Night of the Pumpkin

The Pumpkin Party. Not the Halloween Party.

We were pretty busy this past week. We had five different activities over the week, so lots of stuff going on. Tuesday was normal English practice and a self-reliance seminar at the same time, Friday was a special art night we did as missionaries, Saturday was our "Pumpkin Night" (cause we can't do Halloween-themed activities) and then on Sunday the whole branch went to L'viv for the district conference. 

Making another pinata.

Soo we were very busy preparing for all of that. We also as zone leaders have had to start prepping for the mission leadership council on Wednesday, so we've been pretty busy lately. Lots of the time was spent making our pumpkin pinata. I swear all I've done on my mission is make pinatas. This one actually turned out pretty ok, but then the bottom was still a little wet and we ended up having to duct tape it. And I guess we did a few too many layers and it was kinda hard to break it. But that's ok, it let everyone get a chance to beat it. 

I thought it was pretty funny how much work we did for our activity, considering they told us the branch would take care of everything and especially considering the fact that we weren't really supposed to take part in any Halloweeny things (can't have the orthodox people thinking we're devil-worshippers or anything). We pretty much ended up doing everything. I'm not complaining, it's just funny how those things always work out. 

It was a pretty good activity though, a good amount of people came and we did some good classic activities, like bobbing for apples and toilet paper mummy wraps. I attached a ton of pictures from it, so have fun looking through.

Bobbing for apples at the Pumpkin Party.

The pinata!

The other things that took up a lot of time this week was service. On Tuesday our member from Canada, (I wrote to you a while ago about him, he has some interesting conspiracy theories) asked us to come help him put some plastic on his greenhouse. It ended up taking a super long time in the cold rain to do it, but at least his plants will be protected from the wind when the second sun shows up in the sky sometime next year. And his wife made some pretty good spaghetti and meatballs for us after so that's cool

We also spent a ton of time on Friday doing some service. after doing registration stuff for three hours with him, We went to our branch president's home to help his mother translate some applications for her to go to England to be with her husband. We didn't think it would take super long, but turns out British bureaucracy is awful and their online application system is awful, So we ended up sitting there for about 6 hours trying to figure it out. There's a picture of elder Lukach sitting at the computer that i attached. It just makes me glad to be an American that speaks English and never really has to deal with that kind of stuff. But we got it done and she brought us huge chocolate bars to the activity the next night to figure it out. so that's cool.

And then Sunday was the big district conference with all the members in the whole mission in L'viv. We woke up early Sunday (but we also moved our clocks back Sunday night so it wasn't too bad) to get on our bus with the rest of the members to L'viv. i tried teaching the kid sitting next to me how to do a rubik's cube, but he wasn't quite getting it.

It was kind of a disaster once we got there, cause there was a big marathon or something in L'viv, so half the roads were shut down and none of the branches were actually able to get to the church. We ended up starting about an hour late once everyone got there. It was a good conference and it was super cool to see all the members from all the previous branches I've served in. I attached a picture with my homie from Uzhhorod who will be serving in Pittsburgh in a couple weeks. 

This week will probably be pretty busy too, I'll be in L'viv on Wednesday for missionary leadership council, so that should be fun. Probably hit up McDonald's or something for a birthday dinner afterward.

Oh i also attached a picture of a burger I made . . .

 . . . and some weird looking pizza I got at a restaurant last week . . .

Hope you have a great week!

Alec​

Settling into Ivano-Frankivsk

A final goodbye (again) to Alec's English students in Ternopil before heading off to Ivano-Frankivsk.

  This week there have been a lot of changes. I went from the second smallest branch in the mission to one of the very biggest (about 45 people at church.) I felt like I was back in America when I was at church yesterday--there were so many kids running around and noises and it was just very different from what I'm used to. It's also super weird having a branch that actually contributes stuff. We're doing a big "pumpkin" activity (cause we can't do Halloween activities) on Saturday, and all we as missionaries have to do is bring a pinata. I'm more accustomed to running the whole activity, so this'll be pretty nice.

