The continuing Parable of the Stump

Week of May 4-10, 2015
The week flew by again and now here we sit reporting on all those wonderful things that took place this past week. We have been blessed with many spiritual experiences.  On Saturday one of our wonderful investigators committed to be baptized.  That is so exciting that they will be able to have the blessing of the gospel in their life.  We make decisions each day as we face the challenges of life.  What do I wear, should I go here or there, should I buy this or that, ..... the list continues.  Many of those decisions carry very little weight by themselves but all added together they make up who we are.  We must each look at our course and decide if we are on the strait path. Notice the word is STRAIT not "straight".  The second one denotes a direct undeviating path that we just walk down.  The first STRAIT represents a path that may have many twists and turns.  Boats must travel through straits all the time and it is a very tedious navigational task that requires constant vigilance by the navigator and course corrections by the pilot.  We too in our journey need to make sure we are navigating the "STRAIT" path of life with great vigilance and that we are piloting ourselves very carefully by following the directions of the "Navigator" even Jesus Christ.

This is a river tour boat that we pass by everyday

As we pray each day we are opening that communication line and we need to listen for the course changes as they are whispered to us. For instance this week we traveled to Kyiv to have interviews with President Packer.  What an amazing man!  He gave us several course corrections for our mission ship and now we are making course corrections to be on the correct heading for success as a mission couple.  One of the assignments I have been given is to assist the members in improving their teaching practices. At first I had all these grandiose ideas of things that I could do to teach wonderful, inspirational lessons.  I began to prepare for Sunday's lesson and then in the interview with President Packer he said something that hit home.  He said that these wonderful people are doing all that they can and it is not our responsibility to add to that burden.  Wow I had to go to my knees and seek for guidance in how to approach the lesson teaching concepts.  As a missionary I have lots of time to prepare to teach lessons.  The members are working so hard and have so many other things to do that they could not spend the amount of time or resources that I was thinking about.  So the Navigator gave me some gentle course corrections and I planned a completely different lesson.

A little taste of home while visiting Kyiv.  Notice the Ukrainian by my shoulder

We had the opportunity to go out to the farm to work and enjoy companionship with some wonderful members.  We got there and it was time to go to the other stump that is also inside the boundaries of the proposed greenhouse.  Last week it was a joyous occasion when we finally got the first stump out but now we have an even larger and more stubborn stump to remove.  So here is page two of the parable of the stump.  In life we all have stumps in our gardens and we work so hard to remove them and when we do it is a joyful occasion.  However as in this garden there is another stump that is even bigger and deeper than the last one. I think all of us in life realize that getting one stump out of garden of life is not the end of the work.  We will always have other Stumps that will affect our garden and we will need to remove them also.

Just one more "Stump" we all have them in our life

Farm wagon and springtime vegetation 

One blessing of getting the first stump out is that we know we can do it. We just need to continue to chop and dig at the other ones until we too can remove them.  It's my prayer that each of us will continue to work on the stumps in our lives so that our garden plot of life will be clear and ready to receive the seeds of faith that we can plant and nurture until they spring up and bless us with a sure knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel.
We hope you all had a wonderful Mothers Day.  Janet was doubled blessed this year she had both Mothers Day and her birthday on the same day.

Birthday sign and balloons at 2:30 AM

Same thing at 8:00 AM (It's the thought that counts)

Flowers and gifts Janet got on her birthday.  The picture is
painted on real papyrus. 

This cute card turned into a bouquet of flowers. The creator is so talented!

So in celebration we invited some people over for a good old Bunkerville-style Bar-B -Que.  I purchased a small portable charcoal stove and charcoal (not the briquette things we have in USA but the real charcoal).

Celebration Dinner sorry didn't git a picture of the new grill.

 The chicken turned out great and we had a wonderful evening with one of the families in the Branch and our investigator.  We also had the biannual phone call from Jacob in Cancun.

The blessings of Skype "Happy Mothers Day"

Oh look it's Daniel holding his new niece.
Happy Mothers day (love Skype)

He is doing great and teaching about 40 lessons a week.  It was wonderful to talk to him and all of our kids.  What a blessing Skype is. It is the next best thing to being there.  Well, thanks for listening to my half hearted attempts at parable writing.  We pray for all of you and hope that you will will have a blessed week. I know we will.
All of our Love  Elder and Sister Mikkelsen.

This is how they cook Georgian Bread
It just hangs on the walls of the oven.

