Missionary Discussions

 Jackson is a character!  He took my camera and he and Cali took pictures of all kinds of things around the house including a permanent marker, paper airplane and the conference center picture in the Ensign.

 Vitaliy hates his picture taken and it drives me NUTS!

 They were playing ring around the rosie and duck, duck goose and I took their picture.

 Again, Sasha does many self portraits!

 Jenae and Cali had their annual gymnastics recital on Saturday.  It was awesome but Jenae hurt her heel and had to sit out for the rest of the day.  She was supposed to repeat her routines for every recital throughout the day and couldn't.  She was so disappointed.

 This is bedtime at our house

 He fell asleep before we could get a picture

 See, Tyler doesn't mind having his picture taken even if I have hundreds and thousands of them already.

 Dusty is obviously just giddy about his picture being taken!

 But NOOOOOO, I had to fight tooth and nail to take this one!  He may look happy in this picture but he did not want me to take his picture.  Honestly, what is the big deal anyway!

I just wanted to make a quick update.  We had our second Missionary Discussion tonight and it was awesome.  Our Ward Mission leader found a resource through the language department at BYU and we have been able to get two different translators who recently served in Ukraine.  Our translator tonight was absolutely amazing.  He translated the Discussion to the boys and made sure to help them really understand.  Sasha has a much harder time participating but our translator, Dallin, really worked with him.  The boys were very receptive, especially Vitaliy.  We asked him what he likes about going to Church and he said he liked it all.  He said there was nothing he didn't like.  Sasha was too shy to admit that he likes the singing time best.  I know this because I still sing primary songs to him at night when I put him to bed and he absolutely loves it.  Also, he doesn't always behave very well at Church.  He does, however, behave best during singing time.  It is not "manly" to sing in Ukraine so the boys will have to work into that one.  I told them that I thought it was okay if they didn't like to sing at Church.  I didn't like to for a very long time after joining the Church either.

Vitaliy knows a lot about the Bible stories.  In fact, I will quote him that he knows everything about Jesus.  Wow, he is humble, too!  Seriously, he does have a lot of knowledge about God and Jesus and he interacted a lot during the discussion.  

At the end of our discussion, Andy asked Vitaliy if he wanted to say the closing prayer and he did.  After he decided that he would he immediately dropped to his knees and we all followed.  He said a beautiful prayer.  He sounded so sweet as I heard the word "spaceba" over and over during his prayer.  Dallin told us afterward that he thanked Heavenly Father for his new family and he told Heavenly Father that he loved his new family because they loved him.  It was really touching.  

After the Missionaries left this time and the time before, Vitaliy's mood was really happy.  He is normally happy, but it is definitely a special happy.  So far so good!  Dallin won't be able to translate for the next two times, we will have to use someone else for those.  He made a GREAT connection with the boys so he will be coming back after Memorial Day weekend.

I was just so excited about how the discussions were going that I wanted to share that with everyone!  Thanks for listening, caring and loving our family!!!