....to be a pioneer!

Howdy,

happy Monday from Kyiv! :)

All of my sweet supporters whom I love and adore so much! Thank you for your prayers and kind thoughts for me, I know that they are such a strength to me in this work and I don't think I could ever begin to explain truly how much they mean to me.

 I wanted to use this letter to talk about some people I am so beyond grateful for. Our sweet pioneers!

What a wonderful opportunity we have this week to have a day where we can just stop, take our time, and really think about what the pioneers did. I must admit I never have really taken advantage of this day in the past, just another holiday with an excuse to have a barbeque and pool party was really all it was to me. Of course I was grateful for the pioneers but I didn't realize how grateful I was until this past week. In this months Liahona there are plenty of stories of pioneers and I have so enjoyed reading them! After each story I would just sit at my study desk and ponder about them. All of them; the mothers carrying babies in their arms, the fathers driving the ox, the little girls with their hair in long braids walking alongside the wagon, the boys trudging along with the other children waiting for their turn to ride in the wagon. I would think of them and the comfort of the beautiful houses that so many of them had to leave. I would think of them and all of the many hardships they had to over come. From being mocked and rejected and driven away from so many things that they worked so hard for. Their beautiful temple that they slaved over for so long! I cannot even imagine. And then their trek, their long hard trek across the United States. A journey, that most of us would complain if we were driving. And they walked! Wow the pioneers are truly inspiring. As I was thinking about these wonderful people and all they went through I found myself thinking "Why did they do it?" I mean it would have been so easy for them to forget about the church and just stay in their nice homes. Their lives wouldn't have been risked, they wouldn't have lost all of their possessions and they could have continued on in every day life, with maybe not really a care in the world. Why did the pioneers do it? As I was mulling this over in my head. The thought came to my mind "Why are you in Ukraine? Why did you leave your family? Why did you leave the comfort of your home, to go to a land so far away?" Please do not get me wrong, in no way am I trying to compare myself to the pioneers. And I love my mission it is and will be the best decision I have ever made in my life. But the answer is still the same. It is because I know that this church is true. 

Just as they did.

Just as they knew that they had a living Prophet on the earth that led and guided the church. I know that to be true today. I know that our Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson is called of God. I know that he receives revelation for this, Christ's church. They had such a sure knowledge of that, that when the prophet asked them to go, they did, just as I hope I would. Just as they knew that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, just as the Bible. I know that too. Nothing that anyone will do or say, could ever shake my testimony of that. They knew that God is our loving Heavenly Father, who truly wants the best for us. Oh boy do I know that. He loves us so much, He continually is preparing a way for us to return back to Him, how grateful I am for that. And how excited I am for the day that I will be reunited with my Father in Heaven once again! Just as they knew that they had a Savior, Jesus Christ who performed the atonement for them, and then has humbly asked that they follow Him. I know that to be true! Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and oh how He wants us to be happy. He gave his life in order for us to do so. Just as they knew that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and His son Jesus Christ. They knew that through Joseph Smith they, our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, restored their church on the earth. I know that to be true. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is Christ's true church on the earth. Never could I deny that. And the pioneers couldn't deny it either. Their testimony was their drive. Just as my testimony is my drive here. And I hope that you all use your testimony in every day lives.

Life is not easy, use your testimony to help you through. Through every trial, hard time, or just stinky day, use your testimony. Keep the eternal perceptive and think of all you have to live for!

How grateful I am for the pioneers and all that they did, so I could be here today and preach the gospel to my brothers and sisters here in Ukraine. I am so grateful for their example of hard work and diligence, their example of truly sticking to what you believe in, and their example of faith and trust in the Lord. They knew that as they would trust in the Lord everything else would fall into place. I encourage all of you to have this faith in the Lord. Just like one of my favorite primary song says "You don't have to push a handcart, Leave your family dear. Or walk a thousand miles or more, to be a pioneer!" But again just as the song says "You do need to have great courage, faith to conquer fear. And work with a might for a cause that's right to be a pioneer!" I'm not asking you to test your faith by picking up and leaving everything you own to go across the country, just to see how the pioneers felt, or to strengthen your testimony. But think of a trial of a hardship that you have in your life. Use the knowledge that you have to help in this trial and I promise you that your testimony will grow.

