Personal Days & Other Random Stuff

Today is the last p-day before the sisters in our district go home, so in about an hour we're going to a chocolate restaurant and then coming back to the church to play games with them. And then tonight a family in the branch (the same family that invited us over on Christmas Eve) is having us over for dinner for the sister's last p-day. We were supposed to bring a salad and a dessert, so we made a delicious apple crisp and then a super, super disgusting salad. They don't really have lettuce here, especially in the wintertime, so you have to be creative. We found a recipe for a carrot and raisin and pineapple salad with a mayonnaise dressing. so we made it. and it's pretty nasty.  Oh well, I'm sure the apple crisp will be good.

Sunday was the same as normal, I spent about 12 hours at the church meeting with people and doing tithing and stuff like that. I also gave a talk in sacrament meeting (for the second time since I got here) so that was fun. I'm never sure if people actually understand me when I speak Ukrainian, but I asked a few people after and they said they understood just fine, so that was good to hear. 

We get to do many of the same things every day. We talk to people on the streets and give out books and stuff like that. I don't know if you heard, but the church changed the missionary schedule last week in a worldwide missionary broadcast. Before, we would wake up at 6:30, exercise for 30 minutes, and then eat breakfast and get ready for the day. Then there would be 3 hours of studying, and we'd usually eat lunch and then leave the apartment and be back by 9:00pm. Now we do 2 hours of studying in the morning, leave the apartment for a while and go talk to people, and then come back and have lunch and then do the last hour of study afterward. The church also shortened lunch to half an hour instead of an hour, but now we're supposed to be back in the apartments by 8:30, so we end the day half an hour earlier. The best news though is that the church removed studies on p-day, so we have a lot more time to get personal stuff done.

Speaking of p-day, we went bowling last week. It was kinda weird, cause it was a bowling alley that looked just like America and it didn't feel like being in Ukraine at all.

Even though I was wearing a shirt and tie, I still bowled one of the best games I've ever bowled. 

The guy who was baptized last week was an older gentlemen. Baptisms rarely happen here, but those that do happen are typically older folks for sure. He's a super, great guy though and is very excited about family history work.

We don't really eat a lot of the Ukrainian food. We make most of our food, usually just something with chicken or sausage and also a ton of fruit cause it's so cheap. You can get a kilo of clementines for about a dollar, so we eat a lot of those. 

If you haven't sent the box yet and still want ideas, American food items are always appreciated. Specifically peanut butter, and maybe vanilla and brown sugar (they don't have those here) so I can make some cookies. Also a specific request, if you can find them: they don't have many good pens here so some "Pilot G-2 0.38" pens would be sweet. 

We went to visit a member last Monday night and he showed us a cool lookout point where you can see over the whole city. So I had to go back in the day to get a picture. I promise it looks a little bit cooler in person.

I also saw an advertisement on a window today, see if you can tell why it's so cool.

Hope everything is going great and I miss y'all.

Alec