Christmas In Ukraine

Christmas here was pretty normal. I opened the gifts you sent me in the MTC and then came to church - just normal church because people celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January here. I gave out American candy to all the kids here, so I ended up having little kids coming up and begging me for more. We stuck around at church doing tithing/accounting work and then Skyping and then the missionaries all got together and made fajitas for Christmas dinner at the church. After that we had a white elephant gift exchange, and I ended up getting a pretty sweet cat shirt from Sister G. I think the present I gave was the best though - a little jar of nutella. It was super, super expensive: ~$1.75. 

That's pretty cool about Holly and Matt getting engaged. We all knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when. I always figured it would be sometime toward the end of senior year.

I haven't really noticed any of the Americans getting Ukrainian accents. I think the languages are so different that you don't really get them mixed up in your mind. Spanish and English are pretty similar, so you might get some of those sounds confused.

Thank you for the updates. I always like hearing about what's going on in the real world. The only news I've heard lately is that some Russian ambassador was assassinated in Turkey and apparently it's a big deal.

P-days are definitely a nice break, but we're usually super, super busy. Like today, we had a lesson planned (that didn't end up happening) and we also had to help a member pick up packages for the church building from Nova Poshta  (an in-country postal service where you can ship a box across the country in like two days for a dollar or two.) There ended up being about 30 gallons of cleaning fluid and 6 or 7 huge boxes of who-knows-what. and the post office is a ten minute walk away. So between the five of us it took 3 trips back and forth to get it all, so my arms are a little tired. But, Christmas is more or less like any other day on a mission. You still have stuff to do.

My companion got a package. He got some candy and some ties (so we have matching ties today) and two huge things of peanut butter (that's a great Christmas present - they don't have peanut butter here.) And, yes, I gave him his stocking, don't worry. We haven't played the ping pong ball game yet - it looks really hard.

The constant companionship thing isn't really as bad as I thought it would be. You kinda get used to it pretty quick. I had a pretty bad cold about a week ago, but I'm feeling better now. It's luckily warmed up a bit the past couple days. I didn't think we'd have a white Christmas, but it actually snowed a ton Christmas Eve, so there was snow on the ground. I think that's the first time I've had a white Christmas. 

Sounds like ya'll a pretty sweet Christmas. Maybe you'll get some Ukrainian souvenirs as Christmas presents in a few months. 

Oh, yeah, something I was gonna ask for - if you have any ideas for easy recipes or just general cooking ideas I'd love to hear them. They have mission cookbooks in all of the apartments, but we're running out of things to make. Anything that doesn't require brown sugar, peanut butter, or vanilla is great. Also there's no canned soups here, so hopefully they don't require any canned soups. We definitely get lots of borsch here. It's super good though, so no complaints. 

I go back to Ivano-Frankivsk on Wednesday, but we're doing the train this time instead of the 9-hour bus ride.  

My Christmas present to you is going to be a ton of pictures. There's a ton so I'm not gonna bother trying to explain all of them. It's from a lot of Christmas stuff. Some with our Christmas sweaters:

Some from L'viv:

Some from our Christmas activity here in Rivne.

Here's a short video and picture from the Christmas caroling we did in Rivne after the activity. The song is Ідіть усе вірні - it means literally, "go every faithful."

Here's some from our wrapping Christmas gifts for our activity. Wrapping paper is pretty expensive so we pretty much just put them in big boxes and taped them shut.

Here's also one of our district on the train to L'viv. Sister S. made us a pumpkin pie, so we just sat there and ate pumpkin pie from our laps the first half hour of the train ride.

And, finally, here's a few random pics from Christmastime in Ukraine:

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Gotta go, but Merry Christmas!

Alec

9-Hour Bus Rides & 12 Days Of Christmas

The last day or two here haven't actually been all that bad. and by not all that bad I mean that it's been hovering right around freezing. I'm sure it'll get much colder in the next couple months. 

