July 27, 2013

Здравстуите is the common way to great people in Ukraine. What it means is “long

Life - health”. So since I hear that about twenty times a day I am feeling really healthy.

And this I know…… I have never been healthier than the last sixteen months. I really know who is blessing me but with all these people also wishing me long life and good health I can’t go wrong. 

I believe

Saturday was a great day. Prince Daniel Oseamor from Nigeria was baptized. Daniel is an amazing person with a great conversion story that started ten years ago. In 2003 he came out of a bar in Brovery. He saw two missionaries looking very nice and he said hello. They talked to him and gave him a Book of Mormon. He took it home and put it on a shelf in his kitchen. The next night he was out walking in the same place and saw them again. He said hello and they asked if they could come to his house and teach him. He said yes. He loved the Book of Mormon. It brought a good spirit into his home. The missionaries came back and they read together some more. (Elder Christensen from Utah) He read the Book of Mormon alone every day and noticed a great feeling of peace in his home and in his heart. Then his landlord told him he had sold his apt. and he had to move out. He moved to Kyiv and when he got to Kyiv he couldn't find his Book of Mormon. He was sorry that he had lost his book but with all the changes he soon forgot about it. 

Ten years later he saw two elders on the street. He remembered the Book of Mormon and the good feelings he had when he read it. They started teaching him and He knew that it was his first priority to be baptized for the remission of sins. He testified that he knows that God brought him to this place so he could be baptized. His story is really much longer but in the end Gary confirmed him a member of the church and ordained him to the Aaronic Priesthood. And yes, he is a Prince. He says he has a very poor kingdom but he is Prince Daniel. 

Happiness Is......

Daniel's Baptism

Sundays are always great days here in our International Branch. I don’t know if it is because we have to make such  an effort to go to church that makes it seem so much better; seeing all our friends there that we haven’t seen for a week; or all the really great talks we hear and the great spirit that is in all of our meetings, but whatever it is,  it is always a really great day. 

Gary's Gospel Essentials Class

Sunday night I also met up with a friend and we went for a three hour walk which isn’t all that hard to do in this city. My friend Svetlana is someone that I met about a month ago right after we returned from L’viv. I met her on the metro and we went to a great exhibit at a museum close to the office. The museum only had three pieces of art, a Titian Vercelli 1565, a tapestry based on Raphael’s Miraculous Draught of Fishes which was woven between 1626 and 1629 and a Guido Reni (1575-1642). She doesn’t speak much English but it was amazing how much we were able to share based on our limited communication skills. I had the missionaries contact her for me and that is how we got together on Sunday evening. She loves reading and is now reading the Book of Mormon. We walked to Vladimir’s Park then to the Friendship Memorial and then down on the new boulevard that goes to Podil. We talked, laughed and had a real adventure. In August we are going to another museum together. I love all the new friends I meet in Kyiv.

My friend Sveta

Vladimir's Park

Walking Bridge Across the Dneiper

A walk up Andrevski

I finally did it. I had a sharyma. Ever since we arrived in Kyiv I have seen hundreds of these little sidewalk stands selling sharymas with the catchy slogan “Donar Time”. I have to admit that my first reaction was “never”. They do smell good and all the Elders eat them and are still alive to tell the story so while Gary was in L’viv on Friday I decided to give it a try. I had very little expectation and I was very pleasantly surprised. I really liked it. Well, of course I raved on and on to Gary about how good they were and so he relented and agreed to go have a donar for FHE.  What we found out is that no two donars  are alike and they definitely don’t have the consistency of McDonalds. I felt really bad that the ones we had were such a disappointment but isn’t that the way things always go. A funny thing about these sharymas…… When I first saw the stands that sell them advertising “It’s Donar Time,” which is an attempt to say “It’s dinner time,” I thought what they were selling was called a donar.  I have been going around telling people that someday I was going to have a “donar”.  No wonder they looked at me so crazy and wondered what it was that I was really going to have.  Elder Grange, who is also my Russian critic, put me on to their real name, “sharymas.”  And that is what I should be telling people I was going to try. 

