June 23, 2013

More holiness give me, more strivings within.
More patience in suffering, more sorrow for sin.
More faith in my Savior, more sense of His care.
More joy in His service, more purpose in prayer.
More gratitude give me, more trust in the Lord.
More pride in His glory, more hope in His Word.
More tears for His sorrows, more pain at His grief.
More meekness in trial, more praise for relief.
More purity give me, more strength to o’ercome,
More freedom from earth-stains, more longings for home.
More fit for the kingdom, more used would I be,
More blessèd and holy, more, Savior, like Thee.

This hymn is one of my favorites and is per­haps one of the most beau­ti­ful of all com­po­si­tions writ­ten by Philip P. Bliss in 1873, af­ter he had giv­en up his mu­sic­al con­ven­tion work en­tire­ly and en­tered ful­ly upo­n his life­work for the Mas­ter. It seems that it was on­ly af­ter he had giv­en up ev­er­y­thing and com­mit­ted him­self and all his gifts to the Lord’s ser­vice, that he was en­a­bled to write such a hymn as this.
Bliss called the hymn “My Prayer” but thou­sands in ev­ery Chris­tian land have made it their prayer as well, and it will con­tin­ue to voice a heart­felt want of mil­lions in years to come.

Mr. Bliss was at the time of his death a mem­ber of the First Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church of Chi­ca­go. On one oc­ca­sion dur­ing his work as an evan­gel­ist, he was asked to sing this song in church. He struck the keys on the pi­a­no, stooped for­ward, and read­ing the words in the lat­ter part of the first verse, "More joy in his service," said, “I do not think I can sing that as a pray­er anymore; it seems to me that I have as much joy in serv­ing the bless­ed Master as it is pos­si­ble for me to bear.” 

And that is truly the way that I feel when I am in the service of the Lord, especially serving in the Kyiv Temple.

Sunday June 16  - Father’s Day in the United States but not really celebrated in Ukraine. It was the last day for many of the embassy families to attend church as they are all leaving for the summer so after church we had a “linger-longer or dash and dine” following the services. It was also kind of a farewell party for three of the Temple missionary couples that are leaving in a week and also the Mission office couple. The food was delicious and the company grand. And of course the weather was absolutely beautiful. 

Linger longer

Departing interns

Vatican Embassy

Monday evening I was returning some things to the Schorrs' and since I had to make cookies for the missionaries that we were taking to dinner on Tuesday I made some to take to their family. They live about 2 kilometers from us and it was a great evening. I stopped to talk to a cute family along the way when they greeted me with “hello”. I needed some language practice so I started my little Russian introduction speech and they were able to practice their English skills on me. It was interesting that they actually knew where Idaho was and mentioned the weather there. They reported that it was so cold there and snowing and I told them that the weather was pretty much like Kyiv. When I got home I saw where there was actually snow in the mountains that day so they actually knew more about Idaho than I did. It is really fun walking in the evening as it stays light so late here and everyone is either out walking or sitting on their balconies enjoying the evening.  (This is totally contrary to something that Gary read on the internet before we left. Actually the sun comes up about 4:30 AM and it is still light at 10:00PM---it is quite different in the winter but summer is a wonderful time here.)

Kyiv sunrise

Enjoying a summer evening

We had an occasion to have dinner with the Elders Grange and Van Schlegell that are in our area.  Of course it takes the missionaries at least 30 minutes or more to get to our apartment so we try to find places close to where they are teaching to make it more convenient. We love having time with them and hearing about all of their missionary experiences and we are so impressed with their resilience, dedication, sense of humor, and proficiency in the Russian language. The Lord loves His missionaries and so do we.

Elder Von Schelgell and Elder Grange

June 19 – What started out to be a quiet night out at the symphony turned into a group event when one by one several couples wanted to also have an opportunity to hear Gershwin and we were so fortunate to have an internationally famous Russian pianist, Vadim Rudenko, as the guest soloist. We enjoyed a dinner at a Crimean Restaurant before the concert and then were wowed by the concert itself. It was a wonderful evening.

Dinner before symphony

Vadim Rudenko

Thursday was birthday party day for one of my English class groups. These girls are so adorable and I will miss them so much. They are all returned missionaries and already know English quite well but we have fun talking, reading together and sharing experiences and that is a major part of preserving your ability to speak a foreign language. I hope I still have Lena to talk to when I return.

