Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Hello for this week everyone!

I find myself short on time...But I am really happy that when I come home I will be an uncle with a 2 month old niece or nephew! That's so cool! Congrats Hoss & Marybel!

But this week, it's been great. We have an investigator that has already read the BoM (Book of Mormon) in 2 weeks! It's great! He has been to church once so far and enjoyed it very much. We will be teaching him the other lessons quickly; we have committed him to baptism the 22nd of March/березень.

We have new Elder in our area by the name of Elder Horn. He is fresh from America and from the great state of Arizona.... too hot for me to live there, but he is a cool guy. We got to go contacting the other day in the evening and I snapped a pic of him contacting a guy in Ukrainian, which is really hard your first week. It is still hard when you've been out as long as I have, but somehow I do it.

But I am keeping my message short this week due to a rushed schedule - if you only knew!

I love you all and I am off - PAPA (bye)!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I will start with something sorta funny...and sad. Well, one night we went to a meeting that we had with an investigator and we were told bogus information about where he lived. On our way back the street was frozen with a nice layer of ice and a drunk man about 10 meters ahead of me slips and falls on his back, smacking the back of his head on the street. He was drunk and I told my companion, "lets help him up." So we went over, I picked up his hat, he was laying in the center of the street. We helped him up and I gave him his hat (that he did not know was his). Then he saw our tags and said NO! NO! NO! 8 times in a row. I was not trying to talk to a drunk man, I just did not want him to get hit by a car laying in the street. It was a bit funny.

Interesting to me - my new shoes that i just got six weeks ago are both split as of 2 days ago. The sole of the shoes are split. Well, what can I do. I'll only use them when its dry and use my small shoes when its really wet so my feet don't get wet. I am sending a pic of the splits.

It's was funny - we were contacting the other day and this man came up to us and wanted a Book of Mormon. I knew something was up and yeah, I was able to tell he was drunk, but my companion did not figure it out, so he gave him one. So the guy takes the book and zig-zaged down the street reading it. My companion felt bad about that. I wish I would have taken a video of him walking.
We had some good investigators this week. We have some progress. It's wonderful, and we are working hard.

I love you all! Talk to you next week!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Interesting week - I tell you I have never ran into more Jehovah’s Witnesses in my life. Yesterday we contacted a man and about 5 seconds after it started I figured him to be one. Then after about 15 seconds he pulls out the Bible on us, but as we should all know the Bible is just a big battle ground for Bible bashers, so we stayed out of that. We testified and then there was 2 others that swooped in behind him. One tried to have me read what they had in English and I kindly told him I read it already in California where I live in English and that I did read it as well in Ukrainian once before. That ended after about 6 mins of talking. It was not too bad.

There is a amazing family the other Elders are teaching. I went over there for one lesson on Sunday with Elder Palsky. My companion and Elder Hurst were 3 hours away in a small city. But the family was cool. They came to church and they loved it. They have a 9 year old son that went to church once ever with us and he had a primary song almost memorized after his first time hearing it. He also can answer gospel questions in the lessons that would normally be harder to most people. The parents were going to get a divorce but they had a lesson on how when you and your spouse become closer to the Lord you and your spouse become closer together and its true. They were going to be divorced in 5 days, then had the lesson and they stopped the divorce from finalizing and went from arguing to being a perfect example of what a family should be in a matter of about 2 days. It was amazing! They will be new members here soon.

My investigators have been cool. They accept the gospel, but then can't give up tradition, even though they have gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon. It's hard to take, but we are working hard. We have about 10 new investigators a week. We still have some people progressing, but not at the rate we are looking for. But we are working hard and will get those new investigators this week.

It's nice - I think I am staying in Ivano again. It will be nice to stay in a area longer then 6 weeks again.

Well, that’s all for now. No pics this week, no movie. I will get something for you next week. I love you all! Bye!

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Hello everyone back home (and anywhere else that may be seeing my email)! Hello!

