Happy New Year

January 6, 2013

So New Year’s here is a little bigger deal than Christmas. By the way, Happy Ukrainian Christmas Eve. When we talk to people here, usually the older people, they're always like "you celebrate your Christmas on the 25th of December, don't you?" like it is morally wrong or something. Just a fun fact. (see explanation at the end of the letter)

Monday this week was a whirlwind, with shopping, writing, and then all us missionaries made our way to a member’s home for a Christmas party/FHE. We had a spiritual thought, I played the most out of tune piano there ever was (I really could have been playing any notes and it wouldn't matter) as we sang Christmas carols, and then Sister Reece and I were pulled into the kitchen to help set up dinner as everyone else enjoyed the husband playing the accordion. It was fun to hear the music as he played and sang, even if I couldn't see it. Then that night we had to pack up, because it was an early morning Tuesday.

So yes, Tuesday we woke up early, and met the elders at 6:00AM to catch our train to Donetsk. Normally one takes a bus between Donetsk and Lugansk, but train tickets were cheaper and we wanted to say we rode a train in Ukraine. Let's just say there's a reason the tickets were cheaper. I'm just glad I wasn't the elder across from me, smashed between two older women. By the way, everyone wears their coat on the train, even if it is hot and three hours long. But then began, for all intents and purposes, my vacation in Donetsk. It felt kind of nice to be "home." Sister Reece and I hadn't eaten yet, so once we got to the Sisters’ apartment we devoured their food. Then returned to the office to take care of some things, and then back to the Center sisters’. Dinner, and then...the ballet! The ballet was a present from the Lochheads to us missionaries, and was absolutely wonderful. It was The Nutcracker, the orchestra was great, the dancers were incredible, and I was on the second row. So cool. Afterwards, well afterwards we just had to go right home. We were to be in by 6:00PM because, well, it was New Year's Eve in Ukraine. The thing is you can't get any missionary work done, so...we had a party. Okay, a party sister missionary style, but a party none the less. It was so fun. It was the Center Sisters, the Lugansk Sisters (us), and the Mariupol Sisters. And, because we're missionaries, we were in bed by 10:30PM. I expected to not be able to sleep, but actually there were only a couple fireworks at what must have been midnight, and that was it.

The next day was Zone Conference! And on the bus over, us sisters were reminded why we were in by 6:00PM. I mean, I guess you can't blame a bunch of hung over young men for getting a little excited when six young women get on their same bus. We were just grateful one of the senior couples happened to be with us. Zone Conference was really great and uplifting as always. And really the most productive thing we could have been doing New Year's Day. The streets were practically abandoned. That day we had another curfew of 6:00PM, so we had a couple hours between Conference and when we needed to be in. So we went contacting. We went on splits, and I went with Sister K, a greenie in her second transfer. She's awesome! I've never actually contacted so much, probably because I felt a little responsible. But we got an official contact for the Center Sisters, and Sister K whipped out her Book of Mormon, testified of it, and gave it to the lady. And then it was party #2.

Wednesday we had interviews with President, and then we got on the bus for Lugansk. I tried to study Russian, but I just fell asleep. At one point on the way home I woke up, looked out, and there was snow on the ground. I was both surprised and happy, since it's been pretty warm lately. But when we actually got to Lugansk there was no snow. So far it has been unusually warm here, and way warmer than back home. (We are in the polar vortex.)Ha. That laugh may bite me in the butt in a couple weeks here.

Because we had been away from Lugansk for so long, we tried to set up as many meetings as possible for the end of the week. Thursday night we also made a bajillion calls inviting people to English practice Friday, and managed to get a couple of new people to show up (exciting!) We had a lesson this week with a less active Candy, who is from Sierra Leone. It's always fun going over to her apartment. The front desk makes you give ID, and the past sisters have had to give their documents. Neither Sister Reece nor I like that, so this time we tried getting away with just giving our IDs from the MTC. The lady kind of gave us a look, but she took them. Score. It's really fun to hear Candy speak to her friends in their pidgin language, and she has been teaching me a couple phrases. Funny story: the other day Candy asked if we are allowed out at night. Both of us are like "yeah! of course! We just have to be in by 9:00PM....oh. snap. I guess that's when the night is actually starting." So you could say we've been missionaries for a little while.

There are shwarma stands EVERYWHERE. 

