McDonalds

Hello Fam 

and whoever else reads this. How's it goin? this week was nice. I forgot to tell you that my companion came back and he was at the New Years party in Donetsk. On Christmas here we didnt really do anything, christmas here isnt tooo much different other than the fact that it isnt as big as it is in america. And it still didnt feel like Christmas haha I guess the only thing different they do, I heard this and am not sure if it is true, they open all their presents on Christmas Eve. BUt then I went on a split to Donestk with the ZL becasue he had a meeting and so I went with a missionary from another zone and he was pretty cool. Elder Christensen. He is from New Mexico and is way good at Russian even though he has only been here 2 transfers more than me. We taught a recent convert and it was half English half Russian so that was fun and she look like a solid member who loves the church and was just way friendly. While in Donestk we got McDonalds which was so delicious haha it was nice to have some fries and hamburger, I actually ordered two Big Mac combo meals haha (I can picture dads face while he reads this) hahaha but it was way good.

 Then when we were riding a bus to the train station it was haulin and the roads arent too smooth so we were literally flying off of our seats haha Then we have had lessons set up and stuff but most of them have fallen through so we have done a lot of contacting and that has been rough but we have found a few people so hopefully they saty interested. We called to set up lessons and two of the people we called thought that Mormons cant use the computer and the other thought we were Amish haha and they both didnt want to know more and didnt believe that we could use computers and internet and stuff.  We did have one lesson and it was outside in someones backyard on a wet log, in the dark haha but I said a few things and my Russian was terrible but hey I said some stuff right haha then tracting last night we talked to this kid who was like 18ish and he said he wanted to know more and agreed to let us talk to him for like 10 minutes then his babooshky came and said we dont need this and closed the door on him and us ha but we were able to give him a pamphlet some hopefully he calls or comes to church. 

President and Sister Lochhead came to our branch yesterday so it was good to see them and they both said some cool things. President shared how the branch is like a family and if you move a coal away from a fire it gets cold so we need to stay close to the fire and keep warm and such then Sister Lochhead did a presentation in Sunday School about how when we are free to choose we arent necessarily free because disobeying God's commandments takes away from freedoms and weighs us down and she had someone hold books and was blindfolded and tied with rope and said well this doesnt look very free at all. ha it was funny but very true and very cool.

This week I also made the mac and cheese that was sent to me for christmas and it was way good so thanks mel! I also had a dream a while ago that mom was speaking to me in Russian and I had no idea what she was saying haha so the russian is there somewhere in my brain haha 

love you all and hope you have a good week! 

-Love Elder David Witt

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! It is crazy it is 2014! Let me first start off with a few goals I have. 

1- Unlike most people I want to gain weight, maybe 15-20 pounds. Preferably muscle but if not that's fine (hopefully I don't get a worm and lose any weight) 

2- Not see too many people peeing on the side of the road. 

3- Get along with my companions. 

4- Find a friend that I can be friends with after my mission (no not any girls). 

5- Do something cool or give something cool to a member or investigator that they remember forever. 

6- See someone get baptized in a river (it'd be cool) 

7- Read all of the Bible. 

8- Learn how to play the top hand on the piano.

9- And of course learn the Russian language, the grammar, learn how to speak and understand them and have a conversation with them and know what is going on. 

Those are a few goals. 

Here are some pics from Christmas Eve and Christmas. 

 and some giant statue..

On Tuesday we left early in the morning for Donetsk by train, not as cool as I thought. nothing like Harry Potter and it doesn't help when you are squashed between two larger women, so we could spend the New Years there. We watched the Nutcracker that day and it was better than I remembered and the live music was way good! Then the next day we had mission conference and it was way good! We talked about how to be a real missionary and we watched a clip from the movie "The Miracle" i think. it is about the USA hockey team and it looks like a good movie so I will probably watch it when I get back, anyway, we have already joined this team so we need to work hard for the team we are on. Another cool line was the name on the back (last name) isnt as important as the name on the front (USA) and it is just like our tags, our names are on there as well as Jesus Christ's name and his name is most important since this is his work. But we need to embrace the challenges in life and on the mission and "Just Do It". We had to be in early the few nights we were in Donetsk because people get crazy haha 

Some lessons we have planned have fallen through and so we did a lot of contacting and that is a lot of work, especially since I am still not use to it getting dark like at 3:30 haha there wasn't much success in that either but we did find one lady we asked her for directions and she didnt know so she went  into some store and yelled asking if anyone knew and everyone was quiet and staring haha but then no one knew so she said well come to my place and I will look it up on the computer, so we did and we still couldn't find it..haha so she offered us some tea and she didnt have herbal tea so she said hold on a sec and went outside then came back with some berries that she picked, haha so she smashed them up and put them in hot water and we drank it, no it wasn't that good but she was nice ha then after she said let me come with you to find this place so we walked around some more haha and she was just talkin to us telling us about her life haha Then we encountered some more drunks on the bus and they were being stupid ha but no scences. 

