First of all, birthday shout out! HAPPY BIRTHDAY Stacia, Natasha, Lisa, Mom, and Ryan... I think that is all the birthdays coming up, or that have passed in the month. з днем народження свіх!!!! This week, like all of them have been, was just the greatest! I honestly don't even know where to begin with it all, yet again! I already have a journal a transfer thus far in my mission with all the great experiences that I have had, I don't know that I am going to be able to get them all home if I keep up on this rate, but there is no way that I want to forget a day of this amazing adventure!
Let me start with last Monday, after email, because that was the real adventure! I thought I was going to die, the poor Elders in my district, they get phone calls all the time from us, and they are either for help with language or to have them listen to our life stories because I still don't full understand every word that is spoken to me. We keep their life entertaining, we will just say that!
So Monday, after internet, we had District Lunch and discussed some secret things that will be disclosed next week. Then we did our grocery shopping, went home, had 7 minutes to sleep on the couch really quick and relax on our p-day before we had to catch a marshrootka into center for a lesson with Silvia. We wanted to talk with her about repentence and baptism again, see if we can keep her progressing and feeling the Spirit and be able to take the steps in her life to be baptized like her children.
Well, we get to the door of the house and all we hear in yelling, so it takes us 3 times of knocking before Silvia gets to the door. Sasha is there, Silvia is there and her sister Emma, whom we have never met before is there as well. She came in on a suprise visit for a few days. So we sit and start getting to know her, Silvia's oldest son Stepon comes in as well, he just moved back from Kyiv, so he speaks mostly Russian, I talked with him a bit, Russian still hurts my head, and Ukrainian is still a little rough for me to understand, but it is getting better. Then it was time for dinner.
Ok, this is the point where I thought I was going to die, becuase in Ukraine Baba's always dish your plate up for you and they give a ridiculous amount of food. So Emma, being oh so kind, dishes up dinner. It was raw fish, soaked in vinegar with sliced up onion. No joke. I was going to die. I was going to die, you can ask Sister Garrett, the look on my face then entire time I was eating it.... OH MY GOSH!!!! I would take a bite, then have a drink, then talk some more, then take another bite, I couldn't do it! I did it though, that was a tender mercy of the Lord, I did it. I ate all 3 pieces of fish soaked in vinegar and onion. I know, you are all dying right now, please laugh! The Elders laughed too when we told them. It was so awful!
After dinner Sister Garrett and I taught our first real lesson together, we taught the Restoration to Emma, Silvia's sister and gave her a Book of Mormon. She lives closer to Ivano though, so we are going to pass her contact info onto the Sisters there. It was really cool to be able to teach with her for the first time. It was fairly ok, Sasha was there and he bore great testimony and helped when we could not find the right words. Then Silvia also helped as well, it was kind of a multi lingual event, Stepon came in for a bit, speaking some Russian, I pretend that I know Ukrainian, Silvia and Emma speak Romanian together, since that is their native tongue and me and Sister Garrett would give each other hints or other words in English. It was quite eventful! Emma did agree to read the Book of Mormon and pray. We will see if anything comes of it! Sasha is just so молодець!!! He is such an example to his family!
Wow, that was a lot to say, but that was just Monday, and it was awful! We told Elder Tribett the story when he called that night, he handed it to us, he said that he would not have eaten the fish, we can say that we have allergies to fish... So now he told us after I thought I was going to die eating that raw fish.... EW! Sorry, it still is a little too soon for me! Even just thinking about it now.... EW!
Moving on.... This week has been quite rainy and cold the weather here is more bipolar that Utah, it goes from hot to cold pretty darn quick. We have spent a lot of time finding new investigators. English this week, was great! We played Apples to Apples with them, that was so fun! It really got them talking as well. We also were able to meet with Mel from English.
She is so amazing! She is 17 and a dancer, Sister Echols and I contacted her the first time and she was not very nice about us wanting to talk about God, but she was interested in English. Her english is great! She has come faithfully every week and 3 weeks ago she took a Book of Mormon when we had had a Spiritual thought on the Book of Mormon. She has read all the way through First Nephi, in Russian, Russian is her native tongue. Sister Garrett and I set up a time to meet with her after English, it was amazing! The lesson was in English, some Ukrainian and Russian, we wanted to make sure that she understood, and she says that her Ukrainian is awful, so we practiced simple Russian during language study a bit so that we would be able to explain certain key points to her if needed. My accent apparently sounds better in Russian than in Ukrainian...? We had gone in planning to teach her the Restoration, but she had a lot of questions that could be answered with the Plan of Salvation. So we taught that instead, totally directed by the Spirit. It was almost harder for me to teach in English than it is in Ukrainian, I couldn't remember the English words! There was a few times that I did lapse into Ukrainian a bit because the phrase of word just was not coming to me. That is ok, it just means the Gift of Tongues in real!
After the lesson, it was just amazing! She prayed, and the Spirit was just there. She really is seeking the truth! We are going to meet with her after english practice each week. Sadly she wasn't able to come to church this week though!
Also, we have found that our District is the most musical in the Zone! We have the only 3 piano players and Elder Naumann sings wonderfully... So guess who's District is doing all the musical numbers?! Poor Sister Garrett has to play the piano for everything, me and Elder Terry backed out of that one. She does so good! We have had some practice with them because Elder Naumann is singing and Sister Garrett is playing the piano, Elder Terry and I do paper work things while they practice. The other day I got to cut out ALL the Apples to Apples cards we were going to use for English... that was a lot of work.
Yesterday was a crazy Sunday! We had 18 people at church, that doesn't happen very often and in our little room, that is a noticable difference! We had some visitors from L'viv, and they brought their one year old, and also Marian and Ivan brought some friends to church. Elder Tribett was beaming when that happened! Those boys are just the best! Also, Ivan was able to receive the Priesthood, so next week he can pass! That is so exciting! Him and Sasha can now do that sacrement together. The visitors from L'viv came down and were only in town for a day. I didn't talk to them too much, but the little boy was quite the active little thing! You forget what it is like to have kids at sacrement meeting! It was fun though! He liked sticking house keys into outlets.
This week was just another adventure, and I am so excited for this week up and coming! We are going to be in L'viv for a Zone Conference. YAY! I love it here, the people are the greatest, the Elders are the best in Uzhhorod, and I am pretty sure that I have the best companion ever!
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