Hey Family:)

So I had to get on the computer a little early today since we are going on a little trip for p-day. I will tell you about it next week:).  Things are moving pretty fast here in Uzhhorod, we had a record breaking 14 people at church yesterday. It may not sound like a lot, but when you think about it, a few moths ago we only had one!

This week we were walking to the church and we saw a family of five, and I noticed that one of their kids was wearing an Under Armor hoddie. I have an Under Armor backpack and people ask me all the time what brand it is because they don't have anything Under Armor here. So that was a clue to me that the family we saw was not Ukrainian. Then we heard them speaking English, believe it or not it felt crazy to hear someone speaking English on the street. So we decided to go and talk to the family. It turns out they are from Colorado and they are here in Uzhhorod to adopt an elven year old girl from an orphanage. They are here for one month because they have to wait for all the legal paperwork to process and things of that nature. They had the young Ukrainian girl with them when we met them. The only problem is, the family only speaks English and the girl only knows how to speak Ukrainian. So we sat and talked with the family for a while, and talked with the girl because she seemed a little scared. We told the family that we would love to meet up with them later so that they could get to know their daughter. We are going to translate for the family and for the daughter so they can talk to each other! Pretty cool huh? It was a blessing that we ran into them so that we could be of help to them. Before we said goodbye to the family, we showed them to a restaurant and we ordered food for them since they did not know what Ukrainian food to get. We ordered them some of our favorites and they were very grateful.

So here is the story of what happened to my Ukrainian grandmother, as she likes to call herself! So we had been meeting with her for three months, since I first arrived in Uzhhorod. She was one of the first people that we met here. She has been to church ten times already! But anyway she grew up under Soviet rule. She has so many crazy stories of what happened during her childhood. And she likes to remind us that we do not have nearly as much life experience as she does, which is totally true. When we first met her I could not speak a sentence of Ukrainian, but now I can communicate a lot better. About a month ago she went to Kiev to visit her son. On Sunday while she was in Kiev, she met up with the Sister missionaries and they showed her around the temple grounds and took her to church (shout out to the Sisters, they are the best). She even got to meet our Mission President. She loved the Sisters and the temple. She came back to Uzhhorod with a new light about her. We thought we were making real progress when one day she called us and told us that she was going to Hungry and that she didn't know if she was coming back. Two weeks later she came back, had us over for lunch, and the first thing she said to us was "How can I help you get me ready for my baptism." We were just blown away. It is really cool to see the joy and the happiness in her life. When we first met her she was very sad and pessimistic about the rest of her life, but now she is always happy and smiling. She even tries to dance around sometimes (I guess she used to be a gymnast when she was younger). We are having her baptism this Saturday and I am going to baptize her! I am very excited.

Love,

Elder Hadfield