Thanks for the pictures!

Another great week at the MTC!

First off, thank all of you SO much for the pictures that you sent with Nick's package. That was amazing to receive. They all made me smile so much. I was particularly happy to see everyone wearing a fur hat...though I'm not quite sure where you got ahold of that. It was great to see the Lewisville Stake Institute too!

Yesterday was a big day! We got our Ukrainian nametags!! It's a huge deal when you've been here long enough to get your nametag in your actual language. The ones we had before say 'Cectpa Dunford' and then "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' in Ukrainian, but these new ones have our names in the Cyrillic alphabet. We're not allowed to wear them in the MTC - we have to wear our English ones, but still! We have them! So exciting! Everyone is jealous of my name because I have an 'f' in it, which is one of the cooler-looking letters in Ukrainian.

Elder Oaks came to the MTC last night to speak to us. It was honestly one of my favorite talks since we've been here - the topic was the sacrament. Since the talk was broadcast at every single MTC in the world, it was definitely more formal than Elder Holland's was - Elder Holland had mics set up for people to respond to his questions. But Elder Oaks had the teleprompters and it was obvious that he had put a great effort into this talk. It was magnificent. He talked about the sacredness of the ordinance of the sacrament, and how preparing yourself and worthily renewing your covenants is essential to us being able to have the spirit with us always. He mentioned that we should remember the promises within the sacrament prayers, pointing out that a 18 year old, baptized at the age of 8, has heard the prayers over 500 times. He even made note of the fact that the prayers were too sacred for him to repeat at that time, which really opened my mind to a new perspective. How often do I take the time to think about the sacredness of those prayers? Then he told us that every member of the church should have both of the prayers memorized, not just the priests blessing the sacrament.

Pretty much all I have to say is that I will now look much more forward to that time of having the sacrament each week - our branch gets there early enough that we actually start early (because we can). Our branch president, President Cranney, talks about how whenever he went to training sessions as a mission president, they were asked to arrive half an hour early. Most people showed up 40 minutes early, and then the general authorities would start the meeting around 35 minutes early...wow. Anyway. I want to get there as early as I can (there's a branch that meets in the same room before us), and just think about how sacred and important the sacrament is to me in my life.

Sunday, we had President McIff, a member of the MTC presidency, speaking to us about staying healthy as missionaries. He said that at any one time, 37 of missionaries throughout the worldare out of commission because of illness, injury, or more. Gave us tips such as exercising daily, taking weight sets out of our apartments, and most importantly follow President Hinckley's council, and "Don't do anything stupid!" He told us a story about an Elder in the NYC South mission that tried hurdling all of the trash cans on a street and ended up fracturing his pelvis...I will do my best to be more intelligent ha ha ha. Apparently, they're going to add "some of that X-90 P stuff" into the new missionary health guides soon. :) We all giggled
We learn more about Ukraine from our teachers all the time, particularly our teacher from Ukraine. It's fun because you really have to get her to warm up to you before you get her to smile a lot... "People in Ukraine don't smile a lot." "Why not?! Can we smile?" "Yea, but everyone will know you're American."

We found out later that Ukrainians don't get recess, and we think that's why they don't smile...
I have the first vision memorized in Ukrainian now! It's so amazing! I get to the point where I feel so smart and then we listen to a conference talk in Ukrainian, and we feel really dumb again....ha ha ha

PS all of the Bible videos online, on LDS.org are AMAZING. GO watch them. They are so wonderful. We watch them on Sundays. Also, we watch the spiritual crocodiles video all the time because we like to see wildibeasts get chomped on by gargantuan beasts. It's a good talk by President Packer. We watched it in seminary and I honestly think I remember seeing that talk when he gave it...I don't know maybe he gave it before my day. Anyway. Also, we've seen The Testaments enough to quote it pretty accurately..."You are a spector from the gods...and the gift of your hands will grant me immortality! Walk with me." - so much funnier if you hear us quoting it. Sorry, I realize I've turned to missionary humor. :)
I love you all very much and hope that your Wednesday is going very well! Have a great day!

