I heard the bells on Christmas day!!

^^^^I actually did!! hahah, from the good ol' pravaslavny church (Ukrainian Orthodox)

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Wow so much to say and not too much time but in short, it was an awesome week!! Especially this weekend:)) First, Christmas Miracle!! Starting Friday we finally started getting our white Christmas! I am so happy about that. Seriously, answer to prayers:D ( lol although I guess it was probably the opposite of what Sis Stepaiko was praying for... she loves when it's hot.. little awk but.. can't please everyone i guess..?!)
 We had a super fantastic Christmas Zone conference. At Christmas time they do it a little different and it was probably the most fun I've had at a zone Conference. We got to sing lots of Christmas hymns. I sang also, a little different version of  "What child is this"  unfortunately my throat wasn't really warmed up so.. it's never as good as the practices( even though we actually had more time to practice this time hahah ) but oh well. We also played a game of special Book of Mormon charades which was really fun. Everyone was impressed with my BOM knowledge aha, (mostly cause I knew Abish's name :)-- thanks BOM videos when I was little aha) We also watched a slideshow of pics from the whole year which was really fun to watch but also even a little sad seeing all my friends I miss, most of the missionaries who were in it are all gone now, weirdddd. But I also felt the Spirit so strong at zone conference. It was a mission goal that our President gave us in October to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. I bore my testimony on that and how it is truly another testament of Jesus Christ. I've got one week left and I'm almost done so I will tell you next week how my experience was :) Zone conf was also all about JOY and how that's what Christmas and Christ is all about. After all the angel did say "I bring you great tidings of great joy, which shall be to ALL people"
Saturday we had interviews with President Sullivan which are always really good, and I learnt a lot.
Christmas Eve was a wonderful day:) We had a sacrament meeting full of Christmas talks and songs. I was in almost all the musical numbers: one by myself, "what child is this ?" again (they have it in the Russian Hymn book :)) and then the other one was a group number where we sang in Ukrainian. (Luckily not as hard as I thought.) Second hour we watched the First Presidency Christmas devotional which was really good and then we all a had a lunch together. After church we had a little snowball fight with the kids outside who rolled some giant snow..bales really.. ahah. The evening we went went with the elders and a member friend CAROLING to a few members and less active babushki -- I had to sing in Ukrainian again.. aha cause they decided to bring the Ukrainian hymn books but oh well-- it was really fun! And it felt like Christmas more this weekend, especially serving:)

I am really grateful for opportunity to have another Christmas where I get to be a representative of the Lord who's birth we're celebrating, and to have His name next to mine on my name tag :)

Today was good as well. Got to relax and spend it with friends. Our district had a Christmas brunch, which was pretty delicious, even if it wasn't really real bacon;) Perks of Christmas on P-day!

I want to tell you all especially on this special and happy day that I am so grateful for my Savior. For His birth, His perfect life and example and most of all for His infinite sacrifice and suffering for me and everyone. I can tell you honestly that I have felt the peace and joy that comes from Him though the Spirit. Life is sometimes really good and really hard but He is always with His lasting peace to comfort us. He truly in the Prince of Peace and the Light of the world.

I hope you all have an amazing Christmas and feel JOY. The good thing is we can have Christmas all year long when the Savior is in our hearts.

I LOVE YOU ALL ,

C рождеством!

Cectpa Horne

Trained for a day:)

hey, what's up, hello!

So this week I got to train! hahah well kind of. Really, my companion and Sis Savran had to go to Dnepr for "MLC" Missionary Leadership Counsel because they are STL's and I got to have an exchange of a day and a half with the new greenie of Sister Savran's! Her name is Sister Welling, she's from Washington and she's cool. I was happy to have my lil moment of training:) We even had a restoration lesson together to the little girl in our ward who we're teaching before she gets baptized. I even made "resto cups" which we had in Ogden that help explain how Christ organized His church etc. maybe I'll send a pic next week. The next day I had to sign some papers for being in Kharkov at the immigration office and same with a few elders so that was fun. We went there early so we had lunch at a cute little creperie.







The family of one of our elders were super kind and made 12 days of Christmas presents for every missionary in the mission! We got a lil Chirstmas tree! (Which I was contemplating getting right when they sent it) and little messages and ornaments to open every day. It's so awesome And it feels a little more like Christmas.



Also every time we do something the Lord would do; it makes everything a little brighter. We visited a less active babushka this week who was super cute and just talked and we could tell she was lonely and loved the company so it was really heart warming to be with her and hear her conversion story. It may not have snowed yet but it is Christmas time when we remember the Savior!



Love you all! Have an amazing week and the next time you see my mail, it will be Christmas day! so make sure to keep doing the #Lighttheworld and have so much fun!!!

Love,

Cectpa Horne

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas..

Just like the ones I used to know...