The traveling to Ivano-Frankivsk was pretty interesting. Everyone has to do registration paperwork when they arrive in the country, and so they send the paperwork to where you're assigned to be serving. Apparently I was originally supposed to be going to ivano-frankivsk, but that got changed to Rivne last-minute, so all my paperwork was in another town. We had to go there to sign a couple forms. Our bus left at 6:00 on Tuesday morning. We woke up at 4:30 and took a taxi to the bus station. We got on the bus, and it turns out they don't actually have any heaters on the bus. so the first few hours of the bus ride before the sun came up were super, super cold. I was sitting next to the window and my jacket actually froze to the window -- it was really cold. Luckily, I was prepared and had worn warm clothes, so I was able to sleep a little bit at the beginning of the ride. Then for the rest of the day we just rode on the bus, making stops at every little village along the way. There were probably something like 20-30 different stops. It was cool to see some of the smaller towns in the countryside because we really only spend time in the cities usually. We also had a 45 minute stop in Ternopil at lunch time. Ternopil is actually one of the biggest cities in this part of the country, but there's no missionaries there. So it was cool to see a part of the city that other missionaries don't get to see. 

We arrived in Ivano in the middle of the afternoon, did some paperwork, went to dinner with some of the missionaries there. (I tried chicken stomach -- it was pretty good.) We then went to their English class in that town. For the return trip, we managed to get on a train instead of a bus, which was way nicer. The train left at 5:00 in the morning. We woke up at 3:30, walked through the city (that we aren't familiar with) for half an hour to the train station, bough tickets and got on the train. Fortunately though, we had a coupe to ourselves, so we had beds to sleep on which was super nice. That was about a three hour train ride to L'viv, and then from there we got on another 3-ish hour train ride back to Rivne. So the return trip was a bit shorter and definitely more pleasant than the trip to Ivano. We have to go back next week to finish up the paperwork, so we get to do it all over again.

I didn't get any pictures, but I wish I had. I was super tired and I thought I would be coming back the same way the next day so I didn't think to take any pictures. It was also pretty hard to see anything out of the frozen windows of the bus. A lot of the places look the same, but there were definitely some cool towns in the hills. Ivano-Frankivsk was also a super cool city. It was just a lot more modern than Rivne. It's nice to know that not everything looks exactly the same as here.

On Thursday we had exchanges, so I was with another brand new missionary. We fumbled our way around the city. We were able to talk to a couple people on the streets who gave us their phone number and said they might be interested in meeting, though, 

We also taught a couple lessons this past week to some interesting people. One of them was super cool because he spoke Spanish (he lived in Spain for 7 years) so I was able to talk to him about that. It was super interesting, when he would speak Spanish I could understand everything he said no problem, but then if I tried to speak Spanish back it would just come out as Ukrainian. There's only space in my head for two languages, I guess. 

The other lesson we taught was with a guy who called us and said he wanted to meet. We met up with him and started getting to know him. Turns out, he told us he had a vision where he saw all of the lottery numbers for the next day in America, and I guess the missionaries were the only Americans  he knew of, so he called us to meet so we could help him buy lottery tickets. Well, we told him we weren't allowed to do that, but if you hear anything in the news about a Ukrainian guy winning the lottery, let me know.

Not much else going on today. We have a lesson with the guy who speaks Spanish tonight. For the past few days we've been doing a 12 days of Christmas thing with a few families in the branch where we just go drop off some sweets or some fruit or some toys or something at their door each night. So we'll be doing that tonight. It was supposed to be a mystery who was actually doing it, but I'm pretty sure all the families know it was us by now. Mostly because this isn't a thing that Ukrainian people would do--so they know it must be Americans. either way it's still nice to do something nice for people.

Sounds like there's a lot of fun stuff going on at home. Glad to hear that Cocoa is still going strong. There are no Mexican restaurants in Ukraine. They are very afraid of spicy food. They do have pretty good pizza though.

Ok, I gotta head out soon, but I'll talk to you guys on Sunday! Hopefully you have a great Christmas. I'll be in l'viv a few days this week for a mission conference and a Christmas party (or something like that) so I'll tell you all about it on Sunday.

Alec

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Church was fairly interesting this week. They had some sort of primary program, so all of the primary children (all 6 of them) gave talks in sacrament meeting. It was nice because I can actually kind of understand when little kids talk because they speak so simply, so I somewhat had an idea of what was going on. After church there was a member that came who spoke pretty decent English, so I spoke with him for a while after church and helped him with some English questions he had. 

