Did you hear there is a rumor in St. Petersburg????

Here is Sister Leavitt's email for this week.  She is being transfered and excied, yet nervous!

 Hey hey hey hey! This week has been so good, but I have exciting news that happened at the end of the week and it's so exciting that I can't wait until the end of the email to tell you all! I am getting transferred for the first time!!! I'm so nervous excited and sad all at the same time! Nervous because I've only ever served in Tagonrog the entire time I've been in Russia and so I don't really know anything or anywhere else. Excited because I've only served in Tagonrog the entire time I've been in Russia and I want to see more of it and meet more of the people, and Sad because I've only served in Tagonrog the entire time I've been in Russian and I've made such good friends here and I don't want to leave them. So I leave on Wednesday morning and go to Rostov, then at 4 pm I get on a train and ride it for 12 hours until I arrive in Volgograd! Yikes! I will be serving with Sister Tunney! I don't know too much about her yet, but next week I will tell you all about her. I am going to miss Tagonrog so much! Yesterday they had me talk in sacrament meeting and I almost started crying, and some of the members did too, but what can I say, after spending 6 months somewhere you just get attached to each other. But in other news this week.... On Thursday we celebrated Kandace's birthday by eating this delicious chocolate cake that we made in our oven that now works! It was also Sister Kuhn's year mark of being on a mission, so we celebrated that too. We met this such cool lady when we were contacting this week. Her name is Tatyana and I love her. We talked to her for about a half an hour about everything. She said to us and I quote, “I have seen the blessing of the lord in my life when I keep the 10 commandments, does your church really keep them?” it was so cool because of course we really do keep them. She says she has just been associated with other churches that don't exactly practice what they preach, but the bummerest part is that she didn't want to give us her number because she wanted to read more about us first to find out if this was worth her time. And she didn't come to church yesterday! Bummer times ten! But I think she would be golden if she would come and start learning more, I'll be praying for her. Well that was my week. I love you!!!! Until next week. Toodles.

Sister Leavitt

Happy Birthday KANDACE!l

 Sister Leavitt Just being so HAPPY to be in Russia!

 Sister Leavitt and her Russian companion, she loves working with her.

The sister missionaries enjoying the cookies the got to make.

Here is this weeks email We LOVE finally getting a few pictures of her.  Enjoy.

This has been a very very interesting and exciting week. But first things first, I have to wish my older and wiser Sister a very “Happy Birthday Kandace!”   I love you more than a fat kid loves chocolate cake... And I hope that you have a wonderful beautiful birthday this week!   So in other news the begining of the week was so crazy because we worked on Monday instead of doing p-day, then we took our p-day on Tuesday. This was so much fun because we got to go up to Rostov and see the Senior Couple and stay with them. Sister Lebaron and I even made a chocolate cake at their appartment, which just so happens to be a miracle! inspiration by the holy ghost because every zone conference Sister Jeppson makes chocolate cake for us, but this zone conference her and elder Jeppson were also speaking, so then she ended up not having time to make the cakes, but turns out we already made them! I love when the holy ghost prompts you to do something and then you do it and it helps some one else! And that was so much fun because their apartment is big and that means that their kitchen is big and so I got to really bake. I didn't realize that I missed it so much until I tried doing it again! I love cooking so much! So that was Tuesday. Then on Wednesday we had Zone Conference which is always so uplifting and inspiring. We made mini volcanoes out of play dough and then put vinegar and baking soda in the middle and got to watch them errupt. That was a ton of fun! Then we talked about how to create an atmosphere where the spirit can teach the peole we meet and how we need to do everything that we can to create those mini explosions in peoples lives when they hear the gospel... There was more to it than that, but I can't remember it all and I don't have my notes with me, so if you didn't quite understand that last little bit, that's okay. Well I think that brings us to Thursday, which was just a normal working day. We met with some inactives and did some contacting and it was so fun. On Friday we got to do service for one of our inactives. We picked Cherries and tied grapes for him. It was a ton of fun. On Saturday we met this really cool guy contacting. When we first met him he said he was athiest, but we just kept talking to him and teaching him and by the end he asked us for a copy of the book of mormon and gave us his phone number so that we can meet him again. I hope that the spirit with give him a change of heart and that he will accept the message of the gospel. So then Sunday, we met this really cool girl about a week ago and she invited us to come to her Church. We told her we could for a minute and she should come to ours to. But of course she couldn't come to our church because their church has two church meetings. One in the morning when our meeting is and one at night. So we still went to the one at night with her and I just have to tell you that it was one of the weirdest experiences of my entire life. After we were done there I just felt so icky inside, it wasn't like they were doing anything too weird or crazy, they just prayed and sang and discussed, but I just didn't feel refreshed like I do after I go to one of our church meetings. I was grateful for the experience though because my testimony that this church is the true church of God and that it was restored to the earth through his prophet was affirmed and it gave me a greater desire to do missionary work. She is a really amazing person though and we are having a book of mormon activity/ picnic on Saturday and she said that she could come! So I hope that she will come and feel the spirit with us. And that was my week. It has been so amazing. I have seen the blessings and inspirations from the Lord all around me and I know that if you look for the hand of the Lord in your life you'll see it. I love my life! It really is such an occasion! I love you all!!!


