A Week of Walking and Birthdays!

Week June 27-July 23, 2016

This week was a week of walking.  We either had errands close by or because we had a few extra minutes, we chose to explore new routes home using streets we had never gone down before.  All these new sites have got me thinking about this amazing country.  Centuries ago, here in Odessa, there were settlements, of Irish, or Greek, or French..... refugees, or travelers, or explorers, or armies....  The Slavic tribes didn't take over in northern Ukraine until the 6th century AD, almost 900 years before Columbus made it to the Americas.   Thats a lot of time for traditions and history to be made.  The Slav's came together and formed Kievan Rus (which Ukrainians and Russians both claim as the beginning of their cultures) and because it was built on an important trade route there were huge advances in art and education, architecture, and law and all those things you read in great literature about trade route cities.

Golden Gate.  The last remaining gate from the fortress
surrounding Keivan Rus.

An Artists rendition of Keivan Rus

Christianity was introduced and most of the population was converted by 988.  But the pride cycle took them down.  Rivalries within Kievan Rus weakened the state and Mongols destroyed them by 1240.  Mongols were forced out by the Poles in the 1500's, the Poles by the Kozaks  in the 1600's(they were a rebel group known for their bravery and love of freedom).  Catherine the Great defeated the Kozaks in 1775 and Ukraine became a Russian Province.

Volodymr I, the ruler who introduced Christianity

Katherine the Great

the same Katherine and her advisors who grace
our front yard

Had to throw this one in.  No one believed that they
had planted marigolds in the E- for
Ekterinskia- or the street named after Katherine.

 For a minute they had independence in 1918, but Germany took over during WW1 and then they were forced to become part of the Soviet Union  in 1922.  Their culture and beliefs were repressed.  Farms were taken and made into huge government farms.  The crops were claimed for emergency storage and the people starved.  Seven million people died by a government caused famine between 1932  and 1933.  Ukraine thought Germany could help them break free of communism but during WW2 they lost millions more lives until in 1942 the Soviets regained control.  They have only their independence from that regime since 1991 and there have been many of challenges since with corruption, economic problems, political scandal, crime, and Russia.  During all of this, these strong people have kept their passion for art and music and their traditions-- stories about their Grand Grand Father or mother and their traditional foods and clothing and holidays.  There's always a holiday!  So much of this was illegal during their years of oppression and was hidden and kept alive by the Grandmothers.  There's a generation- people my age, who, it seems, lost a little.  Their belief in God mostly, but their passion for their history, their Ukrainian roots, remains.

St Pauls Lutheran Cathedral.  it has been just down the
street all this time and we never knew it.

Our little walks around town can't even touch the beauty and grandeur and amazingness of all this, but heres what we saw this week.

One evening we walked down to Primorsky Blvd to do a
little contacting and heard some band music from the dock.

Several ships, both small and large, had come into port and
there was some kind of ceremony going on.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were tours of
all the ships the next day.

This is our entry way.  Beautiful now the vines are fully green.

Stopped on our way for lunch in the park one day.

Eastern Europeans do love their chess games.  This is one
for children.

While waiting for our food, a band entered the gazebo and soon
we were enjoying some traditional folk music.  the ladies near
us were singing along.

We were next to a children's cafe

Random beauty on the side of a building between the
trees back where it would not usually be noticed.

Yup, they have these here too.

Finally found Daniel and Sonina's lock of love they
added down by the bridge.

You too can get a Gold Tooth here it is very fashionable

Not the Hard Rock Cafe but the Harley Rock
they love their motorcycles here.

Local attraction on Saturday it was an Avatar
Now it is Chubacka.

This was our Bountiful basket this week.  2 kilo's of raspberries
melons, corn, nectarines, a kilo of tomatoes, cucumbers, a pint
of honey and some bryndza cheese.  Raspberries we 20 cents
a pound.

It was also a week of Birthday's.  One of our Elders needed to use our oven on P-day to bake a cake mix his mother had sent for his birthday.  First they shared it with us and then several other Elders on a quick run through as they were getting stuff done  Then on his Birthday the whole district came for a quick lunch so we could celebrate all their birthdays.

She not only sent the cake but all the dishes and table cloth too.

Then, after a fireside on Sunday we wished happy birthday to two of our sweet youth.  One is heading to England this week to the MTC preparing to go to the Ireland/Scottland Mission and the other was home on a visa trip and will head back to her gymnastic coaching job in Kazikstan in a couple days.

This was a last minute meal but IT"S MELON SEASON!
so we had sandwiches and melon. YUM!

Birthday youth Max is the new missionary
when he returns we will have a Brough speaking
Ukrainian!  

They had some couples come talk with them about dating and
marriage.  Little ones are always the life of the party!

I guess that's it.  All is well  here, hope all is well there too.  Bunkerville is in bed recovering from the town waterfight as we write this today.  The pictures on Facebook made it looked like it was a great one.  Enjoy your 4th!
Love from the Mik's


 We've been challenged to study some attributes of Christ and these were some of my favorites if anyone is interested.
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/mark-alden-callister_lost-found/
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/arthur-c-brooks_giving-matters-2/
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland_how-do-i-love-thee/
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/brett-g-scharffs_important-three-things-world/

I should also put my source for the history lesson for this week and last.   There is a section in the back of the grammar book used at the missionary training center about the history and culture of Ukraine.