Cake & Conferences

Well, in general it's been very, very cold here this past winter. BUT the last few days have actually been very warm. It's been somewhere between 35-45 degrees for most of the time during the past week or so, so that's been very nice. On Saturday, I was super happy cause pretty much all of the snow had completely melted - then a couple hours later a huge snow storm came. Luckily, it was warm enough that even all of that snow didn't stay for long, so we've been walking on solid ground for the past little while, which is super convenient. Hopefully it continues to warm up and doesn't get cold again.

My companion (who was the 1st counselor in the branch presidency) got transferred, but a week or two before that they actually called a member to be in the branch presidency, so that's who is filling his spot. I think most of the branches here have missionaries in the branch presidency, so it's great that we were able to have at least one counselor be a member. 

Also you asked about how it feels not being the newest missionary with the latest transfers. Unfortunately, I basically still am - at least in terms of the language. One of the sister's is from Ukraine, so she already speaks the language (even though she still mostly speaks Russian.) And then the new elder is from Armenia and everyone there knows Russian. And since Russian is so close to Ukrainian, he was able to pick it up super quick and already knows it better than I will by the end of the mission. Also, he already served a 9-month mini-mission in Armenia before he came here - so he even has more experience as a missionary than me.

And as for those travel spots you've sent me, I've already been to the Tunnel of Love, the Princess Maria monument, the Holy Resurrection Cathedral, the Intercession Cathedral, the Wooden Church (it's right next to our church), Ekvator, Zlata Plaza, Bogdan Khmelnetiksy, and Shevchenko. And most of the other ones I've at least walked past. I really want to check out that museum on the list, but I'm pretty sure it's closed on Mondays. I want to go to the zoo too, but I heard it was closed for the winter - I'll have to find out when it's open again.

 As for this past week--it was a lot of meetings. We had Zone Conference here in Rivne on Thursday with Elder Kacher from the Eastern European Area Presidency and so he talked the whole time. They are making a big push towards doing missionary work through the members instead of cold contacting on the street, which I think is a great idea. Partly cause just contacting is kind of miserable and that's all we do, but also because it just doesn't really work. Like at all. So even though we don't have a no-proselyting law like they have in Russia, they're trying to push us in that direction - just cause it works better. So hopefully there will be some cool changes soon. (We also learned that for the first time in this area, a mission got approved for iPads - so here's hoping that's coming sometime.)

Here's a picture of my companion with all of the water that we bought for zone conference. it was something like 20 gallons and we had to carry it all the way from the grocery store to the church about 3/4 of a mile away. 

And then on Sunday we had District Conference in L'viv - where all of the members from the entire mission gather for a big conference. (Basically like Stake Conference.) So we got on a bus at 5:45 am with all of our members and rode 3 hours to L'viv. 

The Rivene Branch at District Conference in L'viv

A couple of pictures with me and other missionaries in L'viv:

On the bus between Rivne & L'viv

It was a cool conference with lots of good talks about temples and missionary work and it was very cool seeing all of these members that I'd never seen before. It was also cool seeing all the missionaries, even if it was just for a few minutes. After the conference ended at 2, we got back on the buses and headed back to Rivne.

A couple sites around Rivne at sunset.

And then here's a picture of cake, too. We have game nights every Tuesday, and on the way there the sisters found an iPhone laying in the snow. (An iPhone is like a really big deal here.) It wouldn't turn on at first cause it was too cold, but when it warmed up and turned on we managed to find it's owner and tell him where it was. He came to us and was super, super grateful. He offered to buy us some vodka, but when we refused he said he'd come back with cake. ​

Hope y'all had a great week!

Alec

A Ukrainian Valentines Day

On Wednesday we had a branch activity for Valentine's Day (I didn't even realize they celebrated it.) Pretty much all they do for activities here is sing a few songs, have a spiritual thought, maybe watch a video or two, and then have refreshments afterwards. So that's what we did. The missionaries sang "Love is Spoken Here" (in Ukrainian it's not really about love, so it didn't actually fit the theme too well--oops) and we watched a couple Mormon Messages and that was about it. They're nice little activities, but there just aren't enough members here just yet to reach that critical mass where people can just hang out and have fun. It's ok, at least people still come to them so they're still successful. 

Other than that this week was very non-eventful. We had English practice on Friday. I teach in the advanced group, so we decided to have a spelling bee. Most of the people in the advanced group know English very, very well (better than I do...at least on a technical/grammatical level) but spelling is something they are not good at, so it was great to be able to prove them wrong for once. I actually knew the word "settee" too! Just cause mom always called the couch in the dining room a settee. when really it was just a couch. There's no difference. 

Then on Saturday we went to that English-speaking club, where really they just ask us about life in America. The girl in charge of it followed me on Instagram, so even out here I'm still racking up the Insta followers. 

The new missionaries seem to be doing well here! There were actually a few changes, and one of the pairs of sisters (Jones and Dishlanyan) got transferred to a different city today. So now we're back down to two sisters. It's kinda sad cause it would have been a lot of fun having eight missionaries here. 

