Monday, June 30, 2008

OK something funny from last week - the other elders came to the same Internet place as us by coincidence, and we all ended at the same time and so we went bowling. Elder Jacobs had a gutter ball that popped out of the lane and smashed a 3 foot tall speaker. Luckily he did not have to pay for a thing since it was not his fault. It was dang funny though!
At the International Branch yesterday our Branch President had a bow tie on! It was really funny when he was on the stand. I was laughing into the hymn book looking at him with that bow tie on. It just did not seem like your normal Branch President.
Info about my Mission President - President Davis is now just Brother Davis. He is no longer our Mission President. We have now moved on to President Steinagel (I might not have spelled that right - I have never seen his name spelled in English).
We had a baptism - it was way cool, but the Elders that went to fill the font left and the guard turned off the water and unplugged the drain. So when we got there, the font was empty! So some of the other elders and my companionship had to do a bucket brigade to get enough water in the font. So I missed the first part of the baptism doing the water. Then we had a small game of basketball.
Earlier this week I had a spider bite me while I was working out. I sent a photo so you can see it. Yeah it's getting darker in color. I had a mission doctor look at it. He said to keep a eye on it. It already stopped itching as of today, but it looks worse, so I hope it gets better.
Today we are going to have a BBQ and play sports for the 4th of July Celebration because on the 4th we cant do anything. I am short on time this week so I gotta go.
Pictures - This Ukrainian Babushka made me lay down - you can't say no to a babushka! The bow tie! Before and after the Baptism, and the spider bite.

Videos - Ads in the metro through the window. Pretty cool! The Temple Site in Kiev. The bucket brigade!

Talk to you next week. Love you all! Papa!

Monday, June 23, 2008

OK something silly this week - I think the man was drunk, but as we were walking down the street this man starts singing, "Yankee Go To Home! Yankee Go To Home! Yankee Go To Home! Yankee Go To Home! Yankee Go To Home!" I thought it was funny. I did not have the heart to tell him it was bad grammar.

For this week - we've got some news. We have one baptismal date that is set for the 28th and we will have a great time! We have one more that will be in about two to three weeks...we are excited. I will get a chance to go to the Temple site again. So cool, and they are amazing people.

Man where to start...oh yeah, one of our investigators is going out of town for a few months. We will miss him. It's sad...he is a good kid.

Ok, silly again...a member was talking in church and she said something like, "This the church is true and perfect," and yeah I know it may not seem funny to you, but she was funny. She continued, "for example, the sacrament cups; we only use them once and the orthodox church uses one cup for years!" Yeah, we all laughed pretty hard, but she was really tired...really! She was up all night. We had a meeting with her that night, but we went to her place and nobody was home. We finished our day, went home and called another member, and she said that the woman went to her house, was talking, and 5 mins later fell asleep. They just let her sleep, and some time later she just wakes up and says, "The missionaries are going to kill me!" and started running to her place. But we had only waited 15 mins for her so we were long gone.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say there was a free Paul McCartney and Lenny Kravitz concert last week that I could not go to. Yeah, I wanted to, but its okay.

Pictures - They are of us doing service on Saturday and having a picnic that was ruined by tons of rain. It was great we cleaned up trash along a lake. It was lots of fun. I filled like 5 bags, but I think I did less than most of the people that were there. We had about 20 people show up and it did not take long at all. It was a total of about 5 hours for everything. It was cool, then after that we ran home, took a shower, went to 3 more meetings to do everything, and we did not have a real lunch, but it was worth it. The last pic is of a "Papa Johns" it says, but I've never been inside.

Ok and one more thing...I think we found a skin head out here that does not like asians...he was kind of a jerk. I've seen him one time, but don't think I will see him ever again, though all in all it was a wonderful week.

That's all you get this week - PAPA!!

Videos - my apartment from space, and our picnic when the rain came.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Ok, I am starting this off...the big question is probably, "Am I staying in my area for the next transfer?" Yes I am! Transfers came early...it was a week short of a full transfer to have everything ready for the new Mission President that will be starting on the 29th of June. It's crazy.

I am still district leader. I am ok with that. My district is dang cool still.

The elders that are going home today, I got to see them all. They will be missed. There are some cool guys going home.