I left Khmelnitskiy on Tuesday morning to go to Ternopil for English and then straight from Ternopil went to L'viv. I stayed in L'viv Tuesday night, and then got up super early to catch a train to Ivano-Frankivsk. I've already been in this city several times for registration or for exchanges or whatever, so I already knew what to expect and kind of how to get around. 

The apartment we have is pretty nice, actually. It's just a side apartment to a house (which is super rare in Ukraine) so we actually have kind of a front yard, kind of. The best part is that the neighbors have a really cool dog. 

Lots of this week was spent doing little service things like helping members move furniture or carry stuff back from the market, but we also spent some time stopping by inactive members, without much success. Only one person yelled at us though, so that's not too bad. 

On Wednesday we went to a university to do a little English practice for them there. It was very impromptu and a lot of people showed up, so we kind of just did a little q&a and let them ask us questions, and then did a bit of discussion. People looove talking to Americans. It kind of blows their mind sometimes, honestly. Makes you feel pretty popular.

Ivano-Frankivsk is a very cool city and I'm excited to be here. Next week we'll be having tons of interesting activities, including going to L'viv on Sunday for a district conference. It'll be cool to see all the members from the other cities I've served in. One of them, from Uzhhorod, actually just got her mission call to Pittsburgh. Everyone was pretty surprised cause her English is super super bad, and they in the past don't usually call people to English-speaking missions if they don't at least know English a little bit. But, it's gonna be super cool for her to be in America. She did a tonnnnn to help us out in Uzhhorod, so I might have you send her a birthday package or something when she gets to America.

That's about it for this week. I don't have a ton of pictures for you cause I left my SD card in Khmelnitskiy. Sorry. I'll get it back this week though so it's ok. The pictures i do have are from my last day in Ternopil. It was super awkward actually, cause I had told everyone last week that it was gonna be my last day, and then I ended up coming back on Tuesday for one more. So that was weird, but cool to see them one last time.

. . . and Ternopil loved Alec!

That's super interesting about grandma's ancestors coming from Galicia. Here, it's called Галичина and I knew it translated to Galicia, I just never made the connection that that's where they're from. That's very interesting. They could very well be from these cities where I'm serving.

Hope y'all have a great week!

Alec

Last Days in Khmelnitskiy

Alec enjoying the sights on his personal day.

I got the package! 

Oversized missionary package!

Thank you very much. The juggling balls were a good touch. Y'all managed to find the jankiest Bananagrams I've ever seen, but it works great and it's a lot lighter, so thank you! And, don't worry about the weight of the package, it doesn't really matter. It can just be a bit of a pain to carry it back if we get unlucky with travel plans. I attached a pic of one of my old companions and the package he got last week. so at least it wasn't that!

The transfer thing wasn't anything crazy, really. Just the new guy coming here was traveling all day on Monday, so he didn't have a chance to write. So we all just waited until Tuesday to write so he could do it this morning. The other news though is that I'm leaving Khmelnitskisyksiksyisy. I'll be doing my last English practice in Ternopil today, and then from there spending the night in L'viv. And then Wednesday morning I'll be heading off to move to Ivano-Frankivsk. I'll be a zone leader there with Elder Sanders. I've spent time in that city before on exchanges and stuff and it's a pretty nice city. There's also a really strong branch there, so that'll be a nice change from my last two cities, where there were no more than five active members. 

The weather here has definitely been pretty cold already. The last few days have been warmer, but I've already had to start wearing a winter coat. Super unfortunate. 

This past week was pretty busy. On Monday, we met up with a recent convert and she taught us how to make homemade varenikiy (Ukrainian pirogies). Usually we just buy them frozen, but they are wayyy better fresh and homemade. You can tell in the picture the pretty ones that she made and the awful ones we made.

Making homemade pirodies with a member in Ukraine.

Can you guess which pirogies the missionaries made?

A lot of the rest of our week was spent on Mission Conference in L'viv on Wednesday. But first, we had to go to Ternopil on Tuesday for English practice. and then we took a bus straight from there to L'viv and got in late at night. Then a cool Mission Conference the next day on Wednesday, and some time spent souvenir shopping in L'viv. Elder Protzman was getting ready to go home to America, so he wanted to get some stuff to take home. 