We went to Mcdonald's today cause Sister Morris really wanted Mcdonalds (you can only get it in two cities in this part of Ukraine, so it's pretty special.) From left to right, there is Elder Aslanyan (you can barely see him), Sister Jones, Sister Dishlanyan, Sister Fedotova, Sister Morris, Elder Jones, me, and Elder von Niederhausern. Sister Dishlanyan and Sister Fedotova should be going to America once they get their visas, so if you're ever at Temple Square and you see them, say hello.

I found an old Liahona magazine from 6 or 7 years ago. There's always a message from area authorities in the Ukraine section of the magazine, and apparently there used to be a Martschenko who was an Area Seventy (of course he spelled it differently in English--Marchenko.) 

I also attached a picture of a cool monument I stumbled upon walking around one day. The plaque for it was frozen over with ice so we couldn't really figure out exactly what it was about, but it was still pretty interesting. There's big statues and stuff like that all over the place.

I think I mentioned this a long time ago, but I finally uploaded the video of us singing in the middle of the woods by the Tunnel of Love with a French couple from an island off the coast of Madagascar. So that was cool.

That video of grandma was very nice to see. It's great to be able to look back on her great life.

This week we have zone conference on Thursday, exchanges on Wednesday, and district conference with all of the members from the whole mission in L'viv on Sunday. So it will hopefully be a more interesting letter next week. Love you guys and hope all is well!

Alec

Changes At Home & Abroad

Well thank you for the letter about grandma. Obviously, I wish I could be there to help out in whatever way I could. At the same time, it in some way makes it a little easier for me to be here and to always be so busy to,  I guess, keep my mind off of things a bit. It's good to know that she isn't in so much pain anymore, and I'm especially glad I got to see her before I left. 

I guess all I can do now is tell you how this past week went.

Last Monday night we went out to the Branch President's house for a little family home evening. He lives out in a village about a 30-minute bus ride outside of Rivne. We actually did the same exact thing on my very first Monday here in Rivne 12 weeks ago, so it was nice little bookends to my 12 weeks of training. I was definitely able to understand quite a bit more than I could that first night, but I still can't understand all that much. He's a super funny guy (I attached a picture from the baptism a while ago -- he's the guy on the far left,) so it's always fun to go talk with him. We always try to bring cookies or something like that when we visit people, but he also decided to bring cookies. So we ate a bunch of cookies. He also bought a 2-liter of Sprite, cause it's American and so obviously we'd like it (it doesn't really even taste like American Sprite) and he made us drink the whole thing. I had to pee reallllly bad on the bus ride back to Rivne. ​

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On Tuesday morning, my old companion Elder Loveridge went back to L'viv to start working as the Assistant to the President. That meant that I was with Elder Sanders, the other new missionary in Rivne, until my new companion got here on Wednesday night. We didn't do too much besides walk around town and try to talk to people, but we did meet up with one guy who had come to English practice. He actually lived in America for like 15 years so he more or less knew perfect English, but he wanted to brush up on it before he took an English speaking test to see if he'll be able to immigrate to Canada. We just talked for a while about churchy stuff (he's very religious) and it was cool to hear his opinions on stuff. 

Wednesday night we went to the train station to pick up my new companion. They originally told us that they'd be here at 4:00, but then called us and said it would be closer to 8:30. So we got there at 8:30 and ended up waiting about an hour out in the cold for the train to arrive. We found out why when we saw it pull up--apparently it had somehow lost electricity (which is pretty bad, cause it's an electric train) so they had to have an actual train engine come and tow it all the way here from L'viv. Anyway I picked him up from the train station and then we went back to our apartment and he started to unpack. His name is Elder Jones and he's a super nice guy. He's from Utah and he did a year of school at BYU before he came out here. He's been out for a year and a half already (he came out the same time as my last companion). He's helpful and friendly and nice so all is well.

On Saturday all of the other brand new missionaries came in after they finished the orientation in L'viv. I'm not sure exactly why, but for some reason there's two pairs of sisters here now, which is weird cause a few of the cities don't have any sisters. I think it had something to do with some new missionaries that are just waiting on visas to go to missions in America, so they just came here. So having eight missionaries in one city will be pretty interesting and will hopefully help out a lot. The new missionaries are: Sister Morris -- from Louisiana, she's been out for about 6 months I think; Sister Fedotova -- she's from Odessa in southern Ukraine and she's waiting on a visa to go to the temple square mission (I think), she has a hard time speaking Ukrainian cause she's so used to speaking Russian at home (apparently it's hard to make that switch for natives) so it's pretty tough to understand her and she doesn't know English super great; Sister Dishlanian -- she's from Kiev and she is also waiting on a visa, but she's been here 3 months already sooo idk if she's ever going to get that visa; Sister Jones -- I think she's from St George and she just got here from the MTC; Elder Aslanian -- he's from Armenia and he just got here from the MTC also. Elder Aslanian is being trained by Elder von Niederhausern, the other missionary that stayed here from the last transfer. Elder Aslanian is great cause he already speaks/understand Ukrainian way better than I do cause he knows Russian (everyone in Armenia knows Russian) and they're so similar so it'll be nice to have him around. I haven't really gotten to know any of them super well yet, but i'm sure I will over the next 6 weeks. 

