11. JULY-Has It Been a Week or a Month...a Lifetime?.....Hmmmm

Greetings Viva Ukraine!

Honestly guys if i did not have have all my post-it note notes layed out before me to remind me of this weeks happenings i dont think i would be able to tell you anything that's happened besides what i ate for breakfast this morning (fried egg and these AMAZING chocolate filled chocolate pillow cereal stuff). Oh, and i could also tell you.....ive witnessed 5 baptisms in the past two weeks since ive been here! Not too shabby, eh? 

Ok, let's start at the beginning shall we!

Last Monday i sacrificed journal time to take the most glorious nap known to man, i will not be making that same mistake today however as my bed turned into my worst nightmare and held me down and wouldn't let me go when it was time to get up. Never have i had to assert so much effort to get out of bed. I can say the only thing that motivated me enough was the thought of....THE ROLL.Yes, i said roll. Not box, not tub, but plastic roll of mint ice cream (like you would buy a roll of sausage) that me and Sister Lamberaux found while grocery shopping earlier. Well, we thought it was mint anyways...I took that first bite, dreaming of that fresh clean bright flavor, and it took my brain a good 5 seconds to accept the reality of....pistachio?! A disappointment i must admit at first, but then turned into quite the opposite. 
And can i just say how the Ukrainian men just ROCK the white on white on white look? White shimmery sheer button up top, tight white metallic pants, and poke your eye out so pointy white snake skin boots. Yup, that was my metro buddy the other day.

Tuesday i went on exchanges with another sister! One of many actually because with Sister Lamberaux being one of the sister training leaders i will be going on exchanges 5 times this transfer! I get to see so many areas, learn from so many sisters, i am truly blessed. Her name is Sister Belikova, she is from Kazikstan so a native to Russian. 28 years old, baptized into the church and.....engaged?! can you do that! Guess so cause she showed me her engagement pics! Her fiance (weird) is serving in New York City right now. So to be honest i was perfectly terrified to serve with a native, but it turned into a really great experience! I dont know what's been up with me lately but i just haven't been pushing myself lately, i would go to bed and think "i could have worked a little harder today...." well with Sister Belikova i dont think i even had the chance to to think before passing out! She worked me to the bone! To her every second was precious, every second was the Lords and she was not going to waste it, i have a couple good blisters thanks to her. Not that i could feel them at the time seeing how my whole buddy was numb from the arctic shower i took. NO. HOT. WATER. It was like pouring liquid nitrogen all over my body! Even if she didn't work so hard, i would still respect her for just being alive after those arctic showers.

Once reunited with my companion we were off to lessons! We went clear from one end of our area to the other, and it's HUGE! My district is the Borshahivskiy district, and me and my comp are the only two sisters in the entire district. While snacking on some airplane peanuts i found the bottom of my bag, we made some phone calls and a guy walking past stopped and talked to us. His name was Sergei, and.....oh gosh how to describe...good build, late 50's i would say, and do you remember Robin Hood from Shrek?  He was JUST LIKE THAT. The same charisma, and his laugh! Go watch it right now, just for me, and you will feel like you just met Sergei. He gave us some of his french fries and then actually asked for a kiss! After denying him the privilege he said "ok ok then only one of you have to kiss me." Phfff men. We were totally caught in this flash rain storm and was soaked and took shelter under some sewing shop, and after all of our lessons fell through we bought some onion crackers and raspberry yogurt that tasted like tacos while riding a marshootka bus home.

I attempted to be a "banana bread missionary." But the oven was too hot, i burnt the top, and the bottom was like half baked bread pudding, so guess what me and sister Lamberaux ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that day? And let me tell you...chasing a bus on half raw banana bread and radiated milk is not a good mix....

Im in love with an investigator! Her name is Olga and she is the sweetest cutest down to earth babooshka that ever lived! She had her son go and buy us ice cream bars and then we discussed the book of Mormon over cookies and tea. She and her son invited us over for dinner and i can't wait!

