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