Newbie from New Zealand!

Hello!

So this week our mission got a lot of brand new "greenies"! The two sisters coming from the Spain MTC stayed at our apartment their first night so that was cool! Then Sis Busath and I were asked to sing again at the new missionary orientation.  We sang a special version of "Savior, Redeemer of my soul".

Elder Cookson is our newbie from New Zealand and he's super cool. He has a lot of desire to get to work and also to learn Russian so that's awesome and very humbling and we're learning from his example. He's so positive! It's pretty interesting to see cause he doesn't know much Russian yet but he sure will learn it fast. He decided instead of trying to bear his testimony to the branch on Sunday in Russian, he sang a hymn and you guys should have seen the branch they all fell in love with him haha it was so funny cause it was all our babushkys (elder ladies )talked about.

We found out where Galina (lady we met pepper plant contacting)  works and when so we dropped by and talked to her for awhile and sis Busath asked  her about her coming to church. Turns out she hadn't said she was interested in coming to church, she only goes on holidays but then I said well maybe she'd like to read the book of Mormon and she took it and was thankful. we started talking about what we believe about life after death and such we think she may believe that resurrection is reincarnation but I told her to read the intro and Alma 40 and she said she would so we're hopeful to start teaching her officially this week!

We have had trouble recently getting a hold of this one member who was active but went away for the summer and we hadn't seen her since she got back over a month ago. Sis Busath had the idea to just go to her apartment to drop off cookies or something but then we almost decided not to but later that day we saw on the branch list that it was her birthday that day. I said that we definitely have to now then. Well we went with a card and chocolates but the dumb phone didn't work and no one was around to let us in but I knew we should stay and  wait. Well long story short we got in and she was home and so happy we stopped by! She let us in to talk and have spiritual thought and her less active daughter who we hadn't been able to meet with at all sat in the whole time, and participated! We got to know her better and the Spirit was definitely there. It was a huge miracle for us and a lesson to always go through with the first prompting.

Other then that, We carved pumpkins but didn't have enough time to go contact with them like we wanted to so stayed for that next week. And it's getting way cold here but we also finally had some pretty fall colors!

Love ya!

Cectpa Horne

Харковь!!! (Kharkov!!)

Hey!!

This was a really fun week!! It started with making homemade shwarma on Canadian Thanksgiving (maybe not better than a turkey dinner but still soo good!) and then ended with an awesome trip to Kharkov!!

This was Elder Shweighart's last week of the mission this week so we did a lot of fun things with the Elders and were invited to a couple of members houses with them. It's really sad to see him go, he's probably the most humble and hard working missionary ever! It's been a fun transfer with this district and we got transfers this week and me and Sis Busath are staying together! :) Also we're going to have a "son" haha sorry more mission lingo aka Elder Hilobok is training an Elder and he's from New Zealand! we're excited. We're also getting SO many new missionaries in our mission these next couple transfers! it's crazy! but we're so happy to get more missionaries.

Saturday we accepted an invitation from one of our friends to go to one of her church services. We decided it could be cool to check it out and meet her friends. We were a little worried because we heard some weird things about this particular church, but it ended up being fairly normal.. although we have this one song stuck in our head now lol they were really nice though.

On Sunday we went to sacrament meeting in center - and I found out that the wife of a member who I almost taught got baptized the day before! It was so amazing to hear and see her be confirmed a member. Then all of us, like 20 or so missionaries, got in a bus and drove to Kharkov! It was so fun to see all these missionaries I haven't seen in forever. Kharikov looks super pretty and European downtown, it was cool to be there even for a just a bit. Elder Kearon of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Golden and his wife of the Seventy had a conference with all of the missionaries in the mission and it was SO good! Learned a lot but mainly I loved that I could feel the Spirit SO strong the entire time! Sis Sullivan asked Sis Busath and I to sing the same song we sang at zone conference at the beginning..and apparently they all cried soo mission accomplished ahaha just kidding. But yeah that day went by way too fast but it was great!

Sorry, I actually took some pics this week but we had to go to a Internet cafe today so they tell me I shouldn't put my camera in the computer in case I get a virus..

With love,

Cectpa Horne


Pics of Galina's baptism from last week:

Galina's baptism!!

Heeey!!

I hope you all had an amazing week - full of turkey if you are my Canadian peeps;) and full of goodness!

