Adventures in L'viv and Ivano-Frankivsk

Alec in L'viv by the Monument to the Victims of Communist Crimes

So the big thing that happened here last week was exchanges in Ivano-Frankivsk with the zone leaders. Basically that means we spent about 20 hours on the trains going back and forth. It's a ~6 hour ride from Uzhhorod to L'viv and then ~3.5 hours from L'viv to Ivano. It's kind of unfortunate, but it's definitely much better than the alternative -- a 10-hour bus ride through Ukrainian mountain roads. Most of the time we get pretty nice private coupes with beds and stuff. 

Unfortnately, for the first 6-hour train ride to L'viv we did not have such nice tickets. It's called an elektrishka, and it's basically like sitting on a city bus for 6 hours, with a little bit less leg room. So that was fun. The real fun part was that our train left at 5:15 in the morning. however, something went wrong with setting our alarms, and we woke up at 4:55. The train station is about an hour walk from our apartment, so we were gonna call a taxi anyway, but those usually take 15-20 minutes to show up. So, we woke up and immediately called a taxi, grabbed our bags, and ran outside to wait. It was some kind of miracle, but the taxi showed up within five minutes, and was more than happy to drive fast when I told him we were a little late. We made it to the train station in about 5 minutes and were seated on the train with 5 minutes to spare. Defnitely a lot of luck involved there.

In front of the art museum in L'viv

When we got to L'viv, we had about 5 hours to wait until our next train, so we decided to stop by the mission office to get a package for my companion. Unfortunatly, neither of us know L'viv very well, but my companion seemed to think that he knew L'viv pretty well. Long story short, we ended up walking around L'viv for about 2 hours trying to find the mission office. Once we realized we didn't know where we were going, we were able to ask people and find our way. We were just already on the complete opposite side of the city by that point. I did attach a few pictures of L'viv from when I was wandering around.  The umbrellas are over the street in front of an art museum. 

The statue I'm standing next to (at top) is something about breaking free from communism. and the billboard with Uncle Sam says "America is waiting for you." It's for an apartmen complex called "America".

Billboard in L'viv advertising an apartment complex named America

Other than that, though, our travels were pretty uneventful, except for me accidentally calling two different taxis in L'viv and both of them showing up at the same time and fighting. We're going back to L'viv again tomorrow for zone conference, so hopefully things go a little bit smoother. 

 That's about all the big stuff that happened this week. Friday is the day of our big history activity. We've invited the mayor, governor, archivists, and professors, so hopefully it's at least a little bit successful and some people show up. It's at the nicest hotel in town, so hopefully that attracts a few people. 

Hope y'all have a great week!

Alec

A Walk In The Park

Elder Martschenko & Elder Loveridge

On Tuesday the assistants to the president came down to Uzhhorod for exchanges. They don't usually do that, but since there's so many new missionaries in the mission now, they've been going around to all the cities to sort of give advice and make sure everything is going well everywhere and no church buildings are being burned down. So that was cool, we got lots of good advice from them and it was nice having someone who actually knows the language really really well, instead of just kind of knows the language OK enough to survive. It was also nice cause Elder Loveridge, my first companion, came down here, too. He was with the other elders all day but I still saw him. I attached a picture of me and him outside the church building. 

This past week we also tried to get our sports day going. Basically we go out once a week and play a bunch of games and try to invite as many people as we can. The hardest parts are always 1) finding a place to play, and 2) getting people to actually come. This week we grabbed a couple members of the church and hopped a fence to get to a basketball court at a school here. We ended up finding some people there to play with and it was actually pretty successful and fun, mostly cause Ukrainians in general are not so good at basketball, and so it made me feel like I was actually talented.

Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Last Monday we had a few hours with nothing to do, so we went to the basketball court and tried to play. There were a few guys there who asked to play with us, so we said, "Sure, why not?" Unfortunately, they were very, very tall. Honestly, they weren't even that good, they just each had a solid foot of height over us, so we couldnt' do very much. So, it was much more fun when we could play against people who aren't quite so good.

Hitchhiking

For p-day today, we woke up early this morning and got on a bus to find this cool resort/park somewhere north of Uzhhorod. It turned out to be almost an hour and a half on the bus, and then from there we still had a 5km walk to get to the actual park. Luckily, on our way up we were able to hitchhike a ride with a nice old man on his way to work. I attached a picture I snuck from the back seat of his car. Unfortunately, we did have to walk all the way down afterward. 

