Week 44- FEBRUARY- Good VS Evil

You all remember the scene. Emporers New Groove, as Kronk is standing on the bridge watching the newly turned unconcious llama emporer floating away, about to fall to a soggy his doom (don't worry there is a purpose to this whole story) when all of a sudden *poof* there pops an angel on his right shoulder, soon followed by *poof* a quite charismatic devil on his left. Well, welcome to my life. I have always known that i have the most sensitive sappy conscience known to man. Put me in the path of a stranded starving puppy and you will see me getting myself covered in muddy dog poo paw prints trying to shove it under my coat, and then see me wiping away tears while walking away with empty arms. Since the moment i was set apart as a missionary i feel i was blessed, or cursed, depends on the day, with a conscience on steriods. And that angle and charismatic devil have really been going at it this week!
But at long last i think i have won the war! For my whole mission i have been fighting this battle within when it comes to the "D" word. DISCOURAGMENT. It's like a disease. And i had never realized how easily i have been allowing myself to lose the fight against it. Being a perfectionist, like myself, has it's ups and it's downs. My clothes are folded in stacks according to lights and darks, but i have also somehow managed of setting this standard for myself that always ended up with me being disappointed with myself at the end of the day when i didn't reach it. For one who is so human, i was expecting to be inhuman! I think i had just adjusted myself to that dissapointmenta and discouragment and the hissing of that little devil when one day my little shoulder angel got in real close and said, "Sister Roe! Don't listen to that punk!" And i was like.....Yeah......YEAH.......YEAHHHHHH! And im not going to say it was easy, it took a couple deep breaths and a few "shake it out's" and then i just......wasn't discouraged! It is the most amazing feeling and i can feel my faith finally being able to breath!
With that freshly dusted faith i learned something else. The whole time i had only been using half of the potential of faith! I would also myself to get knocked down, and use my faith to pull myself back up, which is great, but I don't think this is how the Lord intended it. The Lord doesn't want us to fall down in the first place! So if you fall, that's ok, use your faith to get back up, but the next time a trail comes along, FIGHT IT! Don't let it knock you down and that's when you will truly come to see the full potential of faith.
Let me also just say, putting too high of an expectation on yourself is just a recipe for disaster. Feeling you should be a perfect (insert occupation here), in just the way YOU think you should be, when in actuality you should be accepting that, "Ok, so i might not even be able to order a pizza, but i CAN teach my companion to laugh off the stress and to stop and smell the pickled cabbage."
Also, another word of advice, nothing, i repeat, NOTHING, good will come from comparing yourself to others. For so long i have felt that if i did not have the same love and drive for the work as other missionaries appeared to have, and always told myself that i was doing something wrong, or simply just wasn't a good missionary. But it's not about loving it, it's about just DOING it. Elder Holland said that the important thing is to just do the Lord's work, ESPECIALLY when we don't want to. Doing so shows that you value and trust the Lord more than you do yourself, and as you do it, you will love it.
OK, preaching rant over. Give me a break, these 18 months are my spiritual pubery growing months, OK?
Who would of thought that you could still learn and grow so much after being on lockdown for 3 days? Last Tuesday night while at the church working on a bottle of Ukrainian yogurt after some English contacting and Brovary sightseeing we recieved a text, "All missionaries in Kiev, please return to your apartment immediately regardless of any meetings." Knowing that his must be about Maidan, this came as a shock to me because I thought things were dying down, and today was just to be a normal day. "Normal" meaning, crying in the morning, filling up our spiritual tanks, patting the puffy red eyes and going out for another day. Yes, 9 months in and I'm still adjusting. Every day a roller coaster. Every day in anticipation thinking, "will today be a loop da loop? A 90 degree pee in your skirt drop? Or a pee in your skirt blast off?"

