Sister Tanner in Ukraine: Good and busy week

February 17, 2014

Sadly, I feel like this letter is not going to contain much, because, despite being a very good and busy week, nothing too too exciting happened. But I shall try. First, jokes on you America. Lugansk was beautifully warm this past week, melting all the snow and creating little streams throughout the city and surrounding areas. It made me excited for spring, but I hear temperatures may drop a little again. Basically, my only Ukrainian winter is pretty much the wimpiest winter ever. But that's okay!

Tuesday we went to contact one referral, and ended up receiving three others and contacting all of them. Booyah. We also now have an assignment to stop by the stand of a less active's husband at the reenok, and basically stop by until he breaks down and agrees to meet with us. He's very nice though.

Then that night we got more people to show up to game night (pat on the back), and we played evolution for a really long time that involved our very active, favorite babyshka member being unable to keep rhythm, and me winning the biggest dang apple I ever did saw.

Wednesday we spent wandering around chastnie territory in the beautiful, muddy weather.

Then we had two great lessons with our investigators that night, and M is still feeling good about baptism, even after dropping the Word of Wisdom bomb.

Thursday we had District meeting, and then stopped by the reenok again. The less active lady gave us each a little teddy bear for Valentine's Day (did I mention the stores she and her husband run are toy stores?). I named mine Artyom, and yesterday one of his eyes fell off. He's still cute. That night we also had a lesson with a girl Sister Reece met on the bus. We had tried to set it up with a member, but nothing worked out and we ended up just meeting with her in a cafe/restaurant. I think this cafe is used to meetings going down though, because they gave us a nice corner table away from everything and didn't bother us.

The next day was Valentine's Day! Sister Reece made this absolutely delicious chocolate cake using a box mix from America.

We be fancy. That night at English very few people showed up, which is to be expected when Valentine's Day falls on a Friday. BUT, fun fact, Valentine's Day is a relatively new, and therefore not widely celebrated holiday here in Ukraine. Bigger holidays are coming up soon, including Military Day(?) on the 23rd, and the BIG one, Women's Day, on March 8th.

And on Saturday and Sunday I was exhausted. As always. But guess what? This week is Sisters’ Conference! Woot woot! Going to Donetsk, seeing all the sisters, getting spiritually fed, and physically too on Sister Lochhead’s food! I'm really excited.

Happy belated Valentine's Day everyone! Still time to share the love. Hope everyone is doing great. Stay warm.

Love,

Sister Tanner

P.S. On Tuesday we also went tracting, and while no one was interested, this one lady gave us these great fried things with mashed potatoes inside that she was making. Booyah #2.