Happy New Year

Week December 28- January 3, 2016

I think we had "An American in Ukraine" week.  For the first time, our map didn't get us exactly where we needed to go.  Elder Kudaibergen sent Ned a link to an interactive map of all the transportation routes in the Oblast.  It's worked perfectly until this week.  Ned has been amazing.  He'll plan out the route before we go and every time we have found ourselves as close to our destination as possible, but this week- oops!  Even though we left in time to be 40 minutes early to church last week, we were 20 minutes late.  Wrong bus stop, wrong direction, wrong bus...  Monday we were headed to a huge Technic market.  Took a bus to the train station where we would transfer to another.  Made the change and ended up back where we started- so we went out for a nice Ukrainian lunch instead.  Bought some strawberry yogurt for a fruit salad, opened it and thought I had the wrong container but realized I had picked up chocolate strawberry instead- yumm!

This was a traditional Ukrainian Restaurant.  This is pork loin
with a bed of mashed potatoes. 

And this was supposed to be turkey, but was pork, nestled on a bed
of figs, apricots, and apples in a honey raspberry sauce.
Soooo good!

This one was for Jonathan.  There was a cute Irish
restaurant across the street.  Odessa is a very
Diverse place.  Because it's a port city there are
shops from countries around the world.

We have started teaching English again!  This time to two sweet sisters who need to pass the TOEFL test in order to pursue their education.  You realize quickly how much you don't know about your own language as soon as you try to explain it to someone else.  We are so grateful to Mike Waite.  He took the time to write out examples of several lessons he has used to get us started.  They were perfect!  It's really fun to teach but it really makes you realize how old you are.  These girls just soak everything in.  We'll define 10 pretty difficult words at the beginning of the lesson and before we're through they are using these words in conversation as if they had known them their whole lives.  I can't remember 5 words from one day to the next.

These are such wonderful women!  So smart and dedicated!
and so much fun!

I'm sure the Lord sends only the best Elders and sisters to Ukraine.  We are so blessed to work with these amazing youth.  They stand right up to lead and teach with courage and determination.  They meet a barrage of questions meant to create an argumentative discussion at English Practice with a calm patience that allows the Spirit to lead.  We learn so much as they, being lead by the Spirit, lead District and training meetings and even act as Branch Presidents. And they even keep their apartments clean!  One of our jobs is to do apartment inspections.  I come home from one of those and have to clean up our apartment.  If they come to ours, I need to be a good example!

While inspecting their apartments we were able to take pictures
to send home.  Loved seeing what other mom's send.

This wasn't an apartment inspection.  These two had
been out working, needed to stop by and ask some
questions (the one on the left is a Branch President)
and their feet were so cold they took a second to warm
their toes before they went back out to work.

We are finding that the internet is not always right. Don't believe what it says about holiday traditions.  It won't match what common people do or believe.  Celebrations described at English Practice never match what I have read.  According to Sasha at English practice, New Years celebrations consist of eating a late meal of many tasty dishes with family gathered around, welcoming in the new year with cheers and song and then trying to stay up all night just having fun as a family.  I think gifts are exchanged after midnight.  Then New Years Day would be spent sleeping and relaxing.  One girl said that when she was young she was put to bed early then awakened to see the fireworks at midnight and open gifts, etc.  We live in the center of the city so we got to enjoy the celebrations of those who don't like to stay home.  There were hundreds of people out in the square.  The music was loud enough to vibrate our floors.  A huge bandstand set up about a block away and at midnight a beautiful display of fireworks filled the sky.  They were set off down by the port somewhere.  The next day we had to head to the train station to buy some tickets for elders and met a few fairly jolly people as they made their way home after the festivities.  Thinking everything would be closed for two days (info via the internet) we had stocked up at the store, but stores and restaurants were still open- not all, but a few.  Much like America.  This week we look forward to celebrating Christmas again.

Our New Years dinner. Your can see the 
sausage in the picture. Our Elder from Kazakstan talks
about how they eat Horse meat and love it.  I told him I
would Never! eat horse meat. He asked me what the name on
our sausage that we love so much was this is it коньячна 
the translation is horse.  Thats right for nine months I've been
eating and loving HORSE sausage.

Pizza, American style!

This was a cool Mozaic Mural at the вокзал
(train station).  We had to go the Service Center.
It was pretty comical.  The lady who helped us
was smiling, but we did it!  We bought tickets
all by ourselves!  Of course, when we came back
to change the tickets for the next day, she quickly
referred us to window number 6! ;)

beautiful church just outside the вокзол.  At first i didn't like the
black domes, but it has become one of my favorite churches. 

This doesn't do it justice, but this is one of the
entrances.  The wrought iron work is cool.

You might think this dome to be a little squished, but this is
a mosque, a beautiful one.  Another example of the
diversity.

That says, Uzbekistan Cusine

They had great Uzbekistani stuff in the windows
this looked like a Bamboo Christmas Tree.

The British are coming!  No, this is Suvorov, but he could
pass for Paul.

We keep pretty close tabs on the weather around the world.  Its turned off perry cold here.  We are finally loving the heavy winter wear we were told to bring.  Last Sunday it was 52 F (11C).  This week it was 1 F (-17 C).  We are finally colder than Logan!  Right now it's snowing and we are so glad that we have gas heaters.  Last night I was trying to get a broken I-Pad adapter out of the wall and blew out the power in the whole apartment.  There is power out in the hallway so Ned has extension cords strung about keeping the necessities going.

We had to plug in the heater so the pilot light would stay lit,
the fridge, Ned's cpap machine, and of course, the
computer.  It's tough to go a day without internet.  We didn't bring
any books with us.  So lesson prep and study are all
online. (yes, you see mud on the floor.  That's where
everyone takes off their boots.  Ned had since, and does everyday,
cleaned that up)

We've been looking back over the last year and we have really had a great one!  2 sons married therefore 2 new daughter-in-laws, our first grand baby, a son on a mission, we're on a mission- Ukraine is awesome, graduations, and a million more things I can't think of right now. We have been so blessed and are looking forward to another wonderful year.
Love to you all
the Miks