Sister Leavitt

Do the BEST you can then leave the rest to HIM!

Wow...such a great email this week.  Love Sister Leavitt's inspirational stories.

This week in my life was quite amazing! So I have a cool story. On Thursday we went on splits, or as Cameron would say C.S.P., most missions don't allow sisters to go on splits with elders, but in my mission we're allowed to. One sister goes with two elders and then that's how we do it. So we did this on Thursday and at the end of the day I was working with Elder Hansen and Elder White. Elder Hansen has been here for 6 weeks less than I have and Elder White has only been here for about a month. So we were going to teach this lesson, just the three of us, and this meant that out of everyone I spoke the most Russian. YIKES!!! But I just told myself that it would be okay and then prayed like crazy. So the lesson turned out to be amazing. I ended up teaching most of it, but the Elders did so well and they taught so much. They were amazing! So I learned that if we trust in the Lord and then go and do, he will help us. If we are working to do his will in our lives, of course we will succeed, because he will be helping us every step of the way. When we gain the confidence of the Lord by having faith and trusting in him, he will guide us to do his work and will always. ALWAYS. Yesterday we taught this lesson to this lady on the street. She started telling us about how she is all alone and how she has no one and nothing to have hope in. Her husband and her children have all died and now she is living with this lady who is a drunk. When she was telling us this story she started crying and I almost started crying too because I can't imagine how hard this life has been for her. We tried to give her a book of mormon, but she didn't take it because she said that her eyes are too bad so she can't read it. Then we told her to come to church on Sunday and we asked her if we could do anything to help her. She told us that she didn't want people to help her because her whole life she has been the one to help people. My heart just aches for her because I don't know what to do to help her. I hope that soon she will realized that through Christ we find hope, joy, and reason for life. I know that her life has beeh hard, but it could be so much better with Christ. Anyways, I just felt like telling you this story because this lady's story really touched my heart and gave me insight and so maybe it will do the same for you. And so, our week was so great!! We had fun working in people's gardens here and doing service and just talking to people on the streets and helping our members! One of our members has been sick lately so we went and visited her last night. Her cat just had kittens and they are so cute! I'm really not a cat person, but seeing these small baby kittens my have changed my mind... Well, that's all. I hope that you are all doing well and I will talk to you next week!

Love,

Sister Leavitt

Two Wrongs Don't make a RIGHT!

All I can say about this email is that "Everyday's a Holiday with Scrumptious"!  Love her emails, and sorry this is a week late being posted.  ~ Mamma K

So two wrongs don't make a right, but double negatives make a properly formed Russian sentence. For instance, if I want to say that I have never been to DisneyLand I would say it like this: I have never not been to DisneyLand. It's so weird, but I secretly love it because I could never say double negatives in English or else everyone would get mad, but here I get to do it all the time because you're allowed! HURRAY FOR LIFE!!! So this week in the life of myself was quite interesting. We went to the park by the sea on Friday and drew the plan of salvation with the other sisters working in Tagonrog. It was a ton of fun and a lot of people were interested and stopped to see what we were doing and then we got to tell them about the plan of salvation! So we were just talking to people and having fun when all of the sudden this old lady comes over and starts yelling at us for talking to people. This boy, who was 11, was talking to us because he wanted to pracitce a little bit of English and she started pushing his bike away. So the boy rode away and the old lady kept yelling at us and then she said that she was going to get the police because there was a police station not far away and she stormed off. Then the little boy came back and said, "You guys better get out of here because everythings going good and then, BOOM, the cops come and it's over." It was so cute, but we did leave because it was time for us to go home for the night anyways. So there's you funny story for the week. We taught some really good lessons on the street this week. One was to this guy name Maxime. He's cool he's atheist, but when he was talking to us he was so intrigued by what we were saying and so we have an appointment to meet with him tomorrow! Oh, one more thing that I just remembered that I wanted to say is that, well do you know that cotton stuff that flies around in the air during the spring sometimes in utah? Well, they have that here too, except all of their trees must be that kind of tree because when you walk outside it feels like it's snowing and you can't breathe too deep or else you'll get one of those cotton things sucked right up into your nose, just so you know. Well I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Leavitt

P.S. LEXI!!!!!!!! I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!!! Momma K told me that you found a job! Hurray! All of your wildest dreams are coming true! I can't wait to hear all about it! I'm so proud of you! Also I just had this weird moment where I felt funny because you are all grown up now! How did this happen? You're going to have a big person job soon! Crazy! I love you my Lexi Loueez!