan to India to Russia. It was quite fascinating. She gave us some old Soviet coins which look really cool. She told us that when she was younger, she absolutely loved collecting money and it meant so much to her in her life. "But now," she said as she grabbed her Russian triple and held it close to her, "these words are my treasure." I was deeply moved by that. She is such a wonderful example to me of a deep and abiding love for the scriptures. The words of God truly are treasures beyond price, and I'm so grateful for all the blessings that they bring into my life. And I'm so grateful to be able to see how those words have changed the lives of people here.

- Sharisa