Week 48- MARCH-Woman

Well, it finally happened. My camera gave it's last little zoom and tapped out. This past month i have been using a camera with a smashed screen that only showed a tiny box of the picture in the top right hand corner. Every P-day was an adventure as i would see, "oh THAT'S what i took a picture of!" And now this week you have none except i did manage to find this sign from the door of the womans bathroom door from some old pictures. Don't know how i managed to let that one fall in the cracks...

(UPDATE! I GOT SOME MORE PICTURES!)

These past few weeks have held some of the hardest inward battles of my life and have yet managed to be some of the fastest. I swear we were just a yesterday at the home of Austin and Kingsly, two of our recent converts who were kicked out of their home and have had to find a new home, giving them an FHE to remember. Their new apartment was naked as a babies bottom and so for our lesson we decided to gift them with things that can bring the spirit more into their home and relate them to how we can bring the spirit into our lives.  And yes, we did manage to spiritually relate to a package of toilet paper.

It's funny how in some of those hardest moments in your life the Lord still manages to bless you with a tender mercy day. My day was March 18, 2014. Tuesday was a day ill never forget and i know it was a result of tender mercy but also all of your prayers. I don't know what i did but something just clicked and i felt like i could conquer the world. No fear, but just pure purpose! We were faced with miracle after miracle as we would tract on doors and get person after person interested in our message and asking to come back, a woman giving us free flowers, a cashier asking us, "what is that book that you have?" and asking us where she could buy one and happily accepting our free gift to her. Tuesday was a day full of service including making a pot of borsh and stopping by one of my favorite members of the branch who has just been having a tough day. I call him my Ukrainian uncle and every time we see him he always asked to make sure that us missionaries are not being sent out of Ukraine.

Don't you hate those moments when you accidently call the wrong number and the person who picks up on the other end starts talking to your like you are best childhood friends and you have no idea who you are talking to? Yeah....me too. I didn't realize until after i had set up a cosmetic appointment that i was talking to the girl we contacted from Mary Kay cosmetics.

This week we had transfers and thought Sister Anderson and I are staying together for another transfer we car pooled with Sister Wallace and Sister Winsor to the mission home to say goodbye to dear Sister Wallace and hello to our new addition, Sister Ford, and go through the temple! It was an amazing experience despite getting tangled up in all the translating cords and having a babushka come to my rescue before i strangled myself. Sometimes life, especially missionary life, can just take it out of you, and im telling you, when it does....go to the temple. If not go in, then just sit outside. Those moments of peace that i had to just sit and think and pray are some of the most peaceful moments i will ever remember. Can't explain it much better than comparing myself to a fully charged electronic device.  Battery charged, let's do this thing.

Reuntied with Sister P!!! Words nor pictures can not even begin to express my joy

Our office elder, Elder Talley, would always call Sister Lambereaux and I "The Row Row's"

