There and back again: How I became a fully official missionary
As of Friday, I am a fully official, legal representative of the Church in Ukraine! Yes! That definitely feels good. After a full transfer of not being able to approach people on the streets or in marshrutky, it's so liberating to now be able to talk to everybody. And to have everybody know that I represent the Savior because I bear His name on my tag. Pretty wonderful.
The Visa trip to Bulgaria that made my legality possible was absolutely wonderful! I don't know how many more times in my life I'll get to visit three world capitals in one day with some of my best friends, so it was definitely a treat. It started Wednesday night when I stayed at the mission home with Sister Dimick (who was in my district at the MTC). It was a lot of fun to talk with her that night. The next morning we got up early and called a taxi. (It was my first phone call in Russian without my senior companion nearby to take over if things got out of hand, but I was able to successfully get the taxi to the right address at the right time headed in the right direction. Phew.) We had a nice conversation with our taxi driver as he took us to the airport and we invited him to church.
The three elders from our MTC district met us at the Dnepropetrovsk airport and the five of us flew to Kyiv. We had a five hour layover in the city, so we got a taxi to the center of town. Kyiv is beautiful! And huge. I fell in love with that city. I loved the river running through it and the plethora of Protoslavic temples. We sadly did not get to see the LDS temple, as it is about an hour and a half away from the airport, but it was really neat to again be in a city with a temple. Our driver dropped us off in the center, and we wandered around the city for almost two hours. We got to see the huge "Mother of Ukraine" monument, as well as Michael the archangel, and a whole bunch of things commemorating/preparing for Euro 2012. As we were on an area overlooking the monument, we were approached by this man dressed in a monkey costume. (There are a bunch of people like that in that area - it's their job to walk around and take pictures with people.) We talked with him, and he had heard about the church. That's definitely the only time I've talked about the plan of salvation with somebody in a monkey costume, and it was slightly comical. He must have realized how difficult it was to take him seriously, because he took off his mask partway through. We ended up getting some pictures with him as well. It was neat, because people seemed to know who we were there more than in Dnepropetrovsk - I guess that comes from having a stake, and a temple, and so many missionaries in the city.
We ate lunch in one of the underground malls. (They're all over Ukraine, and they're pretty cool. There are just these stairs in the middle of the sidewalk, and you go down and there is a huge underground area with stores and restaurants.) We got chicken Kyiv, which was both poetic and cliche at the same time, but quite enjoyable. It was fun to see all the construction going on for Euro 2010, as well as the Fun Dome covered in something to make it look like a soccer ball.
Back at the Kyiv airport we had a really cool conversation with a woman from America who had been in Ukraine on business. She had a friend in the Church, so she also knew a little bit about us, which was neat. As we were getting off the plane in Austria, I saw somebody in a black and white shirt and I thought to myself, "Sister Busch has a shirt just like that." And then I realized that it WAS Sister Busch! That was a super exciting moment in my life when I realized she was going to Bulgaria with us. It was so good to be able to see her again and spend that Bulgaria trip together. Best ever. :)
We flew from Wien to Sofia, where we got picked up by the Bulgarian office elders. They took us to this really great Chinese restaurant. With huge portions. It was a ton of fun to be back with (most of) my MTC district again. It was kind of funny - we all kind of went through a language crisis. Bulgarian is different from Russian, but we all kept trying to speak Russian. But then we'd go back to English because Bulgarian is not Russian . . . My favorite was in the Sofia airport and we'd all gone through the passport check and I heard one official ask the other (in English) "Why are all these Americans speaking Russian?" ;)
The three of us sisters spent the night in an apartment they have especially for visa-trippers. It was HUGE! There were at least seven beds, and we all quite liked it. Except the light switches were confusing. Pretty sure we never quite figured out which lights the different switches connected to . . . but we made it through. I very much enjoyed that time with Sister Dimick and Busch as we talked about the work in our respective areas and caught up on post-MTC life. It just felt really good to be with them again.
