My Week

Saturday morning was one of the highlights of my week. Several of us missionaries, along with some ward members, went to the house of a couple members - a mother and daughter - to do service. Their apartment has been in really bad condition for years, and they've finally been able to save enough money to, with the church's help, do remont (repair/remodel) on their apartment. These members have been living in this old building that was intended to be temporary housing for German soldiers or something (I didn't quite get the whole history - basically these buildings were only intended to be used for a year or two, so they weren't built very well). So over the decades that these members have been there, the apartment has basically rotted away. As I stood in there one main room that housed the mother, daughter, and son, I had one of those moments (that seem to come frequently here) where I realized I have no right to ever complain about anything in my life ever again. I felt blessed to have the opportunity to serve them and help improve their living conditions, but it broke my heart to see the terrible condition in which these vibrant, perpetually happy members had been living for decades. 

We had some really wonderful first lessons this week. Tatiana and Lyosha (a mother and her 25-year-old son) are a couple of our new investigators - we're still puzzled over where they came from - somehow their number appeared in our phone and we called and invited them to church and they came. They must have been a contact from the Elders, but we really have no idea. Anyway, we shared the Restoration with them, and they were very accepting and agreed to read the Book of Mormon. Tatiana really wants her son to be in a good church, and she loves that there are young people in our church. It was funny to watch the two of them interact during the lesson: "Pay attention, Lyosha! Listen to this!" and, after we told them it's important to read the Book of Mormon, "Yes, that especially important from Lyosha." It made me smile. I feel like they'll be a good support to each other.

Our other first lesson was with another Tatiana. (It does grow terribly confusing sometimes, since all the women here have one of the same 10 or 12 names, and you have to clarify exactly which Tatiana or Nina or Yulia you happen to be talking about, since you work with 3 or 4 people by that name. But I digress.) We met her tracting a couple weeks ago and she said we could come back. She's a very quiet woman, so at the start of the lesson I was a little worried that she didn't really want us there but was just being polite. But as we talked and explained the Restoration and bore testimony and asked questions, the Spirit was there in rich abundance and she opened up. That was quite possibly my favorite first lesson ever, and I don't even really know how to describe why,  just that it felt so good. The Restoration is real! There is so much power in restored truth. 

As a side note, Tatiana fed us some fruit and chai (tea) after the lesson. And Turkish delight. (Which is, in fact, the only reason I'm bringing this up at all, so I guess I should have just said that in the first place. But you know.) Now, I've always quite despised Turkish delight. (And by always, I mean that the one time I had it during my sophomore year of high school, I couldn't stand it.) But this time, I enjoyed it. It was kind of like a dense marshmallow with nuts on it. Quite interesting. Which leads me into the main point that I intended to discuss in this paragraph - serving a mission seems to have an uncanny power to change your taste buds and increase the spread of foods you find palatable. Ukraine has so far caused me to love (or at least tolerate) a number of foods that I previously disliked, including the aforementioned Turkish delight, pickles (which I still avoid when I can, but I can now eat them), chocolate ice cream, oatmeal, dill, tea (yes, I have to admit that I actually enjoyed the fruit tea Tatiana gave us - I'm making progress!), and several other things that I can't seem to remember right now. It's somewhat baffling how your tastes can change so rapidly in such a short amount of time, but I suppose it makes sense considering we have to eat a lot of things here that we normally would avoid at home, and in the tasting we realize that they aren't really so bad after all. Anyway, just a random thought for you all.

We did a lot of tracting this week. And found a lot of nice people who want to talk to us again, so that was great. And President decided to change the rule for the sisters and let us get home at 9 like we did before, so that's been nice as well - it was a little stressful to not have time for planning in the evening when we were getting home so late. 

On Wednesday I had the opportunity of teaching part of district meeting, which was wonderful because it was on my favorite topic in the world - the Atonement. It was a really neat experience for me to study the Atonement in more depth and prepare to teach my fellow missionaries about how we can more fully rely on the Lord and apply His Atonement to our lives as we serve Him here. Christ really is the reason that I am here in Ukraine - it is because of Him and His Atonement that we all have hope both in this life and for the life to come. It is His truth we bear, and it is His redeeming grace that we preach. I am so grateful for the power of the Atonement in my own life and for this opportunity to take the good news to my brothers and sisters here. 

-Sharisa