Sunday was a day to remember! With our meetings over and a stomach full of homeade borsh and all appointments fallen through with members and a lack of investigators we went out and began the next 4 1/2 hours of contacting. We contacted out way around to try to find former investigators getting a lot of, "Im provoslavny, go away" to, "He's working in Kiev right now, come back later." While on the hunt toward another former investigator and being completely lost i stopped to ask a woman for directions, she happily helped and said, "Hey, you're Mormon" Why yes, yes i am. She contintued to say that she remembers some boys who were Mormon years ago that gave her a church magazine. She told  us how she has been looking into many religions but just felt that there was something missing. "Oh, what's that?" I asked. "A prophet. Like Abraham, Issac, Noah...do you have one of those?" Well as a matter of fact we do! Thomas S. Monson is his name and he is our prophet the Lord has called to guide and direct us in these days. You should have seen the way her eyes light up when she saw that her concerns of so many religions and that indeed a prophet of God guides and directs the Lord's true church. We are planning to meet with her this week and i am so excited to tell you how it goes!
Now i wont go on too long about the struggle with companions but i will tell you that sometimes the Lord will put two people together who just see on two completely different levels, and i know He doesn't just do that for laughs (though im sure a good benefit) but also so that the two can learn from each other. I am one of those. There have been many a days when i say go left, she says go right. And as a result of slipping hummility on for size we have been taking a lot of rights.
So last night with just 30 minutes left on the clock before going in me and Sister Anderson meet a crossroad, literally. I say left, she says right. So we go right. We are walking when we see a woman walking in front of us, she stops to light a ciggarette and we walk past when we find further up it is a dead end, so we turn around and run back into this woman. I already told you that if i meet a person twice and didn't talk to them them the first time i would the second so i go up to her and ask  her if she knows what building was next to us (when in doubt, act lost) when i see that the woman has tears rolling down  her face. Seeing this i ask if we can help and she said, "What for? You don't know me and therefore can't help me." and then walks away. This really hit me as i watched her walk around a corner and down a dark street.  This hit me because i KNEW we could help her. Finally Sister Anderson nudges me and says turn right, so i turn right, but then....."No. We're going left." And i immediatly turn around and start running in the direction of this woman. Ironically enough it is the same street that we ran down the deaf asian woman. I finally catch up to this woman and she just starts crying when she see's that we returned. I didn't know what to say but just said, "Look even if you are not interested in our message i know that God just wants me to tell you that He loves you." Long story short, she accepted a Book of Mormon, and we have a meeting set up with her on Thursday!
Well that was my week! I got one minute left!
Have a great week!

XOXOXO
-Cectpa Po

Week 47- MARCH- When It Rains It Pours, It's A Good Thing I Got An Umbrella!

Returned missionares aren't kidding when they say that on the mission you will experience the highest highs and the lowest lows. Let's start from the beginning shall we? The first half of this week was a low....oh low low.....how low can you go low....yeah, that low. 

We started off the week with another delicious FHE with one of my favorite familes of the Branch. The Gartovchenko's! The father and mother don't live together but this mother knows what she is doing and has won the gold star for raising the best behaved children in the neighborhood, except for when you fill there mouths chuck full of chocolate....

This week we a Kiev zone conference! So we had a little slumber party at a fellow sisters apartment, of course getting lost along the way, and waiting for our hero's to come rescue us as we sat outside of a metro while listening to some classic Beatovan (my apologies my spell check is deciding to humiliate me and choosing not to work) being played by a beggar who doesn't kid around when it comes to the violin. Let me tell you, these Ukrainians have got some skill.

It's been a tough week for me so and i just soaked up this Zone Conference like a sponge, so i needed to go outside to dry out. A picture can say a thousand words so let me make this short. Wind....is and will forever be my enemy...

Ok Sister Andrson you just squint your eyes reeeeal small and i'll pull mine open so that they have no choice but to stay open. Yes, yes, this is good.

7th time is the charm! And thank you cloud.

Another Clark adventure this week, which are always my favorite because #1 i get to get dirt up in my nails and #2 i we get to ride the train! This was by far the most packed train i have ever been in and it made a can of sardines look like an open loft. After the doors air sealed us in shut all i could hear was a "Phff puff spluf puff puff mummble mummble" and i start looking around for the dog that is being suffocated. Then i start to hear a "Girl! Get your phff puff hair puff muffle muffle out of mummble muff puff my face!" Little did i know that my horse tail of a pony tail was the means of suffocating a babushka! She managed to escape her hand from the crammed situation and took my hoodied and situated it on my head not before givin my head a good couple thumps.

I promise you that i am not going semi goth on the mission, need i say again that the wind is not my friend? For service this week i got to dig through a compost pile that had been sitting and settling and stewing for the past winter. That day i realized that you can compost just about anything. Baby diapers anyone?

When you don't have a baseball or a bat to play baseball  you use a shovel and a rotten potatoe

It's spring!

I think i now know what Ukrainians are pro squatters...

