Transfer to Harkov

HI FAMILY!!

Thanks for you great emails. Of course I heard about the new missionary entry date, and I could be more stoked. The Lord is truly Hastening His work here and its SO EXCITING!! So, I got a transfer and now I'm serving in a place called Harkov! Its almost like actual Europe in some places its so beautiful! Its so crazy being here there are a ton students everywhere. And guess where they come from...yup Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, and every where else in the middle east. Its INSANE. We taught a guy named Rod who is from Iraq and he looks JUST like me. I'm not kidding, the longer and longer I'm here the more and more I realize that Mom and Dad getting married was NOT on accident. I have immense love for those people and every time i say my mom is from Iran, we have an instant connection. Mom, were you Muslim in Iran? if so, which one? Also, I'm going to master Farsi when I get home, I have learned some out here but I'm going to master Farsi. In our branch, we have a lot of Brothers. If you remember, they call black people here "N" words as apart of the culture, so missionaries call them "Brothas". So they are all from Somewhere in Africa, mainly Nigeria and Cameroon. They are SO awesome. they all speak English and almost no Russian so we translate for them every Sunday, they are so humble and I've met another person who has changed my life. His name is Harold and he is Tanzanian, he found the church and married a Ukrainian woman. He them Moved to Holiday Utah and lives there with his wife and kids. He is finishing up med school here and then will head back to Utah. But this guy has been and incredible example of charity and love. He has NO idea how much of an impact he has made on my life but I'll be sure to tell him before I leave. He bore his testimony about how he used to be young men's president for the branch here for about 5 or so years, and he had just been working and working with the youth, about 5 or 6 boys, to try get them stoked about the Gospel. He said that he would just pray and pray for them. Then when he moved to Utah he lost contact with them, but he still prayed for those boys all the time and thought about them all the time. So now he just got back to finish one last semester and he's been gone for a few years but he got a phone call from a missionary in our mission and the missionary said that he had some who wanted to talk to Herald...it was one of those kids he had been praying for all theses years. The kids name is Bodgon and he had been inactive for a super long time but he was now on a "mini-mission". Now that may not sound like a crazy story but when Herold was bearing testimony about prayer and about this experience, he got way emotional and I could FEEL his love for those kids that he taught. Herold changed Bogdon's life forever and he was able to see the fruit of his labor, what a blessing. I want to be like Herold. I want to give my ALL into every calling I ever get. I want to love people like he does. He has motivated me to be a person. so that’s kinda how things are, we haven't seen conference quite yet b/c the Russian translations take a week to get here, but I'll watch it in English! Also, my comp is a native but is most recently from Toronto...so its cool. I'm having a great time here, I love this place. The gospel is so awesome and I couldn't be more honored to be here at this time. Have a great week! I love you

-Sean