Info about the area in which I am serving is cool, some good news. We have a new person with a baptism date! It's a wonderful woman named Oksana and she is 64. She is smart, funny and speaks both Russian and Ukrainian. It's nice that she does because I can understand Russian a bit, but it hurts my head to try that hard. Her date is for the 28th of this month. It's sweet, not only that, but there is also a young boy getting baptized the same day, and today we are meeting with a woman that wants to be baptized too. We are going to ask her to commit for this date on the 28th as well. It's so cool... this area has not had a convert baptism in over one year, so the members are really happy. What I love to say to them and other missionaries is that the area is only dead when you say its dead; that's when it dies for real.

Today I checked for a package, but it might be here tomorrow, but I don't think I can go check due to the fact that transfers are going down and it's dang busy. One more body in the office is hard, they might not like it. But I think I might...I have some time to go in.

Last Saturday we went and played soccer out in the rain a bit. I am not sick. Ukrainians always think I am going to get sick for doing silly things like that, but in general it was dang fun. I was on the winning team! I was goal keeper.

Sunday is when I found out about that other person that wants to be baptized. It was really a really great day. We went out to a member's house for dinner. I had salmon for the first time in a long time, but I would have you all know that Heather's salmon is so much better.

Okay, you get 2 videos today! 1st video - fire on the tramvai. We were on the way to a investigator and our tramvai stopped and there was a fire. Cool right? 2nd video - it's us in the metro as you can see. This is my district (well, not counting the senior couple).

Pictures - they all are good. Ok, we have the food for Sister Davis's Bday. We ran to the office to have that on Pday last week. Then we have me drinking kvas from one of those nice, big, yellow tanks on the street. We have the nice lunch that the senior couple got for us the other day. It cost half the money I use for the week, but if I had to go there again I would so order it. It was amazing! As you can see I could not help myself with that chicken. The temple site is moving dang fast. This is the 3rd Saturday I have been there and you can see its going fast. The last photo is of our MCL Vlad on the left, Oksana, my companion Elder Imangazi, and me.

I will go for more details next week, but for now this should be good.

Monday, June 9, 2008

OK, what to say....you all want to know what I did for my Birthday. I played Football, and no, not American. We played with these guys from Nigeria. It was lots of fun.


On my preparation day we played American Football, we played basketball, and we played Ultimate Frisbee. I got a can of root beer from a member in the International Branch, and there is a familiar picture...yes, the kvac* is back on the street, and it is even better then last year's kvac!


Next week I promise I will start with this email, so I will have a full, wonderful letter, because I feel bad that I feel like I am leaving you all in the dark with this here. I promise to write this first so I don't run out of time!


I love you all and I will talk more next week! Thanks for the birthday love! PAPA!


*Kvac is that fermented bread drink that Heather thinks is nasty, but obviously Cody has some Ukrainian blood, because he loves it! :) ~Heather

Love from Buki!

Happy Birthday - Take 2

As you can tell the first video is poor quality...I accidentally filmed it sideways, so the program I used to rotate it also reduced the quality. This was a video I took later, but Ethan didn't sing as well in this one...he was probably thinking, "Are you crazy lady...I just did this earlier!" I had to make him do it again just in case I couldn't rotate the first one, but it was cute too and has a little Tai Tai in it, so I had to post it too!

Happy Birthday Cody!

Since Ethan can't write you a letter, he decided to talk to you on a video!!!

Monday June 2, 2008

Happy Birthday to my brothers Kyle and Hoss! Sorry I'm not there! Next year I will be there, I swear! Ok, I know it's bad to swear. Moving on...

This week was cool! I found Imported Dr.Pepper! You will see it in the pics!

There was a baptism in the Ward, an 8-year-old. It was on Saturday. It was lots of fun. I sent pics. The group photo has some of us that were there. Of the five ladies, the mother is second from the left (Zhenya) and the young man was Nazar, the youngest you see, right in the middle.

The baptism was at the ward building at the Temple Site. I put a small video on there and a pic of the Temple progress. It was announced to be built in 1998, but construction started less then a year ago. Gotta love that Ukrainian red tape!

Ok, I really want to write more, but we are meeting with a less-active young man to have lunch and play some sports, so I am off. I will try to have better planned emails in the coming weeks.

Ok, I love you all! I am off!