Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Hello people that I love and that have an interest in my life here in Ukraine!

We had one great Zone Conference this last week. We had Elder Gibbons from the Seventy, a General Authority, speak to us about Church Members and how we can improve our work with them and strengthen them. It was lots of fun. We had the Zone Leaders in town. Elders Jacobs and Gassaway came down and did companion exchanges and gave baptismal interviews. Lubabir is getting baptised this Saturday! He asked that Elder Eskelen baptize him. We have 2 baptisms coming up this weekend. Saturday will be lots of fun, and this week he had a change - short notice! We lost a sister to a transfer. Sister Mills will be gone and we are getting a new sister maybe Thursday when they return by train. When we saw their train off there was a dog fight right after. It's so crazy... there are packs of dogs in every city, and lots of them. This is the only one I have seen on the train tracks though.

Oh man, while 4 of us Elders were walking together Elder Horn was hit very lightly by a car. I mean, what the heck was with that? The guy saw all 4 of us! He almost hit me too. Nobody was hurt, but the guy had the nerve to honk his horn. People think they own the road here, I swear.

This weekend we had sports day as usual, and right before we got there a large German Shepherd bit a kid in the bottom! Right as we got there we saw people chase the thing away, but I think everything was OK. He did not get bit hard. But it turned out to be a really fun day and week.

The pictures this week - first would be Elder Jacobs (Zone Leader) holding Elder Kaufman, our District Leader. They are from the same group and are very close. Next, me with a few cuts after sports day; I tripped and fell on asphalt during a passing play in American football when someone tried to jook, me but failed and then just tripped me. Next we have the L'viv train station. Zone Conference is in L'viv. Next, we have a familiar image of an RM (Returned Missionary) sister that happened to be in L'viv. Her name is Natasha Burynchenko, the shortest sister I have seen in this mission. She is also Heather's best friend from when she served in Ukraine. And last, a pic with me and Elder Larson from Apple Valley. That was the last time I will see him in Ukraine. He was one of the few missionaries from California. The band aids were from something that happened to him while on a marshrootka (transportation van). Some drunks thought it wise to pull out a knife, but they were kicked from the micro bus and Elder Larson was stitched up and all is well.

That is all the fun stuff this week, so goodbye!

Love, Elder Hokanson

*NOTE* The file with the pictures was corrupted, so we'll have to see them next week! :( *UPDATE* I finally downloaded a program that let me open the file! Yeah! :)

*NOTE 2* It took even me awhile to get this, but Goki stands for Hokanson. In Ukrainian they don't have an 'H' sound, so they use 'G' and make it kinda breathy. :) So he has a 'G' in the beginning of his name there. I know the Elders call him "Hokie', so in "Ukrainian" that would be Goki. :) ~Heather

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

So the week... not too much to say. It was fun though!

There was a senior couple here, The Kings, that served here before I started my mission. They visited from Wednesday to Monday. It was cool. They are from London and sound like Brits. It was fun; their son just got married to a Ukrainian girl the week earlier. They had a reception here at the church. We brought our investigator, had a lesson, then went down to the 2nd floor where the party was. It was lots of fun. We could have stayed because we had an investigator there, but we went off into a part of the city that missionaries don't go to often. Its like a village inside the city. That's what it looks like. There were lots of pretty flowers and stuff, barking dogs; small, and big and scary. I have pics with flowers; some nice old people gave them to me and Elder Horn. All 3 companionships went there, so you see a shot of them. The weather has been crazy - it's hard to contact when its raining with thunder and lightning on the street. We do what we can though. You all saw my pic where I forgot my umbrella - yeah, I was in the rain only 10 mins that day without an umbrella and I was soaked! Often people don't have umbrellas and people don't go out on the street to hang out if there is rain. I don't want to go on a tangent, so I'll end that there.

Please enjoy the pics! Until next week! ;-Þ

Monday, April 16, 2008

In general, the cool, notable things that happened this week - Well the baptism, it went down well. Lots of people came, lots of support, and it was fun and spiritual and kind of interesting. I was called as the 1st counseler in the Elder's Quorum, and we had a party at the church for English. It was lots of fun. The church has 3 floors, and we had a movie and card games on the top floor and on the 2nd floor it was a place to mingle and to play ping pong. Both floors had food and drinks. I have a problem with ping pong - I never lose! So I win and then just give the paddle away so other people can play. :) I am still too competitive at sports. There was some other crazy things that went down this week, but I just wont talk about them this week.

Oh, this was way cool - a musical college in the area had a party or something, and tons of kids were walking in the street and chanting, down our street, at night. It was way cool. There were over 100 kids, and there was so many people that cars could not pass them. They were throwing glass bottles and stuff. I was safe of course in my 3rd floor apartment, but it was cool.

So, pics this week for you - you get one after the baptism; we all went to the church and had pizza and we were cleaning up, so you see us helping out. :) You get a pic at the baptism, right after the ordinance. They are still in the water. And I left my umbrella at the church one day, and we had to walk to the church for an appointment and since my umbrella was at the church and it was raining a lot, I was so wet. My jacket was wet all the way through, but it was all good.