I am doing great. I have to tell you about my companion - he makes it way too noticeable that he is not comfortable around girls. 2 girls noticed this at English class, so they walk really close up to him and ask silly things, and look at his face so he will run around a little. I tell him, "don't let them make you uncomfortable and they wont bother you!" We will see if he takes the advice. :)

I am sending you a few pics from the prep day that I told you about, like the dog and the game of risk we played on a sheet. I sat on a cold rock. :) Not everything is in the pic, but you can see a bit.

Well, our investigators are doing well, but one guy, its hard for him to make changes. He knows he needs to do them, so we are letting him read the Book of Mormon. He knows it's true more and more. We will give him time to finish before we meet with him again.

I made a cake for our investigator! He liked it a lot. It was chocolate and it came out perfect! This is the only oven I have had here that works.

Well, the weather - it is dang weird. We have had temps just at or above freezing. It's been interesting. The snow has all melted again and I no longer need my gloves. :)

Well, I hate to be boring but that's all you get this week. Bye!

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Hello friends and family! Well, I will start with today. Yeah, great Prep. day. We ran to a place to get my hair cut, then ran to the bus station and then got on a bus for one hour to some random village (or small town you could say), but on the ride we were jam packed. Some dude had a dog on the bus and it got car sick and blew chunks on my leg and shoe and Elder Palsky's Bennie (little hat). Whatever! Then we got there, had lunch and played a game of Risk. It was great, but we don't have a ton of time today. We should have stayed in town, but it was fun and I got a pic of the dog and stuff.

Well, we are working dang hard. We have a investigator we are working with. He is changing every day, but he still has a few problems that we are helping him with. It will be hard, but he is a dang wonderful guy. We also have a kid we are working with, 22 years old and he is a computer programmer. I have never seen someone read a scripture the first time and break it down and understand it like he does. He explains scriptures better then most members I know, and on the first time he reads them! He understands the scriptures and he will be baptized, but only with time. He is really busy and hard to meet with.

The video I am sending today was this morning. It's a quick tour of my apartment with an unexpected surprise...we did not plan that. It's a little funny. I hope you enjoy it as much as me! I think its dang funny.

I love you all and miss you a ton! I will add one photo to another email next week of the dog event.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

It's been a great week I must say. My companion is trying to wear me down I think, but its not working! I am almost done with my meds that President Davis had me start on. I am glad we have a world-renowned doctor as a Mission President; he helps a lot.

Well for this last week we now have 2 baptismal commitments in our companionship! One is an architect that designed the building which he lives in. It's dang cool. We had this weird drunk man follow us after a contact and so we started going faster and he started running after us! He wanted to go as fast as us. Really weird. It was funny though. We have a few other people we are trying to work with. They are moving in the right direction. It's so much fun. I got to meet this guy from New York this week. He is Ukrainian, but he lives in New York and speaks almost perfect English without an accent. Right now he lives in Lvivok.

This was weird - we were contacting people on the street and this old man needed some help with some stuff he had, so my companion offered our help. I started to pull his stuff for him, but right as I do that, he pulls this huge thing of metal off of a pay phone and puts it with the stuff I am dragging! But I did not know how to say, "Hey, I cant help you steal stuff," so I helped him a lil bit longer and was like, "Ok, we are really busy." Yeah, that was weird.

The weather here has been bizarre. It was -14c then it went to +6c. That's huge! All the snow melted, but today it snowed again and its colder, so that was weird. I hope it stays around -5c. That's not so bad (about 24F).

Other then that, not too much going on. I am sending a pic of preparation day last week playing the Russian version of Risk and a video at this PC cafe today (very brief).

