Probably the best week of the mission so far. But first, in
answer to some questions posed by mother: what do I eat for lunch and dinner?
Some combination of vegetables. Some fruit. Maybe some meat. It kind of changes
with companionship, and how well you shopped at the beginning of the week. A
lot of vegetables. And sometimes, when you schedule a lot of appointments, you
end up having a dinner of cake and tea at someone's home. And what is a typical
Ukrainian’s food schedule? I have no idea. We never have scheduled lunch or
dinner appointments.
And now for a little on the branch in Lugansk. The branch is
awesome. We meet on the bottom floor of some building. There is no heat, and
apparently only several years ago they bought little portable heaters for the
rooms that move around with the different meetings. By third hour a lot of
people are just wearing their coats. The branch is smaller than Petrovsky but
still pretty big. I would say maybe forty people. Most are about 30 and up.
Some 18-29 year olds, one or two teenagers, and probably no more than 5 Primary
kids. I don't know when the branch was organized, but apparently recently there
was a push to ordain men to the priesthood, and now there are quite a few
priesthood holders, and has created this unusual situation that I think I wrote
about last week, where it seems the men are more stalwart than the women in
some cases.
And now for miracle week. Tuesday we had a lesson with the
wife of a member, and she appears more interested than she has in the past.
Afterwards, since it was Christmas (January 7), they fed us a "Christmas lunch"
of homemade pizza and this other tasty thing. In the classic Ukrainian way,
they continued to pile on the food, until you have eaten beyond what is
comfortable. We also went less active hunting, and in the process had a
wonderful conversation with two old babyshkie sitting on a bench doing their
babyshkie thing. They were in their nineties, the one told us all about her
family, told us to not rush to get married, and were generally wonderful. They
even told us to ignore this man who came up and tried to tell Sister Reece and me
off. That night we had youth night, which is really just game night, because
it's mostly adults there. We have a Ping-Pong table in the church, and Ukrainians
love Ping-Pong, and we also have Uno and such. We need to get more people to
come to game night though, otherwise it's not effective and we may have to
consider dropping it. But I really don't want to do that, so we just need
another miracle like we had with English (which I will get to later).
Wednesday. Wednesday was a miracle of a day. We had four
lessons set up for that day, which meant we needed to be really good about
being on time. First was with our favorite less active who forgot everything
about the church while living in Russia, accompanied by our favorite physically
active babyshka (who doesn't really deserve the title she is so active), who
demonstrated her kicks and stretches she does for track. I want to be her when
I'm 60. Then we ran (okay, sped walked like crazy) to our next appointment,
which was with a man R, who is the son of a stalwart couple in the ward, but
has struggled with activity. I hope I wrote about this earlier, but we
delivered a secret Santa gift to his home at the end of another crazy busy day.
He has been to church since then, and has a desire to become fully active now.
Because guess what, the scripture, John 3:16-17, which we quickly put in the
card for him, happened to be his favorite scripture, and just what he needed at
the moment. He recognized everything as a gift from God, and really wants to
become fully active now. People, Heavenly Father is a God of miracles! And the
miracles continue. You know how we were on a tight schedule? So that lesson was
going late, but the niece of the investigator couple we had an appointment with
was on the lesson with us, so she called her aunt and uncle and we re-scheduled
for Thursday, but then the dad of R, who was also there, heard and offered to
come with us as well to the appointment. And then we got to use our dinner hour
to continue our visit and have a dinner of cake and tea. And then we were on
time to our last appointment, with the wife of another man in the branch, and
she actually sat down and listened the whole time, which apparently is not
usual for her (aka progress). It was such a miracle day!
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| I do not think she will be able to darn these |
And then Thursday, we had the appointment with the
investigator couple O and S, and we were so grateful to not only have their
niece there, but Brother K there too. We were talking about the Word of Wisdom,
and man, it would have gone much differently without Brother K. I really think
he needed to be there. I think if they can see that they really can change and
live the Word of Wisdom, they will realize they can live worthy of baptism.
That night we also had an appointment with a less active, N, and her non-member
husband came home in time to hear it too. He's really awesome, but just can't
"intellectually" accept the church yet. But N really wants him to be
baptized, and he said maybe one day he will change. And that night we returned
home to make some calls to people who said they would be interested in English
club, setting the stage for the best English night ever.
So Friday we had district meeting and had to plan, so we
didn't get out much, and then we had missionary correlation meeting, but then
we had miracle English night. You ready? So my first week in Lugansk, we had
two people at English. The next week, three. Then Sister Reece and I did some
hard-core calling, and we got maybe 5 or six. After another week of hard-core
calling...fifteen. Fifteen people at English club. It was awesome! When else am
I going to get to sit in a circle and help lead a group of Ukrainian adults in
a discussion of what super powers they would want after making them draw a
picture of it in crayon?
Saturday, well Saturday we completely set up the Elders'
night. You see, we have basically been told not to contact men. Why? Because
men are very forward, and often (too often) get the wrong idea. Case in point,
one night Sister Reece, in typical Sister Reece fashion, dropped her planner,
but this time didn't notice. A ribiata (young man) picked it up and returned
it, and in gratitude Sister Reece gave him a pass-along card. What she didn't
know is that I had written our number on these cards. Well, that night we got
some emoticon filled texts asking who we were, where we were from, etc. When he
asked if we could meet (we said we were missionaries), we just passed his
number right along to the elders. We also passed them a contact of another
ribiata who happened to start talking to me when he saw my nametag. He seemed more
legit, but we just thought it would be better. That night though, we had an
awesome lesson with our two investigators, M and D, from Africa. By the way, I
never thought I would come to Ukraine, and get to teach people from Sierra
Leon, Nigeria, and (hopefully) Zimbabwe. D said he would come to church the
next day. Which brings me too...
Sunday! He came! D came! We missed most of Sacrament meeting
trying to help him get there, but he was there for second and third hour. I was
so happy! And guess who else came? President and Sister Lochhead. It was not
only great to see them, but it meant we didn't have to translate Sunday School
for D. I did, however, get to attempt to translate for Sister Lochhead in
Relief Society. That was funny. She now knows how little I actually catch. But
she's a good sport, and totally understanding. That night we went to drop off a
Liahona (church magazine) at this less active woman's house we have been trying to contact, and
she ended up inviting us in. She is really nice, and we got to meet all of her
cats. She is like the most luxurious cat lady ever. She has three sphynx cats,
and this huge "Toyger" (I think that is what it is called) named Ali
(like in Muhammand Ali). It was so cool. Afterwards we had to run home though
(literally run part of the way).
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Sphynx cat and Toyger cat Google them |
Love you all!
Sister Tanner
P.S Today there is a little snow! We've been waiting for the cold.
At the ballet theater on New Year's Eve
The sisters from Center Donetsk, Mariupol and Lugansk on New Year's Eve
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