Where was I?...Oh yes, house arrest. Those first 24 hours of lock down are to go down in history as the day of "The Attack of the Phone Calls on all Formers nd Inactives and Any Other Soul in the Record Book Who Has Not Dared To Be Baptized." I think it would be a great  "Horror" addition to the LDS movie collection.
Our first night and first full day we were blessed enough to have the Sisters from  Chernigov, a neighboring area to Brovary. The sisters were on their way into Kiev for a leaders conference the day before our scheduled mission conference, which because of advents and all roads into Kiev being closed and the entire Metro system having shut down, all conferences were canceled. And so i worked up a sweat working the biceps hand pumping the air mattresses, and the next 36 hours was...GIRL TIME.

 It took us a while to get the hang of it....Every missionary will admit this, but we have all had times when we have said, "I wish i had ME time!" and so it was a blessing in disguise when we finally had...deep doctrine/selfish studies day! We dived in head first, we feasted on the words of the prophets, we wrote down revelation, we highlighted, we learned, we cried, we laughed, and when our spirits couldn't swell anymore we wiped the sweat off our brow to look up at the clock to see...12:06pm.....Hmmmm...well, we got half way through the day.
Eventually all four of us merged together in the kitchen twiddling our thumbs and looking at the walls too afraid to admit to each to each other that we had forgotten how to be girls with spare time on our hands. Our eyes all caught on a piece of dust floating in the air, following it in the sunlight until it made a soft landing. This sent us into a cleaning frenzy. OK, so we weren't THAT bad, but i did finally get to organizing the kitchen cupboards. OK, so maybe we WERE that bad.
So after the floors were swept, rugs beaten, counters wiped, cleaning the toilet avoided, and having cleaned all the dirt out from under our nails and ending up right back to where we startedm, Sister Farnsworth said, "Well...we could paint our nails..." and we then went crazy and broke out the nude nail polish. Give me a break, YOU try to live 9 months of YOUR life trying to be a representative of Jesus Christ and then see how YOU feel painting YOUR nails. Talk about foreign culture shock. I swear the day I come home and wear skinny jeans and my wedge booties will feel like a day of great repentance.

When i heard that we would be continuing lock down my first thought was...by the time this lock down is over we wont be fitting out of the door. With a big pan of inactive brownies on the counter, a stack of mission approved movies, including a small collection from the 70's (THAT was great fun), and the phone number of a pizza place who delivers (not by pizza BOY but by pizza MAN, beard, mustache, you name the facial hair and he's got it), and well...let's just say it's a good think i got a closet full of stretchy skirts. I swear other than a bowl of leftover bortsh, not a single healthy thing entered my body. I chose not to think about it while stuffing down a slice of 3 cheese pizza while watching Mormon Messages on our homemade theater with our 10" big screen. I had to work for that pizza though, it took a few tries, the second time time being, "Umm hello? Yeah hi, me again, ummm I. WANT. PIZZA. Hello?"

By just the end of the first 24 hours of lock down things started to get weird...

And weirder....

FRESH AIR!!

It was actually a strange feeling to end day and not feel on the verge of tears at the end of the day. What? No spiritual trials? No spiritual growth?
Information was slowly given to us through out the lock down. Death rates slowly climbing up...7...15...50...70...100. For safety precautions the only excuse to go out was to buy provisions and  on the condition that we be in our normal P-day clothes without name tags, and with an extra 2 girls in the home we were in dire need of toilet paper...so we ventued out and it was the strangest feeling. Everybody was out, but they were all in such a rush and all on their phones. We got into the store and i have never seen a store so packed, apparently with all roads into Kiev being shut down that also meant food trucks were not going in and so they were not hesitating in grabbing whatever they could, except for a few who cut us in line with nothing but a large bottel of vodka. That wasthe first time EVER i saw the bread boxes empty.
All plans were made that if there was a lack of phone coverage all of us would find a way to get to the temple sight. Important phone numbers were written and on us at all times, 72 hour kits were packed and a our day bags were ready and sitting by the door. It is strange to be only just a marshutka bus ride away from all the action and yet still feel so out of the loop. Rumors of tanks, barricades into the city on fire, and para troopers and yet here I was reading my scriptures and watching Johny Lingo. It was a literally "being in the world, but not of the world" kind of week.
My heart and prayers go out to all of those who have died and been affected by Maidan. Please keep them in your prayers  and know that all the Lord's missionaries are safe!
Thank you for all your concern and love!