Church was good yesterday and the man who we found tracting came again so that is good. They always ask me to do stuff and I dont know what they ask so I have to have it translated haha and so I just bear my testimony cause that's about all  I can say haha 

this is a member in our ward who is blind and he plays the accordian, very very cool and such a cool man

one quick last little story, we just ate some blinok, delicious crepe things and I bet they would be a big hit in America so maybe I will open one one I get back, but the wild dogs smell those and they just follow you around wanting some haha thankfully they aren't too ferocious so we didn't get attacked but it followed us until we came to this cafe to use the internet haha I'm glad we don't have too many strays in America haha 

Love you all and hope your Christmas break was nice 

Merry Christmas (the Russian one) haha
с Новым годом

love you! 
-Cтарейшина Витт

GOING PRIVATE

By next week this blog will be private...so if you'd  like to continue reading David's letters/posts and seeing pictures on this blog then please put your email address in the comments and I will add you. THANKS!!

Another week here in Ukraine! I will first start out with we just heard this guy talking on the phone right next to our computers and he was speaking English so we asked where he is from and he is from Ireland picking up his wife he met on the internet..haha but he had to leave because he had to take the tv remote back to the house because he had put it into his pocket thinking it was his phone..haha good old old people. but it was good to hear English ha last night I tried borsh for the first time and it was actually not too bad, Elder Newey made it and it tasted like beets (dirt) but it wasn't too shabby. 

I would like to apologize for having to make my blog private, I just found out that the area presidency has asked that missionaries here make it private, so if you could mention that on FB and then put my email and my other address on there that would be fantastic.

 It was very good to hear from you guys on Christmas! Thank you so much for the Christmas presents you sent me they were all awesome. It didn't feel like Christmas too much though becasue there weren't tons of presents, music and decorations. And plus they celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January so no one else was celebrating ha but it was still a good day and it was good to reflect on what Christmas is about, the birth of our Savior and brother Jesus Christ.

We decided to do some secret santas for some people in our branch, so we went to some stores and while looking for stuff we came across some ties, so we bought some for them and some for us and it was like 12 ties and it cost 34 grieven so thats like a little more that 4 dollars for 12 ties, what an awesome deal haha so we were talking them to houses  yesterday and it is much harder to do secret santas here than it is in America becasue in America you just set it on their porch, ring the door bell and run, but here you have you have someone who lives there push a button to open a metal door then you have to ring a bell to another door and behind that door is 2-4 appartments which also have doors, so basically if a zombie appocolypes happened they would be safe behind all these locked metal doors, but anyway after we finally got in, after somone had opened the door and left we went in, but we got to the second door and no one answered and sometimes the doorbells dont work so we werent sure if it was working then a neighbor came out and opened that door so we were finally able to just leave the present infront of the door of the person who we were trying to give the gift to ha so it was a little more challenging than at home ha but it was still good that we gave some stuff to less actives and investigators. 

On Friday we went to a reception, a missionary who was here about 6 months ago came back and has been dating someone and will be married soon, hence the reception..anyway there was some dancing, that we as missionaries watched..haha and then there were like 20-30 people there and we sat around some make shift tables and had cake that was pretty good and that was it. 

A few days before that we taught this girls, who is getting married, family becasue he just got baptized not too long ago, and guess who baptized him..? his future son in law haha but we taught them and I led the lesson, well I guess it was more of a spiritual thought, we read from the Book of Mormon then we talked about it and it went pretty well actually.They are a really cool family though so it was nice to teach them.

And the last little bit I will add is we went tracting and we found this one old man and at first he said talk to my nieghbor and shut his door ha then we were still on his floor so when he came out to go somewhere he started talking to us and we invited him to church and he came yesterday! so that was really cool and he has read a little bit of the Book of Mormon and wants to meet with us so hopefully it works out! 

I love you all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

-Cтарейшина Витт

Merry Christmas from Ukraine

More than a full week down now here in Ukraine! again I would like to apologize in advance if my typing is a little off becasue of the Ukranian spell check. But it has been a good week even though it has been kinda crazy, so My companion is still in Bulgaria and the said it will take 7-14 business days,from today, for them to return..so we will see haha On Thursday the AP's came and I was with one and the other Elders in my zone were with the other, his name is Elder Stoker and from Vegas, so he has some funny stories, but he is cool and a awesome missionary.One really cool thing that happened when I was with him was we were teaching this man on the street and it was basically the whole first lesson and we totally could feel the spirit and you could see it in his eyes and in his face that he could too, but because he is Pravoslavnian he can not read books that have not been "okayed" or something, by their church leaders, so it kinda sucked that he didn't want to meet again but it was awesome we felt the Spirit way strong even on the busy streets.

