Kyiv Temple, service, and security

    

Week of May 11-17                                            
        This was a land mark week-  and, I'm sorry,  we didn't even get a picture of the landmark.  Elder Brough told us that our EKO Market had супер конті cookies in stock.  We stopped on our way home! This, I know, has no meaning to you all but, several of our language tutors told us about these amazing cookies before we left, but said they would be hard to find because of the war.  They are double layer chocolate covered cookies with a little hole, or dip, in the chocolate on one side.  If you bite another little hole on the other side of the cookie, you can dip the cookie in your milk and suck the milk through the cookie creating a delightful "mush" inside.  I have to admit, it was fun.  Not necessarily the best cookie ever, but fun all the same.  I guess we'll have to buy some more so we can send pictures next week!
     It was kind of a mixed up week this week.  Transfer week seems to always be a little mixed up.  We lost our Dad Elder Kerr.  They sent him up by Kyiv, and now we have another son to take care of us.  (Love these Elders!)  When one Elder leaves they have to go up to Kyiv, usually overnight.  That leaves us with the city all to ourselves.  We're in a city of 400,000.  We lose 2 and it seems a little lonely.  It also means we get to teach all three English classes by ourselves, which is a challenge, but its fun. The beginning group is very grateful for Google Translate and Yandex.  When we come to an impasse, we can always look it up.  =)  We get into some pretty amazing, lively discussions in these classes every week.  With the little kids we just teach English.  (This week it was Friends and the Three Little Pigs.) The adult classes are advertised as "Gospel discussions in English with native speakers".  So, with them, we get to teach English through the 5 lessons in Chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel.  The people love it and come back every week for more.  This week I think we had 8 new people come to join our little family of friends.  They are amazing people.  They are passionate, educated, fun, determined... people.
This is such a wonderful mission that we quite often see returned missionaries who come back for a visit. 

They stopped at a рынок to buy cookies and candy then we stopped at this gorgeous
 campground to put the bags together

       

 One lovely Sister from Germany came back this week.  She and our Primary President wanted us to go with them to a ....hospital/homeless shelter/sanitorium/old folks home/not-sure-what-to-call-it place.  She had raised some money to buy treats to take to the 300 residents.  We bagged up the goodies and headed out to a very humbling experience.  It was in a beautiful town about 1 1/2 hours away.  I wish we had had a huge group of youth who spoke the language and we could have stayed for an hour or 2 to visit, but we only had a short time.  They were so excited to get the little we brought.  It was a good, clean, seemingly happy place, but such a needy place.  There is so much "need" out there, everywhere.  So much work to do! 

    Worked on stump #2 again this week.  Started to dig under the roots.  Maybe 2 more visits and we'll have the thing out so the work can move forward.  I wish we had taken a picture of the path to the farmhouse each time we go so you could see the change in the green from week to week.  You think it couldn't get any greener, but each week it does.  It is absolutely beautiful!  As we were leaving I asked our sweet sister if the weeds we were walking on were the kind you would use to make what they call Green Borsch (the Elders were gone so to anyone watching this would have been a comical exchange).  They weren't but, she took me over to the right kind of plants and started picking.  By the time we left (which was very late.  Ned went on ahead and I had to run to catch up.  If you miss the last bus to town, you are in trouble) I had a huge bag of nettle (yes the stinging kind), sorrel, parsley, and green onions.  Enough to make 2 huge batches of soup.  And it's great soup!  Who'd have thought!

Green Borsch!  Greens,  potatoes, egg all added to the meat and broth.  Umm! вкусно! (tastey)

     I should add something to Ned's parable of these pesky stumps.  ....All I can think of is, "slow and steady wins the race',  even if its only in experiencing the work of removal.  You chop and chop, reach to remove the root to find there is a tap root going straight down holding it in place, or you go to dig the dirt from around the roots so you can get under them and you find that clay, which has been compacting in place for 100 years, has to be shaved off, slice by slice, with a shovel or hatchet, but, you are working with good people singing good music doing a good work having a good time so that you feel bad that it's already time to leave.  I guess, trials and troubles are only trials if you are troubled by them.  (We had to "dig deep" for that one => )

So green and beautiful.  Finally getting underneath!

     We were able to go to Kyiv on Saturday for a branch leadership training.  I loved watching the members of our branch greet their friends from all over the mission.  Ned didn't have a translator in his Sunday School section, but in the Primary group it was sad but interesting to hear their questions and concerns. It was just like being in a Stake Meeting at home.  I decided we are really going to have to hasten the work here though, so that there are enough members to warrant translations of more resources for these stressed out Primary workers.  I do need to shout out a big thank-you to our Ward Mission Leader and to our Elders.  They are so good to translate for us, constantly, and they have to make sure we get to where we need to be- on time (which means getting up early to call a taxi for us then make sure we get to the right train, etc).  They are wonderful! Missions are wonderful! The gospel is true!  Hurrah for Israel!  Everyone come on a mission! You are so needed!
Have a great week
Love to you all

Leadership Meeting- all meetings are at the Temple site.

This weeks guest for Sunday Dinner.  So much fun.  Don't have enough chairs so we have
 to move the table into the living room when we have more than 4 guests.

  

As you can see security is a top priority here.
You can also see how our neighbors door and ours meet.
Hope we never try to leave at the same time.

Our apartment door opens into our neighbor's door.  Quite often, sometimes early
in the morning, we would carelessly let our handle knock their door.  She sternly
corrected me one day(not sure what she said but the meaning was clear)  so Ned
created the wonderful doorstop