Farewell to Rivne, Off To Uzhhorod

OK, so the big news this week is that I'm getting transferred to a different city. On Wednesday I leave Rivne to head to Uzhhorod. It's about as far away as you can possibly get in this mission, but it's still only about 9 hours by train total. It's about as far west in Ukraine as you can possibly go, right on the border of Slovakia (so you hear all kinds of different languages there.) It's right in the base of the Carpathian mountains, so the weather is either much warmer or much colder (I don't remember which) and the terrain is very different. The church is very small there - about 4 or 5 members and not even a branch, so it will be a very different experience. I'm excited for a change, but I've come to really like Rivne (or at least some of the people here) so it'll be a little sad to say goodbye. I'm definitely ready for something new though and supposedly it's a very pretty place in the spring time.

A day at the Rivne Zoo

Last Monday we did have a sweet chance to go to the zoo in Rivne. I've been wanting to go for a while but we waited until it warmed up a bit. It was actually a whole lot better than I was expecting out of a Ukrainian zoo. It doesn't really compare to Asheboro zoo, but it was definitely much better than that wildlife reserve we went to in Florida. I attached a ton of pictures from that and the sketchy playground that was there. They didn't have elephants or rhinos, but they did have tigers and lions and some cool monkeys. I also love when they try to write things in english and then spell it wrong, so I attached a picture of a "Madagaskar" sign.

At the zoo

Llama, llama, llama

At the zoo

Ths Rivne Zoo measures up

Alec and King Louie

Because mom would have wanted him to

The "sketchy" playground at the zoo

Spelled right or no?

Now that it's warmer we've started doing our sports day every weekend. On Saturday we went out to a caged in soccer field (just dirt really) and played field hockey. Not a ton of people came (lol )but it was still fun playing field hockey. I don't know why but I've been super sore since then. I guess cause you have to bend over the whole time.

Field hockey with some of the locals

We had exchanges on Thursday and we decided to go out and visit some members and sing to them, so we did that Thursday night. We've been trying to get in touch with universities to ask them to advertise our English practice, but we've had a hard time getting in touch with the right people.

Alec prepares to say farewell to the people of Rivne

I'm sure I'll have a lot to talk about next week with all of the transfers and everything. I hope everything is going great and I miss everyone!

Alec