July 29, 2019

July 29, 2019

Me in front of a mural of an old Ukrainian hut and the surrounding landscape at a bus stop. I love Ukraine so much.

This has been an incredible week! I've been having such a blast. It's been hard work and good times, not much more that I could ask for.

Me and Elder Jack, a missionary in the area right next door, eating some AMAZING barbecue at an American restaurant in our area.

We also got transfers this week, and I'm shipping off to Chernihiv! It's a small city a few hours to the north of Kyiv. It will just be me and my companion in this city with a small branch of around 20-25. It'll be really interesting to be so isolated from other missionaries, but I'm so very excited for this wonderful opportunity to serve in a cool place. It'll be a really awesome experience. I'll miss Kyiv and the amazing ward here, but I'll be back soon enough.

Me next to this amazing car that always sits right next to our apartment, featuring Jesus and Satan locked in an epic arm wrestle. Thankfully, we already know who's going to win this one.

This has been such an incredible week. We met with our wonderful investigator Ira who asked us some amazing questions. She has a really hard time making it to church because of her health and her children who are really trying to stop her, but she's doing her best.

We went to this wonderful family's house earlier this week - Anatolli and Tamara. They're members of our ward and are some of the nicest people in the world. they told us their amazing story of finding the church, where they met some students from BYU-Idaho in Germany and noticed something special within them. Years later, they discovered the church and had that same feeling and eventually joined. They made us some amazing food and told us hilarious stories of missionaries who have served here earlier. Also, he gave us the most AMAZING homemade pickles. Absolutely incredible. I'm 100% convinced me that I need to make my own pickes once I'm an old man.

Us with Anatolli, Tamara, their daughter, and their HUGE dog. It suddenly started to rain ridiculously hard right when we were taking the pictue, hence the faces.

I was able to be a part of one of the most spiritual experiences I've had on my mission so far. The sister's investigator from Ghana, Innocent, was baptized. Elder Larson baptized him and I was able to give him the gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday in Sacrament meeting. Thankfully it was in English, so it was really easy comparatively to Russian. It truly was an amazing experience and I am so glad to have been a part of that. The mission has truly opened my eyes to what is most important in this life, which is the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm so grateful to have had a part in helping this man come closer unto Christ and this chance I have to be a servant in the hands of God.

Love you all so much, have a great week!

--
Старейшина Дэй

July 22, 2019

July 22, 2019
This has been such an amazing week. I don't even know where to start honestly, just so much happening.

Me in center Kyiv

One thing that has been awesome, our new investigator, Иаков (Jacob in English) is progressing so well. He's been keeping his commitments and his faith is growing. Watching that take place in someone is just so amazing. It's really amazing.

We've found other really awesome investigators we're trying to work with. It makes me really scared about transfer dates. I'm scared about being shipped out of here after working so hard. Whatever the Lord wants to have happen will happen though.

We met with this awesome guy from North Carolina. We had a quick lesson with him before he moves back to London. Unquestionably the coolest American I've ever met here. He'll keep meeting with missionaries in London so that'll be super awesome.

Also, we had the greatest Sunday that I've ever had on my mission. I just love the members here so much. I have grown so much in my love for Ukraine and it's people.

Me eating shawarma, this wonderful food from central Asia. The man who owns the stand is from Uzbekistan. It makes your heart and intestines hurt after, but it tastes so good.

One of the coolest people that I have ever met on my mission is unquestionably our bishop. He is one of the coolest, nicest guys in the whole world. He served his mission in Eastern Ukraine (currently where the war is taking place). The other day we met with him before church to talk about members we're working with and discuss our investigators, and he just told me how he loves how happy I am. That I'm just a happy guy, and that when I show up he knows everything is good. Made me feel pretty good. I just love the ward here.

Besides that, just some more contacting. Trying to make things happen. I love serving on a mission so much.

Me in front of our church building. 

One of the most fun things that I've been doing that has really increased my spirituality is making my own footnotes in my scriptures. It's been so fun to connect different topics and just broaden my spiritual scripture knowledge. I just love the scriptures so much and the wonderful opportunity I have to study this gospel. I just love it so much and the peace and joy that it brings into my life and helping other people to see that too. I'm so grateful for everything.

