My Missionary Nametag

Hello again! I hope my emails don't get boring because it seems like I do the same things every week. I promise my emails will get way more interesting when I get to Ukraine! First off, Thanks dad for the workouts I am using them and they are great! Amanda, you are so cute thank you for the dear elder, it is the best. Also I got a nice Christmas package from the ward, it was really hard to restrain myself so I opened it already haha. There were a bunch of nice letters and candy.

Tomorrow is thanksgiving, are you excited? I am. I just want you to know that I am very thankful for you. Our lunch tomorrow is two hours long. We have a break from the normal missionary grind which will be nice. In the morning there will be a two hour thanksgiving program which we hope will include an apostle. Then we have a service project and another program at night. I will tell you all about it next Wednesday. Oh man, I just remembered that the Cowboys play tomorrow. Who do they play? A new elder who came in last week is from Dallas and likes the Cowboys saw my sweatshirt and we became instant friends. He told me we aren't doing to well though. What a bummer. Also how is college hoops going? I miss watching basketball games. I hope I will have the chance to play some in Ukraine. One of my teachers was telling me about this really nice outdoor court in the middle of Kiev... SCORE (pun intended).

Wow, I leave the MTC in one month, pretty crazy huh? It's nice though because I think I will get to spend Christmas with the Mission President! I can't wait to talk German to him. It's funny but sometimes when I am teaching in Ukrainian a German work will just slip out. With all the new vocabulary that's floating around in my head sometimes I pick a wrong word. I was talking to one of my pretend investigators, and I meant to ask him how his wife was doing but instead I said "whats up woman?" I hope that doesn't happen in Ukraine, but it probably will. You just have to laugh it off I guess:) I have come to the conclusion that it really doesn't matter how well I can speak the language (though I am striving to master it) as long as the Spirit touches the heart of whoever I am talking too. Having that in mind takes off a lot of stress. One thing I have learned over these last few weeks is how to have patience with myself. There have been times where I have been really frustrated that I can't say things how I want to. I just try and realize that I have only been learning Ukrainian for five weeks and get a better perspective. I think Satan likes it when we are not patient with ourselves. We are human and none of us is perfect, we can get caught up in all the small mistakes that we make because that stops us from progressing. We need to rely on the Savior and the atonement to pick us up when we fall short.

Well, my time is up:( I will have a lot of fun things to tell you next week. I love you!

Elder Mitchell Gregory Hadfield