Beginnings of Fall

These past couple weeks have seen Dnepr start to light up with the colors of fall. It has been slightly odd to see fall come so early, but I'm completely delighted at the opportunity to begin my beloved recreational activity of leaf-crunching. Quite wonderful.

I forgot to mention this last week, but last Sunday I was able to go on splits with Sister Palmer (the new sister) to Left Bank Branch for church. It was a lot of fun to be get to see the members and investigators I love so much. (Even though it had only been a week since I'd been at church with them . . . but still, it felt like going back to an old friend or something.) 

So in Steven's letter he mentioned doners (I don't know how to do an umlaut on this computer, either) and asked if we have something similar here. We sure do! I thought maybe you'd all like to hear about it.They're sometimes called doners here as well, but more often they're called sharmas. There is this huge cylinder of meat (usually chicken) turning around on a pole, cooking from the outside, and they shave off the outer layer and put it in a tortilla/bread thing (called lavash) with fried potatoes, cabbage, carrots, other random vegetables (sometimes you get lucky and it's cucumbers instead of pickles!) and a delicious sauce of unknown (to me) origin. They're quite delicious, and there are sharma stands all over the city. 

We were able to meet with a lot of recent converts and less-active members this week, and I really enjoyed that! One of the less-actives we work with is a young mother whose little son is probably the cutest baby I've ever seen. (He and I may or may not have spent the majority of the lesson's duration playing peek-a-boo . . .) One of the recent converts we met with was baptized a couple months ago. Her name is Volia and she's 25 and is one of the strongest members I know - she's so solid! She's also fluent in English, so we were able to have the lesson in my native tongue which was a delight. We met in the park with Elder Merrill (the senior elder - his wife usually comes, too, but she's been in the US the past month because of cancer. But she may be able to come back to us next week!), and it was one of my favorite lessons I've taught. It was really neat to have Elder Merrill there, sharing his wisdom and experience in the gospel. 

We went tabling with the elders in Topel, and that turned out to be super successful! We had so many people stop and take pamphlets and talk with us about the church. Tabling is probably my favorite finding activity - we don't meshat (hinder/bother) people as much that way, but they have the choice to come to us and learn more when we yell out to them. Fun is often had by all at that activity. (Passive voice!  I've been looking at Russian passive voice a little bit this week, and it's somewhat similar to German passive voice. Actually, not super similar, but they're both pretty complex. And it's been reminding me of my German 101 teacher's story of learning passive voice on his mission in Austria. He and his companion decided to have a passive voice day, where they only spoke in passive voice. Which resulted in contacting efforts consisting of, "Our church is represented by us," and "A message will be shared by us." He reported that they probably lost a few opportunities to share the gospel that day, but that God was happy they learned passive voice. As fun as that sounds, pretty sure we shall not be engaging in any such activities to learn a grammar principle that probably shouldn't be used anyway. [Pun intended. ;)] )

My companion and I got to teach district language study this week, and I really enjoyed that. We talked about complex sentences and dative prepositions, and it almost felt like we were back in the MTC learning grammar. Good times! 

On Saturday we had a district finding activity. I always learn so much from the other missionaries when we do that! It was neat to get to go contacting with a couple elders who have been out over a year and not only have amazing Russian skills, but have an incredible knack for being bold and loving as they talk to strangers on the street. It was cool, and I'm grateful for their examples. After a while, Sister Kochel and I parted ways from the elders and went to this little (actually, it doesn't seem so little when you're walking all over it) island in the middle of the Dnepr River. It was such a cool place! Complete with a beach, amusement park, pony rides, and all the food you could ever want. It was also quite gorgeous there. In order to get there, you have to walk across this bridge that is covered in locks. Ukraine has a really neat tradition - when you get married, you and your spouse go to the bridge, write your names on the lock, lock the lock on the bridge, and throw the key into the river. Precious, yeah? :) So we saw a large number of brides and grooms around the bridge and even got to witness one key get thrown in. I think that's a super cute tradition. 

After teaching English practice this week, I was talking to our investigator Anya. Somehow the topic of singing came up and she asked about what we sing at church. So that turned into an impromptu hymn-singing session with the other missionaries. Anya absolutely loved it! She claims that she doesn't sing herself, but she was so excited to listen to us and she absolutely loved the hymns. I've never seen somebody get so excited to listen to hymns before, and it was very touching. There's so much power in music, and I'm definitely grateful for the Spirit and testimony found in the hymns of Zion.
-Sharisa