 XOXOXOXO
-Сестра Ро

Week 43- FEBRUARY- Chicken Heads

We've all had those days, those days when you feel like a chicken with it's head cut off. We'll Ive had one of those weeks. But let's take it to another level now, and go from a running headless chicken physically to a running headless chicken...spiritually? Yeah, it's been tough.
It's funny how Satan never hesitates to put his foot out to make me trip and stubble and fall after i JUST felt i got back up and was ready to run a marathon, OK half marathon, OK a 10K, OK so maybe i don't like running, but point is...Satan is punk. But Satan doesn't know who he is messing with. He's messing with one of the Lord's messengers, he's messing with a pair of the Lord's shoes (thanks Weston), and let me tell ya, these shoes are going to leave Satan in the dust.
What are some of these sneak attacks Satan uses you may ask? Well for me it was something as small as a choice of mood and attitude. Seemingly so small, but let me tell you this little stumble took me a good two or so days to recover from! So if your companion is trying to get you to recite the first vision, or asking you to explain what the Book of Mormon is before the clock has even struck 6:30am, when you're feeling you only took a short and nap and that your week has just one big loooooong day, and before your eyes have even fully uncrusted, don't do what i did and just glare through the crust, but count your blessings that you have a companion who is not a bipolar morning grump like you are. If you are reading your emails and find that your little brother just had his 10th going on 11th baptism in his fourth month of the mission, don't pout and clean off your dusty empty shelf with your own tears, but count your blessings that you found and made a goldmine of friends in a reenok (ourdoor market) and placed 4 Books of Mormon!

And instead of whining while carrying around your bucket of Russian throw up (sorry about the disturbing imagery here) count your blessings that that bucket has opened up a door to an inactive member of the branch who has offered every morning to helping your clean that bucket out. Let me tell you, attitude will save you some BIG tumble and fall episodes. Take it from the girl who was known as the girl to biff head first into the grass while playing tag, known as the the girl to trip both up and down the stairs with, ironically, always an armful of loose papers, and the girl who is on slip and bif count #6. It's. Not. Fun.
Happy Valentines Day! I love holidays because it not only helps me pick out my outfit (hmmm...i should wear something red...but i only have one red shirt....hmmm decisions decisions...) but it also helps me pick out my personal study  topic...LOVE! aka CHARITY! Did you know out of faith, hope, and charity, that CHARITY NEVER FAILETH?! As the apostle Paul says, "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." Now i don't know about you but those are some strong words and needless to say charity is THE attribute to have. The new "cool" thing so to say. Charity is the new black. Do you get my point? So next time you want to bump charity to the bottom your "TO DO" list you just remember Paul and I. Wow, did i just put myself up with an apostle?
I also took great council from this scripture in Moroni 7:45, "And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Im telling ya! If you ever feel you are lack'n a little som'n som'n, charity is where you will find it.
You do crazy things when you're in love, well in the case of a missionary i guess it's better to say that you do crazy things when you are in....charity? Crazy things such as running like made through mushy muddy forests and dark streets with arms full of roses and homeade borsh and brownies. You know the phrase, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach?" I would like to correct that phrase and say, "The way to ANYONES heart is through their stomach."

Sister Anderson sharing the LOOOOVE

A romantic walk home through the park??

This week we had a little Ukrainian cooking fest with our Land Lady! We pay her the rent and she pays us in  teaching us the ways of making homemade vereniki (little dumplings filled with really whatever you want, in this case a savory ricotta like cheese, topped with sour cream) and borsh!

