New Year's In Ukraine

Honestly, I can't really say what New Year's is truly like here. It's basically their Christmas, so people get presents and everything just like we do for Christmas. I don't actually know what the celebrations look like though, because we were in our apartments at 4:00 on New Year's Eve and weren't supposed to leave at all the next day, except to go to our one hour of church. That one hour turned into about six hours because we were helping people with family history and other stuff. All the missionaries make a big deal about people getting drunk and it being super dangerous out on the streets. I guess they've never been to Franklin Street after a UNC win. When we were outside the streets were totally empty. But, I'm not complaining because we went to the other missionaries' apartment and made tacos and played games there for the whole day, so it was pretty relaxing.

I walk past the movie theater almost every day and they have huge posters for all the movies. So, I've seen the posters for Star Wars and Harry Potter and all the other movies that have come out recently (in Ukrainian/Russian, of course.) And I've seen movie posters for the new Disney movie here in Rivne.

Earlier in the week I made my trip back to Ivano-Frankivsk to get some paperwork done. Luckily, we didn't have to take the nine-hour bus ride this time, but we did have to take three different trains in one day. We left Rivne at six in the morning on a train to L'viv. About an hour later we took another train to Ivano, and then about four hours later we took yet another train back to L'viv, where we spent the night. So it was still about nine hours of train riding, but for six of those hours we were in private coupes with a couple beds, so we just got to nap for a few hours. That was super nice. And then we woke up in L'viv and took one last train back to Rivne. All of that traveling so I could sign one piece of paper. Hopefully that finishes all of the paperwork for now.

It was also good because when I went through L'viv we stopped by the mission office and my package was there. I don't know if it had come earlier, but I was able to bring it and open it up. Thank you very much for all the gifts and cards and stuff. I really appreciate it. The peanut butter is going to be great and all of those dip mixes and stuff will be fantastic. The camera you sent is definitely miles better than the one I had before, thank you very much. I have some pictures I've taken with it.

We went out to dinner as a district on Friday, so here's a picture of that.

Here's a picture of a pretty sweet piece of art by our apartment. Look closely and see if you can see if you can guess what it was originally. I think it's pretty interesting.

Look closely at the picture of art at the top left. There's an old hammer and sickle that was painted over, so you can tell it used to be some Soviet art, but when Ukraine got their independence I guess they painted over it.

For P-day we went shopping at a Second Hand store. I don't know if I've told you about them before, but they're like big good-will stores, but instead of having prices for each individual item, you just go in and pay by the kilogram. Depending on the day, you can get clothes for about $1.50/kilogram, so you can definitely find some sweet deals. What we did today is we all drew names out of a hat and then we did kind of a Secret Santa for each other where we each had to buy some article of clothing for someone else. Sister S. got me a tiny little pink jersey, and I picked out a sweet colorful safari shirt for one of the elders.

It's been mostly above freezing the past week or so. Later on this week it's supposed to get to -20 Celsius for a few days. That sounds really, really bad, but that's only like 7 degrees Fahrenheit. It gets colder than that in North Carolina. Honestly it's really not that cold here (yet). I think the folks from Utah aren't used to the humidity, and that probably gives it such a bad rep.

It doesn't really feel like we're alone here. There's 20 or so decently active members, and there's a few that are just super, super active. So we can almost always find members willing to come on lessons with us and stuff, which is a huge help. I'm starting to get to know some of the members a little bit better, but it's pretty difficult when I can't speak the language. I think most of the kids like me at least, because I bring them candy every once in a while.

We have a couple investigators now with baptismal dates. One of them is super awesome and he comes to church and he read the Book of Mormon (for the second time) basically in one day. He should be getting baptized in a couple Saturdays if everything goes right. The other guy has been busy with family stuff with the holidays so we'll have to meet with him soon to see what's going on.

Let me explain this orangish sign. 

It says "Slava Ukraini" which means "Glory to Ukraine." I don't exactly know the history, but when people say "Glory to Ukraine" you're supposed to say "Glory to the Heroes" back. It's a patriotic slogan you see all over the place.

We get 30 minutes of exercise at 6:30 each morning, I'll usually wake up and do push-ups or something. When it warms up we'll probably go running or something like that. I'm usually more tired at the beginning of the day when I have to wake up early than I am at the end of the day. I guess I'm still on a college schedule. But, it's still not too hard to fall asleep at night.

I've got to head out, but I hope y'all had a great holiday season! I'm going to a member's house for dinner tonight, and last time we went to his house he gave us apple sauce and apple sauce tea. Talk to you next week!

Alec