I love you all!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Well, I am short on time, but let me tell you about my week. It is a bit crazy. I have been all over the place, like Kiev, on a few trains, in Ivano, in a nearby celo and in L'viv for Zone Conference. ZC was great. We talked about a few subjects; one was baptism. I am really feeling good about it. We have 1 new baptismal commitment since I got here and we have 2 more planned. I think we could get 4 commitments with all the people we have! It will be hard, but it's something I know can be done. My new companion is wonderful. He is the most obedient companion I have ever had. It's hard to keep up with him. It's really very hard while I am sick, but I am getting better fast. I am short on time. I wanted to upload a video, but it was barely too big, so I will do it next week. Dang. I love you all! Will talk next week.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

OK, well you all know I am in Lutsk...well not anymore! I was there one transfer and they took me and Elder Woods out and sent 2 new elders there. We will be ok, but we will miss the city. He is off in a new city - its called Helmeninski (not sure how to spell that in English!). But yeah, it's cool, but I was not ready for this. I love the members and our investigators and it was just so nice there, and my companion was there 4 transfers, so I figured he would be leaving and I would be getting a new companion. But they pulled me out, so on to the new. I packed up and went and had dinner at a member's house named Sasha and then went to the train to Kiev. On the way there my luggage broke even more then it was before, so it stinks really bad now. The wheels broke and it just drags on the ground, but I will deal with it for now. Not sure if I told you all again, my fourth pair of shoes are now coming apart. They were the warmest pair I had. Now they get a bit wet. Well, I am in Kiev now and I found out I am going back to a city I've been to...who would have thought. I served in Ivano for 3 months, then served out in Lutsk for 6 weeks, then get called back out to Ivano again. I was really excited to be called back out there. It is a great city with lots of wonderful people, but it was really weird. Saturday morning we picked up tickets without names on them and then at 10:20 at night they said, "you and your companion are leaving - be ready to leave by the time your train leaves." That stunk. I used my morning study time and time after church to pack up. I don't think I ever packed so well before. Normally I take a few days and I do it slow - this was fast and in one day. But while I am in Kiev and here until tomorrow I have been with Elders Taylor and Hurst in their apartment until I go. Hurst was a missionary that came to Ukraine the transfer before I went in the MTC (like 1 and a half weeks) and Taylor is a Russian speaking Elder that came into the country the same day as me, so it has been fun. Lots of MTC stories. My new companion in Ivano will be Elder Lewis. Elder Palski is still there; he will be getting Elder Hurst. So, we will work hard and see what we can do. I love you all! I will talk next week. Goodbye!

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Well, we all know that this last year was wonderful and packed full with surprises, but we have more to go! I just want to let you all know that this time of the year I miss you all so much and knowing that you are all back home supporting what I am doing makes me feel really happy. I hope that everything is going great for you all.

Let me give you a update for the week - I got my package from Heather with all types of things I have forgotten about. It's so weird when you live without something, you forget about it. It's not needed anymore. Mind you, I really loved the things that I got for Christmas and I am glad I got them, but its just interesting to me that I don't need them anymore.

The work in the area is really feeling good. We have been working hard every day, talking to people on the street and at their doors, sharing what we know to be true. Yeah, it's hard, but it works. We have been working long days with no solid investigators, but we called a man that missionaries in the past have taught and he is really cool. He is from the Czech Republic and speaks Russian, so it's hard to understand him - He's speaking a 2nd language and with a thick accent! But we have met with him and we have a new baptismal date in Lutsk! It's not for a while because he needs to visit Czech, but he is coming back and we are excited!

I said I was going to send photos this week, but I forgot my card reader. I stayed at the other Elder's apartment for the night for New Years. We watched movies in English, movies like Cars/тотчки and Ratatouille/рататуй and Greatest Game Ever Played/триумф, to name a few. We were not allowed out last night after 6pm. It was not safe in general. It's the biggest holiday of the year; many people drinking, lots of fireworks went off today. We also have to be in by 6pm tonight, so it's a laid back day. It was so interesting when I was at the apartment just chilling on the couch I felt almost like I was back home. I never just chill anymore. I never sit down for more then 30 mins anymore, just to do nothing. I only do that maybe a few times a week when I have lunch. I eat fast and then relax for a few mins and head out again. Missionary life - I would never trade it for anything!

Well, I love you all! I will talk next week. Bye for now.