Love you all!

Blessings of Smart Phones

July 15, 2019
This has been a really crazy week. All of our grinding and all of our contacting finally resulted in a week full of lessons. We barely had time to contact. Some of the highlights -

Met with this awesome family in our ward who had us over to eat. He randomly knew a bunch of Nacho Libre quotes which was so funny.

Met with this one girl who is one of our new investigators. She's really interesting, kind of hard to keep on topic. She randomly included the fact that she has "Already died before." We tried to follow up on that a little bit, but she just said "Later, later..." Interesting to say the least.

We met with an amazing new investigator named Sergei. He said that he used to be religious but now he's atheist. We still proceeded with giving him the Restoration lesson and giving him some chapters to read in the Book of Mormon. At the end of the lesson we asked if he would pray and he said sure. It was one of the most powerful, most sincere prayers that I have ever heard. He started crying during the prayer. We met with him a second time this week where again he said that he's an atheist, but we can see that there is a strong testimony buried somewhere deep inside. We'll continue to work with him.

Another amazing new investigator we met with is Иаков (which is the Russian equivalent of Jacob). He's this really interesting guy who really likes history. We invited him to this baptism that was happening for a man in the other ward, but still in our building and he came. He said it was really interesting. We met with him after and he was so great to teach. When we gave the First Vision I felt the spirit so strongly and I could tell that it was very interesting to him. At the end of the meeting with gave him a Book of Mormon and he said "I'm also coming to your church meeting this week." I was so amazed. We didn't even invite him, he just wanted to come. He came and it was so great.

Went over to this other family's house this week and they are just the nicest members ever. We ate and then shared a spiritual message and then said "OK, now we're going to play a game," and pulled out the board game Munchkin. They said that "When the missionaries leave early the kids get really sad." So we complied and played the game with them for a little while. They're just so nice and so fun. The members here are absolutely amazing.

Something I learned this week - I have been blessed with some very interesting and enlightening personal studies this week. One of my new goals with personal study is to learn enough about the subject to the point of repentance, or rather when I begin to understand and see the higher law that Jesus has put forth. One of the most interesting things I learned about was trials. For example, Romans 5:3 made me realize that I need to "glory in my tribulations" and thank God for giving me these opportunities to improve, not be sorry that I have a new challenge facing me. I would talk more about it all, but I left my study journal at home sadly. It's just been super interesting to learn in the scriptures recently and search for things that will broaden my horizons.

Something that has been a really great blessing is smartphones! I have been on that Quizlet grind. I now make flashcards for every word that I'm studying and whenever there's a moment to study them I just hop on and get memorizing. It's way more convenient than carrying around a little book or flash cards and has been really useful. It's been a great opportunity to be more diligent and find ways to be a more effective missionary.


Thanks to the Lord and his many blessings in response to my attempts to be a more diligent student of Russian I was blessed in one of my more recent lessons. It was a meeting with a new investigator and during the lesson I could understand him really well, and for the first time I was able to say almost everything that I wanted to say. It felt amazing to feel the Holy Ghost working through me in that moment to testify to him about the reality of our Savior and his restored gospel. I know it is thanks to the Lord's blessings in response to my acts of faith. Another amazing tender mercy this week - me and Elder Larson were riding on the bus towards the metro station when I randomly looked out the window and spotted this man that we have been trying to meet with. I turned to him and said "Should we get off?" he said "Yeah." so we bolted it out the door and walked over to him. It was an awesome conversation and he really wants to meet. Really strengthened my faith in the fact that the Lord puts us in the right place at exactly the right time.


Anyways, love you all. I hope that you have a great week!

4th of July in Ukraine

July 8

Me in front of the 'Motherland' statue

This was a really interesting week. Something really interesting that happened was we got smart phones! Pretty exciting. They definitely make the work a lot easier in some aspects, but right now the adjustment to it from a really old dumb phone is really weird. It's been kind of distracting needing to switch all of our contacts and trying to make sure everything works properly again so we can be effective, but we're trying our best. It's pretty interesting but once everything is figured out it will make everything so much easier.

Me and Elder Larson on a Ukrainian flag painted tank. Glory to Ukraine.

