The Adventures of Elder Hokanson

July 11
Well let’s see EVERYBODY says they love their mission, but I have to say I LOVE MY MISSION! I can’t explain why, my feeling about my mission, I can’t describe it. Don’t get me wrong it’s hard. There is a lot of work to do and to be done and we can only do so much a day before we are out of time and energy, but its all worth it when you see people starting to get it and to understand the gospel and know that its true and that it makes sense and see them get excited and see them smile its wonderful/hoodoo. When you see kids that are so young rip right through the scriptures and love them it’s amazing to me. When you see a 17 year old girl teach gospel principals and be able to answer every question a investigator has and or put them in their place when they believe something false and not even in her normal language but in Ukrainian so that we the Ukrainian elders can understand better what’s going on in class. Even though my companion understands all the Russian that’s said here. I am starting to understand basic Russian. Gospel Russian is hard cuz I study Ukrainian gospel and it is a lot different some people think its the same – it’s not some. Things are totally different, like the word for peace in Ukrainian means world in Russian and word order is different too, like if you say in come to me in Ukrainian its (do menye) and it means something like (to me) kind of and in Russian its like (k menye) and it means something like (towards me) it’s hard to figure out sometimes though. Sometimes I think I know what they are saying in Russian and I am way wrong.What’s really cool here is people don’t laugh at you when you fall or hit your head they are concerned that you might be hurt and they like brush the dust off of you in the states you expect to hear laughter. I like it both ways.Drunk people update - on transport on left bank of Kiev for district meeting, on our way home we were being harassed by drunks, but no problem, we just said we are not listening to you, don’t talk to us pretty much. One guy was a lil mad but he got over it I am sure once he got off the bus.One thing I hate here is cigarettes - they are like maybe 2 greven a pack so like 40 cents a pack and everybody smokes because its so cheap and it could be 7 in the morning and people are getting drunk or getting drunk on the way to work. It’s really bad no matter what time of day it is, people are drinking somewhere in plain view but anyhow I love you and I am about out of time. I will talk next week. Bye!