English - bye! Ukrainian - папа=papa! Russian - пoка=paka!

Tuesday, December 25th, 2007

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a great Christmas!

Wow, I am a dork today, so you don't get photos, even though I took them today. I used up most of my time here today trying to get my usb port to work. I can't because it's lame so you will get photos and more info next week. I will try harder to make sure you get good pics and news from this side of the world.

The only thing that stays the same is the weather - it just keeps getting colder! It's getting as low as -8c. I have seen it get up to about -4 at the "hottest" part of the day though. I loved talking to my mom and brothers yesterday! I hope that you all know that I miss you so much right now. All I think about is the Season and family and friends getting together for parties and food and fun and lots of DRIVING. I miss driving so much! But anyway, sorry I don't have much to say and have no pics. Wait until next week please and I will give you a better update and this week's 2 pics that i was going to send. They are dang good! Ok, I love you all! I will talk to you next week!

Merry Christmas!

Love, Elder Hokanson

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

Hello my American friends!

I am so glad this city has better English studies; nobody says that silly phrase here. Thank goodness.

Well this week has been lots of fun. The weather has been nice; chilly, about -1.5C outside. I love it! We are tracting and contacting every day. There are wonderful people here, but we get dogged most days (that means we get "stood up" a lot). We are trying though!

The only cool thing that happened this week was the fact that after I did Internet last week we were out on the street and a car swerves to the right and hits some puddles and splashed us from head to toe with dirty slush from the street. Yeah, it was dang funny! I was like, "What the heck? This sucks!" We did not take photos...I know, it would have been great, but I looked at my comp. and started laughing because it was so dang funny. We cleaned up ok and were off to work again. My comp. has the most slippery shoes on the earth I think; he slips so often, right on his back. Happens all the time!

Photos this week -1) my companion brushing his teeth today, 2) two guys in costumes (weird!), 3) the castle in Lutsk, 4) me on Santa's lap (aka my mission president), 5) me sliding on the ice in my pros, and 6) me this morning pointing at where we live on the map of Lutsk. Hope you like them!

I'm keeping it short today. I get a phone call next week...yay!!!

Love, Elder Hokanson

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

This week was great! I am loving it here in Lutsk with Elder Woods!

The weather turned again...from cold to a bit too hot back to snow and ice again. I would rather have a slippery walk then a wet and dirty walk. It's so much nicer and I would rather have cold weather and bundle up then be too warm and have to shed layers to feel good. And thanks to Uncle Dave and Aunt Terri's Christmas money I have a nice new coat that keeps me really warm!

Well this was really fun - I got to go to Lviv/Львів for Zone Conference again. It focused on the BoM (Book of Mormon) a lot. We almost all noticed that we chose Bible scriptures for topics that the BoM has plenty of. We can use both the Bible and the BoM for these topics, but it is better if we use the BoM sometimes; the scriptures are easier to apply. There are sometimes more and when people read from the BoM that's when they realize that it's true and they make the change in their life. It's great. I got the chance to stay the night in Lviv at the Zone Leader's apartment. The APs (Assistants to the President) stayed there too and the other companionship from my district stayed there overnight too. It was lots of fun and even though I slept on the floor, it was a lot better then the bed I have right now. It is a nightmare - too small. I feel every spring in that bed, but the bed is better then the floor at my place. I might be moving apartments somewhat soon. I hope I can but anyway, I am over my time as usual.

Photos this week - we have Tam Tams...its like Wal Mart. 1) One with no snow while they burn their trash on the side, and 2) one today when it was snowing. 3) "Best Buy" in Lutsk (That spells Best Buy) - not real of course. 4) Some of my English class here with my companion Elder Woods, 5) then me this morning being Christmas trunky. :)

Ok, that's all for this week! I love you! Talk to you next week!

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

HELLO EVERYONE!!