Sister Oksana Kyhol one of the inactives of the branch who is a mean knitter

Behold the results of a sister missionary who just lost more than half of her entire email her entire mass email and has zip time left. It's been just one of those days. Enjoy creating stories out of these pictures! Be creative!

XOXOXOXO
-Сестра Ро

Week 46- MARCH- WHAT Is Your Name? WHAT Is Your Favorite Color? WHAT Is Your Quest? WHAT Is The Capital Of Assyria?

This week has been one of those weeks when you come to realize that things that you thought you knew, well...you actually didn't know that well. It made me think of the scene from Monte Python and the Holy Grail, when the knights get to the bridge and meet the bridge keeper who funnily enough resembles a lot of babushki Ive seen here in Ukraine. To cross the bridge you must answer some questions. One particular scene a knight is asked his name, he, puffing his chest, states it with pride. Next he is asked his favorite color and without hesitation he states, "BLUE" but in an instant changes his mind and begins to say, "No, RED!" and is tossed over into a dark abyss.
Now let's adapt this to real life, shall we? My life. It's companionship study and Sister Anderson has taken on the role of the bridge keeper. Not a pretty sight but it helps set the scene. I'm on a quest to find the Grail of Eternal Happiness (wow this really has gone too far but I'm just gonna role with it, so just work with me here).  So i strut up, polish the black name tag, and she asks...
"WHAT, is your name?"
"Sister Roe."
"Correct."
"WHAT, is your purpose of your mission?"
"To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end." "Correct."
"WHAT, is the driving force that propels you to go further and push harder and be better in life? Your love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ...or something else?"
Phff! I got this is in the bag. "Well duh! Of course I love Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ! I wouldn't be here if i didn't!"
But then...there was a moment of questioning coming to my mind...
"Wait!"....
and if this were the real deal i would have been tossed right over into that dark abyss.
Don't worry, I'm not trying to say that my spiritual journey has taken me into a dark abyss. But i have come to realize, "Oh my gosh, I'm on a mission and I don't understand my love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ!" This is something that i just thought was always there, it just kinda comes with the package of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but i realized that just like everything good in life, it's something you have to put some effort in to achieve. I KNOW I love my Father in Heaven and my Savior Jesus Christ, it's just hasn't quite been embedded in my heart. I really feel and just know that gratitude is where it all begins.
Not going to lie this was a very humbling and slightly depressing thought for me. I realized that the main motivator I have been  using to push myself was the faith and hope I had that blessings would follow, if not immediately, then very soon afterwards. This whole time i have been getting my source of energy from the wrong source! Finally, i now partially understand my mom's symbolic novel of the Scottish stone cutter! "Find some source of energy other than our constant applications of effort and will. If we attempt to engage the will continually, it exhausts us and prevents us from creating something with a pattern that endures." It makes sense! Because when those blessings would not immediately, or soon follow, i would find myself getting discouraged, confused, blaming myself, and finding my fire continually going out, BUT if my drive is always coming from a deep and abiding love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ that, even through the trials and disappointments, that fire should never go out.
So I have a question for you....how do you make yourself fall in love? Let's not get weird, but i give this question to you as a quest. How can I and each one of us find a greater and deeper love and gratitude for our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. The quest has begun, now click your coconuts together and go
Last week we has a great FHE with our ward mission leader and his family playing a tasty game of "Don't Eat Pete." And to me if you can make a Ukrainian teenager smile with nothing but a bag of  M&M's and a piece of paper than that, to me, has been a great evening.

On the way home the elder and I made a little detour on the way home to stop by the shrine for Maidan to stop and take a quick sneak peak of the pictures that had been hung on a volleyball net. Pictures donated strait from the cameras of the revolutioners themselves. It was really such a sad thing to see because as i have been spending 8 months of my life living among them i have really come to feel of their goodness. This country has gone through so much, and it just motivates me more and more as i see how much this gospel can bless these wonderful lives who have gone through so much.