Alec says goodbye to his English students in Ternopil, Ukraine.

Then on Thursday we went back to Ternopil for English again. I had told everyone it was gonna be my last day, which is pretty awkward, cause I'm actually going one more time today, so I got a picture with everyone in my advanced group. They were all pretty cool people, so it was sad to say bye to them. But I had them all add me on Facebook so it's ok. 

Then Friday and Saturday were pretty normal days. The only weird thing being apartment checks on Friday. We've had no time at all to clean recently, so we spent lots of Friday morning doing that. It actually worked out super well that they came to do apartment checks that day though. There was a women's conference for members in L'viv, and we were having trouble finding a way for them to get there. There was some big holiday this past week, so all the train tickets on the way there were gone. Apparently as first counselor this was all my responsibility, so i was stressing about it a little bit. Luckily, though, they were able to catch a ride back with the senior couple that was doing the apartment checks, and then, even though all the hotels in L'viv were booked, they were able to stay with another senior missionary couple in L'viv. so I was pretty relieved all that worked out.

Then Saturday was Elder Protzman's last real day, so I got the chocolate fondue at the famous L'viv chocolate place with him. Pretty tasty, but definitely not enough chocolate. 

Chocolate fondue in L'viv, Ukraine.

On Sunday I said bye to lots of people, and got pictures with a few of them. 

Leaving friends made in Khmelnitskiy, Ukraine.

And lots of pictures of a kid named Kiril, who really loves having pictures taken of him. 

Alec and Kiril.

There's also a picture of a guy in L'viv with a Panthers jacket. 

Alec had to snap this photo of a Carolina Panthers fan in L'viv, Ukraine.

Also last Tuesday, the water in the entire city was out for almost an entire day. Apparently there was some accident at some water pumping place or something. So that's Ukraine for you.

And one more pic of a little bit of graffiti. It says "Every cosmos has it's own Gagarin." It' sounds cooler in Ukrainian, but it's pretty neat.

"Every cosmos has it's own Gagarin."

Hope you have a great week and thanks again for the package!

Alec playing Bananagrams - a game he uses to teach English to Ukrainians.

Alec

First Convert In Ternopil

Elder Martschenko and the first LDS convert in the city of Ternopil.

 This past week was pretty busy. Starting off on Tuesday, we had English practice in Ternopil, as usual. It was pretty good. My group had about 23 people, which is a bit more than usual. I started off by asking them what their dream job would be, and half of them said doctor. Turns out the reason we had so many was cause one person brought a bunch of their friends from med school. Also, since we had the perfect amount of people, I decided to do the birthday problem with them. It's the advanced group, so we basically just talk about whatever I want. The birthday problem is the one where you only need 23 people in a room to make it probable that two of them will share a birthday. So I started going around the room asking everyone their birthday. Turns out two of the new people that came were twins, so that kind of threw off my point, cause twins don't count. And then no one else had birthdays in common, so it didn't really work, unfortunately.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we spent a lot of our time getting ready for General Conference. We had some cool cards printed out that we could hand out to people. We handed out 1000 of them, and no one came because of the cards. Oops. We also had exchanges on Wednesday--I was with Elder Protzman, who goes home next week. After he leaves, the group that came with me will be the most senior missionaries in the mission for almost an entire year. That's pretty weird.

We also had to buy food for conference (and make it. We did sandwiches one day and then pumpkin soup the next day. Ukrainians loved the pumpkin soup, but I thought it was pretty average. We also had to make sure the videos were downloaded, and get the projector and everything set up for it. We did all this Thursday and Friday, because we weren't actually gonna be there on Saturday for the first day of conference, so we had to put it in the hands of our members and trust them to get everything done. I was pretty worried about it actually. There's definitely a bit of a dependence on the missionaries here, but apparently everything went well, so that is great.