So mom is gonna be pretty jealous of this, but after the New Year all of the branches in this mission are moving to a 2-hour church block schedule instead of 3. We're not sure exactly how it's going to work, but that was a decision made by our mission president, since so many of the wards are so small I guess. So we're just gonna try it out and see how it goes.

Alec and the snow in Rivne

Up until yesterday, it actually looked a lot like Christmas. There was snow everywhere, but then it warmed up yesterday and all of the snow melted, so now it's just wet and muddy everywhere. Today, though, (literally in the last few hours) it's gotten super cold again, so maybe it'll start snowing again and look more like winter time. It's interesting--they don't really celebrate Christmas here very much. They do, however, celebrate New Years like we celebrate Christmas in America. I forgot to get any pictures, but at one of the big shopping centers and the movie theater they put up giant New Years trees and lights and stuff, so it does look a bit like Christmas time. In lots of the stores they play American Christmas music, too, so I hear a lot of that also.

We haven't done much for P-day yet and I don't think we'll have time for much today. We're going to visit a couple of our investigators who are in the hospital (two different hospitals on opposite sides of town) and we have to do some paperwork for my visa. Tomorrow actually, to finish the paperwork, we have to go to another town called Ivano-Frankivsk to finish the paperwork (apparently that's where I was originally supposed to go so all of my documents are there or something). It's a 9-hour bus ride to get there that leaves at 6 am tomorrow. And then the next day we'll take a 9-hour bus ride back.

This week was also interesting because both of the trainers in Rivne had to go to L'viv for a conference, so I was here with another new missionary in the city all alone for almost three days. We had a few lessons we scheduled (which went pretty horribly because we can't understand much) and we spent the rest of the time trying to contact people on the streets (which also went pretty bad,) but at the end of the day we did manage to survive in the city all alone. We bought food and we rode busses and we didn't die, so that's good to know.

We had a branch activity on Saturday night. We watched 17 Miracles. Unfortunately, it's only available in Russian, so I couldn't understand much (and it was a really tough translation, with just one guy doing all of the voices, even the women.) Luckily, I had watched it a month or two ago in the MTC, so I knew what was going on. 

As for the people we've been teaching, one of them was able to leave the hospital and go home, but then we got a call Friday night that he had to take an ambulance to another hospital for an emergency surgery. so we visited him Saturday and he seems to be doing ok. But, he still has to stay there to recover for another week or so. so since neither of them have been able to come to church, we pushed the baptismal date back to sometime in January when both of them are feeling better and out of the hospital. 

Alec at one of the "imposing" statues

I attached a few pictures from this week of stuff around town. There are a ton of really big, imposing statues here. There's a ton more around town so I'll try to get more pictures as times goes on. They're all super interesting.

Something weird that I found out a couple weeks ago. There were missionaries here from another town on exchanges and I was talking to one of them who's been out for almost two years. He was talking about how he played a TON of foosball in college before his mission. Well, I remembered when I was at BYU that summer, people in my dorm would play foosball until like 4 in the morning. So, I asked him where he went to school, and it was BYU (of course) and it turns out he was there at the same time I was. Not only that, but we lived in the same building, on the same floor, and on the same hall. He lived a couple doors down from me that whole summer. I didn't remember him at all, But, we had a lot of the same memories about stuff that happened that summer. It's kind of a crazy coincidence that I ran into him here in Ukraine like three years later. 

Hope everything is going great at home and that everyone is in the Christmas spirit! Love you guys and I'll talk to you next week!

