Real fur coats

January 27, 2014

This week was just a good solid week, where the work got done. Yeah it had its ups and downs, but no complaints. But man, am I exhausted.

Exciting news this week? M and D did not drop us, they were just sick. And R, after seemingly not wanting to see us either, was suddenly all cool with meeting again and came to church yesterday. This week was really centered around meeting with Less Actives. Not on purpose, just other lessons fell through. We did take a trip out to chastnie sector to visit a less active family who branch members have said had a "weird situation." We met a wonderful grandma and her two awesome grandsons. We hope to work with the family more in the future. Sometimes, as a missionary, you just have to ignore the talk and go for it, giving people the benefit of the doubt. Actually, that probably applies to life in general as well.

I wish I had some more funny stories to share, but really, this week was pretty low-key, which can be nice, but hard as well. Especially when it is flippin' cold. Yes, winter finally arrived. Some observations:

 

sidewalks/other things are almost never shoveled, instead the snow just becomes packed down as people walk, and paths are made through the snow. Women can maneuver anything in high heels (boots). I have never seen so many fur coats. Real fur. Wolf, beaver, mink, etc. It's awesome.

Sleds here are your classic, wood slatted kind, and are used to sled, pull your kid around, your groceries around, or both.

People do not drive any slower than usual in the snow. People really get a kick out of how cold we are, and they always ask if it gets this cold in America.

I got the photos from the blog of a Peace Corps worker who lives in Lugansk and has had some contact with LDS missionaries. I thought they illustrated well what Diana was talking about.

And what do we do when it's cold? Freeze. But really. My nose has this funny feeling whenever I go outside, and I think it is the feeling of snot freezing in my nose. We spend mornings in studies, then we usually make some calls, and confirm things before heading outside. We've been pretty lucky with the number of appointments we have (ie. inside activities), but even then things fall through and we end up outside. Like Saturday. Saturday was going so well, and then we went to an area called Meernie for a lesson. Just when we got there, the lady (investigator) called and said she was going home. We tried to be like "wait, we're here!" but she just hung up and went home. But we had another appointment in that area in 1 1/2 hours, and we didn't want to take the 30 minute bus ride home in order to finish weekly planning. So we were stuck in the cold. We decided to check out a potential in the area, but she wasn't home, so we broke down and went to the mini-mall there (but really, it was like a pint-sized American mall), and worked on weekly planning in the food court (sushi or pizza?). And then we got stood up by our other lesson that night (but got to re-schedule). But all was not lost, because we discovered a stand that sold real, delicious donuts for dirt cheap (four for less than an American dollar), and ate them on the bus ride home where we then finished weekly planning. It used to be that less active hunting was a no problem activity. Now it is literally a pain in all the parts of your body as you wander in the cold.

But I do have one funny story. So our district has talked about maybe singing in Sacrament Meeting. Our abilities are limited, so the song changed multiple times. Well, yesterday our district leader gets to church and tells the Branch President we may be ready to sing next week. The Branch President tells him "nah, go ahead and sing today - you'll sound great." So we change our song once again to an easy version of "Come, Thou Fount" (in English), we run through it once 10 minutes before church starts, and then we sang. Oh yeah, and we only had one copy of the music, so one Elder played on the keyboard, and the other five of us crowded around it and sang. I may have mis-sung some words (it was really hard to see), and I refused to look up because I was so uncomfortable. But hey, before the mission you would have never seen me even singing a musical number in church. The mission changes you.

That was pretty much this week. I hear the temperatures are going to drop even more. There are occasionally electronic boards that have the temperature, and our phone has a converter (from C to F), so it's been fun to see what temperature I am walking around in.

Love you all! Stay warm, stay safe.

Sister Tanner

By the way, we hear occasional things about the stuff in Kiev, but Lugansk itself is pretty quiet. All missionaries have been advised to remove our nametags if we come across large groups or demonstrations. Branch members will occasionally mention things, and they seem to have differing opinions on how big of a deal this is. No one has said mean things to us about it yet, but we definitely try not to talk politics. I think our biggest problem will be nipping any conversations that pop up in English club in the bud (they do happen). Ironically, even though I'm living in the midst of it, I don't think I could be further removed from it.

Some of you have inquired if Diana has been affected by the protests in Ukraine. Until a week ago the protests were confined to Kiev which is in a different mission and is in the western part of Ukraine where the people tend to be pro Europe in their politics. Diana is in the eastern part of Ukraine where the people speak Russian and tend to be pro Russian, and therefore pro the current government in their politics. I was in Argentina on my mission during the Falklands War and when the US came out in support of Britain the people of Argentina were not happy and told us what they thought of the US. We had to lay low for a couple of weeks while the furor died down. This was my concern for Diana as the US has made escalating comments in support of the protestors. Hence her comment about no one has said mean things to us. This last weekend protestors did take over a regional government building in Sumy which is in Diana's mission but about 7 hours away from Lugansk. We have received a letter from the mission president assuring us that they are watching out for the missionaries. The missionaries have been instructed to avoid large gatherings of people, only speak Russian when outside of their apartments, and to have a 3 day supply of food and water in their apartments in case of emergency. The president and the mission department have also prepared contingency plans in the unlikely event that missionaries would have to be relocated. Because the missionaries do not read the newspaper or watch TV, as Diana says, she is far removed from it.