Well it's taken me two months time but i feel i have finally grown a love for Brovary. Hey, don't judge me, if you served in an area like Illichyovsk you would have had the same problem too. Had a great moment this week while trying pick up Sister Anderson's post vika after getting her registered when we showed up at the Ukrainian registration off which was nothing more than a mob of stale ciggarete breath and musky fur (gosh i love it) and then a man asking us what we were doing and then yelling out into the mob, "Hey! This girl is American and doesn't know what she is doing!" Aaaaand thank you for narrating my life. The people here that i have been blessed to  know and befriend are just amazing. And let's not forget the outdoor street markets! A cabbage and body bag full of sweet "corn puff fingers" (Ukrainians version of popcorn)? Yes please!

Thirsty? We got milk!

Once your stomach is filled join the Maidan riot just down the street!

Oh and thank you all for the birthday wishes, i must give you all credit for originality and for all the times Taylor Swift's popular hit, "I'm feeling 22" was quoted.
It's tough weeks like these that you ask yourself, "what is it that keeps me pushing on?" One of my sisters actually asked me this once and i came across a scripture that captured it perfectly for me. "And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some."-Alma 26:30 I think sometimes we don't give hope enough credit. I think sometimes we see hope as a weak form of faith, but it's so much more than that! Hope is the anchor to our souls! President James E. Faust's words, not mine. So if you find yourself thinking, "well i don't feel i have much faith, but i do have hope" give yourself some credit! Hope is a Christlike attribute! Study it in Preach My Gospel and you will know you are more on your way to becoming like Christ than you know.
Though you may sometimes if not often feel that the Lord is not near or feel like the Lord is holding out on you, for instance you think you can hear him saying, "Nuh uh uh uhh, that wasn't good enough, try harder and THEN you will get my blessing." than stop it. Stop doing what i did. Just keep doing what you can, and the blessings will come. We're in this together, remember? I just want to quote a little from this weeks letter from our mission president's wife Sister Klebingat, "...the Lord is aware of each of your situatins, of eachof your family members' situations and of all the complexity of your circumstances. He is aware of your emotional state, He knows your gifts, talents, fears, and insecurities...He knows what experiences you need in order to overcome all things and to learn as much as you can in this life to max out your potential....Knowing that the Lord is aware of each of you and loves you individuall, one by one, should tell you that you recieve customized experiences (positive and negative) that have the potential to produce needed growth in you. In all sense, all these experiences, whether positive or negative, can be regarded as blessings....the blessings will come in His time, according to His will and His perfect knowledge of your needs and abilities, and of course according to the matchless love He has for you...the best course of action is to learn to submit your will to Him and allow Him to mold you into the best version of yourself."
Let's be our best selves this week!

XOXOXOXO
-Сестра Ро

Week 42- FEBRUARY- IT'S A GIRL!

Only in Ukraine would you be approached by a drunk babushka on your way walking to the church and then find yourself running away as she threatens to shoot her dentures at you....

WOW. What a great long week! Nothing like a good classic, tear jerking, climatic, piano violin duet to cheer me on as i imagine myself passionately running to the top of THE MISSION HUMP, reaching the top, doing a fist pump, failing at the heel click (as always) and saying, "I DID IT! I REACHED THE HUMP!" Yes! This sister has officially reached THE HUMP of the mission. 9 MONTHS! (View inappropriate picture at bottom. I had a serious debate about this one, and i dont think we need to guess as to who won the fight.) Where did the time go? I would like to say that it is all downhill from here, but where is the fun in that? I have a feeling the Lord has a lot more in store for me, and wouldn't be surprised if i end up coming home as just one big ol' stretch mark from all the growing i will have done.

