Passing the 18-Month Mark

The weather there sounds a bit like here, just not quite as cold. It got really warm here for a few days, and then it surprised everyone by getting really cold and snowing a ton. It's pretty interesting how Ukrainians will deal with the snow. No problem during the winter time, but then after it gets warm for a couple days, they act like a slight dip in temperature is literally the end of the world. They just all of a sudden get real scared of the cold.

The biggest thing from this past week was exchanges in Rivne. We took a bus Tuesday night to Rivne for exchanges with the zone leaders. This is the 3rd or 4th time I've been back in Rivne since I left my first area there 14 months ago. It was good, we went to McDonald's twice in two days, including breakfast. Unfortunately, all they have here is the McMuffin, no biscuits, but it's still pretty good. I also got to teach a lady that I taught a little bit when I was first in Rivne. It was super sad, her husband, who we had also taught, died a few months ago and she herself is really, really sick right now. It was nice to see her, though, and talk for a little bit.

Wednesday in Rivne was my 18-month mark, so I went with one of the missionaries there that was in the MTC with me to celebrate. We got some pizza and some chocolate fondue, pretty tasty stuff, almost as good as McDonald's.

When we got back to Lutsk, we spent a lot of time traveling out to the suburbs of Lutsk to visit some people. One of them who ordered a Book of Mormon from mormon.org and one lady who we met on the street. The lady was super nice and super happy to welcome two American boys into her home. She showed us her collection of orthodox icons that her husband made when he worked for the orthodox church. It was quite an impressive collection. She tried to give us a huge one to take home. As much as I wanted to, it wouldn't really fit in a suitcase, so we refused and took smaller ones. And then she gave us an officially notarized card of thanks, for "visiting an old grandma" like herself. So, that was fun.

On Saturday night, we hung out with some friends (the ones we went to the castle with last week) and made dinner -- potatoes and drum sticks, pretty Ukrainian. We told them next time we would make tacos for them. Hopefully, it won't be too spicy for them.

Oh, I almost forgot, but last Monday for P-day we went to an orthodox icon museum. Icons are the pictures that they pray to. I was blown away with how nice it was. I don't have any pictures, 'cause I didn't want to pay 80 cents for the picture pass, but it was just like a nice art museum in America. Usually museums here are poorly lit collections of stuff with no explanations or identifications of what the items are. But this one was super nice and clean with lots of explanatory signs. Of course, they're gonna take care of their orthodox religious relics.

Orthodox Icons

 We had like no one at church (probably cause of the cold, lol) so we started sacrament meeting with 2 people sitting in the audience. Usually there's like 20. Luckily some more people came a bit later, but that just goes to show how scared people get of the cold when it's not winter time.

I attached a few pictures. 

No, there ,wasn't really that much snow. The wind just blew it all into a pile there. And yeah, there's some pictures of classic abandoned soviet warehouses out in the villages . . . 

. . . and a picture of all the stuff that orthodox lady gave us to thank us for visiting her​.

Alec