Mikkelsen Muzings: 2016-06-26

Week of June 20-26, 2016
It has been a great week it started off with a visit of a friend from Lviv. Anastasia came to Odesa so that we could meet face to face. We have visited with her over Messenger for most of our mission. We traveled to the train station on Monday morning and welcomed her to Odesa.

Welcome to Odesa Anastasia

This is a location of an underground newspaper that opposed
the Nazi occupation in WWII

She has lived in Ukraine her entire life and this was her first visit to our wonderful town. We had a fun day visiting various sites around the city and had a nice lunch together. She came on the morning train, about a 12 hour ride, and left Monday night for a 13 hour ride back home. We are grateful for her visit.
I was also blessed to be able to talk to all our boys and their wives in celebration of Father's Day. We have great kids and are grateful for their love and support. Of course we didn't talk to Jacob I've always thought that a little unfair that the moms get Mothers Day calls but Dad's are lucky to get a letter. (actually, we are extremely lucky to get wonderful letters from Mexico) I took pictures of the missionaries at church and sent their dads a Happy Father's Day greeting from them.

A happy Father's Day picture of our Odesa Elders

This was a surprise picture we got several weeks ago

It is always fun to get surprises like that from members. So don't be shy about snapping a picture of a missionary in your area and sending a quick post to their parents. It is so easy to do and blesses lives.
This week we had two major YSA activities. Wednesday we had our FHE activity and dinner. We cooked lots of spaghetti. Sister Mikkelsen is always afraid that we will run out so I ate lots of spaghetti left overs. Sunday we had some kids arrive early for a meeting, so we fed them the rest of it. I told them they were doing me a great favor because I couldn't stare another plate of spaghetti in the face. It wasn't too bad, I only had it like 6 times since Wednesday.

The group of spaghetti eaters

We will miss this young lady she is moving to Kyiv

We have been enjoying some very warm and humid weather here the past two weeks. When we go out and then return to our apartment we are so happy for the Air Conditioning. We went over to a missionary apartment this week to check on their AC because it was not working. We tried to call the landlord and couldn't get ahold of him so I called the mission president to get permission for them to stay with us a night or two so they could sleep better. President Packer reminded me that when we served our missions we didn't have AC. He was right I told the missionaries how we handled it in Pennsylvania we would take cold showers in our pajama's and then go to bed wet with a fan blowing on us. After I told them that story and what president said we never did see them at our apartment and the next day the landlord came and fixed the AC. The one place that AC does not exist in this country is in the Mini buses we ride in to get from place to place.

Internet photo but this is standard occupancy level

You get the idea!

The other day we jumped on a bus to go a couple of miles and got caught in a traffic jam after about 4 blocks we just got off and walked. It was so much cooler than sitting in a stifling bus.
Perhaps at this point I should say we are not complaining it is such a wonderful opportunity to be part of a different culture. People who have lived here their entire life will sit on those buses and don't even break a sweat. The rest of us are just dripping. It is all about what we get use to. Sister Mikkelsen has leaned how to make the best chocolate cake from scratch the people here just love it and it is far better than the box mixes in the USA.

Chocolate cake from scratch with fresh strawberries

I told someone the other day that she will never have to buy another box mix as long as we live. She was quick to tell me that she would would never make another scratch cake again in the good old USA.
This week we spent lots of time making callings to the young people in the area reorganizing the YSA Odesa group. On Sunday afternoon we had all of the kids come to our home for a training. It was wonderful to have them here and they were excited to make a difference in this area and go out and find the one.

Fireside crew we were sitting on the floor. Ran out of chairs!

The large foam pad to relax on.

It was Pie Night!

Sister Mikkelsen makes a mean Banana Cream pie

There is much training that still needs to be done but we have a group of excited people ready to serve and that is a positive formula for success. After our training we hosted a fireside and had about 24 people in attendance. These kids are great and have positive outlook on life and will bless this country as they continue to serve.
Let me close this weeks ramblings with an experience I had yesterday at church. This is not something that is unique to this county or culture but underlines our need for Faith. The Natural Man is an enemy to God. I remember reading once about a hypothetical story of how a foreign country invades another country and the first thing they did after occupying the God fearing country was to go into the schools. They told the kids that there was no God and they were going to prove it. So the person in charge told the kids to close their eyes and pray to God for candy. After a short time no candy appeared on their desks. Now they said again close your eyes and pray to the government for candy. While their eyes were closed the person in charge walked around the room and put a piece of candy on each desk. They then told the class to open their eyes.

What kind of (candy) blessings make a difference for your life.

The kids were surprised to find the candy. Then one little girl said that she had opened her eyes and watched the lady in charge place candy on each desk. She said that is right but who gave you the candy God or the Government? So who can you trust to give you the things you want? We often wonder why we don't get the things we want when we pray to God and when we don't get those things, we complain that God does not love us, or he doesn't care, or even worse he does not exist. I had a discussion with a member at church yesterday that is struggling with this concept that they need proof that God is there and that all the rules we live by are really necessary. I went right to the scriptures about living by faith and specifically "Hebrews 11: 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." We must live by faith. If we did not have faith, we would have no agency and we would be living under the Law of Satan. We are so blessed to be able to trust in God and allow him to work with and through us to accomplish his grand design. We must put off the Natural Man and allow our faith to carry us though to the great last day when we will bow before the Savior and testify that he is the Christ and that he atoned for our sins. What a tragedy it will be for those who allow candy to be placed upon the desk of their lives by Satan who would tell you that God is not real. That day will be so sad for those that will need to confess to Christ that he lives and is real. Live by faith and love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and your life will be blessed with much more than a piece of candy.We love you all and wish you the best week ever.Love Elder and Siste Mikkelsen
Janet's mom is struggling but the family is by her side. What a blessing this mortal life is as we get to learn and grow in faith.