It is funny when we were street contacting someone asked where we were from and we said America and he said "I can totally tell he is from America" haha but it is because most of the time I smile at people and such haha but I bought a shopka, a russian hat, so maybe I fit in a little better. Coke is really cheap here so we get that sometimes and it is actually kinda good, it is like a not of good as flavor as Dr. Pepper haha They eat a lot of mushrooms, I have had them on a few wraps that we have gotten, from off the streets, hopefully I dont get worms, haha, just kidding but I don't know if I will ever come to like them they are pretty gross haha One food, well I guess it is a treat, is Kontik, it is like a chocolate cracker type thing and you bite two ends and use it as a straw to suck milk out a bowl or soemthing, they are pretty dang good ha. I guess they have them in America or something like them called tim tams, so if you ever find any bite each end and give it a whirl haha

We taught a guy this week who said a long time ago he had a dream that his baptism as a baby wasn't valid and he needed to pray and he had that happen to him a few times then one time after he was done praying, like in the middle of the night, his sister called him, who is a member, and told him about our church. So he has been investigating and knows it is true but his wife is against the church and won't let him get baptized. We set a date with him and told him to pray to have Heavenly Father soften her heart so he can be baptized and we are praying too, so hopefully she will let him be baptized by the end of January. 

I guess quite a bit of people here in Lugansk have dreams about the missionaries and joining our church and looking for us and stuff, so it is pretty cool that I got to serve in this area first. 

We made some cookies for less active members and we keep our tortillas in our toaster oven, so those got burned and our cookies got burned so that didn't really work out haha but we made some more and delivered them to a family well a mom and her son and it was cool to show them my pictures of home, they really like that and they like pictures of big families, so it was cool to meet with them.

The weather here hasn't been too cold, and a lot of the snow has melted, so I guess global warming is working..haha the only part that gets cold is when the wind blows and yeah that is chilly haha I am still trying to get used to having the sun go down around 4 pm every day ha it is like 6pm and it feels like it should be 10 haha it is weird 

Oh yeah one last thing, there money is pretty colorful so it looks like monoply money haha but it is pretty cool and mostly everyhting here is pretty cheap it is like 30 cents to ride the marshootkas (I am not quite sure how you'd spell it out in English) but that is the transportantion we used. It is like a big van that there is room to stand up in and such and sometimes they get crammed packed haha but other than riding that we just walk around everywhere, which isnt too bad. 

Well it was a good week here in Lugansk, Ukraine and I am very greatful to be here. I am also glad that we teach and believe that both members and non members of our church can choose whether or not our church is true and they can investigate it for themselves rather than just keeping people in our church just becasue someone said we had to or because of traditions. I really enjoy it here and it should be an intersting yet good Christmas being away from home haha 

Merry Christmas!

Love you all!

Love,

-Elder Witt

Lugansk

Alright! I am here in Ukraine! I got here safe and sound. Like I said our flights were all good and everything was pretty smooth.President Lochhead met us at the Donetsk airport and was with Vladimir, a member in the ward and they took us to the Presidents house where we had dinner and went over a few things. Then we stayed at the AP.'s house, they were pretty cool and funny then we woke up the next morning and had a delcious breakfast at the Presidents house then we headed over the church where we had a transfer meeting and talked about some better ways to teach, then we found out where we were going and who our companions were. So, the moment we've all been waiting for..I am in the Lugansk area with Elder Riley.

Lugansk is a satellite city, really small and really far away from everyone else, so there are 6 of us in our zone. We have 4 Elders and 2 Sisters and they are all pretty legit. We are the furthest mission east, so the closest to Russia. It is a pretty cool city. my apartment is actually pretty nice it has a front room kitchen bedroom and bathroom, even though it is small it is nice. We are on the 6th floor and we have an elevator so that's nice.

Elder Riley is from California and has trained few people and people say he is really good, which he is. He is really smart and is very good at Russian. He is also studying Ukrainian haha he also knows some German too He is pretty cool. So I've got to teach, well listen I guess since I have no idea what they are saying haha, to a few lessons. We taught Lila with 2 sister members and it went well, she was supposed to come to church but then she was in another city so she didn't end up coming. Then we taught Roman. This was in English because we have an English club, which he was the only one who showed up this week. So we had English and talked about meeting new people and such then after my companion and I taught him. He was talking about how he is interested in Monks and Mormons and can't decide which one he wants so he does both ha. I guess they have been teaching him for like 5 years or something and supposedly has made progress, so hopefully we can make some more progress with him. 