So, it was kind of a journey getting there, but once we made it, it was actually pretty worth it. At first you walk through, and it's like a resort with hotels, swimming pools, tennis courts, zip lines and all that kind of stuff. And then you walk a little farther and there's a really nice park later on. 

P-day at the park

Apparently some rich guy decided to build this park and just let the public use it. It might not look like too much in the pictures, but it was probably the nicest place I've been to since I got to Ukraine. There was a pond with benches and streams and little hiking trails and helicopters and mini statues and mountain springs and all kinds of stuff like that. So, it was pretty cool, just kind of difficult to get to. And then, my companion left our phone there . . . so we'll probably have to wake up early again tomorrow to go get it, including walking 5km each way. 

Alec & his companions, plus one

As for the history event we're doing here, things seem to be going well. We were waiting on a press release from L'viv to go to the news stations and professors and all the people we wanted to invite. We finally got it today and, honestly,  . . . we'll see what we're going to do about that. I'm gonna be in a different city this week for exchanges, and then next week we'll be gone half of the week for zone conference in L'viv, soooo, I don't know how we're going to have time to do everything. Somehow we'll figure it out, I'm sure. It's just lots of unfortunate timing really. That's OK. I'm sure it will be fine. 

As for that investigator, we've met with him several times. He came to church once or twice. and then he said he loves us and everything, but he does not want to be baptized at all. And then he said that God wanted him to meet us so he could correct all the sinful things we do at our church, and so that he can be the church leader here, and basically help us all. So, yeah, we might have another meeting or two with him, but if nothing changes, that's probably about it. 

We also have another family we've been teaching in that village and they really want to be baptized, but, they've been having problems coming to church. There's not too much we can do for them until they come to church.

 

On the 5km walk to the park

Hope everything is going well for y'all!

Alec

Happy Mother's Day!

Along the river Uzh in Uzhhorrod

Skyping with you guys this weekend was great. I'm sorry it was the middle of the night, but if I had tried to do it later in the afternoon the Internet club would have been super loud and busy and we probably wouldn't have been able to get a computer with a camera, So I think that was much better. 

Probably the highlight of the week was running into a couple of Americans on Saturday--that's pretty rare. They were a couple college girls here on a mission trip (only for 10 days.) They were nice and we talked for a little bit--I definitely miss just having normal conversations with Americans, for some reason it's just totally different. They invited us to a couple events they were holding, but, unfortunately, we were busy for all of them. However, they did tell us about the guy who sponsors these mission trips--he's an American that owns a cafe here, so we're gonna try to go find him and see if he can hook us up with some service opportunities. 

They also said they found a restaurant here that had good burgers. Good burgers are super hard to find here. I don't know why, they just don't know how to make good ground beef here. So we went and tried it today for lunch. It was a little expensive (by Ukrainian standards) but it was actually a pretty good burger. Probably the only burger I've had that actually tasted better than the McDonald's in Rivne. 

We spent part of the week preparing for this history event that's gonna be in a couple weeks. We went to the nicest hotel in town to try to get a venue for it. It's not too expensive, I think the only problem is that it might be a little bit too nice. I guess we're trying to get the mayor and governor there so nicer is probably gonna be better. Then we should be getting a press release soon from L'viv and we'll start taking that to news organizations and stuff like that. Should be fun. 

I don't know if I told you about this on the Skype call or not, but on Friday we had plans to have dinner at a member's house. So, we went there at 6 o'clock and when we called her to come open the door, she told us that she wasn't expecting us until Saturday. But, of course, they always have to be as hospitable as possible, so she invited us in, and somehow put together a whole meal for us while we waited in her living room for like 15 minutes. As we were leaving, she said "So, we'll see you tomorrow, right?" So, even though she already cooked a whole meal for us, we came back Saturday night and had another 3 course meal for her, just cause she had already bought the food and couldn't eat it by herself. She's super nice, she just sometimes slips into Russian and sometimes even Hungarian when she's talking to us. 

Sorry, I don't even have any pictures for you today. I hope everything is going great and Happy Mother's Day! I love you mom, and I miss you!