It was Victory day this week. There were lots of celebrations.
This is the local Victory Square.

<= Life is good when you get out of the house and get to work! =>

Week of April 27- May 3, 2015    
Life is good when you get out of the house and get to work! This is a panorama shot from a field where we were helping to plant raspberries. Beautiful!  Life is good! Tuesday at English class our friend Sasha told us there was no better place on earth than Ukraine in the spring.  It is beautiful and getting more so every day.
     Friday we were able to go on a picnic with a wonderful family in our branch, the Elders and our friend Zina.  There are parks everywhere many of which are set beside the river or a lake.  Families go there to just walk, play, feed the birds, swim and to cook up some shashlik.  We thought shashlik was just shish-ka-bob's but I guess it can refer to any meat cooked on a grill, over a fire, outdoors, and eaten with bread and ketchup.  It was so much fun!  We hope we can get branch members together like this more often.

We were taught by this sweetheart how to weave flowers into a crown!  (If you look closely you may not think these to be flowers, but dandelions and pigeons here are thought by most to be delightful, by only a few to be a nuisance.)

On Tuesday we were asked to help at a Special Olympics event.  Teams from all over come here to play soccer.  Other events take place later in the year in different towns throughout the country.  The young guys were assigned to play on different teams and we helped with activities for the participants to enjoy while waiting for their games to start.  We meet a wonderful American couple that have been here for the past 8 years running a half-way house for homeless people.  They have a small farm out in the country that can house up to 8 people at a time.  It was wonderful to meet them and we look forward to visiting with them again.

Our World Champion Elders and Ward Mission Leader

Ned wanted me to make sure to finish his "Parable of the Stump".  

Wednesday we finally got the first one out!!!!!

That has to represent at least two Horse Power.

Holding up one finger dose not mean #1 It means the first one.  One to GO!!

                                            

With hard work, a lot of help, and the Lord, we can get rid of any of those old stumps in our lives.  And look at what joy it will bring.  There is still one more, even bigger one to go, but we can handle it.  Life is good when you get up and get to work!                        

We have been challenged to get out and spend time working on the street each day.  Here are some of the things we see.

The Буг River

A random garden

One of Ned's favorite signs.  He laughs every time he sees it.  I think you get the gist of it, but just in case-- Hot Dog!
There are little shops everywhere selling almost anything.
This one is at the edge of a big park right by a bunch of rides for children.

The birds love this fountain.  sometimes they have a hard time staying on top.

The children's parking lot at the edge of a playground. These little
Battery operated cars are remote control and the parents walk behind with the remote.

Life is good when you get out and get to work but it's also fun working inside when you have great people to work with.  We had some investigators and members over to make вареники (vereniky). We made so many we couldn't eat them all- or make them all. We made potato, cabbage, and meat vereniky with some dough left over to try some with sweet cheese filling.  One little boy from English class says cherry ones are the best.  Can't wait for cherry season!

 These are just a few of the highlights of the week.  Wish you could all be here to enjoy it with us.  I'll add just one more picture.  My favorite.  It was so peaceful there.  In real life the frogs were so loud down in the pond you could hardly hear each other talk and we were all working hard planting raspberry bushes but you hardly noticed cause-- life is good when you're out helping others and getting the work done.

17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.  Mosiah 2:17

2 For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.  Psalms 128:2                   John 13                                                                                                                                                                                          34 Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days.D&C 64:13                                                                                                                                                25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.  Matt 16:25

Have a wonderful week!  Love to you all  =)

Our Little Riley Anne after her hearing test this past week. It wore her right out!

Snow sun and fun it's the Ukrainian way!

Week of April 20-26, 2015

This was a crazy week on Tuesday it snowed and on Saturday we had a picnic in the park with прекрасчый пагода (Beautiful Weather).

Snowing on Tuesday

Picnic on Saturday

But there is no mistake spring is here and if you doubt that you were not here for the opening of the Roshen Fountain last night.  That is the official spring kick off activity here in the fair town of Vinnistya.  You ask what is the Roshen Fountain it is the largest free floating fountain in Eastern Europe.  We see it everyday on our way home from the church.

Roshen Fountain on the way home from Church

I love the Tramvi system here.

 At night it is the back drop for huge laser light shows and concerts.  As we got home from a district activity last night we stepped off the bus into a sea of people.  We have about 400,000 people in our town and I'm sure about 90% of them were out last night.  I have been in New York City years ago and I think it was almost that crowed.

