My Weekly Adventures

This week we got to go out to Povelgrad, which is a smaller city about an hour or two away from Dnepropetrovsk. Missionaries aren't allowed to proselyte in that city or wear their name badges, so for that day my trainer and I were both under the same restrictions. ;) On the bus ride over I was trying to study my Russian flashcards, since I couldn't talk to people. But I kept falling asleep. At one point, my flashcards slid off my lap, and the lady sitting next to me woke me up and told me. (Fun fact - everybody here calls other people by what they are. For example, we always get called "Devochky," which means "girls." It was a little weird at first to hear people call each other "man!" or "grandma!" but it works and it's kind of fun.) She started a conversation with me, which was one of the most exciting things ever - it's so hard to be surrounded by so many people I want to talk to and have to wait for them to approach me. So I was happy. She asked if I was studying for a test and I explained that I'm from America and I'm trying to learn Russian. (Because I still can't bring up the gospel unless they ask about that . . . rough.) We talked for a while and it came out that we both know German. It was so cool - I could understand her German even better than I could Russian, but my replies came out in Russian. :) Fun stuff.

We arrived in Povelgrad, and I fell in love with it. It's a much smaller city than Dnepropetrovsk, and it was just so welcoming and happy. We have an investigator in the city named Vloda. She's 12 or 13 and is best friends with another girl, Natasha, who is a member. We teach Vloda at Natasha's house. That day, however, Vloda had gotten sick at school and wasn't going to be able to meet with us. So while Natasha's mom (who is also a member) took good care of us and fed us a delicious vegetable soup, Natasha called some of her other friends and invited them to listen to us. Three of them came, and we had a wonderful lesson on personal revelation with the four girls and the mom. It was like Young Women's! At the end, Vloda was feeling better and was able to come over. It felt so neat to be surrounded by those young people who were so eager to learn about the gospel. Both my companion and are are hoping that there will soon be a Young Women's program in Povelgrad. The little girls were so cute! Yana even asked us to sign the Book of Mormon that we gave her, which we thought was really sweet. We're going to go out there more (which I'm super excited about!) and hopefully those girls will all get baptized. That was definitely the best day in Ukraine so far.

Earlier this week we had a branch picnic at a cute little forest in the middle of the city. It took us quite a while to find, and we actually drove quite a ways past it on our first try. But eventually (after trekking through a 'wilderness' to get back to the freeway to catch a marshutka to take us back) we found it. We played some nature-appreciation games as a branch and played some sports. The sisters had prepared a lunch, and after that we talked some more. It was a lot of fun to interact with the members of the Left Bank branch. They're pretty great.

Yesterday I went on splits with one of the other sisters in my apartment (I think I'm in the only place in the mission where sisters can go on exchanges - everywhere else they're too far away). We went to the Pobyera branch. I really enjoyed that experience. The members there were so welcoming and I enjoyed getting to know them. It was also the biggest Sacrament meeting I've been to since before the MTC - not counting missionaries there were around 40 people. IT was really neat to listen to their testimonies and feel of the strength of the members.

One day this week we went out to Red Rock. (Our area is huge! That's one of the cool things about being a sister missionary - you have much bigger areas than the elders do.) We took the metro to get there, and that was super fun. Just as I'd about resigned myself to never feeling comfortable again (it gets really hot on the unairconditioned marshutkas) we entered the metro station and went down the longest escalator I've seen in my life. It was probably 3 or 4 stories high, and you could feel the temperature drop as you descended. It was quite lovely. :) We're definitely going back to that area a lot more. We met up with the elders in Red Rock and spent a couple hours contacting with them. I'm definitely looking forward to having my visa problems resolved so that I can contact on the streets - it's so hard to stand back and watch all these people pass by and not be able to talk to any of them unless they approach me. By the time I can contact, pretty sure I'm going to be so excited that I'll just talk to everybody I see. Should be great.

The wallpaper here is probably the coolest I've ever seen. Sometimes there are huge flower designs, sometimes it's sparkly, and it's always squishy. I never cease to be entertained by it. I don't know if you can get anything like it in America, but it's basically wonderful.

The other night Sister Hooker and I made some delicious stir fry for dinner and then ate it outside on our balcony. It was really peaceful to sit outside, watching the rain and lightning - reminded me of picnics on my balcony in Regency. Although the view here probably trumps the one in Provo. (I'll get you pictures eventually, don't worry!)

Our apartment is on the tenth floor of the apartment building, which is theoretically the top floor. But there is apparently some sort of music room above us. (We think we found the secret passageway to it one day.) Some days there will be piano or accordion music for hours. It's pretty fun (and sometimes funny) to listen to as we do our studies and other things around the apartment. Sometimes they play folk music and sometimes it has an epic feel that makes us think we're in some sort of movie. Probably The District 3 or something. It's pretty fun.

In language study the other day I was reading about Russian names and the standard nicknames that go with them. It reminded me of AP Lit and how we were always so perplexed by the myriad of Russian names in Crime and Punishment. I definitely still don't understand it yet, but it's making a little more sense.

It feels amazing to be a missionary. It's incredibly difficult, but so wonderful. I am constantly amazed at how much the members of the church love us and are so excited to see us and talk with us and serve us. It's so neat to be able to go to a completely new area and be welcomed so warmly simply by nature of your call as a missionary. I feel a great sense of responsibility and love for the people here, and I want to help them to come to know the things that I know. 

-Sharisa