New Companion & Old Forts

We had our mid-transfer transfers, so my old companion Elder Frehner went down to Uzhhorod and was replaced by Elder Abraham from St George. So far things are going pretty well, we've known each other for the past two years so it should be pretty fun.

 Before my old companion got transferred, we hit up a couple museums. There was a little science museum we went to, and it was actually pretty cool. It reminded me a lot of the kind of things you'd find at Morehead or some other little hands on science museum, so I was pretty impressed. Even though half of the exhibits weren't working. That's where the pictures of me in the gas masks come from, those were pretty sketch.

And then we went to an old military museum too. It's basically just a whole bunch of tanks and other military vehicles parked out in a big lot that you can go out and climb on and look at. I guess we went during field trip time, so there were tons and tons of kids running around, so we didn't quite get to climb on as many tanks as we would have liked, but it was still pretty cool. There must just be a huge excess of leftover military hardware from WWII in estern Europe cause tanks seem to be in much higher supply for memorials and museums and stuff like that then you would ever see in America.

And then today for p-day we took a lil trip out to a town called Dubno. They have a castle there (it was pretty ok) but then about 5 kilometers out of the city there is an old fort, from I think WWI or maybe even earlier than that. It's completely abandoned and just out in the middle of the forest, so a super cool place to explore. There may have been no trespassing signs . . . but we figured if anyone asks we would just say that we don't know Ukrainian and pretend to be dumb Americans. anyway, though it was honestly pretty sweet. You could tell which parts were original and which parts had been added on for like WWII and stuff like that and it was just crazy how many tunnels and sketchy rooms there were. Here's a quick lil youtube video I found about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88zqBbpKqI8. The tunnels were pretty sketch (there were absolutely no lights and I feel like it would be pretty easy to get lost in them, but climbing up to the roof of the old center structure was pretty sweet. To get to the very top we had to basically shimmy up an old chimney. anyway it was pretty sweet, my pictures don't really do it justice, but you get the idea. It really looked like something straight out of a horror movie. it was kinda hard to find, but definitely a place worth visiting if you ever find yourself in western Ukraine. 

Other than that, the grind is just still going on. We have probably the most experienced district in the whole mission, all five of us (3 sisters and 2 elders) are going home in the next 2 and a half months (the sisters are leaving in like 2 weeks), so we should be able to get some good work done.  I got a ton of pics, most of them are from the museums and the castle and the fortress, so have fun sorting those out! 

Have a great week! Alec