I am in Lutsk, in Western Ukraine. It's a wonderfull place were it's cold, muddy and people are nice. I think that in this city I have met more people that speak english then anywhere else. I met one person that that did not have an accent at all. I love it here so far. This is really great. In this city I have a district of 4; its me, my 2 companions from the mtc, and the only ukrainian speaker from our group that came together from the MTC. Its really cool. My companion is Elder Woods from Utah, and the other companionship is Elder Perry from Utah and he is with Elder Bostwick from Idaho. I live in a kind of crappy apartment - like really bad. Its by far the worst yet. I will send pics and give you details later, but yeah, its bad. Its on the 8th floor and at least it has a lift. This is what I wanted the most though - to be with my original district from the MTC. We are going to rock it up so hard!

The pics this week are; 1) me in Ivano at a touristy map, 2) a tank in Kiev. 3) statue of big mama (a missionary nick-named statue) :) 4) a few cool statues, and 5) the peace tanks. lol! I like them, so I sent them.

But I am low on time and I will talk next week, so I love you all! Bye!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

On one of my many train rides...jammed up in the luggage area.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Let's talk about my adventure yesterday! Well you see, we had train tickets coming in to be delivered to us on a train. We had no idea where the train was going, just that it would be in Ivano at 6:40am. Ok, so we set alarms for 5:30 so we could get there on time. Yeah...we hit snooze. Well my comp did, then he set another alarm and said we would take a taxi to get there. Ok yeah, his alarm went off, but he did not get up...great! So I am in bed, my I-Pod is set to go off at 6:25am with church music, it starts singing, I have a thought, "You're not going to make it!" I jump out of bed and said, "ELDER, WHAT TIME IS IT!?!" I look at the clock, its 6:25. We rush getting dressed, we call 3 taxi companies...they will take a long time to get to us. They say 10-15 mins, it snowed a lot last night they said. I get a thought, "Put on your yaktrax so you don’t slip in the ice and snow," but then I think I don’t have time. Bad idea. Well, the phone rings, we are almost ready, they say a taxi is pulling up, so we take off. My comp started running down the stairwell and I am locking all 3 locks. I run down and I barely see my comp, he is running to find the taxi. I take off and as I see him around the corner there is a lot of ice and snow on the ground. Yeah, I slip slide about 6 feet on the ground. It hurt! Then I got up, start running and my stuff fell out of my pocket, some documents and stuff, nothing too important, but I didn't notice, so I run to the taxi, get in, there is ice all over the city. We are rushing to the train station and our driver is sliding around corners and stuff...fun!! Finally we get to the train station, my comp jumps out of the taxi, almost slips and falls on his face (cobblestone is not fun when its icy), so now I have to pay the driver. I cant see my comp, but I know where he is going. On the intercom they annouce that due to the snow the train is late! Yeah, 2 mins, big deal. So we see the train pulling in, we are running to the train car with the person that has our tickets (you're not allowed to send stuff on trains, but its one of the best ways to send things in Ukraine). We find the person, grab the tickets and then start our walk home. Yeah, in my slip and fall I lost some things in my pockets, but I was able to get most of it, and my pants now have a quarter sized hole in the left leg. You see a sidewalk here is not always smooth, but bumpy and rocky in some areas, so yeah my leg is sore and my pants have a hole. I lost a few things, but we saw a few cool things on the way.

I am going into Kiev today and leaving in 5 hours or so and will be on a 12 hour train ride. I love my train rides. I'm getting transferred...I have no idea where I am going. I hope they send me to Lutsk. The other 2 elders from my MTC District are there and that would be really cool. I was told I am staying out West, so the only places I could be going are Lutsk, Hrivna, Lviv, and Chernivtsi. Those are the only cities that have elders moving out west that I know about.

I was up until about 4am last night packing my stuff. I did not get to start until last night. It's all ready to go. All I can think about right now is that I am going to a new area, getting a new comp, and getting a new branch, but it can't get harder than here in Ivano...it's hard here for many reasons.

Christmas is coming up soon! I am missing Christmas dinner, but I get a phone call next month! I will have to send info from my next area.

