September 10, 2012

Fall has always been one of our favorite seasons and it is definitely fall in Ukraine. The days are shorter, the breezes cooler, the sky is bluer and there is kind of a magic in the air. We have always loved the quote by Ernest Hemingway, "Best of all he loved the fall...the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods, leaves floating on the trout streams and above the hills the high blue windless skies." Well, we don't have the Sun Valley background that inspired this quote but Kyiv is beautiful in the fall.

Fall Morning in Kyiv

Country School

Fall Flowers

Fall Harvest

It has been fun seeing the pictures of all of our grandchildren as they head out to school this fall; new clothes, big smiles and looks of anticipation. Oh, and how could I forget, heavy backpacks. It is not too different here in Ukraine. There are some interesting traditions that we have been able to observe this fall. First of all, the Saturday before school starts is Knowledge Day. All of the children dress up in their best black and white attire – the girls with bows in their hair and the boys dressed in dark suits and ties. They go to their schools with their parents to visit and meet with their teachers. They also have a huge festival on Kreschatyk. There are vendors selling school uniforms, school supplies, and just a lot of gaiety and fun for the students. There are also performances from different schools with all the students dressed in their uniforms. The night before school the students all stop by the markets to buy their teachers flowers, another tradition. And the day school began, Sept. 3, there was definitely a difference in the public transportation. School students ride free. The amazing thing to me was that we saw young children, elementary school age, riding the metro unsupervised. They were as business like as the older people heading to work. I’m sure that they have been trained well by their parents but it was still surprising to me. 

Kindergarten

Elementary Girl with First Day Bows

College girl on her way to Red University

First Day

Middle School Boys on their way to school

August 29--another classroom

Interesting Map of U.S.

City Elementary

10 year old girl on her way to school

Education is so very important. I have been thinking a lot lately about the importance of life-long learning. There are over a billion people on the earth today that are illiterate, but in certain situations there are probably many more. I have learned over the last five months what it is like to be illiterate. It doesn’t mean that you are lazy or stupid. You can instantly become illiterate when you are put into a situation where you are unfamiliar with the language or culture. Kind of a situational illiteracy, but it is real. You find out what it is like not to be able to read labels in grocery stores and you buy things based on the picture on the label. After years of cooking, you suddenly have no clue how to operate a stove, an oven or even change the clock on a microwave and there are books and books of directions but you cannot read them. You do your best but it is mostly a trial and error procedure. You can’t read the notices left on your apartment door telling you that there will be no hot water from the city for the next month. Even though you may know how to pronounce the letters in the alphabet and can read most all words, you have no idea what the words mean. You may know lots of vocabulary but how to put the words together to communicate is a different story. We have definitely learned compassion for all people everywhere in similar situations. Even though you start off in this almost helpless like state, it is interesting to observe other people in the same circumstance and how different people react to this state of helplessness. Those who get out and mix in their environment, make friends, ask for help, and seek the Lord’s blessings, invariably come out on top. It makes us appreciate the young missionaries so much because we see them mastering the language, adapting to their surroundings and becoming knowledgeable in such a short time. When you observe a large number of them all together as we did at Zone conference this last week it is impossible to deny the hand of the Lord in their adjustments and their ability to communicate in this language.  What an example these young ones are to all of us.  

Zone Conference

The temple re-opened on the 4^th, my birthday. It was a great place to spend my birthday. A large group of  saints (I call them that because that is what they really are) from Romania and Moldavia came to the temple last week. They have so many wonderful stories to tell. This is a quote from the life story of the District President of Romania. 

"I was raised in the spirit of prayer, of regularly going to church, the Orthodox Church, and this is why I always felt close to sacred things. I spent my childhood in my native village where I graduated from secondary school during the communist atheism. I mention this atheism because I want to bring here an unpleasant story that happened when I was in the 3rd grade. Before an inspection, we were given atheism materials and we were instructed into how foolish it is to go to church, how there is no God, etc. After being prepared and taught how to answer questions, the school inspection group came. We were given some forms and told to fill them out. I was the only one in the class that professed faith, the belief in God and how good it is to go to church. After the forms were checked, I was brought before the class and mocked. But there was joy in my heart because I kept my faith and I didn’t deny the existence of God."

After being rejected from becoming a Priest in the Orthodox church, he joined the military. In 1994, he and four other men hid in a container and escaped to Canada. They were in the container 12 days. It was in Canada that he was converted and joined the church. In 1996 he felt a strong urging to go back to his home country. His friends thought he was crazy to go back to Romania after all they had gone through to get to Canada, but he felt like he was called to go there to spread the gospel. If you would like to read his entire story, let me know and I can send you the Word document.  He is amazing..

Birthday Dinner

Another exciting piece of news is that a stake was formed in St. Petersburg, Russia over the past weekend so we now have three stakes in Eastern Europe.

Then on Friday, Sister Mastoxa cam from Lutsk to receive her endowments. She actually arrived on the train Thursday but after the eleven hour ride was dehydrated and had to go to the hospital. (She is almost 90.) It was such an exciting day for her and her daughter who is from Poland. It was a little frustrating not being able to converse freely with them but we spoke heart to heart.

At the temple with Sis. Mastoxa

Sunday the International Language Program students arrived and we were assigned four to home teach.  They teach English in the schools all over the city. They are definitely a little afraid – I’m sure that they had no idea what to expect when they arrived here and they are feeling that “situational illiteracy” that we experience in a foreign country. I know they will all love Kyiv by the time they leave in six months.

It was an incredibly busy week but we feel so blessed and are so happy to be here where we can learn from so many wonderful people.  

Quote for the Day:  “What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?”