This week has just been chuck full of big days! What a week! Easily the longest week, but i can not come to say the worst! Not only did i reach the big "YOU'RE HALF WAY THERE!" mark but i also had my last day as a threesome companionship and, lack of a better word, we celebrated the occasion by going out with a bang! A bang to our wallets that is. After too many times of walking past and slipping on the puddles of frozen drool, that must have only been from all the pedestrians who would look in on the fine dining of LIMON, we decided enough of the dreaming, let's make it reality. By far the comfiest chairs known to man, the smallest portions on the biggest plates i have ever seen, and the most delicious vereniki (potato dumplings) and cheesecake i have ever had. I was dining in class, though my frumpy boots, DI skirt and greasy surf wave swooped bangs would say otherwise.

Verinki. Ukrainian cuisine in style.

What is this? A salad for ants?!

New York Cheesecake....you guys gotta try this.

I got half way through this bad boy when i finally stopped thinking....."this taste is oddly familiar....."when it suddenly clicked. LIVER.

Can you figure out what this says? P=R, E=E, C=S, T=T, O=O, A=A, H=N. Congratulations. You can read Russian.

The Tri-cycle.

I'm not gonna lie, as hard as it was i was really going to miss Wallace and Winsor, and was feeling pretty scared for what the future had it store for me. Training?! Me?! I thought that was just a joke we would make in my MTC district! Well ready or not i was about to start a whole new threesome. Me, the Lord, and Sister Anderson!

I love our trips into Kiev and the sights to be seen!

Sister Anderson is an amazing 19 year old sister from New Zealand! Did i mention that she lived 45 minutes away from the Hobbit homes from Lord of the Rings? How do you like that mom? She loves to dance, always has a smile on her face, she loves animals just as much as i do, OK, maybe not THAT much, also has brother who is out serving the Lord in the Philippines, and has helped me so much already in our short time together to come closer to the Lord and feel the power of the Holy Ghost, and that by exact obedience, and with faith you can truly feel and recognize the power of the Holy Ghost when your heart is fully dedicated to the Lord's work. She has been such a blessing as both of us have set the transfer goal of truly being SPIRIT LED! To come to know and feel how each of us feel the Holy Ghost in our lives, become sensitive to it's promptings and therefore become followers and teachers of the spirit. I never would have thought that a 2nd transfer missionary could teach me so much and be right beside me doing the Lord's work. This girl has no fear and has been a complete answer to my prayers! 

Our first night together we went out to find some of the in actives of our branch and with nothing but an address and complete lack of a map we.....got lost. Figures. Not only that but i must have forgotten my brain as i couldn't remember the word for, "building". That night i found that you really can find your answers in the Book of Mormon as we found ourselves huddled in a dark street hovering a flashlight over a Russian Book of Mormon looking for 1 Nephi 8:27 for the word, "building" so that we could ask for directions and afterwards worrying that i was going around asking for the "great and spacious 9." 1st day. 1st adventure. Check.

Traditional 1st night Kontik slam!

Another BIG day happened this week...I hit my, "I DONT KNOW ABOUT YOU BUT IM FEELING 22..." mark! That's right 22 years old and i dont feel, or look at day over 15! Well that's what the guys would always say whenever they started hitting on my little sister only to find I (emphasis on I ) was the babe that could legally (by Mormon standards) date. Nice try boys. 

Sister Wallace and Winsor gave me an unexpectedly bright and early surprise by....cooking me breakfast? *Sniff sniff* is that bacon i smell? Why yes it is! Im telling you, if you are ever feeling homesick for America, bacon is where it is at folks. Oh glorious greasy sodium! The W&W companionship have got to be one of the biggest hearted sisters i have ever met, and i usually try to reserve the big "L" word, but... I LOVE THEM.

Ok so i feel i should explain the state of my appearance right now. Had i know that i was going to get a face full of party poppers, hash browns, bacon and jam filled blinchiki while walking out of the bathroom at 6:32 a.m. i would not have been sporting the David Bowie T-shirt...OK, so maybe that isn't true. Please pardon for the cowlick upon cowlick, crusty eyes, and partial mullet. Just trying to be like David.

