Spring has Sprung...look out for the goat!

Week of April 6-12, 2015
Welcome back if you have read this before and welcome if you haven't. Spring has sprung the grass is rize, we are going to share some Ukrainian Biz!!
It has been an absolute wonderful week.  The sun has come out everyday this week and it go up to 70 today.  We have the windows open and the breeze is blowing through the house.  The week has flown by we are at the church Monday morning having a Russian tutor lesson with one of our investigators and we turn around it is is Sunday evening and we wonder were the week has gone.  We live in a beautiful area that has been hiding under the grey of winter but this past week the trees are budding out and we are getting ready for an explosion of color.  On the way home Monday evening as we crossed the Boog River (Бог) we caught this photo I love it.

Бог River just at sunset.  This is looking north notice the cool church on the right.

We are having a lot of fun teaching English to the little kids.  The kids are very creative we watched Rechenka's Eggs. The kids liked the story but out Unkrainian social worker that works with us just laughed and laughed he said there is nothing like this in Ukraine.  Even the name is more Japanese than Ukrainian. The story is about a goose that lays the Famous Ukrainian eggs.

After the story the kids made up their own story and so we are in the process of writing that story for them. It is about an old Farmer by the name of Boris we'll see how it turns out.  

We had the opportunity to travel out to the farm again and continued to work on the stumps that must be removed before we can build the green house. If I were standing in the hole the stump is almost as tall as me now.

That cut on the root was done by OLD Elder Mikkelsen with
a small hand Ax.  Wow I'm out of shape I felt it the next day.

There was an early freeze last fall and a lot of the crops that were planted got ruined and it was so cold this past winter some of the seed potatoes froze.  The life of a farmer is a difficult way to make a living.  When we get the green house up and the barn built hopefully that will help solve some of the problems they are facing.  

We had one of our Investigators over she and another sister from the branch taught Janet how to make Vereniki they are potato filled dumplings or you can put other things in them.  We made some with a cabbage salad that tasted like sauerkraut.  They made a bunch of them and luckly the Elders came over and helped us eat them.

It is fun to have people over to the house and fix things but this was defiantly an Ukrainian treat. We now need to make some with cherries in them.  We had the opportunity to travel out to another members home in the country.  We went out and made shish-ka-bobs.  It was a fun place he had goats and sheep.  The goats were very frisky and wanted to head butt us.  

The little black lamb was not real happy with being held.

Country cooking at it's finest.

It is always a blessing to go out in the country and enjoy the special peace that is always present in these little villages. We had the opportunity to watch conference this weekend.  What a blessing to have a living prophet and apostle to lead and guide us.  It is also Easter here on the 12th.  It is wonderful to see all the different traditions that take place.  We got home late Saturday night and realized we didn't have enough eggs to color so we missed out on that part of our tradition but thankfully a wonderful sister in our branch shared two of her colored eggs with us

. They have a special cake they make at Easter time called Paska Cake.  The Branch Presidents wife made us one it is just wonderful.  It takes about six hours to make the cake but I think it was worth it. If you go on the internet you can find recipes on how to make it it is way involved.

Traditions make for wonderful holidays Easter Paska Cake

Well it has been a wonderful week and again if I failed to mention it serving as a senior couple is one of the best blessings you can ever experience.  So put off those things that are holding you back and go out and serve.  The other day a missionary asked us when we decided to serve as a senior couple.  I told him that the decision was made before we were married.  We just had to wait until the kids were gone.  I will always remember the day President Monson announced the lowering of the mission age.  I looked at Jacob and said cool now we can go on our mission earlier than planned. So if you have no plan start one today it is the best experience next to raising kids we have ever had.  May the Lord bless each of you as you serve in the places you are in now and may he bless you as you bless the lives of others.  Have a blessed week I know we will!

Love Elder and Sister Mikkelsen.

PS We just had to share these picture.