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