Little Miracles in December

We had an absolutely wonderful baptism on Saturday. Katya is the niece of a very solid couple in the Sevastopol branch, and she has been investigating the church for four years (since she was twelve). After all those years of work and preparation, everything came together and Katya entered the waters of baptism with incredible support from the branch and missionaries. Even thought I'd never had the opportunity of teaching her, it was incredible to watch her enter into that sacred covenant with the Lord. The baptism was held at a beautiful spa (that was the first baptism I've seen in Ukraine in something that actually resembles a font, so that was really neat) and quite a few members came. The Spirit was there in rich abundance, and we were all so happy to be there with Katya. She's going to be an incredible strength to the church here!

One day, Sister Bates and I had a rather neat bus experience. Meaning, between the two of us, I think we talked to almost half of the people on the bus and the other half probably overheard all the conversations. I was talking with this girl named Alyona, and she was very interested in the Book of Mormon. She asked me if I would write something in the Book of Mormon I was giving her, and I gladly obliged. (Side note - I really love that tradition here! If you give somebody a book for a present, you are expected to write in it and dedicate it to the recipient.) I was halfway through my testimony when my trusty little pen decided it was out of ink. Sweet little Alyona responded, "Wait, I've got one! We'll do a trade - the book for the pen!" That made me laugh. I'm happy enough to give away that book that I love so much, but I can't say I don't mind free pens.

We had another lesson with week with Yasna (recent convert) and Oksana (her mother-in-law). We also got to meet Oksana's 10-year-old son Eliya. We had quite a nice little concert together at the end - Eliya is pretty amazing on the accordian! And Sister Bates and I were quite happy to get to play them some songs on Yasna's flute again. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but there are a lot of miracles going on with this family. God is really working with them, and we are confident that in time, they are all going to join the church. We pray it's sooner rather than later, but it will happen.

Last night there was a really neat little miracle as we were tracting. I don't remember if I've explained domaphones before. But just in case, I'll do it again. In Ukraine, most people live in apartment complexes which are often very large. At the bottom of most staircases is a big, locked door and a domaphone. You dial the apartment number you want to visit on the domaphone and it calls up. They can then answer the phone and push a nifty little button that will unlock the door so you can go in the staircase. Obviously, when we're tracting we don't have a specific apartment we're visiting, so we just call different numbers and explain who we are until somebody decides to let us in. Usually the apartment numbers that are contained in that staircase are written above the door, but that was not the case last night, so we decided to just guess a number and call it to see if it was indeed in that staircase. We decided upon 50. A nice woman answered, and she opened the door for us. Once we got inside the stairwell, however, and saw the mailboxes with their numbers, we realized that there was no apartment 50 - it stopped in the 30's. We decided that either someone had wired the domaphone incorrectly, or some angel decided we really needed to tract that stairwell. Often, we as missionaries don't see all the good that our efforts do or all the lives that we touch, but last night we were able to see at least one reason why it was important that we tract that particular stairwell. At one door, a man opened and we began talking to him about the Book of Mormon. He told us that we'd already stopped by and that he already had a Book of Mormon. He then told us that he is the son of one of the members of our branch, and we realized that he and his wife were a year-old referral. Missionaries had contacted them a year ago, but the husband was somewhat against the church so nothing was able to come from it. But this time as we talked with him, he told us that he was preparing to read the Book of Mormon and he promised that he would. If we hadn't tracted into them at that point in time, we wouldn't have found out that they are becoming more open to the gospel, and they may have gone unnoticed by missionaries for a long time. So I'm very grateful to whoever answered the phone in the mysterious apartment 50.

As an interesting side note unrelated to anything, this week I fulfilled a secret goal I've had since one of my first transfers in Ukraine. There is a word in Russian, вприкску, which seems to only ever be used in the phrase пить чай вприкску ("to drink tea while holding a cube of sugar in one's mouth"). I had never seen a sugar cube in Ukraine until this past week when we were visiting with a member - and my little heart overflowed with joy at the sight of a bowl of (huge, by American standards) sugar cubes! My thoughts immediately turned to this Russian phrase, and I was extremely excited to finally engage in the activity of drinking fruit tea while holding a cube of sugar in my mouth. Anyway, perhaps that is nerdy, but it was quite enjoyable.

There is a wonderful family in the Simferopol branch with five children. We were talking with the mother this week, and she shared with us her conversion story. I was very inspired by it, and I wanted to share some of it with you. They met the missionaries 20 years ago, back when the church was brand new in Ukraine. She and her husband were both 20 years old, so when they met two American boys of the same age, they thought it would be fun to meet with them. Sister Gents relates that these missionaries didn't speak Russian very well, so they understood virtually nothing of the lessons, but she had a testimony of the Book of Mormon. One night, the Gents' baby girl became very sick. The doctors told the young parents that there was nothing he could do, and that it would be better for the baby to die at home in her parents' arms than in the hospital. So they went home, scared and grieving. Shorty after they arrived home, the missionaries showed up, saying they had been praying and felt that they should stop by. They asked how they could help. The Gents told them there was nothing they could do, but then they heard the baby coughing and realized that she was very ill. They gave her a priesthood blessing, and the next day, she was healed, much to the shock of the doctors. (And that little girl is now married and expecting her own baby! She even taught Relief Society yesterday!). I am grateful for the power of the priesthood and the testimony that we can gain therefrom of the truth of the church.

- Sharisa