Week 2: Elder Uchtdorf waved to me!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend--I know I did. Thanksgiving dinner was really not bad, even though we did not get our own mini turkey. We had stuffing, mashed potatoes, rice, turkey and yams. I would've given quite a lot to have some wild rice, but they had some chocolate cake that was pretty delicious so I was happy.

The speaker for our Thanksgiving devotional in the morning ended up being none other than THE Elder Uchtdorf!! When they told everyone a few minutes before he came in, it was like Christmas morning--people were so excited! We had to be reminded that we are missionaries and shouldn't cheer for an apostle, but it was kind of hard not to. For our choir song we sang "Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" and it was beautiful and I loved singing it for an apostle!
His talk: it was SO SO GOOD (no surprise there) and he talked about something I really needed to here. He talked about gratitude, and how the "higher law" of gratitude is being thankful for the trials in our lives, because that is when we grow and learn and become more like Him. He also said that during a trial, we should take a quiet moment to pray and ask Heavenly Father what we can learn from our trial. His talk hit me good because when I am feeling frustrated about Russian (which is a lot of the time), the last thing I want to feel is gratitude for the opportunity. In the moment I'm just thinking "why on earth am I doing this? I'm never going to be able to communicate with Ukrainians!!" But I know that I need to be grateful because I have been given this once in a lifetime opportunity to teach my brothers and sisters in Ukraine. I know that with faith and doing all that I can do, I will be able to learn Russian, and I will have learned so much along way (I have already learned so much). At the end of Elder Uchtdorf's talk he spent 25 minutes walking through the aisles shaking missionaries hands and waving to everyone else. The spirit was so strong and we were just all crying haha, even though we didn't get to shake his hand, we didn't need to to know that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ. It was such a sweet 25 minutes. I love him so much!

After the devotional we did a super fun service project making breakfast kits for families in Utah. In just 2 hours we made over 360,000 breakfasts and we jammed out to Christmas music the whole time and it was a party. After, we watched The Other Side of Heaven, which I've seen a bunch of times, but seeing it when I was actually a missionary was really special. I still cried like 5 times so that's still the same haha. We had a few other talks by people at the MTC and in the evening when we were going back to our dorms they turned the Christmas lights on and it was beautiful! It made me SO excited for Christmas.

Also, I don't think I mentioned it in my first email, but since we came the week before Thanksgiving and in order to match up with transfers and stuff, we Russian speakers are going to be here at the MTC for 10 weeks instead of 9 so woot trying not to feel sad about that but I know that that last week will probably help me a lot.

Russian is coming along, we have three lessons in the next day and a half so pray for us! My comps and I have really grown closer as we've struggled with the language and being away from home and I love them so much! They teach me how to be a better missionary every day by their actions and I am so grateful for their examples.

Also, I have a request of you good people, I would love love it if you sent me any talks/scriptures/anything gospel-ish you want to share that you have loved reading. At the MTC we have access to iPad's and so we can look up talks, videos, etc whenever we want and I would love to read any that you have found to be particularly inspiring/insightful. Just email them to lydia.kropelnicki@myldsmail.net and it would make my day! I can read emails whenever, but I can only reply on Wednesdays so I won't be able to thank you until next week but I would so appreciate anything!

Like last week, there is so much more I could talk about but I do not want you to have to read a short novel every Wednesday. I love you all and I challenge you to try to feel gratitude for the hard times in your life! Have faith that they will make you closer to the version of you that He knows you can become! Trials are the times that you can be closest to God and I know you will feel His love if you turn to Him. I thought I knew what faith was before I started my mission, but I only had the smallest inkling. Faith takes work, and it has been one of my biggest challenges to have faith as I'm learning Russian, but I can feel my Savior and Heavenly Father and people even beyond the veil (definitely feeling my Ukrainian ancestors pulling for me haha) helping me and I feel their love every day.

I love this work and I love you all! Have a wonderful week!
Cectpa Kropelnicki

My district on our P-day temple trip

They turned the Christians lights on after our Thanksgiving devotional and they were SO PRETTY.

Week 1: Mini Turkeys?

Hello all!
I have made it through my first week at the MTC! Looking back I feel like it flew by but individually the days seemed so long! Tons happened this past week but I will just talk about the highlights so you can get back to enjoying the Thanksgiving season!

