Hello dear Friends!

This week was amazing! So many things changed here! Also I changed a lot! Things are getting more intense here and we figure more and more out, how we can share the gospel more effectively.
at least 4 things that changed:
– I’m working on reactivating my french
– we run more than 8000 stair steps in the morning
– we are much more pumped to just work!
– we do 1 hour extreme language every day (before it was not so intense)

why? read on!

Last week was the last week (ca every 4-8 month you have a new companion, sometimes the same) with my companion Elder Hinkson. We had a great birthday party from a member and a small group of friends came. The party was not big we all felt so much love and happiness together.

Last week was the last week (ca every 4-8 month you have a new companion, sometimes the same) with my companion Elder Hinkson. We had a great birthday party from a member and a small group of friends came. The party was not big but we all felt so much love and happiness together. So this was the last time with Elder Hinkson. He showed me how to work very humble and always loving the people. He was a great trainer and the best Russian speaker in the mission (beside the Russian natives).

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On Wednesday night some missionaries travelled with the night train up to Kiev. I picked up my new companion Elder Droubay.

Oh and yeah, you probably recognized, in Kiev they have snow!
In the mission office I met some friends from the MTC, here Elder Hunt.

And here, me with Elder Droubay, we will serve together for the next 8 weeks.

 Some told me, he is the American version of me. And I can tell, he is! That’s amazing! We will have such a great time together and just DO MISSIONARY WORK! We knew our night train would depart on 9:45, so we had some time left. Suddenly I had the the idea to go into the temple and do an endowment session. Well, we asked the mission president, got a permission and we got in 

 The session was amazing. I felt the spirit very strong and was so grateful to have a temple here in the Ukraine. When I am in the temple I always feel empowered more than every where else with more energy and love from heaven.

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Here with Elder Droubay in front of our LANGUAGE STUDY PROCLAMATION. No matter what, we do 1 hour of language study EVERY DAY!

My language study developed to be very intense since last week. My mission President recommended me to also work on my french, because it’s a better training for the brain. Everything comes back from french, in little pieces. 10 min every day I’m reading/figuring out, what I don’t know. I also started to involve all 5 languages I know in my language study. That’s crazy. I discovered my passion for languages. One reason, why I’m learning them so fast! My goal is for French, that it is as my English know and for Russian, good as a native Speaker. One other reason, why missionaries learn the language so fast is the help from God. We have a promise, that when we really seek for this blessing and work hard, we improve faster. That’s amazing! I totally see that happening with me!

I learned an great principle of learning or better, I am discovering it more and more now. When we learn something the hard way (for example; me learning Russian over English and french, both a foreign language), we master it better, that the easier way. Why? Because the brain is like a muscle. It progresses much faster, when we lift 25 pounds every day instead of 10 pounds. Well it’s harder, I know :P! But! Think about what you want?! Work hard and getting a great reward or work easy and get a little reward?

To this stuff I have a great story to tell! When we asked President for permission to go to the temple, he said, that we have to set a new record on the Odessa Stairs (actually Potemkin Stairs). The stairs are 143 meters long, 200 steps. His record is 20 times, up and down is one time. Well, we said, ok, we will take him by the word and work on it.

You need some background about him, why this is such an awesome and funny story! He is a passionated runner with mountain marathons, hundred kilometer races, etc. and he likes to make fun of us, how “weak” we are (he challenges us all the time).

On Saturday morning we ran in our apartment, 16 floors, 10 min, because we didn’t have so much time anymore. Oh and on Monday we wanted to visit the stairs (40 min with bus away), to just see and try out, how it is. Well after this 10 min we thought, we will need the whole 8 weeks to work on that goal, to make a new record! Well today in the morning (Monday, when I’m writing this), we were there and I broke his record with 21 times.

Don’t ask me, how I did it, I just did it! It was really hard and exhausting, but the most difficult pain was, not to give up. First I thought, I will do 5 times, just because, well we never were here, I didn’t run, the last 3 months, etc. When I hit those 5 I got used to the pain (I knew this from couples 20 km runs before that this will happen) and thought, yeah, I can probably reach 10! Every step was painful and I got to 10 times. Don’t forget, always up and down (uff, little bit relaxing)! Notice, the missionary record is by 12. So I wanted at least to set a new record for missionaries, when not President. Well I hit 12,13,14,15… and then I thought I can do it! It was like a fight with with something in me, that wanted to give up, because I was so exhausted. But wait… actually I still have energy. From somewhere I still got power, maybe just because my strong will to break that record! When I run a race like this, this it is very intense! Because every thought is focused on accomplishing that goal! I don’t realize anything that is around me, everything is just on that one thing. After little bit more than an hour I hit 20. And then I was able to do one more.

When I think back, how this went, what I thought, what I felt, what I did, I realize, how amazing this process is. Having a desire, setting a goal, and than JUST DO IT!
I learned that many times in my life, but in this moment it was just more intense than ever before.

If you have a desire and a goal, you can do it, ALWAYS!

Me an my companion we have a strong desire to change here a lot. We just got on fire. Everything just started with this Odessa Stair thing. Than we started to realize, how powerful it can be, if we master setting goals. Yesterday night, we had an amazing weekly planning session. We have great ideas, we have great visions, how we can change our work, so that more people see, how great God’s work is on this world!

Dear Friends! This life is so great! I promise you, if you try hard every day, your reward will be so great! I’m experiencing that my whole life! I hope you can see it somehow..

With Love
Elder Drewlow