HELLOO

Hello again my dear friends and family. So first of all, remember a little while back when I was complaining a bit about how cold it was.. ?? Yeah well I honestly don't know what was up with that because seriously compared to what the weather could be/ should be at this time of the year.. it is warm! Like it is DECEMBER and it has been warm.. no snow.. until finally! It snowed this week:) but then it melted again.. Never lasts too long but I'm hoping for at least a white Christmas:)

So that might be one of the reasons why it does not feel like Christmas to me right now. Or maybe it's the lack of lights, decorations, songs.. Who knows. But it has made me realize even more that really Christmas is not about all of that; Christmas is about celebrating the Savior's birth. It's about remembering Him and His life and a time to try even harder to do as He would do. That's why I love this Light the World calendar I talked about last week. It's been fun trying to follow the theme for everyday and even though sometimes it was hard to think of something (sometimes especially as a missionary ie. "suffer the little children to come unto me ") we can still see miracles when we try! One of the ladies at English class even kept saying" this calendar is seriously magic".

We wanted to help the sick on Saturday so we bought some oranges and were going to drop them off at one of our investigators'-Mila the referral from a couple weeks ago (who we haven't met with cause she's been sick)-  we didn't know how to find her house so we called and she said maybe it would be better for us to come tomorrow. Then right before church the next day, she called us and said that she was on her way so to wait for her.

This week had a lot of ups and downs. Like usual. But this week we tried harder to ask some of the people who we thought might be interested in hearing our message if they would meet with us and unfortunately they all declined. Then we got stood up a couple times too and even though we were feeling a little down we still kept our faith that if we were working hard , we would see miracles and we did! The last day of the week, yesterday we had 4 investigators at church including 1 new one! It was just an experience proving to me that this truly is the Lord's work and He will move it along and show forth miracles when we believe and work hard:)

Love you all!

Cectpa Horne

light the wooooorrld

Hey folks. 

Sorry not a lot of time today. But things are doing good over here. As you know I have a new companion, Sister Stepaiko; she's from a city near Kiev and she's super cool. She actually served in Saltovka only a couple of transfers ago and now she's back! She has a lot of people she already is planning to meet with and is good friends with a lot members so it's really cool and we're sure things are really going to pick up here:)

YOOO 

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!

And you know that our church is going to have the best Christmas program coming back again!! #LIGHTTHEWORLD. Maybe you remember me obsessing over this last year in the MTC, well you have the chance to participate again! Go to mormon.org to see the sweet vids and calendar etc. Our mission is really trying to make it a big thing this year and get everyone involved, including our English classes and branches. We're getting everyone to tell us their experiences and stories about them lighting the world this Christmas! and for every story they tell us we're putting a link onto a paper chain that will decorate a tree at the end of the month. Super exciting! I love to hear your stories too so shoot them at me :)  I LOVE CHRISTMAS. 

k see ya next week

Sister Horne

Last week with Sis Dish

Hellooooo

This week was a good week! Sad that I had to say goodbye to Sister Dish yesterday but it was a blessing that I had the time I had with her! We met with a lot of members who wanted to say goodbye to her (she served in Kharkov for basically her entire mission! ) and that's always a good time.

We had a sweet miracle on Monday night, right after we finished writing emails to the people we planned to meet with who weren't answering their phones so we called the referral we got from the church of a lady who wanted to meet with us and she actually answered! (hahah first miraculous thing cause that hasn't happened to me before ) and then we asked if maybe she could meet that night and she said yes! We met and had an awesome little half of a lesson then she had a coughing fit so we had to postpone the rest but she seems like she's really searching for the truth. The coolest part was when she said she feels that God is more her friend then anything else and I had the opportunity to testify that not only is He our friend but he is our loving Heavenly Father, and that he loves us so much! And she was just so captured by that, she got silent and just stared and me and listened and smiled. Sometimes I don't realize how many people don't have that knowledge that can bring so much hope and joy into our lives.

I also sang" How great thou art" at this concert the district had, and everyone loved it, even though I only practiced once. ahah getting better at these last minute numbers.

Yesterday in church was the primary presentation! So cute!! Primary presentations are one of my favorite Sundays of the year!

We found out transfer and seriously there's always something I'm surprised about but these were crazy. But I will be staying and serving with Sister Stepaiko who was STL is Zap ( I went on exchanges once if you remember ) and she'll be STL here with Sis Savran. so should be interesting..

talk you later!

Cectpa Horne

Yulia

Saying goodbye to Sis Dish

Me and Sister Savran today waiting to go to Dnpr for a bit to pick up our new companions
.

Vereniki! Elder Martino! Happy Thanksgving!

Hey everyone!

