From Shelby

Well, we survived Thanksgiving.  It was a little rough, simply because it felt weird without him here.  Times are changing, I can't expect them to be with me forever, so I suck it up and keep moving forward.

Jake did great for Thanksgiving.  He was excited to mix it up with additional Missionaries at the Thanksgiving conference they had...I think they kept the kids too busy to feel like they were missing anything.

As I've said before, when I read Jacobs emails, I don't think I see them the way other people do.  Take this last week for instance...

First-Why is he drinking something that "tastes like a CAMPFIRE"?  What is that thing?  Whats in it?  Did he even check before drinking it?  Did the other Missionaries drink it, or was he the guinea pig (because he LOVES being the guinea pig :/ )

Second- Air raid sirens? AIR RAID SIRENS!!??  And to this day they still have no idea why that happened.  What? THEY ARE ON THE BORDER OF RUSSIA!  He said the sirens went off for several minutes.  Their main protocol in this situation is to shelter in place and call to get further instructions...but NoBoDy AnSwErEd the phone.  Wait, what??  *sigh*

That's just a few examples of the things that go through my head.  Nonetheless, he is safe and doing pretty well.  He's a little sad to loose several companions.  There were five Missionaries including him serving in Cherkasy area (a 3-4 hour trip to get to the next closest group of Missionaries) and they lost three of them last week, leaving just Jacob and Elder Maximo from Brazil.  He and Elder Maximo are plugging along just fine, but it's a little lonelier with just the two of them.  Jacob was excited to tell me that they were promised some new sister Missionaries during the next transfer period.

So I attempted sending a Christmas package to him, but the whole situation is sketchy at best.  I may have to dish about it in another post later, but suffice it to say that I got the dang thing out, for the rock bottom price of $70 to ship roughly $40 worth of stuff.  Now the real test is to see if it actually gets there in time!  There are conflicting reports from other parents about how long their packages take to arrive, so I think I'm playing a bit of roulette (Russian Roulette!)  here in hoping it makes it by Christmas, and all I can do is cross my fingers and wait.

Say a prayer for Elder Coleman...He REALLY wants to make more progress in their missionary work, so if y'all could pray for him do be successful in his endeavors, he'd really appreciate it.