Its Donar Time

Sharyma

Last week the Moscow Mission brought 14 young people to the temple.  The qualification to come to do baptisms was to index 5000 names and to find at least one family name to come to do the proxy work for.  Well, the fourteen youth came after indexing over 70,000 names and had a fun week performing baptisms for their ancestors.

 I reached a goal this last week.  Since I have been in Kyiv I have started indexing for Family Search.org. My sister Karen was my real inspiration as she had indexed over 24,000 names before I even started. Well, this last week I passed the 50,000 goal I had set to complete before I finished my mission. It is kind of addicting so I don’t know if I will be able to stop and I probably shouldn’t since we are encouraged to help if we have the time.  

This week is the celebration in Kyiv marking the anniversary of 1,025 years of Christianity in Kyiv. It was in 987 that Vladimir exhorted the residents of his capital to the Dnieper River for baptism. This mass baptism became the iconic inaugural event in the Christianization of the state of Kievan Rus.

At first Vladimir baptized his 12 sons and many Russian aristocrats. He destroyed the wooden statues of Slavic pagan gods (which he had himself raised just eight years earlier). They were either burnt or hacked into pieces and the statue of Perun — the supreme god — was thrown into the Dnieper.

Then Vladimir sent a message to all residents of Kiev, "rich, and poor, and beggars, and slaves", to come to the river on the following day, lest they risk becoming the "prince's enemies". Large numbers of people came; some even brought infants with them. They were sent into the water while Orthodox priests, who came from Chersoneses for the occasion, prayed.

To commemorate the event, Vladimir built the first stone church of Kievan Rus', called the Church of Tithes where his body and the body of his new wife were to repose. And so this week Kyiv is having many celebrations. We will be leaving for Moscow, where by the way they are also celebrating this event in Kyiv, so will miss the celebrations but I was able to get to the Landscape Park to see the entire beautiful flower sculptures created for this holiday. This is one of my favorite places as you have seen on past blogs. It is like going to a mini Tournament of Roses Parade with all the displays made totally of flowers. 

1025 Years since Baptism of Kiev - St. Sophia's

First Stone Church built by Vladimir - Tithe Church

Counldn't resist stealing this shot

Monday was another birthday celebration luncheon during English Conversation Class.

I always make the “birthday girl” her favorite food and this time was quite a challenge. I made Penne pasta with Alfredo Sauce with only a microwave. I couldn’t imagine that it could be done but if you have the knowledge found on the  internet I’m convinced you can cook anything, anywhere.

Birthday Party

A few other visitors at the office on Monday.  Sister Russavage and Sister Nikogasyan

And Tuesday evening we had a fun dinner at our apartment with Elder Grange and his third mini-mission companion Elder Velechkovsky. We have been doing the Domino’s two for one special with the missionaries but I couldn’t handle it another night so we had a much better dinner and a lot more fun in our apartment. I think Elder Grange enjoyed the down home cooking but I’m sure it was a test for Elder Velechkovsky. He was a real sport though and absolutely a perfect missionary. Mini-missions are usually 2-6 week long missionary service by young men in the area that are a little too young to go on a mission or just unable to serve a full-time mission and they are put with Elders when the mission has an uneven number of missionaries. 

Guess who came for dinner..................

Elder Grange and Elder Velechkovsky

During the summer most people in Ukraine spend a lot of time working in their vegetable gardens. These gardens not only supply their food for the summer and coming year, a lot of them sell their surplus at market to supplement their income. This summer work causes a little shortage of workers at the temple so I have now started working there three days a week. I love all the people that work there and the ones that come from near and far to complete the vicarious ordinances for their ancestors, so this is truly a labor of love for me. 

When this blog is published we will be in St. Petersburg. We are leaving for Moscow on Thursday the 25 where Gary will meet with the Office of General Counsel Staff there and then we will take a little holiday to St. Petersburg. We are so excited.

Quote for the week by President Thomas S. Monson:

"Temples are more than stone and mortar. They are filled with faith and fasting. They are built of trials and testimonies. They are sanctified by sacrifice and service."

July 20, 2013