We had a super fun 4th of July celebration this last week. We went over to our Missionary Coordination Leader's house. He speaks perfect English and made us some of the most amazing burgers that I have ever had. Maybe it's just been being distanced from good, ol' fashioned, home made burgers for so long, but they tasted SO GOOD. Me and Elder Larson made brownies and ice cream and wow, I really felt like I was back in America for a minute. Felt pretty good. We shared a cool message with him about receiving revelation and then we were on our way! Back to contacting and inviting all to come unto Chirst!

Me being amazed by some amazing Soviet tanks

One of the funniest things that has happened recently was this family that we met. We were just contacting on the street and this man named Igor came up to us and said "Hey, there's these girls that live with me at my house. They don't do anything all day and are drug addicts. Come over and please teach them." At first I was so confused and really felt like that was probably the worst idea in the entire world. I was sure this guy would get us into his apartment, pull out a kitchen knife and then just demand all of our money. Elder Larson said "Yeah, sure." and in my head I was screaming "WHAT?!" but I said a silent prayer in my heart and felt like it was a good idea, so we would let the situation play out. We go in and these 3 girls are all just asleep on their bed. He starts waking them up and threating to pour water on their head if they don't start talking to us. It's all pretty funny and pretty strange. They're pretty cool people and really funny. They asked us to show where it was written in the Bible that they can't do drugs. We explained that it's not directly written that we can't do drugs, and then tried to explain some of the logic behind needing the Holy Ghost and how drugs deny us of that, but they weren't super interested. We decided to reschedule and come back later.

Elder Podoliako, one of the few natives in our mission, Elder Clifford, one of my good friends in our zone, and me. We had just gotten our smart phones and were challenged to make our 'biggest face'.

We came back a few days later and we had no idea how to get back to their apartment. Their apartment phone that we can call that would let us in the front door doesn't work, and we didn't get any of their numbers, so we didn't know what to do. We started just shouting their names at their open windows, but nobody came. We started to pick cherries off of a nearby tree and throw it at their window so they would come to it, but that didn't work either. A lot of people were now staring at us too so we decided to stop that. We just called their neighbor on the little apartment caller at the front door and said we needed to talk with "their neighbor, Igor." Miracle of the Lord, they let us in. We knock on their door - nothing. We knock again - nothing. We wait a little minute and they open the door. They were all completely asleep again. We talk to them for a while, decide that they're not ready for a lesson again, but instead just try to become friends with them for a few minutes. They're really funny and I really like them. We say that we'll come back again in a few days and they need to be ready! They're like OK, sure - give us something to read so that we'll be ready! I was so amazed that they were asking us to give them a commitment. I gave them a Book of Mormon and told them to read everything up to 1st Nephi. I really hope that something will pan out there.

Me and Elder Gale, my MTC companion, snagging a selfie together right after getting our smart phones.

Anyways, I love my mission so much. It's been such a fun experience. Even the difficult times have been some of the best times of my life. I love you so much, and I hope that you all have a wonderful week.

Slow, Slow, Slow

Slow, slow, slow week this week.

Our investigators are doing a really great job of not answering their phones, so we've had only one lesson this past week. That has led to lots and lots of contacting! Not a problem for us, we've been having a really good time with it. 

Funny story with contacting - usually nobody talks to us. They see us from a mile away in our white shirts and ties and already decide how they're going to respond to us no matter what we say. This week we helped a member move and didn't have time to go home and change so we did some contacting in our regular-human clothes. EVERYBODY ACTUALLY STOPPED AND TALKED TO US. It was crazy - absolutely crazy. Our goal is to have 10 conversations with people each day which usually consists of us stopping them on the street, introducing ourselves, our purpose, and trying to talk to them some more but by that time they usually already reject us and say they're either 1. not interested or 2. way too busy for our message. It was so much easier in regular-human clothes, that we got a combined 18 conversations (most of them were quick, but they still count) in a world record pace of 30 minutes. We were kind of losing our minds. 

