fam bam,
my thoughts are scattered. this letter will be too. i love the sisters here. i learn so much from them. we had a split last week, i went back to novie doma. it was refreshing. i realized that i haven't gone more than six weeks without change since last winter. move, shake. you'll never guess what i did on the eve of thanksgiving. a gift with the lochheads for those of us leaving in a few weeks. i can't tell you. we'll talk about it in a few weeks.
thanksgiving. we had a zone conference. the lochheads are incredible. christmas is coming. we presented about family history to the zone. it was great. that night after thanksgiving dinner together, a member came to see president. came for a temple recommend interview but came an hour early. at the end, what did she say? 'i just have to show you what i have here.' a notebook. names. dates. thousands. she spends every day in the archive working on her family history. she's found and submitted 60,000 names. for temple work. 60,000.
there are no coincidences. and in the time she was talking to president, where were we? we went to the cemetery with a recent convert. we found her grandmother, grandfather, and others. it was dark. i just happened to have the flashlight from last year's hales reunion in my bag. slowly magically and gently started falling. it was cold. and then. the crowded cemetery, the fences, the gravestones, the different quarters. dasha was sure we'd never find them. we prayed. we sang as we walked. she knew generally, but not exactly. and then suddenly, there they were. we found them. dasha said she felt them. felt them guiding. the light of grandpa hales and the spirit of her ancestors. and we later put the names into family search. she created a tree and when it's in the fan setting, it looks as though all her family is surrounding her. beautiful. there are no coincidences. a labor of love.
we taught the third hour on sunday. so, i mean. i mostly taught third hour on sunday and my fresh almost done training sister fin helped. we talked of family history. of doctrine and stories. i showed them photos of my tree. i showed them nicholas george nevers. in some ways. that presentation. and a note some of my former companions asked me to write them--of my testimony, you could say. these together are my final thesis. it hit me yesterday. in a gentle moment as i looked out on the shlyax. i'm leaving. i'm actually leaving this place. and it's not so far away. the month in which. things are getting real--real fast. this is my last full week in kharkov. (time to freak out.)
and last saturday. so our investigators. their names are mud right now. but we love them anyway. mostly. but we had a branch thanksgiving activity. nikolai came and brought a friend. sis fin and i played the violin with the other missionaries singing 'what child is this?' it was beautiful. our less active came just to hear us play. i love these people. i love holidays. happy holidays--because there is much for which to be thankful. and what did the relief society ask us to do for the activity? cook chickens. chickens they gave us. us, the elders, the other sisters. turns out. when they give you a (recently) frozen chicken. it's mostly still all chicken. we cut it. gutted it. skinned it. there were a few feathers still. i won't be touching or eating any chicken anytime soon. there might have been tears it was so gross. i'll remember forever thanksgiving as breaking a chicken spine at seven o'clock on a saturday morning with a knife that's not that sharp. knife's a liberal term. chicken guts.
с праздником!
much love,
sister em.
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