-Cectpa данфорд <-- Ukrainian! WOO!

So there's this hedgehog....

Another great week here. We've learned quite a bit, including the fact that ukrainians have the strangest sense of humor ever. Of course, this is coming from me, so I know I don't have much room to talk, but really, I'm telling the truth on this one.
One of our teachers (brat feil) told us this, and told us about a joke that makes all ukrainians laugh really really hard. Here's how it goes:
A hedgehog was walking through the forest, and he said to himself,"I am very mighty!" He came up to a fox and said,"I am very mighty!" The fox said nothing and the hedgehog continued on. He came upon a bear and said,"I am very mighty!" The bear said nothing, and the hedgehog continued on. He came to a lion, and said,"I am very mighty!" The lion smacked the hedgehog with his paw and he flew through the air for a very long time, finally landing. He said,"I may be very mighty, but I am also very light!"
That's it. That's the punchline. We obviously did not believe him at all. Later, we told the joke to our native ukrainian teacher, and she was crying she was laughing so hard! She hid her face in her jacket and laughed for five minutes straight! Finally, we asked her what was so hilarious, and all she could say was 'I don't know, the lion is huge!"
Hahaha. so yea, Ukrainians have weird senses of humor. But that's okay.
So for one week, we had a solo sister staying in our room with us. She was one of the Russian Sisters that got delayed because travel to siberia was delayed by a week for some reason...We don't know why. She left on Monday morning at 5 oclock. We walked her down to the dropoff area and said our goodbyes, then went back to bed...but more girls were leaving, and I had to get up at 5:45 for service on Monday anyway, so I didn't really sleep anymore. I'll just say that I was not very happy with daylight savings time this week...
Our district leader, Elder Austin, got really sick this week, so I took it upon myself to eat 2-3 oranges a day and sanitize everything in the room a million times. It's working so far! No one else is sick, thank goodness.
Also, my favorite song in Ukrainian is The Iron Rod. Why? Because the word for rod is zhezle, but it has to fit in one syllable of the song, so it sounds really funny. Also, because I was singing the song, and I promise my hymnbook came to life and leapt from my hands about 4 feet across the room. I have NO idea how that happened, but we were all laughing incredibly hard about the fact that I could not hold onto a book while we were singing about holding onto the rod. Oh the irony...yea that pun came up too. I know, we're hilarious.
We had a wonderful speaker for Relief Society on Sunday - Sister Sharon Eun...something. I can't remember her name right now. I'm sure you could find it...but she talked about the art of matriarchy and caring for others, whether you're a mother or not. She's 50, she's never been married, and she has no kids. But she made us all realise how much power we have to be influences for good. We can practice the art of motherhood without having children by treating everyone we know with the love a mother would have for them. It was a phenomenal talk. I really really like her a lot, and feel horrible that I can't remember her name while I'm typing this.
Elder Cardon of the 70 came last night and talked about giving our all to the Lord while we're on our missions. It was a powerful talk as well. I don't have my notes with me...sorry I'm so bad about forgetting them.
I am workign on memorizing the first vision in Ukrainian right now, which is really hard because I don't know what most of the words are before conjugations/cases etc. It's fun...but I'm already halfway there, and I'm planning on finishing it today.
I love you all very much!Cectpa D

Hey Everyone!
We're getting together pictures for Skyler to show support! Send us a favorite picture of you together, you with a poster that has a supporting message, or maybe in a Russian fur hat. Send the pic to skylermissionpics@gmail.com We're trying to get this done by Sunday the 18th. Tell your friends and thanks for your support!

Another week in the MTC!

Hello All!
Another eventful week at the MTC. Last Wednesday, we had a good TRC. We met a native Ukrainian, and were able to understand that she is here for school. She really likes snowboarding and was converted two years ago. She told us her conversion story too, and we could understand a lot of it. Not all of it though, but she was very kind and helped us out a lot.
Also, the other person we talked to grew up in Mesa and said that he had a 'Brother Dunford' for a seminary teacher in high school! Are we related to them at all? I always here about Grandpa Dunford when I go to the temple, but I didn't know about the Arizona seminary teacher.

