Another Baptism

The church in Ukraine grows one baptism at a time.

Faith and love.

This week here was a good one. There was a baptism here in Khmelnitsky on Saturday. She was investigating the church for several months, but things really started taking off when she started dating the returned missionary who first started teaching her while he was serving his mission. They're a cute couple, and he came back from Kiev for the baptism. She'll probably be moving to Kiev shortly to marry him (and then to America, most likely) which is only bad because this branch could use the extra members. But we're real happy for them. I attached a few pics of the baptism for you. We had to do it in a sauna again, and since she's afraid of water we asked them to drain half of the pool so it wouldn't be too much for her. I'm sure y'all all know how frustrating it is to drain and refill a pool, but they were pretty nice about it. Just made us pay them $20. 

Not only were they at church yesterday, but we had another returned missionary/church member couple. Another former missionary that lives in Dnepr (opposite side of the country) showed up and completely surprised the girl at church on Sunday. They've basically just been Skyping since he got home from his mission a couple months ago, so this was one of the first times they've seen each other in person. It was cute and all, but then they were super cuddly the rest of the day. I thought I escaped that kind of pda when I left a YSA ward, so it felt like I was back at home. This girl (this is the one who's been a member for almost a year now) actually just barely submitted her mission papers . . . but yeah I don't think that's gonna happen now . . . as long as he moves here instead of her moving there, then it will be ok.

Saying goodbye to Elder K. at 5:30am.

Other than that, the biggest thing this week was transfers. Elder Hill (he was in my MTC group) came here and Elder Kovaliov, the Ukrainian went down to Uzhhorod. I'm still with Elder Devey. Elder Devey and Elder Hill actually were friends in high school, so it's a pretty crazy coincidence that they ended up together way out here. So, we went to Ternopil on Thursday for English practice and to show Elder Hill the city. With all these train rides we've been taking, we've started playing a lot of chess. I just started a game with grandpa over email, so we'll see how much I've improved since the last time I played him when I was like 6.

OK and then pictures: We made corn bread this week and it actually turned out pretty dang good.

Making bread - a Ukrainian tradition.

 FYI, if you don't have any corn meal and you don't want to walk 3 minutes to the grocery store, you can substitute ground corn flakes and it works pretty well, 

Some pics from the Ukranian Independence Day activity that I'm not sure if I ever sent. 

Another picture from the Ukranian Independence Day celebration.

A Ukrainian Escape Room

Oh, last week we did one of those escape rooms that got really popular in America over the past few years. Considering the fact that this is Ukraine, I was actually pretty impressed with the escape room. Almost everything actually functioned properly and it was fairly entertaining. It was a little rough cause everything was in Russian, but we had a native there to translate into Ukrainian for us, so we managed to escape. It was fun, especially considering the fact that it only cost a few bucks.

I did hear a bit about all the hurricanes. I get most of my news from lds.org . . . so I know if something shows up there it must be a pretty big deal. Good thing it's gonna miss North Carolina, but that's crazy how many natural disasters there have been recently. The weather here has been pretty nice recently, too. It got a little cold, which definitely worried me cause getting this cold this early is definitely a bad sign. But, this week is gonna warm up and it should be pretty nice for a little bit longer at least. 

Happy anniversary! I don't remember if I said it last week or not, but I meant to. Glad y'all enjoyed the candy. Do they not have white chocolate Snickers in America? I figured it was just a thing they introduced recently, is it only a Europe thing? I can try to get some more of those. if you have any wrappers left of the candy you liked you could send me a pic and I could try to hook you up with some more. I don't remember exactly what I sent, so some more description might be necessary to remember what to get. If you're looking for a L'viv Chocolate thing you'd probably have to open it in Seattle or Canada, somewhere with a big Ukrainian population to get things started. Honestly, though, it would be super popular anywhere. Americans would lose their minds for drinkable melted chocolate. 

I didn't get a chance to watch the Worldwide Devotional with Elder Bednar yet, but I looked through it and there's tonnsss of people I recognized. Zach Connor and Andrew Roberts were sitting right behind him and my friend Sean from UNC was right next to them. Also, like 80% of the clips from the beginning and the end are from the institute at UNC, definitely tons of people I recognize. And a lot more people I've never seen before. It was pretty cool to see all that. And now I know they have a new ping pong table there

Anyway, hope everything is going great! I'll give you a report on the one year mark when we actually get there.

Alec