So starting from last Monday night;  we went to this wonderful member family from Aleksevka branch's home for dinner...guess what I finally got to do?! We made homemade Vereniki (Perogies ) together!! It was so cool. Such a classic Ukrainian experience that I've always wanted and it was perfect! I only messed up a couple of times ahaha- it's hard to stuff a bunch of filling in there and then have the dough not stretch too much ). We had half with Tvarog (cottage cheese ) and half with cherry filling and they were SO good.They also fed us lots of other super delicious food and they are super nice.   ( I should actually say they just fed me cause Sister Dish can't actually eat at members homes cause of her special diet for her health ). They even gave us a pretty fancy apron to use while making the vereniki .. ( lol it was one of those ones with a body builder's body on it )

We had our zone conference this week and we have been very blessed to have a few general authorities come visit us in a short time and Elder Martino from the Europe east area presidency came. It was really good! It was probably one of my most favorite zone conferences yet because of how much I was learning the whole time and the spirit was super strong. One unfortunate thing though was I had to give a talk!! Ugh. ahah. All the missionaries were supposed to prepare a 4 minute talk on diligence and so I prepared one but I was hoping and praying that I wouldn't have to give it haha, well Heavenly Father does have a sense of humor and I was first to give it, and only one other Elder did as well. But I was thankful it was at the beginning so I didn't have to worry afterwards. I spoke about Mosiah 4:27 and related it to the story of the tortoise and the hare, cause that's what first came to mind when writing it. I was a part of a musical number which wasn't bad with the amount of practice we had all together. Sister Dish gave her final testimony which was really good and made me cry.
We also had a big Thanksgiving activity with all of Kharkov which was fun and cool. Sister Dish was assigned to make a wreath for it which ended up really good and I sang again.

Some classic Celine moments for ya:

It's raining pretty hard today. We wanted to go on our usual route right beside the street and I was like oh no we'll be splashed by the cars! But we decided to rough it anyway and I put my umbrella to the side to block the water from the cars and started running but then.. I biffed it in the mud. Hahaha it was pretty funny actually nothing too bad but don't run in the rain kids!

 Saw an old man on the street selling baby bunnies and almost DIED. Made my day they were so adorable and soft! I forgot what it was like to hold one!

Hope you have an amazing week everyone!

This is Sis Dish's last week! Time has gone by SO fast! it's crazy. Next week I'll know who I'll be with next! (maybe I'll even train :0 :) )

-Cectpa Horne

Back with Savran for a day in Center!

Hello everyone!

Hope you are all doing well, and aren't too cold! I'm cold.. apparently I'm not much of a Canadian ahah cause I'm already wearing my winter jacket all the time and I'm pretty sure winter hasn't even begun yet! lol. Oh well. It does get hot in the metro though..

This week was good! Not too eventful. But on Tuesday we had exchanges with our STL's and guess who I was with? Sister Savran again! (we were comps for a few months in the spring if you don't remember ) and it was fun! The whole time we were thinking, who would have thought, we'd be back together, in the metro, in Kharkov! Center is really beautiful, it looks way more European then anywhere else I've been in Ukraine.

In the morning we planned to meet with three different people and like five with back up plans but.. they all fell through.  As we were leaving Sister Savran thought about this idea Pres. Sullivan told us about some sisters in Europe who creatively just gave people one page of the Book of Mormon, to get people to read it without having the hesitation people already have when they know that it's the Book of Mormon and have a note saying:" if you want to read the rest.. etc . So that's what we did basically! We cut one page out (ah felt wrong but was for a good cause ) highlighted our favorite verse or part on it. Then rolled it up and tied it with ribbon.

We actually gave quite a few away, And talked to a couple people.I felt I should talk to this one girl, turned out she didn't know Russian, she was from Israel but I asked if she would be interested in reading the book of Mormon in English and she said yes! so we got her number and hopefully the sisters in center gave her one already. That was really cool.

We went to a funeral on Saturday, sadly a member in our branch passed away from cancer. He was the father of this brother in our branch (awesome family) but it was really cool to hear the testimonies and thoughts of all those there and how they know they'll see him again so there's no reason to mourn. They're such huge examples to me. I never met him but I also have a testimony that death is not the end in God's eternal plan of happiness. What a blessing the knowledge of the gospel is!

Have a good week!

Cectpa Horne



P.S.  sorry no pics this week.

Happy Halloween!!

Hey!

It's been a pretty chill week. .. Literally too. Man, it's pretty cold already.

We met with some awesome members this week! We helped out this one young mom with cleaning and cooking one day and she has a cute little four month old boy. We talked about tender mercies from the Lord with her and I realized that the Lord sends me so many! We just have to have our eyes open to see them. For example the fact that I got to see this cute little baby who is about the same age as my new niece who I haven't met yet was such a blessing for me:))

It also seemed like the whole week was a build up and preparing for our Halloween branch Party that we put on. We spent the day Saturday pretty much getting ready for it, and really Sis Dish did most of it but it even made me stressed watching and also honestly the party for me was kinda stressful. (Now I know what it feels like to be the ones in charge who probably don't get to have much fun lol ) but it's ok because it was a success. Lots of people came and they seemed to have a great time! Also it was awesome cause we have a few really awesome members in this branch and even though at first there was like a separation between the members and our friends from English, eventually the members got to talk to them and on Sunday we heard how they were asking them questions and some good convos with them! Yay:)

Life's good. Pray hard, and often. Heavenly Father loves to hear from his children.

Until next week, xoxo

Cectpa Horne