And the other lesson we taught was Alexander. He wanted us to buy him butter so he could feed us but we didn't have time, but we went to his house and he rinsed out a few stained tea cups and pulled out some crackers and we had chai and crackers. I am not sure why he needed the butter haha but it was a small house with a kitchen bathroom and bedroom and it was very small, and run down, a lot but I guess that's how most of the houses are here. Talk about culture shock hahaha a lot of people drink tea, but herbal kind is the okay kind we just can't drink the black tea.

Yesterday we had church in this small building, it has a big room then about 5 or 6 other rooms for classes. There are about 50 people in the branch and they all seem pretty cool. They would say oh you're new! then some other stuff and I'd just smile haha Then they had me bare my testimony which was nice, I said good duck then just kidding I know the word it is good morning, cause duck and morning are similar, anyway I thought it was funny I don't think they got it though haha 

Oh yeah so my companion had to go to Bulgaria to renew his visa so I am with Elder Newey, he is a cool cat, so we have to cover his area and our area, then the sisters do their area. He is new to the area but has about six months left, so he knows Russian but doesn't really know how to get around so thankfully we haven't gotten lost yet haha  They said my companion could be gone from 5 days to a month so we will see haha 

Last night was my first experience tracting so that was a good time! haha I guess some lady said to us "What have you heard" after we knocked haha then we said we were missionaries and she flipped out and was swearing and said she would call the police haha Oh yeah there are 2 doors to houses there is an inside door and an outside door, they open the inside door then say, Who's there through the other door so we rarely even see their faces ha but it was a good time, I was told I would have some interesting experiences while tracting so I can't wait haha 

Anyway it has been a good first week I am still trying to settle in and not be so culture shocked hopefully it wears off soon haha but it has been a good time and I am glad that I am finally here. Oh yeah both packages were here when I got here so thank you so much for sending them! I can't wait to open the Christmas ones and finish opening up the 12 days of Christmas ones! Oh yeah one of the sisters in my zone thought my real name was  Veet, haha ah good times, so We just said it is the Russian way and Witt is my English last name haha
Love you! 

oh yeah one other thing I just remembered, we watched the Christmas devotional from the First Presidency of the Church at the MTC and it was way good, so look it up and watch it if you didn't watch it on tv!

http://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/christmas-devotional/2013/12?lang=eng&vid=2912344387001

Love,
Cтарейшина Витт

Elder David Witt 

He made it to Ukraine today

Emailing from Ukraine! It is Legit and i am so excited! We made it here safe without any problems and all of our flights were on time and everything! then we met our mission president at the airport in Donetsk and now we are at the mission home! I think Pday is Monday so I will email again then! Love you all! 

-Elder Witt

Last email from America

This is our zone doing the Russian smile. 

(starting left back) Elder Luekenga,Elder Parker, Elder Puckridge, Me, Elder Maltba, Elder Horn, Elder McDonald, Elder Alvord and Elder Lusk

then in the front row Sister Anderson, Sister Bruening, Sister Watts, Sister Farmer, Elder Houston 

Ready or not here we go! I just wanted to send one last email today since I'm not sure when the next time I will be able to email. I just want to say that I love you guys and thanks again for all of your prayers and support, I am glad I am going to teach people about Jesus Christ and not going off to war haha I can't believe we leave Tuesday morning at 3:30 am! We have been packing and I can't believe how fast nine weeks has gone by! I have enjoyed hearing from Dallin H.Oaks, L. Tom Perry and Russel M. Nelson and so many other members from the 70 and their wives while here at the MTC and I know that they are definitely apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ. It has been a good  time here at the MTC and I am so grateful for my teachers, district and zone but I am so excited to get to Ukraine and help guide people to the light and gospel of Jesus Christ, even though they won't have any idea what I am saying haha 

Oh yeah we got new Sisters and Elders this week for our zone! so we hosted on Wednesday and brought in, I think it was, 750 new missionaries then on Thursday night my companion and I and the Sister Training Leaders got to have a meeting with the new Sisters and Elders that came into our zone. So that was fun getting to meet them! Too bad we only get a few days with them though haha We also did infield orientation Thursday, that was long but it was good and it makes me more excited to get there!  

I remember dad saying "you will forget all of the Spanish you have learned" and I didn't believe him but I have ha and only Russian words come to my mind, but I guess it is a good thing since I will be speaking that for the next two years. haha I love you so much and can't wait to be in Ukraine in less than 48 hours! 

Thank you for the Thanksgiving, Christmas  and other letters and gifts I have loved them. 

Even though I only know a little bit of Russian I am again so excited to serve and love the people in Ukraine! 

Until next time, and I will be writing from Ukraine..

Я тебя люблю!

-Cтарейшина ДавиД Витт