Alec

Building On History

We got a call from the mission president last week about an upcoming event here. Apparently in the early '30s there were actually missionaries that came here to Uzhhorod from some Czechoslovakia mission or something like that. They were coming to see if they could open this area for missionary work, and they actually made the decision to send missionaries here. Unfortunately, WWII broke out shortly after, so it never actually happened.

But, the church history department got a hold of the journal of one of the missionaries that came here and some of his Kodak pictures, and now they're wanting to do kind of a bigger history investigation into his trip. So they're sending some church historians here from Salt Lake next month to retrace their steps and do some interviews with the modern day members. So, we'll be setting up interviews for them with our members (all 6 of them) which should be pretty interesting. Some of them have some pretty interesting lives. Like a while ago we found out that one of the ladies had a husband that actually died as a first responder in Chernobyl, so I'm sure there'll be some interesting stories.

The real cool part, though, is that they want to do some kind of lecture about the missionary trip from the 1930s. So, they're asking the four of us here to arrange for all that. That means we have to find a venue, spread the word, try to get radio announcements, talk to news channels, invite mayors/governors (the other missionaries here have already been talking to them--just trying to build bridges and stuff), talk to universities and stuff like that. And the event is in less than a month. It's gonna be a lot to do but it should be a super cool event actually and a pretty unique opportunity. We'll just have to make sure we get everything done in time. 

Oh, and one other small thing, on Saturday we were doing a stand trying to advertise our English practice and this really nice guy from Belarus on a bike comes up and starts talking to us (in pretty good English). He was super nice and I thought he was super cool. About five minutes later he comes back, and says he wants to give me a gift. I forgot to get a picture of it, but it looks like a block of soap made in a cupcake tin, but in the soap there are just a bunch of pieces of scrap metal and coins and stuff like that. He told us it was to protect us from chem trails. So he was a super, super nice guy, just a little bit of a crazy conspiracy theorist. 

Fun fact: The people next to me in the Internet club are working on a school report on Michael Jordan. I'd offer my expertise, but it looks like they're just copying stuff from online, so I think they'll be OK. 

And last week for p-day we did some cool things. I attached a bunch of pictures. I guess you can try to sort them out. 

Riding the children's reailroad

So, in a few cities in Ukraine they have something called the children's railroad. It's basically just a really small railroad (like 1 km long) and the train just goes back and forth as a thing for kids to do. Well, last Monday was the opening day for the season, so there was a little event there and it was free so we decided to go for it. It was about as exciting as you'd expect (not very), but it was cool to see all the little kid getting excited for it. I feel like I remember doing something similar as a kid, but maybe I'm just thinking of the Pullen Park train. 

There's also a little botanical gardens right next to the church, so we decided to check that out. They weren't gonna let us in at first cause they were at capacity, but when we told them we were Americans they opened the gate for us. I was actually kind of impressed with it. I was expecting something really bad, but it was actually pretty normal. I didn't get any great pictures, but it was not too shabby. 

Lastly, for some reason there was a weightlifting competition going on right in the center of town. One time when we were walking by, they were doing an arm wrestling competition, so I got a little video of the finals. There's no surprise on who won.

And also yes we have Skype calls this week. Bad news is it's probably gonna be at a very inconvenient time. The only Internet club here with cameras for Skype is super, super busy in the afternoons/evenings, so it's unlikely we'd be able to get a computer then. So we were thinking of going early Saturday morning around 8 o'clock our time. That's what, 1 in the morning your time Friday night? That's probably gonna be our best bet for getting a working computer.

Hope everything is going great!

Alec ​

Villages, Castles & Kittens

From the castle looking down on Uzhhorod

There's this very strange, very big, pink castle right next to our apartment. It looks like something out of Disney World, if Disney World had been abandoned for 15 years. Apparently no missionaries really knew what was inside it. Well, we decided to finally venture in. According to the signs on the outside, it's a family restaurant, but when we went inside it was completely empty. There were a few employees walking around, but they just completely ignored us. It was kind of like a Chuck E Cheese kind of place with rides and games and then a little eating area, but it was one of the spookiest places I've ever been. It was just so empty. And spooky. I didn't take a lot of pictures cause it was so scary. 

Inside the pink castle next door

Last p-day we also went to a cool museum by the church. It's basically a re-creation of an old Ukrainian village. The neat part is that all of the buildings are taken from actual Ukrainian villages, they just took them and moved them to this museum. They all kind of looked the same, but it was still pretty neat.