As for weather here, it had been relatively warm for the past couple weeks, and then this past week it got really cold all of a sudden. Everyone I've talked to said it's the coldest winter they've had in a long time. Something like a foot and a half of snow fell in one night last week. It's interesting cause when there's that much snow, and when that many people walk over it, it basically just packs down into ice and you don't really notice you're walking on snow. You're just walking on like half a foot of solid ice--sometimes it can get pretty slippery but I haven't fallen since my first week here so I'm trying to keep that up. I think it's actually supposed to get above freezing later this week, so maybe all of this accumulated snow/ice will eventually melt. 

Dressed up for a Primary activity

On Thursday last night, we were invited to help out with a primary activity. The activity was about prophets, so they needed a couple people to come and dress up as modern-day prophets. So Elder Jones and I came dressed as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. We didn't have very many materials for making any kind of costumes, and I have no idea where to buy cotton in this country, but somehow we figured out a way to make a beard out of paper. The costumes weren't great, but it was fun to go talk to the kids for a little bit (and they gave us some pizza afterwards too.)

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but the last few weeks we've been helping out with an English-speaking club here. They came to our English practice and asked if we could help with theirs, so we said sure. Basically we just go and sit with them and tell them about America -- pretty easy cause it's all in English. They're mostly young people, and they seem pretty fascinated with America. It's nice cause there's not too many opportunities for service, so we do whatever we can really.

I'm sorry I don't have more pictures this week. But I can share some observations I've made since I got here:

• In the winter time, instead of using strollers, people just push their kids around on sleds. I never thought of that before, but it make perfect sense when everything is nice.
• It took me about 4 weeks, but I finally found something that tastes pretty close to string cheese in America. I had to go through some pretty nasty salty and smokey and weird cheeses to finally find the one that tasted right.
• Ukrainians loooove sour cream. They put it on everything. Like on fruits and toast and anything you can imagine. It's actually not as bad as you might think though.

I love you guys and miss all of you. I know this is a hard time, but you will all be in my prayers. 

Alec

Leaves, New Arrivals & Transfers

Well, the sister missionaries just barely left to  head home from serving their missions. We actually went to the train station at 6:00 this morning to see them off and help them carry their luggage. There are 12 new missionaries coming in this week, which is about a third of the entire mission, so there are lots of transfers and moving around going on this week. I'll be staying here in Rivne, but my companion is going to L'viv to be the Assistant to the President. My new companion is going to be coming here from another town called Chernivtsi. He should get here on Wednesday, and then there's going to be another brand new missionary in Rivne from Armenia, so that should be interesting. And then for the sister missionaries, there's going to be 4 here actually, which is interesting because some cities don't have any sister missionaries. There's going to be one from Louisiana, one from Kiev (or somewhere in Ukraine), and then two new missionaries (I think one is American and one is Ukrainian.) So we'll have the most missionaries out of any city, which should be interesting.

Most of the people we talk to on the street are not that receptive. Most people just keep walking past us or say they're in a rush or they don't have time. Every once in a while there's someone who's willing to stop and answer a few questions, probably about 1 in 10. And then not many of those are actually interested, but every once in a while it happens. Most people here are religious from what I can tell. Most people belong to the Eastern Orthodox church, but there's plenty of other sects, too.

My Spanish was definitely the first thing to go when I started learning Ukrainian. English and Ukrainian are pretty separate in my mind, but Spanish and Ukrainian definitely get jumbled. It doesn't happen so much now, but whenever I don't know a word in Ukrainian, my brain would automatically replace it with the word in Spanish. It was especially weird cause I would try speaking in Ukrainian and my brain would put in the Spanish articles, even though there aren't any articles in Ukrainian. But it's definitely getting better now. I don't know a lot of Ukrainian slang really, at least not any that's super cool. One that is pretty funny (I think it's actually Russian) is for an exclamation like "dang!" they just say "pancake!" 

This past week I finally got the letter from Aunt Elaine! It was a nice Christmas card and a UNC notepad--very nice of her to send.

So this past Monday, we went to a member's house (the same one we went to on Ukrainian Christmas Eve) for the sister's last Family Home Evening in the country. We basically just hung out and played with their cute little two-year old son. The food was good - the family made mashed potatoes and we brought the rest of the food. It's pretty interesting how different things are here than in America for missionaries. You would never imagine missionaries in America bringing food to a dinner appointment, but here it's very normal (and we usually prefer it actually.) 

We also stumbled across a pretty impressive monument last week. You can see it from the road and it's about a half a mile walk from there to the actual monument. 

It was basically a huge tower with a giant statue at the base. I'm not sure what it's for exactly (obviously something about WWII) but I heard that it's specifically about the holocaust. Not entirely sure about that one though. 

Behind the monument, there were also a bunch of old WWII tanks and artillery just sitting there. pretty interesting to see and definitely different from what you'd find in America. 

We also went out to dinner for the sisters' last couple of days so here's a picture of that.

Hope everything is going great back home! Thanks for the kind words and I miss you guys!

Alec