I had a 48 legged friend drop in on me during my personal study from the ceiling the other day......needless to say there was little studying after that as squeals, screeches, laughs, and the sound a broom smacking the floor was all that could be heard for the next half hour

Oh! and i have to answer some questions from last week....so Meagan this is for you. The weather is AMAZING! It's not as humid as i thought, the sun is shining and the breeze just perfectly makes your skirt go to and fro. Transportation is either going by marstrootka bus, tram-by, bursts of walking, and occasionally metro. My apartment is the sweetest little thing! I am very blessed with a comfy bed, a cute little desk, and best of all HOT WATER. My trainer is now on her 5th transfer, in a few weeks she will be half way done. I lost my exercise pants so exercising is more doing the butterfly stretch and whatever i can remember from yoga until i can get some real pants and we'll go out running. We are home by 9 pm unless teaching a lesson then its 9:30 pm. And you guys CAN send me DearElders! Seriously im at the mission home like every day so i can get your letters read them and then actually know what to respond to, cause i just print out all your emails and then read them going home, so i wont respond to this weeks letters till next week.

Shout out to McCall for going through the temple! Im so happy and excited and freaking out and pumped up and every other adjective to describe pure joy.

Well i love you all, this mission stuff is tough, so keep me in your prayers. Russian still seems to avoid me so i hope to become friends with it soon. I love you all so much! I think of you often/all the time! я люблю вас!

XoXooOxoxx

-Cectpa Po

Week 11

10. JULY-Hello my American friends!

First off i want to apologize in advance for not replying to any of your emails in this post, cause i haven't read them yet (I'll print them out and will have reading material on the marshrootka bus home!) and the fact that i forgot the password for my email definitely didn't help. Not even a week in the field and im already forgetting things! Let's hope i can get rid of some of that English too, eh? Well greetings from Ukraine!! On the way over here to email i walked through a nice thick cloud of cigarette smoke and i think i might have stepped into a puddle from a broken bottle of vodka so you can say that i am smelling and blending in well! Oh the familiar sounds, smells, and bearded babushkas i feel like im back in Russia! Except for the small fact that everything is in Ukrainian, yeah just a small difference.

Such a surreal morning. I was so nervous i couldn't eat dinner the night before and ended up eating box of cheese-it's as i stayed up into the late of night to finish packing

Last glimpse of the temple as we're on our way to the airport

Here we go!

It was during my travels that i gave away my first Book of Mormon! His name is Lance Douglas Bruce and i met him on my first plane ride, and let me tell you he was ready! He totally fit the description of fresh meat cause he had just barely moved with his family and was looking for "nice" people and i was like well dear sir you came to the right place! I then told him about our church, promised him we were about the nicest people he would ever meet, OK not really but somewhere along those lines, and told him how much the Book of Mormon had blessed my life. He took it and said that he would get in touch with some friends who he actually just remembered where LDS. Oh, and i sat with a sweet 12 year old girl on the next flight, her name is Maia and she loves red lip stick, so we may or may not have had a mini photo shoot right there on the place, and i wrote on a pass along card bearing my testimony that this me and this gospel will always be there for her when she needs it. So i guess you can say i just earned the official missionary badge. After passing out my first i was in predator mode, why did i not have 100 copies with me?! I wanted to tackle everyone i saw including the cash register lady at taco bell. It's like i saw everything with a different purpose.

I spy...... A GIANT.

As soon as the plane touched ground i had this HUGE rush of "IM HERE!" After all the talking, and waiting, and training, there i finally was shaking President Klebingats hand there in the airport. Words can not tell you the relief i had when i saw his feet.....he wasn't wearing running shoes. A tender mercy from above because i hardly slept a wink the during the entire flight process across the globe. All of our luggage was packed into cars, and I and two other sisters hopped in the car with our President and we all headed strait to the mission home. It wasn't too long until we spotted the temple in the distance...

It wasn't until we had reached the mission home that all the lack of sleep suddenly hit me and i felt like a ton of bricks, and i don't think i was the only one. But as much as we wanted sleep we were kept busy filling out paperwork, listening to a few presentations, and writing a letter to our-self to read on the flight home (ha! that is gonna be a good read seeing how i dozed off and drooled on it...) Finally we headed to our hotel!

