stay warm

I always seem to get caught up in making things work when they don't want to.  This week was General Conference.  We are in a weird gray area in our city because the Branch President finished his mission and is now home in Tyumyen (however you spell it in english) about 5000 km from here, and we haven't been able to have a new one sustained.  That kind of leaves making sure things go well and happen to me...just how it goes I guess.  Well after buying a new DVD player (only to find out that Nina could get the old broken one to work after all...there was no way I could get anything out of it) I spent about all day Friday trying to make the discs that we got from Novosibirsk to work with our various players and tv's.  Long story short it worked ok...except that the copies of the discs were made from satellites and were bad copies at some parts.  Oh well.  We made it through transfers and conference, and we're still kicking, so no worries.  Nothing changed for me this transfer.  Elder Bush was moved to Sakhalin, and Elders Spjut and Conley (yes, that Conley) came to serve in the North area of the city.  It should be a cool transfer. 

 

We watched General Conference this weekend.  I was just blown away at how much there was to learn.  There were a lot of cool themes that came out.  It was interesting that at least 3 times Alma 41:10 was quoted.  "Wickedness never was happiness."  That is a good theme to remember throughout your life.  Follow the Prophet and be happy, reject him and be miserable.  Have faith.  Trust the Lord.  Show gratitude for the things that you have. 

 

I have an interesting gratitude moment from last night.  I got a call at about 10:30 from Elder Stewart saying "so what should I do if there is water leaking from our ceiling?"  That made for a fun little crisis.  I hope that being on the phone with the Mission President at 11 at night doesn't happen too many more times for me on my mission.  As I began to pray after that, I thought of the things that President Monson taught about gratitude, and wondered what I might be able to show gratitude for in a situation like that.  To my surprise my mind flooded with blessings.  I'm thankful that we have cell phones so that we can reach each other as soon as problems happen and be able to fix them, for the apartments that we have that don't usually leak water from above, and the list went on.  The Lord blesses the grateful to see His hand in all things.  "In all ways acknowledge Him and He shall make straight thy paths."  Those words are absolutely true.  Even in the most difficult of times we can find things for which to give thanks.  Thanksgiving is still a month away...but it's never too early to get in the spirit of the season.  You don't need Christmas or Easter to remember the Savior, and you don't need New Years to make life changing goals.  Start today, go the right way, in the end you'll say, hey! that made my day!  (So I got a little bored writing...what can I say?)  :D 

 

I'm working right now with our Branch Priesthood leaders to plan a talent show...my goal is to get my companion to do a rap with me...he is very opposed right now...so I'll let you all know how that goes in about a month.  Hopefully I'll have some good pictures to share.  Sometimes my goals might not be the most earth shattering...but I always have goals. 

 

 My Mom asked me to share a little about foods that I've been eating...so as boring as that probably is...I'll tell you.  Ha ha.  I've really started to love cooking lately.  I think my companion gets frustrated that I always take over the kitchen (it isn't big enough for both of us to be doing really anything at the same time there.)  Mostly I just experiment with things.  My white sauce is now famous mission wide, and I've started experimenting with chicken breading too.  Last week was cinnamon baked chicken...it was actually really good.  Someday I'll learn how to make borscht and some other Russian foods, promise.  Also I made chocolate chip cookies this week...they were kind of weird because brown sugar here has really big grains, like bigger than white sugar in the States...it was weird but I heard they were good.  Oh well.  Ok, I've bored you all enough, I'll let you go back to your fun exciting lives.  You should tell me about them sometime...I always love a letter. 

 

Wishing you're warmer than I am, (Today it's a wee bit nippy out)

Elder Fife

And I think t Myself What a Wonderful World (I heard that song the other day and it made me really happy!)

Tatiana's baptism was great on Saturday.  She is going to be such an incredible member of the Church.  I really was blessed to see the miracles that we saw as she learned and accepted the Restored Gospel.  I'm really not sure what to write about...this week went really fast and was mostly filled with preparations for the baptism.  I sent a lot of pictures home this week, and those should say about a thousand words each...so I figure that I wrote a pretty long letter this week already. 

 

There are lady bugs everywhere!!  I can't even explain this crazy phenomenon...but on Friday I started noticing lady bugs...and on Sunday there were hundreds of them flying around the Church.  I guess that lady bugs migrate or something, and that for about a week every fall they stay in Ussurisk.  The name lady bug is a really weird one to translate...but the translation from Russian is even better.  In Russia they are called "little godly cows."  Weird huh?  So there are hundreds of these little godly cows flying around, it's awesome.  But they aren't really out as much today, because it got cold again.  Yesterday was really warm. 

 

There has been a lot of really cool lessons that I've learned lately.  Most of all I've learned about charity.  I don't think I ever really understood before what it feels like to give unconditional love.  It's sometimes really hard, but the more you care about someone the easier it is to forgive them when they do those little things that everyone does.  As we work on developing Christlike attributes it has become really obvious to me how closely connected they all are.  Sometimes in order to learn how to forgive you really need to develop more charity.  If we developed the kind of love that the Savior has then it would be easy to forget the things that others had done wrong, and "remember them no more."  Christ is our example for literally every thing that we need in life.  If there is anything that is not going right for us, we might take a step back and ask "what am I doing differently than what the Savior would have done?" or "what qualities of the Lord have I grown weaker on lately?"

 

Well my time to write home is about done today, they're about to take their lunch break again.  I hope everything is going great for all of you who read my little thoughts and stories each week.  Have a great one!  (Maybe even 2!)  :)

 

--

Elder Sam Fife