Alec & companions in old restored Ukrainian village

Inside a restored Ukrainian village home

And we finally went to the castle here in Uzhhorod. It was quite a bit smaller than the one in Mukachevo we went to about a month ago, but it was still pretty cool.

Outside the castle walls in Uzhhorod

There was a nice little courtyard inside the walls . . .

The castle courtyard

. . . and a pretty cool view over the whole city . . .

Castle's view of the city

There's also a sweet Hercules statue . . .

Alec & Hercules

The castle is the main tourist attraction here, and there have been A LOT of tourists this past week, so it's pretty cool that we walk past it every day on our way to the church. The church is about a 2-minute walk from the castle, so we have a pretty nice location.

The daily walk

We went to a member's house for dinner last night and her cat just barely had kittens this past week. So, of course I got a picture. ​

Kittens at a church member's home

Other than that everything was pretty much just a normal week. We made a couple attempts to go out to the village to visit our investigator, but he wasn't there both times. The second time, though, we found out he was in the hospital with his daughter who is apparently sick. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a phone so we couldn't really find out where he was. After some detective work, we figured out which hospital he was in, but we didn't know his daughter's name or even his last name, so we couldnt' actually find him. We'll probably try again tomorrow, and hopefully it works out. And, hopefully, his daughter is okay. 

Alec answers some Q&A from the family:

Q: How are your allergies holding up?

A: The allergies actually haven't been a problem at all so far. I was worried cause Uzhhorod has tons of trees and flowers and stuff so I thought it would be bad, but nothing has gotten bad at all yet. I haven't really seen much pollen yet, but I'm hoping it doesn't get bad. I'm thinking it's just NC springtime that I'm allergic to.

Q: Maya wants to know if you think Justin Jackson is cute? (She thinks he’s cute.)

A: We always said that Justin Jackson looked like a witch. I'm not sure why, but I think it's the nose. 

Q: Mom wants to know if you guys are doing formal discussions or if the lessons there are less structured than they are here?

A: It's not like formal discussions like it was 30 years ago. We use Preach My Gospel and everything like they do there, so I assume it's the same. The lessons aren't supposed to be structured at least--you're supposed to teach according to the needs of the person you're teaching. We kinda just teach whatever we think we should teach.

Q: Justin wants to know if you’re seeing any first hand evidence of the war with Russia?

A: I'm about as far away from Russia as I could possibly get, but yeah, you still see quite a bit. We went to a museum in the castle this week and they had a bunch of pictures on the wall from the war and stuff like that. People don't really talk about it a lot, at least not to us, but you can definitely see it. One of the other missionaries in Uzhhorod is actually from Donetsk which is right in the middle of the war.

Q: Maya wants to know if you think you have a good mission president?

A: Yeah I have a good mission president. I don't exactly have anything to compare him too, but he does a pretty good job.

Q: Maya wants to know if you feel like you are getting more fit with all the walking?

A: Yeah I think so. It's a lot of walking, so it's definitely lots of exercise. Just gotta be careful not to eat too much cause the food is so cheap here.

Q: Evan wants to know if they have any cool coins in their currency?

A: No nothing too special, really. They all just have 5/10/25, etc. on one side and then the other side the Ukrainian trident. I have started keeping a coin collection though. I figure that the country has only really existed for 25 years or so, so it's actually possible that I'd be able to collect all of the coins they've had. So far I've got most of the 2000s, anything before that is pretty hard to find though. 

Q: Do they mostly deal in cash there, or do you guys use your debit card a lot?

A: Yeah, it's almost entirely in cash. I think I've only used my debit card once when I really wanted a water bottle and the store didn't have change for a big bill. Most places don't even accept credit cards. Another reason collecting coins is so easy (even they don't  actually always give you change since the coins are so worthless.) So yeah, I haven't actually used that credit card y'all got me a single time, 

Q: Is it too early to start coordinating times for our Skype call with you on Mother’s Day?

A: Yeah, Mother's Day is in a couple weeks right? It's gonna be pretty tricky here since we don't have computers at the church. The Internet club with cameras here is usually very loud and busy in the afternoon/evenings, so we might have to do it in the morning, which would be like very late at night your time.

  

And I was very sorry to hear about Cocoa, but it's great that she's not in so much pain anymore.

Hope everything is going well back home.

Alec