Our hotel on our first night.

But alas, sleep was still kept from us as we only went to our rooms to put our luggage away (pretty sure the sight of that bed brought a tear to my eye as it glowed under those florescent lights) and we headed back down for a provided dinner. At this point i was so tired, i honestly can't even remember what we ate...i just remember a lot of mayonnaise....from there we had a little walk around the neighborhood with President and Sister Klebingat, as their house was just a few blocks away from the hotel. From the av average Ukrainian looking out the window of their house however im sure it looked like a mass of sluggish, well-dressed, zombies, because no joke my knees started to buckle it was so done with this conscienceness junk. AT LONG LAST we were allowed to go up to our rooms, but were highly encouraged to stay awake another half hour or so, so as to adjust to the time change as quickly as possible. I was asleep, fully dressed in my bed before my companion was even out of the bathroom.

The next morning was the day i met my new companion and trainer! Her name is Sister Lamoreaux and she...is...an....ANGEL! Couldn't have asked for a sweeter, kinder, can make a mean stir fry, her Russian ain't too shabby either, companion! This is her 5th transfer so she know's what she's doing and is training me well!

It was my 3rd day here when Satan came creeping along with all his self doubt and fear. I felt so out of place, so foreign and felt so far away from home, so i clung on to the only thing at the time that could give me comfort. This gospel. I dived into my scriptures like they were a safe haven and prayed and prayed and prayed. I even caught myself just praying in the bathroom to tell Heavenly Father hello! (sorry for the deets there folks but this was really important) And to make matters worst an Elder accidentally ate my dinner!  But all is well in Zion, i found a leftover mayo sandwich (no seriously this sandwich had so much mayo on it that when i bit into i think i shot a mayo into my companions eye).

Our first district meeting in the primary kids room!  President Klebingat walked in and just started chuckling at the sight (the elder on the far right is the one who ate my lunch...)

After being brought to my new home, which is the cutest little thing ever, though i couldn't even describe what it smells like, me and my companion still had 15 minutes of the Lords time left so we went out and found a sweet old babushka on a bench and talked with her! She was so sweet and really had fondness for me so i set a date up with her for next time, yay! I then went home and took a "shower" it's kinda tough when you don't have a shower curtain so it was more like being crunched over in an elevated tub like Smeagel holding a shower spout above my head. I love it!

HOME SWEET HOME

My backyard

Sister Lamoreaux made me french toast in the morning, the angel, and later that day we had miracle! This sweet old lady stopped us right in the middle of the park, walked strait over to us, pointed at the book with wide eyes, smiled huge and asked if she could have it. We gave it to her and she practically ran away with it saying thank you over and over again. Im not sure if she had ever even heard of it before, but the way her eyes light up when she saw it just proved to me that there are people here ready for the gospel! Another little miracle, if you can call it that....it all started with me getting hit on by my first drunk man! Bleached slicked comb over, bear gut, cigarette in one hand, a bottle of vodka in the other, golden teeth, the whole shabang. Well after about the most uncomfortable conversation known to mankind we gave him a pass along card and invited him to church just to end things off. Sunday comes around and there i am meeting and greeting the amazing members of Kiev, when in comes......the drunk man!!! I smelt him before he entered the door, but we being good missionaries....passed him along to the elders he he he. He stayed for sacrament meeting and said he will come next week. Don't quite know his intentions, but i couldn't think of a better place for him to be on Sunday.

I also got to witness my first baptism this Saturday! It was beautiful and i can't wait for the next! I wish i had time to tell you all more, but i gotta get started on my email to President Klebingat! I love you all so much and can't wait to "talk" to you again. Keep the prayers a com'n! 

XxoxOxoxoXo

-Cectpa Po

Oh! Here's some pics from our 4th of July celebration!

P.S. may my hairdryer rest in peace. This morning i went to blow dry my hair turned it on and was blasted so hard i think i singed my eye lashes and my cheeks shook, and then it was *poof* dead.

P.S.S. Since im right here at the mission home you can send me DearElders and ill get them when you send them! I am so blessed i get to see the temple everyday!

Week 10