I encourage you all to truly think about the pioneers this Wednesday. Be grateful for all they did! I know I am! Think of modern day pioneers too, boy are they incredible! Let's all try to be pioneers one way or another, this week, and the rest of our lives!

I love you all so much. You all are the best! Truly! Thank you for the examples all of you have been to me.

Remember to see the good in life, be happy, smile, laugh, do all that great stuff, because we truly are blessed!

Пока пока!!

All of my love,
Your sister, Sister Lee

does anyone remember this show??

My life be like ooooh ahhhh ooooh :)

Transfer #2 Woooohoooo!

To whom it may concern,

It was so hard to say goodbye to my sweet Sister Wease this week. 

When I first met her I never thought that we would have became as good of friends as we did. But now I do consider her as one of my very best friends. I know that she was an answer to many of my prayers, and how grateful I am that she chose to extend her mission. And I had the opportunity to spend her last transfer with her. I do believe that I had the best trainer in the world and I know for the rest of my mission I will be saying "One time Sister Wease and I.." or "Sister Wease used to do this..." or "Sister Wease said that..." I already find myself doing it plenty of times a day. I was very lucky to learn from sweet Sister Wease all that I did. I remember one of the very first things she said to me was "By the end of this transfer you are going to be ready to train." At the time it was such a funny joke! But now..

I miss my best friend!

Well, it's happening, this sister is training and let me just say man, am I grateful that I love humbling experiences! Because I do believe that I am having probably the most humbling experience I will ever have in my life. Training is the hardest thing that I have ever had to do. I have this new missionary, fresh out of the MTC ready to start her mission off perfectly and it's up to me, to make sure that she is not let down! It is up to me to make all the phone calls, set up all the appointments, lead the area, all in RUSSIAN and boy is it scary! But training is such an exciting adventure, I know that it is
preparing me for things that will help me not only throughout the rest of my mission but also through out the rest of my life. So I really am trying to take complete advantage of this opportunity and learn all that I can from it!

Sister Parish and I ready to start our new adventure!

I love that I have this opportunity to be so completely vulnerable.
Where I truly have to rely on the Lord completely 100%. I have seen
that as I do this I am blessed. I am blessed with a sense of peace and understanding. I can understand people that I never have before, and I am speaking much better than I was even just last week. I know that the Lord is giving me strength and power to do these things because this is His work and it must go on. He will not let the fact that I have only been in the country for a few weeks slow His work. I know that His work is hastening. Oh how I have such a powerful testimony of that! There is no way that I would be able to do the things that I am doing but through Him. I know that to be true.
I was blessed with a wonderful companion again! Sister Parish is such a sweet girl who has been so patient and understanding of my faults and shortcomings. I have made many mistakes already in just the few days that we have been together but she has been so sweet about everything. She has a great attitude of "Wow this is such an adventure!" Everyday she says that! Haha I love it! She wants to work hard and really be the best missionary she can be, you know I love that! I was so scared I would get a lazy companion, but she's great!

Friends and family at the end of this letter I would like to bear a short testimony of the atonement. I know that Jesus Christ is our
Savior and I know that he atoned for us. I have such a real sweet testimony of that. How grateful I am for the experiences I have had on my mission to help me gain that. I feel as though I am always apologizing to him and Heavenly Father for messing up. I mess up a lot out here, whether it be I say something completely wrong, or maybe I chicken out and don't say anything at all, I mess up a lot. But how grateful I am for the atonement and the knowledge that I have of it. I don't have to keep my mistakes! They have already been paid for, all I have to do is give them up to the Lord! How wonderful is this knowledge! I know that I would not be able to do this work without this knowledge. Every time I mess up as quickly as I can I repent and continue on with my day and it makes missionary work so much easier!