Sunday was just a miracle day. We went to church with a list of people we wanted to talk to, and they all ended up coming up to us to talk about the same thing. This coming week we have set up to go to two separate families where the husband is a member, but the wife is not. I find that so interesting, and definitely not the norm. Also, one of our investigators came to church, and two less active members! I was so happy to see everyone. And that night, our original plans all fell through, so instead we had a lesson with two investigators M and D, who we were hesitant to teach because we were thinking of dropping them. Instead we had a great lesson, and I think, as soon as they make up their mind to do it, they will be baptized. I feel like there are so many people who are so close! By the way, M and D are both from Africa, so the lesson was in English, which was kind of fun.

This week has some great potential, and it will be interesting to see how much we can get done with our first full week in Lugansk. Also, Sister Reece and I decided to get up at 5:30AM each morning to get another hour of Russian study. We've done two days of it so far, so we'll see how long this resolution lasts. We both want to do it though, because we feel it will really help our Russian.

Love you all, and Happy New Year!

Sister Tanner

http://www.uazone.net/holidays/christmas.html

Christmas in Ukraine is celebrated January 7 according to the Gregorian calendar as in most of other Orthodox Christian countries.
During the Soviet time it was not officially celebrated in Ukraine. Instead communist government tried to substitute Christmas with the holiday of New Year. But people did not forget their traditions. After gaining its independence in 1991 Ukraine started to celebrate Christmas officially as well.

http://www.infoukes.com/culture/traditions/christmas/

CHRISTMAS, WHICH TAKES ITS NAME from Christ's Mass, was first celebrated on various dates from about 200 A.D. but was finally set on December 25 by Bishop Liberus of Rome in 354 A.D. The December date, which almost coincides with the winter solstice, became a popular festival of West Europe during the Middle Ages.

WHY DO UKRAINIANS CELEBRATE Christmas on January 7th rather than December 25th? Many people wonder why the Ukrainian date is thirteen days later and only a few people are aware that it is related to a change from the calendar which was in use two thousand years ago.

Tradition plays a great part in the lives of people of Ukrainian origin and it is for this reason that they have continued to celebrate Christmas on the old date that would have been observed by all Christians.

The Roman calendar that had been in use since the eighth century B.C. originally started the year on March 1 and had 10 months as the names of the months themselves indicate, September (7), October (8), November (9) and December (10). Eventually two months were added, Januarius and Februarius, and the year was started on January. However, it was only 355 days long so it had over ten days error and the seasons and the calendar over the years continued to lose their correct relationship.

JULIAN CALENDAR

JULIUS CAESAR FINALLY in 46 B.C. had the Greek astronomer Sosigenes establish the length of the solar calendar at 365 and one quarter days (365.25). Every fourth year was to add one day to keep the quarter days accurate and this has now become our leap year with February 29. The Julian Calendar was introduced on January 1, 45 B.C. and the next year Caesar was honored by having the seventh month renamed in his honor as July. A later Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar, corrected the leap year system in A.D. 8 and in his honor a month was renamed August.

But the Julian year of 365 days and 6 hours exceeds the true solar year of 365.2422 days or 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes and 46 seconds by the amount of 11 minutes 14 seconds. The difference is about 0.0078 of a day per year or about one day in 128 years. Over a period of 1,500 years the calendar was again getting out of step with the natural seasons by about ten days. Christmas, which had been celebrated on many different dates was finally fixed on December 25th by Bishop Liberius of Rome. In 354 A.D. he chose the date to replace a Roman pagan festival of sun-god worship with Christ's Mass, a Christian event.

GREGORIAN CALENDAR

FINALLY POPE GREGORY XIII in 1528 introduced changes to correct the error in the Julian Calendar. To restore the vernal or spring equinox to March 21st he eliminated the 10 days from March 11 to 21 in 1582 so the dates March 12 to 20 never existed in 1582, at least not in Roman Catholic countries. Some Protestant countries like England and Sweden adopted the new calendar only in 1752 so there was 11 days difference by then.

The Orthodox and Eastern rite churches such as the Ukrainian have maintained the Julian Calendar for ecclesiastical purposes into this century. The Ukrainians, numbering some 50 million in the world are the second largest nation following the Julian Calendar in their churches. The difference between the two Calendars placed Christmas on January 7th and, because of the size of the Ukrainian church the date has become widely known as "Ukrainian Christmas." However, there are other smaller Eastern-rite Orthodox national churches such as the Greek, Syrian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Byelorussian that follow the same calendar.

Historically the Julian Calendar is sometimes called Old Style (O.S.) and the Gregorian is called New Style (N.S.). All the Orthodox countries which preserved the Julian Calendar into this century had a 13 day lag. Thus a date would be written January 4/17, 1918, meaning the 4th in new style and 17th in the old style calendar.

Many Ukrainian families and many Ukrainian churches continue to observe the old traditional date of Ukrainian Christmas on January 7 despite the pressures of modern society to change.