'

The reason we weren't there on Saturday was because we spent the whole day traveling back and forth from L'viv for a baptism. The man is actually from Ternopil--the first convert ever from that city. He obviously didn't know a lot of members, since there's only one in ternopil, so we all went to L'viv to give him some support. It was in L'viv just cause it would be easier for him to take the two hour train from Ternopil than to try to do this whole thing in some kind of sauna like usual. It was super cool to travel to L'viv for the day, and he's a super cool guy. He's from Ghana, and he's in Ternopil studying to be a doctor. The 9 hours of trains back and forth was kind of a lot, but it was worth it. 

And then on Sunday we watched General Conference with the branch, except we were in the computer room watching it in English, which was much better than Ukrainian. 

This week will be another busy week. We'll be in Ternopil on Tuesday, L'viv again on Wednesday for mission conference, and then Ternopil again on Thursday. We have apartment checks on Friday, so the rest of our time will probably be spent cleaning. Haha.

Alec

Weather Turning Colder

Alec aspires for immortality.

This past week was pretty eventful. We had a branch picnic in the park on Saturday and then on Monday we went to a city about two and a half hours away with a really sweet castle.

But, most of all this past week was pretty dang cold. It was still September and I already had to bring out my winter coat and everything. Last year was one of the coldest winters ever in Ukraine, and it's looking like this year will be even colder. So maybe some hand warmers would be a nice birthday present.

On Saturday, we had a big picnic with the branch. We made kan jam out of some buckets like I did in Uzhhorod, but I'm not totally sure that they really understood it. Ukrainians aren't exactly coordinated enough with a Frisbee to be any good at kan jam. We ended up just playing ultimate with the buckets as a goal, and that worked out ok. For food, we grilled some chicken drumsticks over an open fire. It was super good, just took a very long time. The coolest part was going with a member the day before to go buy all of the food. Usually we buy our own food at a supermarket cause it's a lot easier, but we went with him to the marketplace to buy it the real Ukrainian way. It was all pretty cool and easy, just the meat was probably a little bit unsanitary. It's probably a buck or two cheaper overall though, so you gotta do what you gotta do. A good amount of people came to the activity, most of them inactive members who only show up when there's free food, but I'd say it was still moderately successful. And there's a cool WWII monument at the park, so I also got a pic with that.

And then on Monday we had our big trip to Kamyanets-Podilskiy, a good sized city about two and a half hours away. We had to get special permission from the mission president to do it cause it's outside of 50 km, but he always lets missionaries visit it every couple of transfers cause it's such a cool place. You can probably look up the geography of it better than I can explain, but as far as I understand it's a city that's built on this big plateau that was formed from a horseshoe bend in a river, so it's a great place to build a fortified castle. You can see in some of the pictures how the river cut a big natural moat around the city. It's pretty neat and it made for some cool Lord of the Rings looking pictures​.

The castle at Kamyanets-Podilskiy.

The castle itself was pretty cool, but before we went there we stopped at a restaurant on the way. It was probably the most Ukrainian meal I've ever had: There was a castle in the background . . .

 I had very ukrainian borsch (beet soup) and salo (pig fat), and most of all, a stray dog, and later a cat, wandered into the restaurant halfway through looking for food. ​

But it was pretty tasty. And then after that we went to the castle. Pretty neat. I made my own Kamyanets-Podilskiy coin by hitting it with a hammer, so that's cool.

And then we had a l ttle bit of extra time so we wandered around the city looking around. It's definitely one of the nicer places I've ever been to in Ukraine. We saw a black swan at a restaurant, and then took some stairs down into the valley part to get some cool pics by the waterfall and under the bridge. Definitely pretty neat. So, yeah, lots of pics of that.

And then I also have a pic of some kvas in Ternopil. It's basically a soft drink, and most of the time it's super gross. But, for some reason the kvas in Ternopil is really good so I always get some when I go there.

Alec in Ternopil.

Yeah, that's about it for this week. We haven't watched General Conference, yet, cause we'd be watching it in the middle of the night if we wanted to watch it live. But, we'll be doing that this weekend with the branch. We have computers in this church, so I'll probably be able to watch it in English this time.

Hope you have a great week!

Alec