My week was awesome. I received a lot of counsel, revelation and blessings. First we had an awesome Zone conference. This transfer we were focusing on the Book of Mormon and how we can use it more. I've really learned to love this book SO much and I know it is so powerful. We watched one of the talks from general conference on how there is no way that it was not translated and brought to us by the power of God and it is so cool how clear it is logically but really we know that the true way to know it's truth is to ask God and I'm so grateful of the testimony I've received of it. 

Sister Busath and I did a musical number at Zone conference and we actually also did another one at Galina's baptism. But even though we did pretty well on both we didn't do as well as we hoped but we re filmed for y'all haha where we don't forget the words or voice isn't weird ;) ( BTW I was a little bummed when I found out I actually accidently got cut out of our zone conference pic buut I'm deciding to look on the bright side, this just meaning we have more sisters now;))

So Saturday was really great because.. Galina got BAPTIZED!! :)) The service ended up going really well despite us being pretty stressed because the font wasn't filling up super fast or like no one was coming until the last minute or late. But lots of people were there and Galina was super cute and giddy and super happy and grateful afterwards. Lots of her family and friends who came loved it and it was a really good, spiritual service. We're so happy for her! She went to all of conference and then her birthday is today so it's been a good weekend for her. Sis Busath and I got her a baptism/birthday gift of sparkling grape juice because she was a little disappointed that she wouldn't be able to drink and celebrate how she usually had on her birthday haha

How did everyone like conference?? From what we got to see so far, ( we watched sunday and saturday morning with the Sullivans and missionaries and ate Sis Sullivan's homemade cinnamon rolls mmm)  I thought it was AMAZING as always. Flipping love general conference. I saw theme of focusing on others and serving and that things in your own life will work out. I really need to work on that more this year. I'm so grateful for living prophets, apostles and leaders who receive revelation for us TODAY. If you missed it, you need to go watch or read it! lds.org <<<  I can't wait to watch the rest and read them in the Liahona and study them until next conference!!

Anyway.. I'm super excited for this week and next sunday guess what?! .. We're going to KHARKOV! I've never been there before and we're having a big mission conference because Elder Kearon is coming! SO excited! 

Love ya! Have a good week:)

Cectpa Horne

Here are links to Celine and her companion singing a primary song in Russian and a beautiful version of 

Come Thou Font of Every Blessing

Russian version of Primary Song "When I Am Baptized"

Priviet vciem!

Priviet vciem! ( When I want to say hi in Russian but I also don't want to type in Russian and i want  you guys to be able to read it so.. voila)

Pretty normal week this week. The plants are still growing.. Lil Johnny ( one of the bean plants ) grew to new heights this week so we took some pics and then cut the top off. hahah

The Elders moved apartments this week and were kind of freaking out about getting it done on time but then didn't let us help til the last minute ( lol elders.. ) so while they went to an activity they were in charge of, we cleaned their apartment ahah so we had fun singing and scrubbing and taking pics because we were in the elders empty apartment.

Also we had a false alarm in  Dnepr where apparently the water and gas in the entire city was supposed to be turned off for like 2 DAYS! and so we prepped real hard and filled up all the buckets and pots we have... and then it never happened.. still waiting in slight suspense for it if it still will happen. aha. hopefully not during zone conference next week or the baptism! 

Oh yea! Galina had her baptismal interview yesterday and is all ready to baptized next saturday! We're so excited! 

I am SO EXCITED for general conference! you don't even know. We have to wait til this next weekend to watch it but I'd love to hear your thoughts! Sad to hear about the passing of Elder Hales but he went right on serving on the other side. Super thankful for him, actually I was just reading his talk from last conference this week on being a true disciple of Christ and it really made me want to do better and develop all of Christ's attributes more, especially seeing the example of the Prophets and how Christlike they are.

Talk to you next week with pics from the baptism:))

-Cectpa Horne 

Living in a green house and eating ostrich egg?

