Elder Alec Martschenko: The Time I Got a Bunch of Soviet-Raised Old Men Making Origami Flowers

Over here we had a fairly interesting week. Luckily, I did not really get sick, beyond a mild sore throat, so we didn't have to stay in the apartment all the time.

Making flowers for International Women's Day

This past week was a pretty big holiday. The 8th of March is International Women's Day, apparently everywhere except America. Ukraine technically didn't celebrate it this year (something to do with trying to separate even more from Russia) but everyone pretty much still celebrated it. We didn't have time to plan a big branch activity, so we decided to do something after church on Sunday. Apparently, we didn't have the budget to buy flowers for everyone, so I suggested we just make paper flowers. So, we had the elders quorum get together and follow along with a YouTube video making paper flowers. So, last week was the time I got a bunch of soviet-raised old men making origami flowers out of colorful paper. They were definitely not quite as against the idea as they thought they would be, and they ended up making some pretty OK flowers. And the district president told us about the time he was in America last summer and he thought he could handle the spicy sauce at Taco Bell, lol.

Then on Sunday we gave the flowers to the women and had cake and everything.

On Thursday, though, the actual holiday, we weren't sure what to do 'cause we couldn't meet with anyone or anything. So we went out to visit a few addresses of inactive sisters in the branch and drop off some flowers for them. We actually got to talk to one for a little bit, and another one who wasn't home called us later thanking us that we remembered about her. Definitely more successful than most stop-by attempts we make.

Also on Thursday, we had English practice and this one girl from the advanced group brought her 6-year-old daughter along. I was expecting the daughter to just kinda sit there, 'cause obviously she wasn't gonna know English. But, turns out English was her first language. Her mom has never even been to an English-speaking country, but her English is good enough that she raised her daughter only ever speaking English with her. It was super, super weird to see a small child that speaks English, too. We talk with plenty of adults who speak English, but it's probably been 18 months since I've talked to a small child in English. Super weird but she was cute. Her name was Agnes. Her poor mom must have gotten names from some super old soviet English textbook or something, haha.

And then on Saturday, we were invited to check out the castle here in Lutsk with some friends from English practice. They gave us a little tour of the castle and we went to a super old church, too. We only had like an hour, but it was cool to get a tour from a native Lutskian. I attached some pictures of all that.