Birthday time

I have wanted to go to Mamayeva Sloboda, an outdoor museum, since I heard about it a few weeks ago. Friday seemed to be an opportune time so Jill and I headed out early while it was still cool. We were the only ones at the park which was nice as I am sure it is crowded with this weekend being a holiday weekend (Pentecost). We had a fun morning there and although it is much smaller than Pirogov Village it is an enchanting replica of a historical settlement built around the Lybid River and basically right in the middle of Kyiv. One thing I love about Kyiv is all the parks, trees, forests and hiking opportunities right in the middle of the city. 

Entrance to Mamayeva Sloboda

Scythian statue of Mamay

Picturesque

Church

Country living

Haven't we seen him before?

village girl

notice the baby cradle

This was also a fun week as I was able to meet up with a friend I made at the Classic Concert on the evening of the 1533 birthday of Kyiv. Helena and I met at the park across from the office and conversed as best we could. We shared family pictures and she took me to see Vladimir’s Cathedral. I then invited the Sister missionaries to meet with us on Saturday so we could have an easier conversation with them there to translate. We met and went to the area by the Friendship Arch. Helena had made us a little picnic with blennies, deruny (potato pancakes) and pickled cucumbers. She is just the sweetest person and we had a very enjoyable time. We will meet with her again in a week. 

Valdimir's Cathedral

Looking across the Dnepro where Helena lives

Sister Russavage, Helena and me

Sunday we were down to two children in primary, Clark who is 3 and his sister Lilly who is 5, and who will be leaving this week for America. We had a really fun time playing American childhood games like Ring Around the Rosie, and London Bridges Falling Down which neither of the Ukrainian sisters knew and then since the children had their shoes off I taught them the Scandinavian toe names that my father had taught us as children and has passed on in our family and which we thought was really funny--  Eekie pee, penny rue, Rudy whistle, Mary hossel and old Tom Bumbo. And then we spent time playing, eating berries and taking pictures around the Temple. It isn’t everyone that has this wonderful opportunity right outside the church house. 

Clark and Lilly

 Quote for the week by Wallace Goddard: 

“One of the most important lessons I have learned is that joy does not depend upon our circumstances. Having joy does not require comfort, health or life going in the direction I prefer. It is an inner condition that is relatively unaffected by life’s circumstances. I can choose to be grateful for the magnificent God who presides in my life and all lives. I can look for and appreciate blessings that He extends to me even during this challenging experience.” 

June 9, 2013

When we first came out on our mission, our daughter –in-law told me to be sure to take pictures and write about everything unusual because before long everything would see usual. What she said was very true. So for the first little while I included in the blog all the extraordinary things about Kyiv. Many things like the flowers in the underground, the wonderful vegetable and meat markets, the babushkas selling everything under the sun, the endless stairs, the metro, the marshrutkas, the cars parking on the sidewalks, the colorful buildings, the sidewalk sweepers the men that water the flowers in the parks without getting out of their trucks  but most of all the faces of reality that I have grown to love were there so today I have decided to add a few more pictures and interesting things I enjoy here in Kyiv.

Market friend (calls me the Romaine lady)

Beautiful produce

Watering the park flowers

Sidewalk sweeper

Favorite face

Alyona

Natasha and Ira

Today when I was walking through the park I saw something unusual and so cute that I just have to mention it ......a sidewalk library. It was adorable and full of new books to borrow. The rule is "borrow a book, return a boo,"  or "take a book, leave a book."  There were books for children, teens, and adults………. history books, fiction, classics and now even a Book of Mormon.  This is such a refreshing idea to me and I do hope that this little library will be protected and provide the opportunity for many people to enjoy the wonderful world of books.

Julia in front of street library

 

Sidewalk library now has a Book of Mormon

One interesting thing that I see every time I go to the temple but have never mentioned and that I find interesting are the truckload markets. Off to the side of the road there will be little parking lots filled with dump trucks full of so many different things……bricks, dirt, gravel, lumber, sheet rock, insulation, you name it you’ll probably find it. Building contractors or just every day builders come to the truck market, purchase a truck load of whatever and then viola……it is delivered to wherever you want it delivered. No need for a truck to go pick up what you need. Very convenient.