The next day we got up early again and flew first to Austria (where we said bye to Sister Busch) then straight back to Dnepropetrovsk. It was neat how much flying into the Dnper airport felt like coming home. As we were in the airport terminal, this older gentleman and a couple approached me. I had noticed them in the shuttle, and they'd been on the same flight as us to Austria. The man pointed to my name tag and asked something in German. I replied in Russian, not quite realizing what he had said. He said something else in German and then kept walking. Elder Chun's mom is from Austria, so he grew up speaking German and English at home, so he went over to talk to the man. It turned out that the three of them were on a vacation from Germany and will be staying in Elder Chun's city (Zaparozhzha). Which is perfect, since they don't know Russian and he can teach them in German! They were pretty excited to learn about the gospel, and they talked about how they had seen us and we were just glowing. So that was a neat experience. I hope that they'll be receptive to the message.
It has been so good to be able to wear my name tag and talk to people on the streets! Seriously, I feel so liberated and official now. :) It was definitely a good feeling to be able to replace the name tag after nearly six weeks without it. Something about wearing the Savior's name next to mine makes me feel really good.
We have an investigator named Natalia. She is absolutely wonderful and seems so golden! At our first meeting she told us that it doesn't make sense that there are so many churches, but that there should only be one. That was definitely neat to hear. She, like many people here, loves to talk. A lot. Which sometimes makes it difficult to share our message, because she has so many stories and ideas that she wants to share with us. And she's always quite disappointed when we tell her that we only have an hour to meet and are not, in fact, staying the whole night. This past week when we met with her, she decided that it was her responsibility to help us learn Ukrainian. Most people here will speak to you in Russian and it's not a problem. Therefore, I only know a little bit of Ukrainian. So when she started speaking straight Ukrainian for two-and-a-half hours, it was a little bit of a mental workout. Actually, it was a rather big mental workout, and even my trainer had a difficult time understanding. But it was fun. As much as I hope to someday learn Ukrainian, I'm quite grateful that everybody else here is willing to speak to me in Russian. ;)
The new transfer starts today. I'm staying in Dnepropetrovsk with Sister Hooker, and I'm excited about that! In our mission, people usually stay in the same city for three or four or five transfers. There is a complicated registration process that has to be completed every time you move to a different city, so President is keeping people in cities longer. Sister will usually only serve in three cities total. It's really great for getting to know the members and the area well. There is still so much of my area that I don't know - we were in a street car for 45 minutes the other day, and most of it was through part of my area I'd never seen before. So it will be so good to get more time in this place. I quite love Dnepropetrovsk. :)
--Sharisa
The Visa trip to Bulgaria that made my legality possible was absolutely wonderful! I don't know how many more times in my life I'll get to visit three world capitals in one day with some of my best friends, so it was definitely a treat. It started Wednesday night when I stayed at the mission home with Sister Dimick (who was in my district at the MTC). It was a lot of fun to talk with her that night. The next morning we got up early and called a taxi. (It was my first phone call in Russian without my senior companion nearby to take over if things got out of hand, but I was able to successfully get the taxi to the right address at the right time headed in the right direction. Phew.) We had a nice conversation with our taxi driver as he took us to the airport and we invited him to church.
The three elders from our MTC district met us at the Dnepropetrovsk airport and the five of us flew to Kyiv. We had a five hour layover in the city, so we got a taxi to the center of town. Kyiv is beautiful! And huge. I fell in love with that city. I loved the river running through it and the plethora of Protoslavic temples. We sadly did not get to see the LDS temple, as it is about an hour and a half away from the airport, but it was really neat to again be in a city with a temple. Our driver dropped us off in the center, and we wandered around the city for almost two hours. We got to see the huge "Mother of Ukraine" monument, as well as Michael the archangel, and a whole bunch of things commemorating/preparing for Euro 2012. As we were on an area overlooking the monument, we were approached by this man dressed in a monkey costume. (There are a bunch of people like that in that area - it's their job to walk around and take pictures with people.) We talked with him, and he had heard about the church. That's definitely the only time I've talked about the plan of salvation with somebody in a monkey costume, and it was slightly comical. He must have realized how difficult it was to take him seriously, because he took off his mask partway through. We ended up getting some pictures with him as well. It was neat, because people seemed to know who we were there more than in Dnepropetrovsk - I guess that comes from having a stake, and a temple, and so many missionaries in the city.