I love all of you! Talk to you next week!

*note from Heather* I love how he keeps saying "In general." We really don't say that a lot in English, but in Russian, they say that a lot. They say "v obshay" (in general) before they start a paragraph, or at the end sometimes, and I assume it's the same in Ukrainian. It's so funny to me how he is speaking Ukrainian in English, if you know what I am saying. I remember I did that a lot. I still do it in fact. When praying, if you ask for a blessing in Russian you say something like, "Please bless the children, so that they were healthy." In English we would just say, "Please bless the children to be healthy." So if you ever hear me say, "blah blah blah, so that they were blah blah blah," you know I am speaking Russian in English. :)

Update from Heather

Natasha Fihel, a friend of mine in Chernivtsi, took these of Elder Hokanson and his fellow elders and emailed them to me. It was such a nice surprise! Thank you Natasha!

~Heather

Monday, April 9, 2008

Hello to all that read this! I am doing ok, but it is that season again and the flowers are blooming and the frees are getting green and yes, that means allergies! They are no fun at all. I have been taking Benadryl the last few days and I am drowsy. It's been raining and other then that it's all nice. I am on a computer with a USB that works, so you get pics! My comp & I with him about to blow out a candle that is in his plove on his one-year-on-the-mission mark. A pic of my district at lunch at a place where the lights went out so we had a candle light lunch you could say. The next is a pic of my companion in the cooking part of the kitchen with my shirt on - I taught him how to make Borshch (Ukrainian soup), and don't worry, my shirt is fine; beets don't stain. :) Then the last is a pic of the edge of town; we had a lesson and we got dogged, so we took a pic from the most southern part of town.

About the work - it's going well. Our investigator is getting baptized this weekend on Saturday. We have a few other investigators with dates and we will see where they go, but its going well here.

I had the weirdest day ever; we were on the street and every drunk person on the street seemed to want to come up to us. It was really lame - we can't really talk to them because they don't know whats going on and they don't understand anything, but that day ended well, just a rough start is all.

But this week in general has been uneventful - Love you all! Papa! (Bye!)

Update from Heather

I put this here so Cody can check this blog super quick next week and get a peek at his future niece or nephew! Congrats Daniel & Marybel!!!!!!

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Happy Birthday Gram!! Happy Birthday Mom!!

Well, they switched things up on me - I thought I was going to be in Chernivtsy with Elder Kaufman, but I am with Elder Eskelcen. He is from Washington State, a really cool guy. He is 3 months younger then me on the mission (2 transfers). He is 20 years old, was a pole vaulter in high school, and we live in a really cool city. Chernivtsy does not have many of the big Soviet buildings that are in most cities. The ones here are spread out and are not much more then 5 floors high and the city is on hills; it's not flat like the cities I have served in before. It's really cool. The apartment in which I live is nice; it's really big. My USB does not work at this computer or I would send you pics. It has a big bedroom, a study room, kitchen and bathroom and a spare room; they are all really big and the ceilings are really high. We have these interesting heaters - I have to use matches to start them each day. They are like cement and tile and you can only have them on for 30-40 mins, then you turn off the gas and they stay hot for hours. We use them before bed and when we wake up and it's really nice all day.

So the first day here was interesting. I had to pack my luggage all night in Ivano and the power went off for a while, so I had no light. Luckily I had my flashlight that does not need batteries (thank you Heather!). Yeah, so I packed all night until about 2 in the morning and then went to bed. It took a bit to fall asleep because I was thinking about my new city. The alarm went off at 2:40 am so I could shower and make breakfast before heading to the train - yeah, I was sleepy. It was a morning train with a window to the rising sun, so we did not sleep on the train. But I get here and its all good. We get in the new place, and we ate breakfast at a cool cafe. It was my companion and one other missionarie's one-year-on-the-mission day, so we had plove (rice with spices) and put a candle in it for the one-year mark. I later went back to the apartment and crashed for 1 hour, then got up to do a few things in town. I have meet a few of our investigators and 3 of our investigators have baptismal dates and they are dang cool. One guy named Andrea, he is in his 30's, and one named Lubamir and he is 21. They are both really cool guys. The Branch here is cool. Tons of them speak English, more in this branch than any other I have served in. Its cool - they speak to you in Ukrainian for normal things, and then will joke in English, or if you don't understand they will say it in English.

My district is cool - Elder Kaufman is 2 transfers ahead of me and was trained by my trainer and he is the district leader. He is with Elder Horne from my last area; he is 1 transfer in the country. And then the sisters - there is Sister Mills, she is 2 transfers in the country after I came and she is with Sister Bloomquist (not sure how to spell in English) and she is from Elder Horne's group. My companion is from the same group as Elder Mills, 2 transfers after me, so its a fun district.

My English class is way fun, and its nice to teach English with someone else. Doing them solo was hard in Ivano - 30 Min's to plan English can be hard.

But anyhow, I am done for now. I will talk to you next week. Hopefully I will get a computer with a USB port so you can see a little about the stuff going on here - it's fun!