This week has actually been spent alot indoors as Sister Anderson has been possessed by a demon. We called the mission doctor and he names this demon...Vertigo. One second we are making galupsi with our landlady, the next she is crying after collapsing on her bed and sleeping the rest of the day away. Leaving me to eat that delicious pot of meat stuffed cabbage leaves all my myself...

A lot of my time was spent soaking up the 75 watt florescent light and spirit and power of the scriptures...
Oh! And the place i received one of the most awkward phone calls of my life
*Whistle ring tone*
Me- "Sister Ludmilla! Hello!"
Sister L- "Sister I just had to tell you how much I love you! You are amazing, wonderful! My favorite of all the missionaries! May the Lord bless you and i am thinking and praying for my favorite missionary. Bless you for you service, bless your future children, may health and happiness always shine down on you. This area would not be the same without you! Love you my dear girl!"
Me- "Oh, oh Sister Ludmilla you're so kind! Thank you! Oh, haha yes yes, I love you too! No, YOU'RE beautiful!"
Sister L- "Oh and please tell your companion Sister Winsor that i love her too."
Me- "Sister Winsor? Oh no, my companion is Sister Anderson."
Sister L- ".....who am i talking to?"
Me- "Well...this is Sister Roe of course."
Sister L- "........oh.......oh well i love you too dear.....could you give me the number for the other sisters?"
Sister Ludmilla avoided eye contact with me the whole following Sunday.....

 Freedom was finally given when we received a call from Alena Passport who does all the dirty passport work for all the missionaries here. She told us to drop all plans (awwww man and i so wanted to keep studying Russian by writing in Russian cursive on all our windows with dry erase marker) and get to Kiev. But not just Kiev, but at Kreshatik, and for any of you with a knowledge of the metro stops in Kiev that is directly under Maidan. It was the weirdest thing to go from the normal life flow of the Metro to go up and out and immediately be met with a mash of barricades covered in ash and flowers. It was a literal war zone. There wasn't much time for sight seeing as we hurried on. The whole area was busy, but solemn. Tons of people walking around but with the same respect you would walking through a cemetery. Throughout the entire area, even as we walked further and further away I would see flowers, little colored glass candle lanterns, cross necklaces, and icons placed on almost every possible flat surface. Shrines built right in the middle of streets.

 On the way home we were blessed to meet a man named Yuri! With just a couple stops left on the Metro we saw him, he wasn't black, but he was brown. Close enough for us! We asked him if he knew English, and get this...he didn't! But that didn't stop us from having a good long talk with him on the bus to Brovary. He has a very powerful testimony of the Bible. Believes it to be the word of God and finds it hard to except another book to be the word of God as well. He had a hard time understanding we read BOTH the Book of Mormon and the Bible. We combated sharing scriptures back and forth and he finally accepted to take, read, and pray to know it is true. I pray he does...he was such a great solid guy.
Saturday was a big day! Not only did we find out transfer info (Sister Anderson and I are staying in Brovary for another transfer!), but i also reached my 10 month mark, and it was also....Womans Day! aka...the day of receiving free chocolate! Alex (plaid hoodie) and Kingsly (the dork) may not look it, but they have some of the biggest hearts in the world and VERY good taste in chocolate.

 On the way home both of our shoes finally decided that they both could not contain the holiday spirit any longer...

But that didn't stop us from a photo shoot!

BRING OUT THE 10 KONTIK TOWER!

To end this week on a note that does not clog every artery in your body i want to leave you with one of my favorite quotes. "It's natural to have questions- the acorn of honest inquiry has often sprouted and matured into a great oak of understanding. There are few members of the Church who, at one time or another, have not wrestled with serious or sensitive questions. One of the purposes of the church is to nurture and cultivate the seed of faith- even in the sometimes sandy soil of doubt and uncertainty. Faith is to hope for things which are not seen but which are true. Therefore...please, first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. We must never allow doubt to hold us prisoner and keep us from the divine, love, peace, and gifts that come through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." -President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

May your faith just blossom this week! Don't forget your quest!

XOXOXOXO

-Сестра Ро