Pics this week - walking in the snow with 2 investigators (my comp and one of the sisters), one pic looks like I am mad...it was just after the morning adventure, we were walking home because we did not want another taxi (I mean my comp did make us late!), a thing that they plow the streets and then sweep them with - is weird - there's a small casino behind it, a pic of the place where I fell and lost my stuff and then got back up and ran to the taxi (the foot prints through the snow just to the left of the tree going straight are when I was running), the next is the class in the selo where I teach English to kids once every 2 weeks. Lots of really cool kids there.

So, that’s it for today. I love you all and talk to you next week with a update of where I am and who I am with!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

This last week was crazy, but lots of cool stuff, and sad, but it will all be ok. We have a District with one senior couple, one set of elders and 2 sets of sisters. Well, one sister, a great sister from Odessa serving a mini-mission, she started having problems walking. We took her to the hospital, but they were no help. We had to go to another to get X-rays. This should have taken hours, but we had a friend from English there that is from India that happens to be a student there. He helped us get things done very quickly. People were waiting there for hours and we come up, get right in the room, get our stuff done, and walk out in front of them. He is our hero, a really good guy. He speaks British English; its not American English, but he is still cool!! Well on the X-rays they found a dark spot, but it was such low quality it was not much help. So me and my companion on Wed. last week got on a train with Sister Nina and her companion and took her to ODESSA!!!! A place Ukrainian speakers never go unless you are an AP and there we helped sister Nina a lot. It was an 18 hour train ride there and we had 6 hours there during the day. We did a few things that will drive other elders nuts cuz they will never get the chance. We saw the Black Sea, saw 7K, and the best Opera House in Ukraine. Then we had Thanksgiving Dinner and ran for 25 mins to get on our train (with full bellies it was not good!). Then we had another 18 hour long train ride back to Ivano Frankivsk. While we were on our train ride back they did new tests on Sister Nina and she has cancer or a tumor - not 100%. But she is way cool member, for 15 years. She was one of the first in Ukraine to become a member of the church and she has been to the temple. I am happy she had the opportunity to serve a mini-mission and that I was able to serve with her and serve her as well.

I wish I had more time to talk but I am running out of time. I miss you all and will talk more on Wed. Bye!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

I just wanted to say that this has been a wonderful week, full of ups and downs of course. I will not go into detail about most things and won't hit most topics but I will share with you a moment of my life in Ukraine.

Let me tell you about my investigators; we have one woman named Natalka. She has felt the spirit more then any of the people I have taught, and she knows that she loves the things we have taught her. She knows they are right and true, but when we leave, the spirit leaves with us. She is hard to meet with so we did not see her for a while. We came back and she said she can't read from the Book of Mormon because it's a sin, because she is Russian Orthodox. So we talked to her and asked her to remember what we have read, then we testified and shared more scriptures and she felt the spirit even stronger. She did not want to respond to it. We could see it. We were lead to bear our testimonies. I bore testimony that I have never said before in perfect Ukrainian Grammar, and then after I finished, an unanswered question that she had about what we have been talking about came out and through study that morning we had the perfect answer because it was still fresh in our minds. She is wonderful and is going through hard times, but we are trying to help her with whatever we can.

We have a young man the same age as me that we just started meeting with. His name is Andrei and he is so cool. We have a baptismal date for him next month and we are excited to teach him because he has high standards in life and that brings a lot of questions and we are here to help him find his answers through study and prayer.

We have a few African guys that are studying to become doctors that we are teaching. It is interesting because they are from Sudan and it is a Muslim country and we shouldn't baptise them, but they have accepted Christ as their Savior. If they go home in the wrong city they will be murdered. But because of the fact that they have already become Christian we can baptise them. One of them is named Yosuf and he is great. He understands very little Ukrainian, but he does understand English and Arabic, so we teach him in English. We downloaded the conference talks in Arabic and he loved it. We have set a baptismal date and he is progressing. He has brought friends to be taught by us and they are all wonderful. He brought one that does not understand English well, almost not at all. We started and he said something and Yosuf translated it into English for us. He said he is here to start the spiritualization process.

