Week of March 14-20, 2016
What a wonderful week! It was a little different this week if you read last weeks blog we were up in Kyiv at the beginning of the week and planned on staying there most of the week but that was not in the cards! We booked a return train trip on Tuesday afternoon and rode the Intra City Express back to Odessa. It's a 7 hour train ride leaving Kyiv at 4:30 PM and arriving in Odessa just after 11:30 PM. If you are a sound sleeper, it is a good ride, and if not, at least they have charging ports by every seat so that your iPad doesn't die. We rolled into the house just after Midnight on Wednesday morning.
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| Very comfortable first class seats |
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| High Speed train to Odessa |
They say that traveling is for the young and after that long on the train I tend to agree with them. We are looking at several more of those rides to Kyiv and back in the next couple of months. The first of April we have a couples conference in Kyiv which we will travel up on Friday morning and home on Saturday Afternoon. In May Daniel and Sonina are coming to visit us and so we will travel up to Kyiv on the night train on May 8 and then back to Odessa Tuesday afternoon with them in tow. We are excited for their visit. Time on the train is part of the "adventure".
Wednesday we made our way to the hair dresser and got our hair trimmed that is a pleasant experience here. The ladies who cut hair here are very skilled and do a wonderful job and the cost is minimal, for both of us it was 250 Grieven, which translates in to less that $10 and that was including a rather healthy tip. The Dollar has been very strong here that last couple of months which is good for the Americans but it is terrible for the Ukrainians.
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Exchange rate signs are everywhere this is old
the rate is 2610 to 2700 |
I hope the exchange rate falls a little bit over the next few months so that these wonderful people do not have to struggle so hard. The mission driver and his wife are leaving for America this week and so we had a long talk with him about the cost of things in America. Luckily for them they have enough contacts there that they have places to stay so they don't have to eat out every meal or rent hotel rooms.
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| After the hair cut lunch in a different restaurant |
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| My good look lunch date |
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| Sister Mikkelsen chooses a healthy lunch |
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| Elder Mikkelsen's lunch, what can I say (not Healthy but good) |
Traveling to America is a dream of many of the people here, our Elder Kudaibergen, who just got released from his mission, went home to his beloved country of Kazakstan last week and spent a week there with his grandparents and other relatives and then just two days ago headed to America to live with his mother who is going to school to improve her English.
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Our Elder Kudibergian made it to his mothers side
this week. Good luck in America! |
Having a command of the English language is a great blessing to people in this area. They become much more hirable and make a much better wage. We just pray for those who travel over to America, with a hope that they will return to their home countries, so that they can use their skills to bless their country and the local churches. One of the main reasons for the Pathway program that we are working with now is to increase leadership skills in the people in their home countries so that they can bless their lives and other lives around them.
The rest of the week just flew by as we were getting ready for a Super Saturday activity with the Seminary kids on Saturday.
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On our trips to the stores this is the type of street art we pass all
the time |
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| More decorations on the buildings |
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| Even the window have an artistic flare |
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| Red Poppies are big here in Ukraine |
Feeding a large group is a project all in its self. It takes about four different trips to the Renok and grocery store to buy everything you need, then a couple of days to prepare the home made cookies and other things for the dinner and then several trips to the church hauling all the stuff. It becomes quite a process. It is a joy and we love it, well most of the time. We were making pulled pork sandwiches for the dinner on Saturday and decided that we didn't want to have to carry the hot meat to the church in the crockpot, so early Saturday morning we loaded the 4 Kilos of pork and the crockpot into our large backpack and headed over to the church about 7 AM. It was very uncomfortable. The crockpot was stabbing me in the back. But about half way there things shifted around and it no longer was poking me in the back. About 2 seconds later I heard a loud pop and the backpack got a lot lighter.
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| It was a sad day we lost a very close and helpful friend |
I turned around and there was our crockpot shattered all over the sidewalk. The backpack had unzipped and the crockpot had fallen out. So it was back home to cook everything in our oven instead of at the church and we are down one crockpot. They are not easy to find here so a replacement may never happen, which is very sad, because we use that thing all the time. There must be a lesson in this somewhere. I have been trying to think what it was.
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| Super Saturday CES instructor working with the kids |
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| President Packer captures the kids attention with an object lesson |
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There are all types of traps waiting to catch us. He had
the kids attention with this lesson |
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You may think these to be everyday seminary students and you
are right. Awesome youth! |
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| They can eat! |
The dinner turned out great even without our trusty Crock. Maybe that's the lesson, we can make due with what we have and the Lord will bless us to make us equal to the task.
Yesterday we had a fireside with our Young adults on the importance of temple work. As we were sitting there, the thought entered my mind that there was a temple dedication taking place at that very moment. I checked the time and sure enough we were meeting at the exact time that the Provo City Temple was being dedicated.
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Sister Carr, on the right, served in Kyiv mission and Alessa Bevzok,
on left, served in the Liviv mission and lived in our last area.
She is now in America and they just got out of the temple dedication in Provo |
Having that thought added to our fireside strengthen the spirit as we thought about the thousands of people waving their white handkerchief doing the Hosanna Shout! We are so blessed to have the temple in our lives.
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After Fireside treats at the Mikkelsen's house. Igor made some
great coolies! |
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| We have a great group of kids |
We that live in the middle of Temple Heaven, Utah, don't understand the blessing of having a temple near at hand. These people, even in Odessa, will struggle for months to save up enough money to ride the train to Kyiv to go to the temple for a day or two.
They are not riding in a seven hour train but they take the cheaper trains that take 12 + hours to get there and have very uncomfortable seats. They count themselves lucky because when they get there they will meet people from all over the East European area that have traveled two and three days to get there and can only come one or twice in their life time. Members always ask where we are from and the next question is always, is there a temple near by? When you show them the church map of temples around the world and then zoom in on Utah they can't believe there are so many temples so close together.
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Lots of temples in the world but only one
for all of eastern Europe which includes all
of Russia |
So when the trip to the temple seems like too much of a bother because it will take 30 minutes to drive and you have to fight the traffic, just think of these people. When they get off that 12 hour train rid,e they take a Tram for another 40 minutes and then have to walk for another 20 minutes to get to the temple and they count themselves lucky. So go to the temple and bless your life and a life of someone else who is waiting on us to not be too busy.
We want to wish each of you a wonderful week and a Happy Easter. Our Easter here isn't until May 2 they use the Greek Orthodox calendar. Remember the Savior and His sacrifice and resurrection that we celebrate this week.
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| Ukrainian Easter basket |
Love you all The Mikkelsens.
PS our Baby turns one this next week pictures next week!
