Monday, July 7, 2008

Hello! What's new this week...well, I got my package from Heather and I had an exchange. Other than that we had a normal week of lessons. Oh, and we got the opportunity to go to the dentist. My companion needed to have some work done. We have to go tomorrow as well to finish. Wow, I have seen the inside of a few of the Ukrainian dentist's office, but this one was just like an American dental office, and heck they even spoke English! So cool!

We have seen some progress with some investigators. I don't have time to give all the details of whats going on, but we are working hard and they are doing well. The members are so willing to help us right now, and that's so wonderful.

No photos today...ok, I will send 3! We had a companionship exchange. Elder Lewis, my old companion, and Elder Larson came over for a day. That was sweet to do work with him again. I got to see that Buki loves me... but his hand writing looks a lot like Heathers! =Ю And last, there was a holiday like Constitution Day or something, so center Kiev had no cars driving on it and I did not have to walk through the underpass like normal to get to and from the office/metro.

This week you're getting cut short - we have a busy day, so talk to you later! Папа!! (Bye!!)

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!

Monday, May 26, 2008

Privit, or HI!

It's me, Elder Hokanson. We had Zone Conference again, and it went well.

Weird things this week - I was on my way somewhere and I saw a teenage kid going somewhere, and and it looked like he had on only underwear and a shirt, or just a shirt. I said to myself, "Put on some pants!" He was with some friends and then he ran across the street, and it turns out he had nothing on. That's a first for me.

We have been working with members a lot here, trying to get those who haven't been to church in a long time to come back. One less active man came to church yesterday! It was great!

Sorry this is so short, but this Internet place is dang slow today. I am already going over time.

My pics - First one is of me in the metro, waiting for the train. The second is my companion, walking by the lake thingy by our apartment. The last is of the escalator going up from the metro...it's way far underground!

So, I am off for today. I will talk to you later, next week!

I love you all!

Monday, May 19, 2008

To all of you that are wondering where I am...I am in Kiev again and I am a District Leader, whatever that means.* My new companion has been in Ukraine for one transfer (so far 6 weeks), but he is from Kazakhstan. He is my first comp from outside of the USA. It's interesting. His first name is something weird...I can't remember, but people call him Max. His last name is Imangazi. In Russian/Ukrainian it sounds more like Imagazinov. He is a good guy.

I am serving in Venohradar (might be easier to say Venogradar). I am sending pics - one from my train ride,* and one of me and my new comp standing next to each other. And the last one - American food! I got to go to an American church member's house. He works for the embassy. He gave us root beer, mac and cheese, and Chex!

I don't want to be cut off this week, so I am only sending this small bit. I will get used to this Internet place again...it is the first Internet place I ever used when I first got here in Ukraine!

I love you all! Thanks for reading this week!

*Heather's Notes* Cody is trying to be modest, but the District Leader is essentially the leader of all the missionaries in his district (usually 6 - 8 missionaries). He reports to the Zone Leader who reports to the Mission President. It's a smaller position of authority, but it's still an honor that his Mission president would trust him with it! :) Also, the picture Cody took from the train is cool because that's how they got the idea for the Ukrainian Flag - It's only 2 colors, blue on top of yellow. It represents blue skies over yellow fields, just like the picture! :)

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Sorry...computer problems...my original email was deleted and I have to do another, so I only have time to attach and explain my pics.

First we have my last District photo. Second, I went to the Carpathian Mountains last week and this is a end shot after we all made it. Yes, it was windy, rainy, sunny, and it hailed until I had a brain freeze, but it was worth it, every step up there and back. The last shot is one of the many wonderful views along the way that we got to witness.

That's all I have time for... I hate my email sometimes.

*NOTE FROM HEATHER* We got to talk to Cody last Sunday, so we have a little more information. He is getting transferred today. He doesn't know where to yet. He is getting a new Mission President in June. His Preperation Days are changing from every Wednesday to every Monday starting next week! He is very happy and loves Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. The language is tough of course, but he's comfortable with it and conversing well with people.
Make sure you click on the pictures so they get show up actual size to be able to enjoy the scenery and see more detail. You can also save them to your computer by right clicking and choosing "save picture." Enjoy!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Hi there! Its me Goki again and and we have had one good week! We had a baptism and so did the sisters. It was great, although this week I have not been feeling too well, and so I have had 1 and 1/2 sick days in the apartment almost. But I have felt much better today, so hopefully everything goes well. I get a phone call for Mother's Day, so as usual you get less email this week, but I will send a video of what we did last Prep Day. Yeah, we have a sweet park in town with a roller coaster. Its not Magic Mountain or anything, but you get a small feel with this short video of my district (just elders, not the sisters) and of the ride. My companion is front right; he is funny, right?

Sorry about the photos last week! This PC place uses a different zip format I think, so about that I will have to figure something out.

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!