Well the next topic I don't really want to go into, so I won't. lol.

Next topic. I know that i don't yet understand the gospel as a whole, I am just now understanding that I am peeking into knowing more about it. It is incredible and i love learning about it. It is so plain and simple and yet so deep and wonderful. I understand the basics, but there is more there than what you see at first. I realize the Bible was organized by men and missing things and its not in order, but is of great importance. I have known this, but through study the teachings in it become more clear. Personal study is of great importance and companionship study too. I understand them more clearly. I am beginning to understand much more about God and how He works and how much more Christ loves us. It is deeper then we can imagine. I now understand that the Book of Mormon is the key to studying the Bible; they are supporters of each other in many ways. If you read the Book of Mormon it becomes easier to study the Bible. I don't need to go into the topic too deeply, but my testimony of the scriptures are getting deeper and stronger and I love the feeling that it brings to me.

Photos this week - my district pics, my companion fell asleep in the middle of the day as you can see by the watch (I declared him dead at 12:30 on Wed the 7th, so yeah, it's a week old), a pic of me in front of a cool statue of Ivan Franko and in front of a cool Hotel named НАДІЯ (Na-dee-ya), then one pic of my comp on the sidewalk on the way to church for a meeting.

That's all you get for now. I love you all and want to hear from you! I will talk next week. Bye!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

цекаво мені (interesting to me) but not much time to write today.

Surprise...we lost the a senior couple and gained sisters for 10 days...interesting. I have been busy fixing the Internet problems of the Hinkls in our district. They are senior missionaries and are wonderful, but we have been using a lot of our time to help them and that's what President Davis wants us to do. They are our first priority because they are helping the organization of the church in the area, so if we help them, they help us in the long run with retention.

Well, the weather this week has been fun, around 0-2C (about 32-36F). Not bad. We had our first snow of the winter and it was a teaser...it melted after a few hours. It has been a bit icy and next Monday we are looking at about -6C (about 21F) as a low with snow off and on. It sounds great to me!

I cant think of much else right now. I am in a rush this morning and have to leave as soon as I upload this last pic. I have the first snow of the season and me this morning at the Hinkl's apartment about to fix their Internet.

An interesting thing I learned this week in cooking - you can use Sprite instead of milk when making pancakes and they turn out amazing!

Video

Video by my companion Elder Palsky of us jammed in a car with some strangers.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Oct 31
Well, this was crazy week. I don't want to say anything crazy, but wow. And I took for granted how the church runs back home. It's not perfect, but it works well. In Kiev it works well and here it’s a little disorganized. They took all missionaries out of leadership roles in the branches and wards and are trying to make them so they can run themselves better. I will not say any details but it's getting crazy here in Ivano Frankivsk.
ну нічого (that means "well, it's nothing", kinda like "whatever")
This week was fun. We took a huge loop in our oblast (county) and went to the farthest south city of any significance in size and then missed our marshrootka (van that goes on a route, like a bus) to the next city, so we bummed a ride with some guys. We think they stole the car and had drugs too, but we got to the city, paid them for the ride, and said bye. We will probably never see them again, but yeah, in this city we tried to meet a family that moved there from a different area but nobody was there, so waste of time. Then we tried to get home again, but we could not get a marshrootka to our city, so we grabbed the most crammed ride I have ever had. You will see a clip my comp made for me in the car. It's crazy. Then we got to the city and then had 10 Min's before the next marshrootka left for Ivano, so we were happy and made it to town 30 Min's before our English Class started. We were so happy about that. It would have been lame if the only 2 Americans teaching English did not show up. But other then that not too much has happened. Hope you enjoy the pics from yesterday's travels.The two guys are the guys that might have stolen a car and had drugs, a kid from the family that we visited in the far city, a village, and then a pic with my comp and me with my camera out the window. Other then that I should be good for pics so I will talk next week. I love you all! Bye!