Dump truck market

Another thing that is so very interesting is the surprise behind all the doors along the street. You can open a door and find a shoe repair, a dressmaker, a 5 and 10 hrevna (dime) store, a bead store, a fabric shop, a needlework supply shop, a flower store, a notebook store, whatever. It makes me think of the phrase from a quiz show, “and behind this door………”

 

5 rph (dollar) store

And one really interesting thing that I did recently was go on a hike with my friend Jill  up Zamkova Hora, literally Castle Hill. This is a historical landmark in the center of the city. The place is called "Zamkova" because Vytautas the Great had his castle here and some important events of Ukrainian history took place on this hill. There is an amazing view from the top and the climb is so interesting. It is very overgrown and every turn in the path has about four options of which way to go. The first part of the climb is up about 150 stairs. Hiking around in the dense growth we came up on an old cemetery and a crumbling wall that we are quite sure was one of the castle walls.

Zamkova Hora park

In the park

Stairs in the park

View from the park

Old cemetary in the park

One of our views was a part of Podil that looked quite fascinating to me. It really looked  like a movie set and so on Saturday I went down to that area and it really was like stepping out of reality and they were making a movie on one of the streets and there were seven weddings around the rest of the streets. It was all very interesting.

Is this real or just a movie set???

One of the seven weddings on the streets

Well, enough on that for a week. This was a busy week all around. Gary was busy with work, I did an extra shift at the temple and we also had a lot of fun social events. To start off, President Klebingat’s parents were here from Germany and with a few of the senior couple missionaries leaving we had a little dinner and social at a restaurant called Sim Sim.  It was Armenian Restaurant with a wonderful atmosphere and we had such a fun time.

Dinner with Klebingats and senior missionaries

On Sunday after church, the Ricks had us over to their apartment for dinner. And then on Monday we met for probably our last monthly senior missionary dinner as several of the couples will be leaving this summer.

 

The Stuart’s son Joe and his wife Kristen arrived from the USA this week and we went to a little Ukrainian restaurant on Wednesday evening with them. Marcia and Jay will be 

leaving to go home in July along with two other temple missionary couples.

Dinner with Stuarts

Now I have to add a little plea right now for more senior missionary couples. A lot of the couples going home do not have any couples coming to replace them. I think all of the new missions are taking a lot of the senior couples but there are so many areas in the church that need senior couples. I can guarantee you that it is not a sacrifice but a great blessing, personally and to your families. So if you are even starting to think about it, move forward and join the ranks of the young elders and sisters that are coming in full force. We have so many sister missionaries coming that the ones that have only been here one month will be training new Sister missionaries next month.

 

And speaking of sister missionaries, we decided to continue our restaurant tour this evening and we took the sister missionaries to dinner. We have been working with them on a few investigators and this gave us a chance to get caught up and also get to know Sister Zharkova who arrived from Russia a few weeks ago. Also, a camera crew was here from Utah to take pictures of missionaries for a special edition of the New Era coming out in October and they took a picture of Sister Russavage and Sister Zharkova teaching a lesson to Luba (see blog April 6) and another babushka. The cameraman had a really great conversation with her when he found out that she was at one time a famous journalist.

 

Sister Russavage and Sister Zharkovo

Our beautiful granddaughter Sylvie Lucille has chosen to be baptized this week. We are so proud of her for making this important decision in her life. We are sorry that we have to miss this big event but it is just one of the many important things that we have missed while being in Ukraine on our mission, but knowing that we have the support of our wonderful family makes missing these special events bearable.

Our granddaughter Sylvie!

Since baptism is such a crucial ordinance I have chosen to share with you one of my favorite talks about the importance and reason for this ordinance as explained by Nephi in the Book of Mormon and is found in II Nephi, Chapter 31.

 

4 Wherefore, I would that ye should remember that I have spoken unto you concerning that prophet which the Lord showed unto me, that should baptize the lamb of God, which should take away the sins of the world.

 5 And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfill all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water!

 6 And now, I would ask of you, my beloved brethren, wherein the Lamb of God did fulfill all righteousness in being baptized by water?

 7 Know ye not that he was holy? But notwithstanding he being holy, he showeth unto the children of men that, according to the flesh he humbleth himself before the Father, and witnesseth unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments.

 8 Wherefore, after he was baptized with water the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove.

 9 And again, it showeth unto the children of men the straitness of the path, and the narrowness of the gate, by which they should enter, he having set the example before them.

 10 And he said unto the children of men:  Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?

 11 And the Father said: Repent ye, repent ye, and be baptized in the name of my Beloved Son.

12 And also, the voice of the Son came unto me, saying: He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost, like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do.

 13 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of 

angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel.

Baptistry in Kyiv Temple