The Mess-Up-Your-Fridge Button

Well, to start the week off with had a meeting with Elder L. Whitney Clayton and Elder Larry R. Lawrence and their wives, right after I wrote last week's email. It was a great meeting. Elder Clayton just stood up and opened the floor to questions. The entire meeting was just open and each of the leaders and their wives took turns answering. It was pretty powerful for them just to welcome and question and handle them so well. I must say again that the wives of these General Authorities are incredible. They speak with such power and they are all so wise. I want a wife like that. Elder Clayton talked about how priliveged we are to be serving in the country while the Church is still in it's infancy here. He talked about how we are laying the foundation for tremendous grow that will follow. When he went to Peru 40 years ago as a missionary there was 1 stake. Now there are 94. Now there is one stake in Ukraine. It's going to be incredible to see where it's at in 40 years. He told us 3 things to do: 1 - Know the doctrine; 2 - Master the language; and 3 - Overcome the fear of man. We definitely all have things to work on.

On Wednesday morning we were back in Khmelnitskiy. That evening we were observing how our fridge wasn't all that cold. I suggested we try to turn a dial or something. Elder Hafen investigated and found a button which he pressed, at which point the fridge stopped running. We went to bed hoping it would be fine and the kitchen welcomed us in the morning with a sizable puddle of water. Apparently said button is an irreversible defrost button. It wasn't until all the ice had melted in the freezer that it turned on again about 12 hours after pressing the button. I think all of our food survived and the freezer is a lot cleaner now, but I don't think I'll be carelessly pressing buttons in fridges in the future.

Other significant news: 2 girls that one of the zone leaders and I found are getting baptized this Saturday! Their names are Natasha and Anya. They're both 22 and they are elect. The approached us and we've seen them almost everyday since we met them. They come to all the activities they can and they already have testimonies of the restoration and the Book of Mormon. They even cancelled their vacation for the baptism. Natasha studied to be a singer and Anya studied psychology. Natasha is already directing the music for sacrament meeting because the girl who used to just left on a mini-mission. It's incredible to see people's lives change. They both said that they think they'd be interesting in serving a mission. I'm very excited for them. The work is interesting as you get to see miraculous lessons once in a while and then you have hours of rejection in between. I know that blessing will follow our work. It's awesome to be a missionary. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for all the prayers and support. Thank you all.

Love,
Elder Jonathan Mahoney

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