Alec

Non-Stop Snowing

Last week was pretty interesting. We had our zone conference here in Rivne, so all the missionaries from the northern cities (Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, and Lutsk) were here on Tuesday. It was pretty cool to see a bunch of the other missionaries from the MTC again. A couple of them stayed a couple nights here in Rivne to do exchanges the next day (since my companion here is a zone leader) so we all stayed at the other apartment here in Rivne and basically had a big slumber party. Only problem was that the next day, my companion and the other new missionary Elder Sanders' companion were both on exchanges, so I spent the whole day with Elder Sanders. And neither of us can speak the language very well, so that was a little bit of a disaster. And there's more exchanges in L'viv this week, including the sisters, which means me and Elder Sanders will be the only missionaries in this city for three days. So, I'll let you know how that goes. It's pretty weird not knowing the language, though. People will ask me a question and I just have no idea what to say. Luckily, I have my companion with me all the time to help me out, but it's still a little weird not knowing what's going on. It doesn't really bother me, I just don't like not knowing what's happening.

So it's been pretty chilly the past week or so. It's been almost non-stop snowing here. I'm definitely not used to this much snow at all, but it hasn't actually gotten all that miserably cold. 

Alec in snowy Rivne

I've attached a couple pictures of the snow. This was on our way back to the apartment. We usually take the bus, but we decided to make the 35 minute walk that day. That was a mistake, because it started snowing super hard. It wasn't the hardest I've ever seen it snow, but it was the hardest I've seen it snow while I was walking outside for 2 miles. This picture is on a bridge that goes over the trainyard. You can't really tell, but it was snowing very hard, I promise. 

I've also attached a picture of the view from outside our apartment. I think I sent one before the snow. Honestly, it looks pretty nice.

View of the snow from Alec's apartment

The only problem is that it's this cold, and it's only barely December. so it's gonna be getting a lot colder. We hardly ever go into anyone's home, but for the most part it's pretty warm when we do. When we did service a week or two ago out in the villages though, this guy's house was not warm at all. But, everyone in the city lives in huge apartment buildings and they keep those pretty warm.

You can definitely find cheap clothes here. There's tons of second hand stores and we actually went to a couple today looking for ugly Christmas sweaters. We didn't have much success with that, but I did find a pretty interesting t-shirt from a restaurant in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Not sure at all how it found it's way to Ukraine, but I thought it was pretty cool.

So, I was wrong. It sounds like we'll be Skyping on American Christmas after all, instead of Ukrainian Christmas. So it'll hopefully be sometime in the middle of the day your time. I'll try to find out exactly when in the next couple weeks because we'll have to coordinate it with the other missionaries here because there's only a couple computers we can use.

There are a handful of active members here, and they are super helpful and willing to help out with whatever. We've had members come in and help us with every lesson that we've been teaching the two investigators at the hospital.

We've been listening to Christmas music, and the speakers you sent are working perfectly so far. Thanks a ton for that. It's been very awesome to have.

P-day is technically over at 6 o clock, so it's just about over. It was a somewhat interesting day though. We went to Second Hand looking for Christmas sweaters or whatever, and then we went to a православний church (eastern orthodox, the main religion here) to see what it was like inside. It was pretty interesting. They are very ornately decorated and they have tons of pictures of saints and people (called icons) around the church that they go up to and pray to (and kiss.) It was cool to see. Most interesting thing was that they don't have any seats there, so people go to church and stand for the whole service.

After that, we met up with the sisters and went to a place called L'viv Chocolate. It's like a sit-down restaurant, but all they have is chocolate. All I got was a little tea cup of hot chocolate. except hot chocolate here is not like in America.  It's litereally just melted chocolate. It's super good, but it's kinda hard to drink just pure chocolate.

Ok a couple pictures and some stories from this week.

So we were staying at the other apartment on Thursday and we were doing our studies in the morning. We were in the kitchen, and we started to smell something strange. We got up to check it out and it turns out there's a pretty huge gas leak from one of the gas lines in the kitchen. We had to call their landlord and they sent an emergency gas leak company out to fix it. Everyone else just wanted to stay in a different room of the apartment to wait for them, but I had to convince everyone to get out of their ASAP. No one wanted to wait outside in the -2 C weather and falling snow. But we got out and they came quickly to fix it. Just a regular day in Ukraine.

Last Wednesday, there were a ton of missionaries here because of the zone conference, so we went Christmas caroling in the center of town. Lots of people gave us weird looks at first (because Christmas isn't for another month and half here) but, I think a lot of people actually really liked it.

Christmas caroling in the center of town

 Okay, I have to go now, but I love you guys and hope all is going well.

Alec