Why Missionaries Should Always Check In

The walk home each day.

Homemade spikeball.

It was a good week. We tried making spikeball again, and this time it actually worked out a lot better. Last time the biggest problem was finding a net, but this time we just decided to go to a thrift store and find an old afghan blanket which we stretched over a hula hoop and it actually worked super well. The ball we found isn't ideal, but it still works. Now we just need to find a couple of ukrainians who are coordinated enough to play. The problem is they usually don't have enough patience to get good at it, so it'll be tough. We did a Young Men's activity on Saturday and we forced them to play for about an hour and by the end of it they were pretty ok at it, so it gave us a little bit of hope. We'll be starting doing a sports day activity now that the weather is warmer, so hopefully we'll be able to get some people playing spikeball.

We also met a lady while we were advertising for our English practice. She owns an English school in Lutsk and she wanted to meet with us to figure out how we could help her. We met with her and told her we'd be happy to help every once in a while, but that we wouldn't be able to accept any payment. She kinda refused to take that answer, and insisted on paying us. We had to clearly explain that we are not here as English teachers and our visas don't allow us to receive any money, but that we would still be happy to help. I think she understood, but she might still try to slip some money under the table or something haha. I'll just tell her to buy us some food instead.

Another funny story from the past week: So basically every night all the missionaries have to send a text to their missionary leaders saying they're home, just to make sure everyone makes it home safe and everything. Well it was like 10:20 and I still hadn't received a text from our sister mssionaries and their phone was off so I couldn't call them. So we had to call a taxi, drive across town to their apartment, break into their apartment building, and then knock on their door. Of course they were home, they just forgot to send a text and their phone had died. It was kind of a pain in the butt, but it was worth it to see their surprised faces when they opened the door.

Church yesterday was pretty interesting too, mostly cause one of the sister missionaries were sick and so they couldn't make it. Which was unfortunate, cause two of them were supposed to be giving talks. So I ended up having to give a talk (luckily I have plenty I've already prepared for other cities.) The bigger problem was the fact that we had no one to play the piano, so we had to rush to figure out how the CD player works and find all the right hymn numbers (in English and Ukrainian) and what CD they were on. And then I had to conduct the music too, cause we had no one else to do that. So that was a lot of fun, but all in all it went a lot smoother than some other sacrament meetings I've seen here. 

This coming week we'll be in L'viv for a mission conference, so that should be fun. After being a Zone Leader and traveling all the time I feel like I've been in this city for forever (even though it's only been like a month) so it'll be nice to go somewhere different. 

Downtown Lutsk Easter celebration

Just a couple pics, there was a big Easter celebration in downtown on Monday, so we went and checked it out on p-day. Unfortunately all of the good bands were performing in the evening, but we got to hear them do sound checks, so that was pretty neat. There's also a pic of the sweet walk we make every day from the church back home through a little valley with a river (see above.) The river is gross so it smells pretty bad, haha, but it's still a nice walk. Lots of hooligans doing stuff when it gets dark though. Also some super sketchy bridges we have to walk across.

Anyway, that's it for this week, hope y'all had a good one!

Alec​