We ate lunch in one of the underground malls. (They're all over Ukraine, and they're pretty cool. There are just these stairs in the middle of the sidewalk, and you go down and there is a huge underground area with stores and restaurants.) We got chicken Kyiv, which was both poetic and cliche at the same time, but quite enjoyable. It was fun to see all the construction going on for Euro 2010, as well as the Fun Dome covered in something to make it look like a soccer ball.
Back at the Kyiv airport we had a really cool conversation with a woman from America who had been in Ukraine on business. She had a friend in the Church, so she also knew a little bit about us, which was neat. As we were getting off the plane in Austria, I saw somebody in a black and white shirt and I thought to myself, "Sister Busch has a shirt just like that." And then I realized that it WAS Sister Busch! That was a super exciting moment in my life when I realized she was going to Bulgaria with us. It was so good to be able to see her again and spend that Bulgaria trip together. Best ever. :)
We flew from Wien to Sofia, where we got picked up by the Bulgarian office elders. They took us to this really great Chinese restaurant. With huge portions. It was a ton of fun to be back with (most of) my MTC district again. It was kind of funny - we all kind of went through a language crisis. Bulgarian is different from Russian, but we all kept trying to speak Russian. But then we'd go back to English because Bulgarian is not Russian . . . My favorite was in the Sofia airport and we'd all gone through the passport check and I heard one official ask the other (in English) "Why are all these Americans speaking Russian?" ;)
The three of us sisters spent the night in an apartment they have especially for visa-trippers. It was HUGE! There were at least seven beds, and we all quite liked it. Except the light switches were confusing. Pretty sure we never quite figured out which lights the different switches connected to . . . but we made it through. I very much enjoyed that time with Sister Dimick and Busch as we talked about the work in our respective areas and caught up on post-MTC life. It just felt really good to be with them again.
The next day we got up early again and flew first to Austria (where we said bye to Sister Busch) then straight back to Dnepropetrovsk. It was neat how much flying into the Dnper airport felt like coming home. As we were in the airport terminal, this older gentleman and a couple approached me. I had noticed them in the shuttle, and they'd been on the same flight as us to Austria. The man pointed to my name tag and asked something in German. I replied in Russian, not quite realizing what he had said. He said something else in German and then kept walking. Elder Chun's mom is from Austria, so he grew up speaking German and English at home, so he went over to talk to the man. It turned out that the three of them were on a vacation from Germany and will be staying in Elder Chun's city (Zaparozhzha). Which is perfect, since they don't know Russian and he can teach them in German! They were pretty excited to learn about the gospel, and they talked about how they had seen us and we were just glowing. So that was a neat experience. I hope that they'll be receptive to the message.
It has been so good to be able to wear my name tag and talk to people on the streets! Seriously, I feel so liberated and official now. :) It was definitely a good feeling to be able to replace the name tag after nearly six weeks without it. Something about wearing the Savior's name next to mine makes me feel really good.
We have an investigator named Natalia. She is absolutely wonderful and seems so golden! At our first meeting she told us that it doesn't make sense that there are so many churches, but that there should only be one. That was definitely neat to hear. She, like many people here, loves to talk. A lot. Which sometimes makes it difficult to share our message, because she has so many stories and ideas that she wants to share with us. And she's always quite disappointed when we tell her that we only have an hour to meet and are not, in fact, staying the whole night. This past week when we met with her, she decided that it was her responsibility to help us learn Ukrainian. Most people here will speak to you in Russian and it's not a problem. Therefore, I only know a little bit of Ukrainian. So when she started speaking straight Ukrainian for two-and-a-half hours, it was a little bit of a mental workout. Actually, it was a rather big mental workout, and even my trainer had a difficult time understanding. But it was fun. As much as I hope to someday learn Ukrainian, I'm quite grateful that everybody else here is willing to speak to me in Russian. ;)
The new transfer starts today. I'm staying in Dnepropetrovsk with Sister Hooker, and I'm excited about that! In our mission, people usually stay in the same city for three or four or five transfers. There is a complicated registration process that has to be completed every time you move to a different city, so President is keeping people in cities longer. Sister will usually only serve in three cities total. It's really great for getting to know the members and the area well. There is still so much of my area that I don't know - we were in a street car for 45 minutes the other day, and most of it was through part of my area I'd never seen before. So it will be so good to get more time in this place. I quite love Dnepropetrovsk. :)
--Sharisa
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