First Full Week in Khleminitksy

This was my first full week in Khmelnitksiy. A few impressions:

The city is not as pretty as others, but not as ugly as everyone says. Most of the buildings are old communist style, but there's also a pretty nice walking street downtown with some good restaurants and stuff, so it's not too bad. I'd say it's about the same as Rivne.

The branch here is also very small, at least as far as I've seen so far. The only reason it's a branch and Uzhhorod is a group is because Uzhhorod doesn't have any Melchezidek priesthood holders. There was also a huge YSA conference last week, so all of our YSAs have been gone for a little while. But also the branch president has been out of town the past couple of weeks and he apparently brings like half of the people to church, so I guess that's why it's been so small recently. I actually had to preside over and conduct church yesterday, cause he was gone--so that was an interesting experience. 

We do have an American member here which is pretty neat. He's here teaching English and he just recently became active in the church again. He's a really nice guy and it's always super fun talking with Americans. That doesn't happen too often. 

Ternopil is a very cool city. Last week we went there Tuesday and Thursday, but in the future we might go a little less and have missionaries from other cities go. I don't know how it's gonna work out. But, basically we go there in normal clothes without name tags and advertise for our English class. I always feel like I'm going undercover when we go there. Tons of people come to English there and they're all super cool so I've definitely enjoyed doing English there. Most parts of Ternopil are actually really nice, and the best part of it all is that you can find Dr. Pepper there. They sell Dr. Pepper (imported from Poland) in eastern parts of Ukraine, but for some reason none of the cities in our mission have it, except Ternopil. I'm gonna have to buy a ton next time I go and take them back to Khmelnitskiy. The only bad part is the train rides over are super, super hot and it gets super gross when it comes to hot trains, so there's lots of nastiness going on on those trains. And Ukrainians are afraid of open windows, too, so that just makes it even worse. 

Also in Ternopil, on Thursday we were planning on advertising our English class by taking a football and throwing it around in the center of town with a sign that says "Free English." We managed to find an American football somehow, but it was deflated when we bought it of course. So we were gonna go to this Home Depot type store and buy an air pump, but we weren't exactly sure where it was cause none of us know Ternopil very well. Anyway, turns out it was like an hour walk away, so by the time we got back to the center with an inflated ball it was time for English to start. The worst part is that this entire past week has been super, super hot so we had to walk all the way across the town in about 100 degree weather. And then after all that we forgot the football in the library where we teach English. 

Regarding last week's story about the security guards, it didn't really seem like a dangerous situation at the time. These guys could have definitely beat me up, but I definitely could have outrun them. I had called the mission president while we were there and he just said don't give them any money and tell them to call the police and then leave. So that's pretty much what we did.

I don't think either of us were really scared. I've been out about 3 months longer than my new companion, so I guess I'm the senior companion. He's from Utah. He's a nice guy, into drama and music and stuff like that, and we get along just fine. 

Anyway that's my week so far, hope y'all had a good one!

Alec