On my first day all the new missionaries got together for a devotional and there were more than 620 new missionaries! It was so cool!! We sang "Army of Helaman" and they changed the words to "And we are now the Lords missionaries we'll bring the world His truth" and it gave me all the chills and made me so happy!

I am in a trio companionship and I already love my companions so much! Sister Thompson is from Tennessee and Sister Richter is from Germany, near Frankfurt. Sister Thompson studied Russian in High School and college and she is really good at it so she is basically our Russian teacher outside of class. She is so nice and is always willing to help Sister Richter and I and I don't know what I would do without her! Sister Richter is one of the sweetest people I've ever met. She inspires me every day because she is learning Russian through her second language (English) so it's extra difficult for her, but she is doing so good! They are both going to Russia, Rostov-Na-Donu and I'm the only sister going to Dnepro Ukraine in my zone (the other district in our zone is all elders so we three are the only sisters).

My teachers are sister Williams and brother Griffiths and they are SO GOOD. They're like the best EFY counselors that also teach you Russian. They have taught me so much, Russian-wise and spiritually. They are amazing and I am so grateful to have them as teachers.

So, Russian. It is kicking my butt and it is SO hard for me but we've already taught 2 lessons, learned how to pray, testify and get to know people all in Russian so I just need to keep reminding myself how far I've come in less than a week!

This week at the MTC I have already learned so much, but I'll just mention some highlights.
Every new missionary mentions the Character of Christ devotional by Elder Bednar, and I will join them in saying that it is one of the best devotional/talks I've ever heard. IT WAS SO GOOD. In it he talks about how one of the characters of Christ is the fact that he is always looking outward, even when he was going through his hardest trials. When we go through something hard in our lives, the natural man in us will always turn inward and focus on ourselves and our own troubles, but we need to make a conscious effort to look around ourselves at others and help them instead. I've been trying to do that this week, and even though it's really hard to do when you are constantly worrying about learning a language, I've already seen the blessings of it. I challenge you all to look outward and do as Christ did. He also mentioned how important it is to not just have a testimony of the church, but to be converted (aka turning away from the natural man) to Christ, because then we will never fall away (whereas people with testimonies still and do fall away from the church).

Also on Sunday the devotional was by Brother Crittenden, who is in charge of the church's Light the World program. He showed us the videos and it looks so awesome! I'm kind of sad that I won't be able to share it with the people of Ukraine, but next Christmas I can. You should all check it out, it is such a good way to do good during this holiday season!

On Tuesday I sang in the MTC choir (which had like 900 singers) and we sang "More Holiness Give Me" for the devotionals musical number. It was beautiful! The speaker was Elder Ringwood of the seventy and he talked about seeing the hand of Heavenly Father in our lives, because He is always there. I can't even keep track of all the tender mercies I have seen this week where things happened exactly as I needed them to, and they bore testimony to me of how well my Heavenly Father knows me. Look for Him in your life and you will be amazed!

For Thanksgiving we are going to have a devotional by a member of the 12 and I CAN"T wait. People are placing bets on who it's going to be, I don't really care who it is because either way its gonna rock. Also, the rumor is going around that for Thanksgiving dinner we are each getting our own little turkey. Not sure how that's going to work but I will let you know.

Funny stuff, on Saturday the eastern Europe missions and the Scandinavian missions all get together and play a soccer game that is taken SO seriously it's hilarious. Sisters can't play with the Elders but it was almost more entertaining to watch. There were like 15 languages being spoken and both sides have there own chants and they do these weird "There may come a day when the hearts of men fail them..." Aragorn-type speech to pump up their team and they get so into it haha (our team won btw woot). Saturday was also the first exercise time we had since we got there and it felt amazing to get outside and run!

I'm sorry this got so long! I feel like one of the prophets in the Book of Mormon when they say they couldn't write one hundredth of what happened to their people haha. I feel like that is how it's going to be for the next 18 months!

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family! Eat so much good food for me and don't forget to stop and think about all you have to be grateful for!! Look for Heavenly Fathers hand in your life!

Love,
cectpa Kropelnicki

First day!  Sister Richter is in the middle, Sister Thompson is on the right.

So much studying!  It's weird to be right across the street from where I lived just a few months ago!

First snow in the mountains!