Hey if middle schoolers can do the "Looking up" selfy in a bathroom than i can do it with my breakfast

I feel i should explain the broken key in the palm of my hand. As Sister Anderson was locking the door after W&W left and i was gobbling the grub i just hear a big gasp and "Uhhhh.....sister?" Long story short, she's too strong for her own good and for a good half day or so we were under house arrest.

Besides the bacon i must say that the best present you can receive are the things that you can't eat. Remember this moment because you will probably never hear that from me again. To be honest i forgot a lot of the time that it was my birthday but i got a lot of LOVE and that's good enough for me. Thanks for the birthday card family!! The wait was worth it <3

Alex, one of our recent converts, bought me a coffee flavored cake! Ok, so he still has a little learning to do, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Hey, you didn't think that  mine and Sister Anderson's adventures ended there did you?  You didn't really expect that i wouldn't get us lost in a forest on my first week of training, did you? Oh ye of little faith, of course i got us lost in a forest looking for inactive! Hey, no effort is wasted, right?

The last bit of civilization we would see for a good hour or so...

Behold! Look! Through the brushes! Civilization!

And so a lot of  rose thorn scrapes and tree branch bruises later we finally made our way back to Brovary. Here's a little look see of some of my day to day Brovary views...

The Atomic statue where i once stargazed

A classic death trap elevator

I have been so blessed with such amazing exemplar family and friends, I so much in life to thank the Lord for. This week has just been filled with blessing after blessing after blessing. Of course these blessings did not come until after the trail of my faith, and thanks to Sister Anderson i can feel my faith and dependence on the Lord grow every day. (Just thought you should know that that dramatic piano violin duet just started again. Talk about dramatic!) I'm gonna quote my brother from his email here and say, "the size of your faith, or the degree of your knowledge is not the issue, it is the integrity you demonstrate toward the faith you DO have and the trust you already know." "Be not afraid, only believe." Mark 5:36

By exact obedience and really trying your best in all things the Lord truly does bless. From finding amazing potential investigators while English contacting, to making a friend while spending those last "pointless" 15 minutes contacting in the dark and dreary fog, to bearing an emotional testimony of the Book of Mormon to a non member husband with an amazing family with strong testimonies of the gospel, to even getting stopped in the middle of the street being asked, "Hey, what's that book you have?" and once more finding yourself saying not only what you have always been taught is true, but truly coming to feel is true. Our lives are so blessed. We just need to do all we can because as the Lord said, "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." D&C 82:10

I have never had such a strong testimony that, "in Christ there should come every good thing." There is nothing good in this life that is not a blessing from our loving Heavenly Father. These things should not be expected, nor taken for granted. Swallow some of that pride and give the one who lovingly placed you here some credit! We are so loved and we have been provided with every possible thing we will need to succeed in life. Because of  a lack of time i can't touch too much on this but PLEASE read the talk, "LIVING A LIFE OF PEACE, JOY, AND PURPOSE" by Richard G. Scott from this months February issue of the New Ensign. It was a good chunk of my personal study this morning and it really hit home for me that this mission is such a privilege and is preparing me for life!

My first day with Sister Anderson she asked me, "what are you wanting to accomplish during your mission?" And all i could think of is this fear of returning home after my mission and not reaching my full potential, not becoming the daughter that Heavenly Father intended me to be. Come on! That's a scary thought! But i am going to take to heart what Richard G. Scott said when he said, "May the Lord strengthen your resolve your exercise of faith, and your growing character so that you may be the instrument of good He wants you to be." Half way mark and I'm felling like im becoming a new girl! I guess you can call it a "new birth" in a way...

And to think if i were pregnant going into MTC i would be hitting my due date right now....
Happy Birthday, new companion, and 9 months to me!

Have a great week!

XOXOXOXO

-Сестра Ро