Night laser show at Roshen Fountain

We have taken the challenge to go out and contact people on the street and talk to them.  It is a difficult thing when your language is so limited. But this week we had several wonderful experiences.

I contacted this guy but he was not much of a talker but if you touch
his nose you will have good luck. Notice how shiny his nose is!

We met a man that was really down on his luck the other day and had a talk with him.  We gave him a card and invited him to church.  He stopped by several times and no one was there but then on Friday he found us at English practice and came in.  We had a nice visit and I think he felt the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He spoke almost no English but I know now he has a friend in America named John.  He asked me if i knew him. It was fun to explain to him that America is very big and he said no Ukraine is big.  I then explained that Аmerica is большой (big)and Ukraine is маленький (Small).  That was a difficult concept for him to understand.  We each have our own perception of the world and since we have come here my perception of the world has gotten much larger. We must be careful that we don't judge others by our limited understanding of their situation. The Savior taught judge not that ye be not judged.  That is wonderful counsel that all of us could live by.
     Wednesday we traveled out to my favorite spot again and spent part of the day working on that troublesome stump that sits right in the middle of the Greenhouse we are trying to build.  But as we left that day the stump was about to give up it's hold on Mother Earth.

What kind of stumps are you working on?

These little guys were cheering us on while we dug and cut.

 We have dug about six feet down and cut many large roots and now there are just two small roots left to cut and out it will come.  I guess for me it has been a bit of a parable.  We all have stumps in our garden of life that get in the way of our progress and for us to be successful we must remove those stumps out of our garden.  It may take a lot of effort and time but once it is removed it will be a joyous occasion. We are going out again this week and I will post a picture of that "Old Stump" next week, and the celebration of it's removal.
We had to travel home quickly because we had an appointment with a wonderful young lady that is learning about the gospel.  She along with the talented Zina (She is the one that made the Origami Butterfly that we posted several weeks ago) came to our house to give us a lesson on making Borsch. It was good and we had a wonderful lesson after.  We are so lucky to be here and have so many people who are willing to make our life better.  Those of you in America, you are in for a treat when Sister Mikkelsen makes Borsch for you after the mission.
We teach a group of kids English two times a week and we have to take off our name tags and can't preach the gospel as we teach them because they are part of a government project. So we were trying to think of ways that we could share with them the things that make us who we are.  So this week the lesson was on "what makes a family".  The kids have all different kinds of families and we loved getting to know about them.  We can't wait to follow up with them.  In the gospel of Jesus Christ we are so blessed to have an understanding of eternal families.  We shared our testimonies with one of our investigators this evening about the blessing of eternal families and the blessings of the temple.  She lost her husband several years ago and truly loved him.  I shared with her the fact that she could be with him for all eternity.  We hope we struck a cord in her life that will help her move closer to that baptismal covenant.
On Saturday we got up before 5 AM and got ready to spend the day in Жито́мир which is just north of us about two hours.  We had a district activity with the branch there.  The Branch President is Elder Gorbokoenko. He put together this activity to get the branch together.  There were about 15 people all together.  It was a great activity.  We left on the bus at 6 AM and got there before 8 AM.  The activity didn’t start until 10:30 so we had a little study time.  We sat in McDonalds and learned about verbs of motion. 

Missionaries working the grill

Wonderful Spring day!!! That is a river in the background of the picture

It was a great time we played games and bar-b-qued chicken the Ukrainian way.  After a day of fun activities we bid the branch a fond farewell and got on our bus back to Vinistya.  Well it was the milk run for sure it took us almost three hours to get back. The bus was packed most of the time and they put the seats really close together so long legged people are not the most comfortable.
This has been a wonderful week. We are again so blessed to be serving in the mission field. It is not always easy but the most important things in life never are.  We are being stretched and molded like never before.  I would highly recommend this to any of you, what a wonderful opportunity to make a difference in a world that needs the the help.  Please feel free to help anyway you can.  May I suggest a Senior Mission!!

The Magnolia tree in the background is one of our daily
blessings in this beautiful country.

Have a blessed week I know we will
Love you all Elder and Sister Mikkelsen

And don't forget you can still love your grandkids at a
distance.  We are so blessed to have this little one in our family.