Heavenly Father loves us so much that He sent His son Jesus Christ to atone for our sins and our mistakes! USE THE ATONEMENT! Your testimony of our Savior and the love of our Heavenly Father will magnify beyond compare. Use this beautiful gift that we are so blessed to have!

I love you all so very much. Thank you again for the support and
prayers and letters and everything!

The church is true I know it! If you don't know that yet, please ask! Heavenly Father will let you know! I promise!

All of my love,
Your sister, Sister Lee

Okay so we had this portrait done like my second week here.. haha so
funny! It looks nothing like us! does it??

My beautiful Kyiv temple! It was so good to be around it for a few days!

How grateful I am... plus a ton of a pictures :)

Hello!

It literally feels like it was just yesterday I was sitting here in this internet club emailing you my letter last week. The weeks are seriously flying by! My mission is basically over!! Okay, so that's a little dramatic, but really it is going by way too fast! And this week will be a week of change and it will be so bitter-sweet! Team WeaseLee is coming to an end.

Sister Wease and I have one more day together, and I fear I may go into minor depression. I AM GOING TO MISS MY TRAINER SO MUCH!!! I have learned so much from her this transfer and I don't want it to end. 

How grateful I am that I was blessed with such an amazing trainer that taught me not only to work hard, but to ALWAYS love the work!

How grateful I am that after a long day of not understanding anything that was said I could just sit and laugh with my companion at all the mistakes I made.

How grateful I am to have a companion that would let me experiment with cooking projects and have fun at meal times!

How grateful I am to have had a trainer that was the most patient person I ever have met. Pronouncing words for me over and over again. Listening to me as I struggle my way through reading the Book of Mormon in Russian helping me with every syllable.

How grateful I am for the hours of companionship study that I was honored to have with Sister Wease. That was always my second favorite part of the day (I love personal study reading my Book of Mormon:) ) because I would just sit there as she would tell me all of her gospel insights. Every time she told me of what she learned during her personal study my testimony was strengthened immensely.

How grateful I am to have had the opportunity to serve with such an amazing sister. Who I do believe is the best sister in the whole mission.

I had the opportunity to just soak up Sister Wease's spirit every minute of every day for the past 6 weeks and now it's coming to a close. I wish I could have Sister Wease as my companion my whole mission, we have had so many great memories and experiences together and so many things will happen because of her hard work in the next coming transfers I just want her to be here to see them!

I was beyond blessed with Sister Wease as my trainer. I remember praying SOOOO hard that Heavenly Father would bless me with a good trainer. Never did I ever think He would give me THE BEST trainer. But boy am I grateful! This is a shout out to future Sister Wease reading this from her cute home in Oregon, THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU! YOU ARE THE BEST!!!!

At the end of this chapter a new chapter begins. I will be training sweet Sister Parish and I will meet her on Thursday. Please start praying for her and for me! I cannot wait to do this work with her and I know we will have a great time together!

I love you all! I know that this church is true! And I am so grateful to give my time telling people about it!

Tell next week!

All of My love,
Your sister, Sister Lee

Our P-day in Center one of my first weeks

Team Weasley :)

The cute sisters of our district :)

Sister Wease made YUMMY YUMMY 4th of July pancakes!

We love sports day :) Every Saturday we have sports for investigators, ward members, people who come to English Club or anyone, SO FUN! :)

My new companion, isnt she the cutest!? Okay not yet, maybe in a few transfers :)

So the 2nd counselor in the bishopric here is the sweetest guy I have ever met! Yesterday after church he gave us these beautiful boquets and thanked us for our service. It was so special.

best friend!

Our district :)

Get out here and serve!