Sunday, I was assigned to be the coordinating sister in our Zone. That means I'm in charge of all of the sisters. Keeping track of them, listening to them when they cry, etc :) It's a big assignment, and I'm flattered thatthey chose me for it, because normally the Ukrainian elders/sisters don't get leadership positions...there are so few of us, and it's easier to have Russians with Russians. Yay!
I had to go to a training meeting for 3 hours the Sunday I got assigned to it...without my companion. Cectpa V was not happy about having to be alone with the district for 3 hours. She was a solo sister for that time, and she ended up getting the Elders to trick me that she was gone when they all came to pick me up. She's so funny...and I'm really really gullible.
This week all the old Russian speakers left. It's really quiet here now because many missionaries are gone. Half of our Branch left, and since the new group that was suppposed to get here next week is getting turned into a pilot group (only 9 weeks in MTC), we won't see them until the end of March. It's going to be lonely during gym. One district's worth of Russians has to stay here for a week extra, and they're all sad. There were complications with the person supposed to pick them up in Moscow to take them to Siberia. We don't really know the details. One sister, now a solo sister, moved in with us and tags along - Sister Burymski. She is wonderful. She's got a fantastic testimony.
Alex Boye came for our Fireside on Sunday night! It was the funniest fireside I have ever been to. It was almost like a comedy routine, in all honesty. He kept saying things like,"It scared the afro out of me!" and "Really? It took you that long to figure out that a brother likes chicken??" Also, "I used to love fighting! It was okay though, because even when I got two black eyes, you couldn't tell." Ha ha ha we were dying laughing. It ended up being really spiritual though. He talked about how much the missionaries that converted him mean to him, and how we will be those kinds of missionaries for some person some day. It was amazing.

We're speaking the language more and more - we're trying to speak only Ukrainian at every meal...or as much as we can. It's getting better. Only 6 weeks left :/

I love all yall so much. Thank you for the letters and love and dear elders.
Love,
Sister Dunford

zaraz tse vash hram!

In latin text, that's how you say 'this is your temple now!' We're all beginning to memorize the Kyiv cultural celebration video on LDS.org for the temple celebration. There are only a couple of people who speak Ukrainian on it, but it's fun :) It's been another great week at the mtc. Lots of things have happened. First off, our branch president was released, so now we have President Cranney instead of President Childs. It was sad to see them go, but we were blessed to know them while we were here. President Cranney is awesome too. He was the Mission President of a Moscow Mission previous to this calling, so he loves missionaries.
Another event was that Sister Chan, our Thai-speaking roommate, went to Thailand. Now it's just sister V and in the room, and we don't get any new girls in our room this week! Excellent!
Elder Holland was our devotional speaker last night. He did his usual stare-into-your-soul-over-the-pulpit routine. I don't know how he manages that, but he does. It's incredible. He talked to us about using the BOM as our main conversion tool - 'I feel like we're in first gear when we should be in overdrive.' It was a phenomenal talk - He went 15 minutes over, and I took three full pages of notes in teeny tiny handwriting. I'm working on starting my own set of large plates, I suppose. :) He told us that we are all apostles, but that Missionaries are apostles with little 'a's,' and he's an Apostle. Our district leader, Elder Robinett, says he feels like it's more of a APOSTLE and we're aPOSTLES. Haha
No big language mistakes this week. We are learning more grammar, and it's really difficult, but we'll make it.
All of the Russian speakers who have been here since before Christmas are leaving next week. They're headed to Ukraine, Moscow, Moscow West, and the two Siberian missions. It will be really really weird to see them go. Our gym time will be significantly different, and the best volleyball players will be leaving :( I'm getting much better at volleyball, because I play it every single day. I also try to run a mile, and this week I was even foursquare champion one day! I think that's about it for now. I love you all! Skyler
Sorry for the delay in posting last week's letter! Just think of how fun it will be to get two posts right in a row! - Rebecca