надо верить в себя

Тче Шеек оф април 12

     "надо верить в себя", the title of our blog this week, was taught by the most wonderful Russian teacher ever.  A sweet, wonderful, investigator has taken pity on us and is trying, very patiently, monotonously, painfully, to teach us to pronounce Russian words.  This week I caught her shaking her head and saying (in Russian), "How will I ever teach this?".  She was trying to get us to say the soft sound for "L" (ль) in the word normal -нормально.  She thought of every word she could think of with that sound, then would say (in Russian, еще) another, still another, over and over till we would finally get it.  About halfway through the lesson said, "надо верить, надо верить в себя", or "You must believe, you must believe in yourself".  Then she added, especially "в нашем возрате"-  at our age. =)  We all laughed. We love our lessons with Alexandra.  She is delightful.  She even brought us some delicious apple pancakes (for which we had to have the recipe! I get these recipes but I'm sure it will take me longer to get them right than the language.  These ladies are amazing cooks!).
     We were able to go out to the Branch Presidents house again this week.  They live in a beautiful village not too far out of town.  They shared a spiritual though and a meal with us then we went out to see their garden.  It was amazing.  Put our "obedience garden" to shame.  They had six different varieties of everything, along with an orchard of prize winning trees, all in the space of our backyard.  Their growing season is so short that they have to get everything started early and then when harvest comes, they bottle, or preserve somehow, everything they can, because you either won't be able to find it till spring or you just would never be able to afford it.  I haven't decided if their canning process is just better than ours or the fruits and vegetables grown in this amazingly fertile Ukrainian soil is just better than American produce.  Everything we've tasted so far is outstanding.  Bottled raspberry jam is as good as our frozen.  I've never liked pickles but their pickles are great...  Like I said, we have a lot to learn.

Wonderful evening at the Branch President's house.

Their beautiful village.  We can see that now.  We'll send pics when it actually turns green.

She makes her amazing bread with a kind of sourdough start made with no yeast.
 Haven't figured out which plant they use to activate it but I'm on a quest to find out.

     For a city of 400,000 people there are very few cars on the road (comparatively).  That's because of the amazing public transportation.  We spent a lot of time traveling on public transportation this last week.  We can choose from an автобус (regular bus- which we rarely ride), a маршрутка (a little mini-bus.  We haven't learned these routes yet so we only take those when with the Elders), a трамвае (kind of like the trolleys in San Francisco.  They are longer with an accordion spot in the middle.  Ours are used ones purchased in Germany, the only other place in the world with the same kind as Vinnitsa), or the one we take the most often, the тролейбус which is like a bus but hooked to power lines and rides on tires.  A couple days ago we came back home on one that we thought could not fit another person.  Each time it stopped, only one or 2 people got off but 10 more would get on.  Everyone would just keep getting closer and closer.  It felt like you were sitting on people's laps.  (there are seats on the sides and people standing in the middle holding on to rails above).  I'm sure we could have fit a few more people in but.....  We take the tram's to the far edges of town but the Trolley-buses drop us right where we, and everybody else, need to go in town.

Tram-vi-  the one like a SanFrancisco Trolley

Using the main form of transportation- walking, we pass this tower
almost every day on the way to the church.

This is a trolley bus.  Someday, when I learn how to add pictures better
I'll add a picture from the inside.  It's lost somewhere inside the hard drive right now.

     So what else did we do this week?  We taught some teenagers the lyrics to "Happy" in one English class, taught prepositions in another English class, bore testimony in two other English classes. We studied.  We learned how to cook potato pancakes and baked a lot of apple bread.  We met people on the street, tried to get to know them and invite them either to church or to English class.  We visited families in their homes, with the Elders in tow to translate (actually we were there most of the time just as support).    We answered a lot of questions, ate a lot of yummy food, offered a few very important challenges, gave a little advice, gratefully received advice, taught about American Easter traditions at a RS activity (the deviled eggs were a hit), shared a few гревен (dollars), went to some great meetings (learned a lot), did a little shopping, a little cleaning, and our favorite- visited with family on Skype.   I guess the most important thing that happened this week was that our testimonies of the truthfulness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ was strengthened.  So many times in a week
we see our Father in Heaven's hand in our lives and the lives of the people here.  We also see how the gospel could help each one of them if we could only share it in a way that they would understand.  We have much to learn and much to do.

Sunday dinner with two go our favorite members, Sasha, Pasha, and the Elders

Jacob finally got his birthday package.  Below is a picture of him in his
last area with the Ward Mission Leader and his family.

   
     Hope all is well with all of you.  Have a wonderful week
     The Mik's

And a PS of our sweet Riley Ann.  She's three weeks now and cute as can be!