Dear Fellow Missionaries, :)

Yes I'm talking to you! If you have not seen the broadcast "The Worth of Souls" yet you all need to watch it! You all are missionaries just like me! Isn't that so exciting?! How grateful I was for this broadcast! President Gordon B. Hinckley once said.. (I'm totally paraphrasing, I don't remember his exact words, please don't through me in jail) "When we think of missionary work we think of just tracting, but we all know there is a better way than that, it is through the members." I didn't realize how true that was until after being out here for a few weeks. We as missionaries can try as hard as we can, being friendly, looking for clues, serving, bearing testimony, everything but sometimes it just doesn't work, but when we meet with a referral things will go so much better! I challenge all of you to take the broadcast seriously. EVERY MEMBER A MISSIONARY! Help us missionaries, that are learning a scary new language and far from home, out! We need all the help we can get bringing our brothers and sisters unto Christ. And I promise you, never will you ever find greater joy than the joy you will have while sharing the gospel.

panorama

Okay now for news. First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY BEAUTIFUL SISTER BEKAH!!!!! Thank you for all you are doing, running my Facebook and my blog. I keep getting emails about how cute my blog is and I can't wait to see it when I get home, it will be such a sweet surprise! Thank you for your example to me and always being one of my best friends. Sure do love you so much and I wish you the best on this birthday. Happy Happy Birthday Sister Dear! Happy Days will come to YOU ALL YEAR! If I had one wish then it would be that you could be here to celebrate with me!!! Maybe next year ;) Oh I love you! I'll eat Ukrainian treats here for you today :) It will be my pleasure.

Second on the agenda.. My SISTER IS GETTING MARRIED!!!!!!!!! Lexi! I'm so ticked off and so happy at the same time!!! Like, why didn't you get married while I was there you bum?!?! But AHHHH I'm so happy for you! YAY!!!!! Seriously that is so awesome! Mom was telling me about your dress, you are going to be the most gorgeous bride! I can't wait to see pictures! It will be so weird that I can't be there.. so weird. But it's okay I'll be there in spirit :) Oh I can only imagine how beautiful it all will be! Yay! I love weddings! We witnessed a little wedding reception the other night in the church and it was such a wonderful celebration. You should do a Ukrainian wedding Lex! That would be awesome!

Thirdly, I'm still doing great here in beautiful Ukraine! Summer is getting pretty hot.. really hot, and natives say it's only going to get hotter, but it is beautiful! And Heavenly Father blesses us with beautiful rainstorms, so I'm loving it here.

our rainstorms :)

This week we did exchanges so we had four sisters in our apartment for a two days and it was such a party! I got to be companions with cute Sister Barnes from my MTC district for a day and that was very fun, it was so cool to see how far both of us have already come. Looking at yourself you don't see the progress that you make but Sister Barnes reassured me that I have made a lot of progress so that's good news! I led the area completely for those two days and didn't get lost once, so training is going to be a total cinch! Like, I got this! (But please keep praying for me, haha) We tried new finding ideas while they were here with us, including drawing on the sidewalk in a park. That was very fun! We did it at a bad time of day though, so not many people were there, I plan on doing that again though. Thanks Deseree' for that awesome idea! I love fun finding ideas, so you return missionaries who are reading this, if any of you have ideas send them my way!

Chalk Finding :)

Team WeaseLee has one week left together. So weird. I feel like I have known Sister Wease my whole life. We plan on making this the best week of missionary history with a lot of YOSO. We have many investigators so close to baptism so we will see what Heavenly Father's plan is for them. It is always so cool to see His hand here in everything we do. This definitely is His work. And how I love to have Him for my boss.

The Killers are having a concert here in Kyiv and Sister Wease and I bought tickets so we're super excited for that! Okay just kidding we're not going to their concert... but Brandon Flowers (the lead singer(he's a mormon...."I'm Brandon Flowers and I'm a Mormon(watch his mormon.org video)") is having a fireside tonight and we are taking our investigator Лена (Lena) and our cute friend Камила (Camilla). I will let you know all about that next week! 

Well friends and family, I love you all. How grateful I am to have you supporting me on this wonderful adventure I am having. I love LOVE serving a mission. Anyone who is questioning serving, Get out here and serve! It is the best! I love my Savior Jesus Christ and the precious testimony that I have of him. He truly is my best friend. I love my Father in Heaven, and I know He loves me! I also know He loves YOU!!!!  Don't believe me? Say a little prayer and feel His love surround you, it's the best!

I love you! Till next week!

All of my Love,
Your Sister, Sister Lee