Russian is coming along a lot better! Yesterday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting and as far as I can tell it was the most understandable one I have given so far. I quoted a lot from Preach My Gospel and from the prophets which made it pretty easy when you have perfectly written Russian already right there in front of you. After sacrament meeting, Bishop asked me to be a part of a SECOND presentation about how to give a good testimony. I'm getting the sense that he's not a big fan of some of the stranger testimonies that get born in sacrament meeting. Makes me laugh sometimes just thinking of how similar this ward in Ukraine is to the ones back in the United States. Living proof that the church is true everywhere and I love it. Anyways, during the presentation 4 members of the ward gave examples of what a 'bad' testimony is and I, being a missionary who can barely speak Russian, can only give a good, basic testimony. During the rest of the presentation, I understood a surprising amount! It's been wonderful to feel the Lord's help with Russian as the Gift of Tongues has become more and more apparent. 

Another amazing part of this week - interviews! I love going over to the Kumferman's so much. Sister Kumferman always makes the most amazing food for us. This week, she made burgers and I got the wonderful opportunity to grill them! That was so much fun in it of itself. Then we played Ticket to Ride, Hearts, and Scum while I waited for my interview and while my companion was getting interviewed. 10/10 experience. One of the most fun moments of the whole transfer to just enjoy spending some time with the mission President in interviews and with his wife outside of them. Great opportunity to kind of unwind and de-stress over the course of the transfer. 

Culture moment for the great country of Ukraine - one of the most interesting parts of Ukraine is the bus system. There are three forms of bus in Ukraine. There is the автобус (off - toe - boos) which is just like buses in America. They're extremely rare, very large, and for some reason take the dumbest routes. They legitimately take the least efficient routes possible. Very confusing. The much, much more common type of bus is the маршрутка (mar - shroot - ka) which literally translates into 'minibus'. That's a pretty good way to describe it, but I think a more accurate description would be glorified van. The third form of bus is also called a маршрутка and is literally just a big van. We take the second form, the most common form, usually multiple times a day. They're very interesting experiences. Most of the time, it's fine. I grab a seat, somebody comes and sits next to me, I try to talk to them, and it goes OK. Contacting on the bus is usually a pleasant experience. My go-to strategy is "Hey, I'm studying Russian, can I practice with you?" The conversation then almost always proceeds as follows: "Sure. Why aren't you studying Ukrainian?" "Well, I'm studying Russian right now, but I'll study Ukrainian later." "Ok." *insert awkward silence* "So, where are you from?" I ask. "Kyiv. Of course." "Cool. I'm from America." *I attempt to insert the fact that I'm a missionary here and that my church is so awesome* "Really? Do you like it here?" "Yeah, I LOVE Ukraine. It's so great." This usually stuns them. "What? America is so much better though!" "No way, Ukraine is awesome. I think it's just as good." More confusion. *insert more awkward silence* "What do you like about Ukraine?" They ask. "The food. And the people of course. They're so wonderful." Then we usually proceed to talk about Ukrainian food for the rest of the ride. Of course, I try to insert my purpose in being here, but they love to talk about the food here. It always leads to good, friendly conversations. I couldn't complain though, the food here truly is amazing. Another really interesting thing is how we pay for the ride. It's always really cheap - only a few Ukrainian notes. The interesting thing is that people always sit down, pull out their money, and then ask the person sitting in front of them to pass the money to the driver. Everyone does it like this. It gets passed all the way up, the driver (who simultaneously makes change and drives) then sends the change back through the same system. The honesty and trust just really blows me away. Sometimes the bus is absolutely PACKED full of people. People here do not have the same sense of 'personal space' as people in America do. People PACK the little bus full of people. There have been multiple times where I am pressed up against multiple people or pressed up against the door. If somebody needs to get off at the next stop, they just somehow squeeze through the whole crowd gathered in the center aisle and slowly make their way toward the door, making full body contact with everyone on the way. Thankfully, I've felt like I have been violated only a few times on the bus. 

One of the other great things we've done this week was today on P-Day! To celebrate the upcoming 4th of July, almost all the missionaries in the Kyiv area came together to play a really ghetto game of baseball in this little field that is randomly in the center of Kyiv. It was so much fun to see so many people again and to have a good time playing sports. 

I love serving so much. This has unquestionably been the greatest decision that I have ever made in my life. I know that this church is true, I know that Jesus Christ lives, and I know that God loves every one of us and is involved in the details - even in times of difficulty and trial we can find peace and joy through God and Christ!

Have a great week, love you all so much!

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