Love, Living, Learning, Looking and Lifting.....

Week of February 15-21, 2016
It has been a very eventful week as we have had more wonderful firsts.  But first things first! We are now official Pathway Missionary Graduates.  We completed our BYU-I training and will soon have our own official classroom in the Vidyo system that is used by BYU-I to host Pathway classes.

I love this graphic of the Path in Pathway

The church is inspired and Heavenly Father and His Son are in charge.  In 1971 Elder Eyring promised that the then Ricks College would provide learning to students throughout the world. This program is the answer to that revelation so many years ago.  BYU-I reaches out to thousands of students throughout the world and provides affordable educational opportunities that they could never dream of having without this program. We are excited to be part of it. We just need to sign up ten students anywhere in Ukraine and then on Thursday nights we will all meet together Via Vidyo and have class.   BYU-I has been ranked in the top 25 universities with the most innovative teaching methods.
This week we hosted another FHE for the Young Adults.  They are such a fun group of kids.  We had 15 in attendance.

Fun group of kids  This is a stairway that goes to
the apartment above us.  It belongs to the
landlords daughter.  It is beautiful but she only
visits a couple of times a year. She has a place
in London and New York City

We invited a loving couple from the Central Branch to come and talk to them about dating and finding your eternal companion.  We had given the kids a survey several weeks ago and this couple addressed the questions that the young people were asked in the survey.  Many of the questions are world wide dating challenges, but we had a few country specific.  For instance, here, when you go out with a person, after the first date you are a thing and no one else will date you. Some of the guys said that the girls think 1 date = marriage.  Girls said that the guys don't take it seriously enough.  So as you can imagine the next comment was "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus".

Ok I've never read this book but I'm sure
that there will still be plenty of mysteries
after reading it.

 So, no one has a corner on dating and marriage solutions.  The best solution we could come up with was that you need to be actively engaged in the dating process.
The next first was that a wonderful couple from our last area tied the knot this week.  The man that started the branch in Vinnistya many years ago was sealed to the Branch Primary President.

The Happy Couple.
In Ukraine you must be married by the
state prior to a temple wedding

This is his youngest daughter. 

This was the sealing day. Notice the difference
in his smile.  What a blessing to the church
in Ukraine to have this family sealed together.
She has two younger daughters so now it is a
family with 4 kids.

So, two of the strongest families in the Vinnistya branch were joined together and now make one big happy family.  The oldest daughter of the husband was best friends with the Primary president, so I asked her how it was to have her best friend as her mother.  She is super excited about the marriage.  Both of these wonderful people have always wanted an eternal marriage and now they have it, we are so excited for them.
This past week we have made an effort to get out of the house as often as we can and go strolling around.

You have to love the detail on the buildings

Locks of love.  This was made so that couples could put a lock
on this monument the day they were married to lock their love.
There is a bridge right here but there were so many locks on
it the bridge was being damaged so they removed the locks and
built this monument. 

Street performers are everywhere.  This guy is
really good.

There are lots of parks and lots of statues this
one is awesome

This building looks like it came right out of a Batman movie
from Gotham City. The detail is unbelievable.

We found this guy. He is being restored but he is still impressive

The people here are so kind and loving.  We were гулять-ing (to stroll or strolling) down one of our favorite streets and saying добрый вечер (Good Evening) to everyone we walked passed and one little old man stopped and returned our greeting.  Now that is always a little scary because you know you are going to have to talk to them.  So I threw out my normal do you speak English (вы говорите по-англиьски) and he said Het (no) so we proceeded to use all the normal phrases and before long we had a new friend.  We asked him his name and he very proudly said Ivan Constantinovich.  It had such a noble ring to it I just knew he was a man with a great background and we left him with a pamphlet and we walked away.  I just felt like this was a man that would someday have the fulness of the gospel in his life and our little chat was part of that process.  As it tells us in Preach My Gospel no effort is wasted.  There is a little old poor couple that has a dog and everyday they are on the street cleaning.  We have become good friends with them and again the language is an issue but friendship speaks many words of love.  Sister Mikkelsen has befriended a little lady that sits on the corner every evening with her cup in hand hoping for people to share their spare change with her.  Well we don't give out money but we share what we can.  One day we gave her a bag of mandarins and she was so happy. These people are all so loving and kind they buoy us up each day.
Today at church we had our first Linger Longer since we have been in Ukraine.

Lots of yummy treats

This is the branch enjoying the get together
Cia (tea) is a big thing here and they made pots of
Fruit compote (tea) It is very good.

 It was so fun.  There were many wonderful treats and we were able to spend some additional time visiting and getting to know the members of our branch a little better. This week we received a custom set of Matryoshka  dolls that we ordered several months ago.  So now we have our whole family with us including the dog.

Here is the family as seen through the eyes of a  Matryoshka artist.
Our names are on the bottom of each doll.  Jonathan has always
wanted to the the tallest brother so now it's a reality.

 Today as we had lesson #3 from President Howard W. Hunter we realized that there will always be opposition.  It is the thing that makes us stronger.  He stated that "Our detours and disappointments are the straight and narrow path to Him"  So in your prayers tonight thank your Father in Heaven for your challenges and also for the ability to over come them.

Last week Sister Mikkelsen talked about the statues on the building
carrying the load of the world.  This guy only has to use his finger
tips to hold up his load. You would think he is really strong
until you look at the rest of the building shown below.

Actually it is the ladies that are carrying the majority of the burden
much like it is in everyday life.  Opposition in all things.

Our beautiful returned missionary English student. She is also
the institute teacher for the youth in the area.

Entrance to an indoor mall

Mall interior it is very ornate and fun to wander around in.

Detail of the above picture. Lots of sculptures have a Titan of the
deep type motif. 

Masted ship in the harbor just a couple of blocks from our home.
That is the Black Sea in the background.

Each day is just one more day of spiritual exercise to help us grow stronger. So have a great work out this week.
We love you Elder and Sister Mikkelsen

Part of the Ukrainian Navy?