Thursday, November 29, 2012

добре день!
 
So I'm really grateful today that so many people wrote me that I will only have time to write one email to reply to you all. Thank you for Grandma's address, Mother, and I'm glad you all had a great Thanksgiving! I hope everything is going well in Seattle. So my Thanksgiving was AMAZING. We had a devotional in the morning and ELDER HOLLAND CAME!!! He said that since we were away from our families on thanksgiving, he would adopt us into his family for the day and all of his family members who were visiting them for thanksgiving were part of the program. His wife is really awesome and not what I expected. While Elder Holland is bold and blunt, she is actually a little more shy. She bore an awesome testimony and I have an increasing love for the wives of general authorities since I have been here. That is probably a harder job then any of us who have never been in that situation can understand. Most of the details of the talk that he gave, which I will never forget, are going to be in the letter I send this week, so if those of you who don't live at home want to hear it, you'll have to ask Ma about it. Anyway, the rest of the day we were doing a humanitarian project and we also had a more lighthearted program where we had musical numbers, sang, and some of the Elders and Sisters put on a skit about the first thanksgiving that was pretty funny. We finished off the day by watching the movie 17 Miracles which is really amazing. It's kind of sad, but I liked it and it had a really awesome song in it that I had never heard before. So it was a really great day and I don't think I will ever forget it. Oh, another interesting development is that I was called as district leader this sunday, which is cool. To give you an idea of how awesome my district is, all of the callings in the branch outside of branch presidency and individual district leaders are in our district. I feel really blessed to be going to Ukraine and I already love the country, even though I've never seen it. I hope all of you are doing well and that you keep being awesome! I love you!
 
Старійшина Jolstead

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

November 21, 2012

Dear Family,
 
I spent a lot of time sending letters to everyone else so you'll just have to look at each others letters and put my week together like a puzzle. I'll write a really long letter this week to make up for it. I got the package and the pictures and was very grateful. I hit ten pounds this week which was cool and we have a special program tomorrow for thanksgiving. That's awesome that sister rowell is getting baptized. Sorry this was so short. Love you Mommy!
 
Elder Jolstead the Younger

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

November 14, 2012

добре день!
 
Those pictures were awesome! Braeden's Aragorn costume turned out really well, and I finally got to see what Shantewa looks like under all that foundation. Just kidding. Yeah, we've had snow all week. My companion has two coats, so he has been letting me borrow one because he is amazing. That is really nice of the Nalders, Please thank them for me. I'll be gone just before Luke gets here, but you can tell him that he will have an awesome time at the MTC, especially since I don't think he has to worry about learning a language. We had our first day of only being able to speak out language, which went better than I expected. I can teach the gospel pretty well, but thats pretty much it and my grammar is horrible, but I think that will some with time.There are a couple of other things I would like you to send if you could. you probably feel like I'm asking for something every week, but just remember that when I get to Ukraine, I'll be lucky to even get a letter. My companion wants to maybe sing one of the forgotten carols, but they don't have any music here, so I was wondering if you could copy the songs Joseph, Homeless, and the Three wisemen and send them ASAP. I would also like it if you could send me a copy of my farewell talk, it should be in all of the papers that were in my room. Anyway, I love you and I hope you have an awesome week!
 
Elder Jolstead the Younger
 
PS. Jared should write me about how the roadshow went

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

November 7, 2012

добре ден!
 
I'm glad everyone's birthday went well and I hope everything went well with Kelleene's appointment. Don't worry about the pictures being late, we have a temple walk every Sunday afternoon, which is really cool. I usually take that time to write in my journal or read my Patriarchal Blessing. Elder Zwick of the Seventy spoke to us yesterday and gave an awesome talk on being desciples of Jesus Christ. He didn't really say anything that I didn't know, but the spirit that i felt was amazing and I really learned a lot just by feeling the Holy Ghost. I'm starting to get a little worried about being able to see an apostle here, because I realized that the Apostles are probably more busy than usual with the amount of mission applications that are coming in. Elder Zwick told us that the amount of applications they have received from sisters between the announcement and now is more than the amount of sisters currently serving worldwide! That just blows my mind! The work is being hastened. One of my Teachers also told us that one of his friends got a mission call to serve in Taiwan, until China was opened, so that makes me wonder if that is going to happen very soon. I got really mad when I heard this morning about the election. How did our state vote about the gay marriage and marajuana issues? I'd hate to come home and see gay couples smoking pot on every street corner. Anyway. I've gained about two more pounds this week, which is incredible. I actually lost half a pound from fasting on Sunday, but then I weighed myself on Tuesday and had gained twice that back! It just shows that you will be blessed for fasting. I have to go, but I love you and am working hard!
 
Старійшина Jolstead

Thursday, November 1, 2012

October 31, 2012

Dear Family,
 
I only have fifteen minutes so this email will also be a reply to Kelleene's, just so you know. I really love the MTC, and that may because I have such an awesome companion and an amazing district. I've gained about five and a half punds since I've gotten here, so that is a good thing, although most of it is probably just my muscles getting back into shape after not being able to do much because of the ear infection. Oh, I an going to need a few things from home that I hope you will be able to send quickly. I realized when I got here that I had forgotten to bring any pictures from home! Our district wanted to show some pictures to each other on our temple walk this week, so I was hoping you could mail them tomorrow? Just some recent pictures of you guys and the family pictures and maybe the one of me and Brother Lee, because I talk about him all the time here. I would also appreciate it if you would mail me a package with one of those coats, because I totally forgot that it would also be cold here, so waiting to buy one in Ukraine wouldn't help me much, although I will probably buy one when I get there too, because they are supposed to be really nice and really cheap. There isn't snow here yet but it is getting pretty cold in the morning. Also, I got my ballot, but there are a few people and things that I'm not sure about and I can't really research them here, so could you have Mikey write me a letter as quickly as possible about what he thinks, because I trust his judgement. So, I heard about a huge hurricane going on on the east coast, and something about new
Elder Jolstead the Younger
Oh, and we learned about some weird superstitions that they have in Ukraine and there's one that I thought Jared might find cool. Apparently you can't leave two windows open accross from each other because they believe that a demon that travels on the wind will go through your house and make eveyone sick. I though that would be a pretty cool episode of supernatural.
Elder Jolstead the Younger