Ok before anything I just got to say... if Taylor Swift came out with a new album and no one told me about it...I'm going to be very disappointed with all of you.
But besides that.. hello again! How are the Americas? Life is swell over here in Ukraine..
Sister Busath and I have been having some fun with our green thumbs and have now not only been blessed with having our pepper plant but we now have two bean plants who went from beans in napkin to two sprouting little bean STOCKS in a week! It's pretty awesome.
We also went to Zap this week for exchanges and it was actually pretty funny because we were going to be late getting from our apartment to the bus station to drive to Zap Monday night so we called a taxi and in the mean time, like ten minutes, waiting for the taxi, we noticed our beans were sprouting so much so we frantically put them in dirt,in jars right before we left,  and when we came back from zap on Wednesday they were big!

In Zap I listened to Russian almost the entire day because I went with Sister Stepaiko who's from Kiev and we spent most of the day with a member named Ella , who's super awesome, she's in a wheelchair but she's just the best, so sweet and has such a strong testimony.



When we came back from Zap we had a district meeting with our district elders and they had bought and cooked an OSTRICH egg! haha so random but pretty cool. And so I ate an ostrich egg! pretty good. Also Sister Busath has an irrational fear of eggs but we got her to eat a piece!





One windy day we got lost trying to find a park to talk to people in but we ended up by a bunch of houses so I suggested we knock on a door ( Sis busath has never gone tracting yet! So we did a few "firsts" this week for her ) and we did, we went to one house and after the third ring a man came out and we couldn't really understand what he said but he was nice and we left a card. :)
Also we had a couple of lessons with Galina this week and she's still doing great and going to be baptized in two weeks! We're super excited for her and we invited her to invite her family and friends to the baptismal service and she did and said a lot will come! Proud:)
Also the center sister will probably have a baptism the same day! And it's for a girl who sister Spicer and I met on a marshrootka a long time ago, she knows a lot of English, and their mission leader happened to start working at the same place as her! So cool.

Love you all! ( even if you didn't tell me about the album it's ok I'll forgive;))

-Cectpa Horne


(WE TOLD CELINE about the new Taylor Swift album coming out in November so now she's informed! so don't worry everyone! lol!  
John and Isabelle Horne)

Village preachin

Great week but full of a bunch of little miracles that aren't that interesting to write about tbh...

 On Saturday though we went to the house of one of our friends who we've been teaching for awhile, Marina, out in a little village not too far away and they fed us soup and we got to meet her mom and grandma and great grandma and her uncle! And we taught the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. It was really good and spiritual and it was really nice because it's honestly been a while since I have been able to recite the first vision and I love doing that and the Spirit witnessed to me again that it was true!  I could feel the Spirit so strong when I told the story and  I really hope they felt it too! The mom seemed super interested  and so did the uncle, so I thought, until  we asked them if they would read and pray about the Book of Mormon and he told us that it was the same book as the bible  (??) haha so we were like noo.. but Marina's mom even showed him that it wasn't which was cool!

Anyway sorry not much this week but I've been blessed with so many moments this week where I get another witness that this is the truth. This is God's work. And it's super cool. I love being a missionary:) Also I've been reading the April conference Liahona (aka Ensign ) ever since we've got it and it's been my goal to read all the talks in it before October Conference and I'm almost done! I'm SO excited for next conference!!

Talk to you next week, have a good one!

 

Red Hot Chili Peppers XD

YO.

So not much happened this week.  Except.... I GOT A PEPPER PLANT:)

Yup. Hot peppers! I love spicy food and they don't have many in Ukraine but one day this week I wanted to buy this hot pepper plant we saw on the street , so I did! but then we decided that we could use it to contact people. So the next day we went into a nearby market holding my pepper plant and walked around and asked some people if they knew where we could find a pot to put it in. Well we actually found one pretty quick but then walking back, a lady passing by asked me how much it was. Well we stopped and talked with her and she was super nice and we ended up talking for about a half an hour. So now we have a friend named Galina who hopefully plans to come to church next sunday! We call it pepper-plant contacting and we tried it again and didn't work as well but maybe it was just meant for us to find Galina. :))) lol 

Also I almost died one day when eating a shwarma!! ( like a delicious middle eastern burrito ) but luckily I have someone looking out for me! So basically we bought a shwarma and brought it home and I actually waited til we got home to eat it (which i don't usually do ) and then it fell apart and all over my plate! so ate it with a fork and then as I'm finishing what fell out , I find a WASP!! With it's stinger still on it!! AH!! Man I'm seriously so grateful that I didn't eat it... be careful when you buy shwarma off the street y'all.

Have a good week y'all!

Loves,

Cectpa Horne