Hello again everyone! Things have been going well here in Kyiv. Once again we have two areas to work in, which means also that we have two churches to attend and a lot of time to spend on the metro. But, that's okay, because it's always better to be too busy than not busy enough.
Our main investigator, Volodymyr, has been really busy and unable to meet for a good amount of time, but we've been meeting with him when he can and he's still doing really well. He introduced us to one of his friends and testified to him about the importance of the gospel. We just need to have him find time when we can just talk about his baptismal date and schedule a few more lessons and he'll be on his way; unfortunately, it's a little harder than it sounds with his schedule right now. But, he has been offering us some interesting opportunities, especially two in particular--one of which is actually kind of funny, the other really exciting.
The funny one was when one day he met with us at his work during his lunch break. Unfortunately, as usual, it was way too short and he had to leave the room pretty often to do things, but after a minute or two, another doctor came in, a bottle of scotch in his hand (and remember...this is still only halfway through the working day). he comes in and starts to bother us about how we're not Orthodox and therefore not the true church, and then Volodymyr smilingly introduces him as his boss and friend. So, we quickly found ourselves in a situation where I fended off the slightly drunk doctor while Elder Higgins, my new companion, tried to talk to Volodymyr. It turned out to be kind of fun in a way, because I got to be really quite bold with the man, and Elder Higgins got some good language practice and in the end set up another meeting for us (the one where Volodymyr testified to his friend). So, opportunity #1: Argue with a drunken doctor.
The second and far more exciting opportunity was this: Volodymyr has a lot of friends in the Kyiv medical community, and one of them is a lady who runs a hospital with a large meeting hall for conferences and the like. Somehow, Volodymyr convinced her to let us use the hall sometime for a seminar in front of many of Kyiv's doctors about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. We have this planned for October 11 (which just happens to be my year mark also...how weird is that?) at 3 in the afternoon, and we will have our mission president, President Davis, speaking with us also, which shows how great of an opportunity this really is. Our bishop here is a special events organizer for Mary Kaye, and he does things like this for a living (though on a larger scale...he showed us a picture of him hosting an event in front of 7,500 people), so we've enlisted him into our planning as well. It's been a lot of fun working out the logistics and getting everything scheduled out how it should be, even though at times it's very, very stressful.
We had another meeting earlier this week where we were told we'd be speaking to a group of university students about America, with a short spiritual thought at the end. It turned out to be us speaking to a group of roudy junior high aged kids about America, with a lack of anything spiritual whatsoever. The headmaster of the school decided to tell us on the walk to the classroom that we couldn't do any sort of spiritual thought at all. That was information that may have been more helpful had he told us it earlier.
Other than that, things are going well here. It's cooling down a lot, and it's starting to rain a lot too, which is too bad. I miss summer already, and there's just a little bit of a wait until the next one.
All right, well, I love you all, and have a good week!
--Brett
(Editorial Comment)
Just so you know, Elder Crunch is not allowed to read blogs, including this one, while the harvest is on. So if you want to direct a comment to him, you should use e-mail. Otherwise he won't actually get it until October of 2008.
Here is where Elder Crunch is currently stationed (in NW Kiev, near the Nyvky Metro stop):
View Larger Map
Here is where Elder Crunch is currently stationed (in NW Kiev, near the Nyvky Metro stop):
View Larger Map
Another exciting week! (September 19, 2007)
Hello again everyone!
Well, this was an interesting week. I can't remember if I mentioned this last time or not, but our investigator's dad died (Volodymyr's dad), so because he's been busy taking care of that, we've been unable to teach him like we'd wanted to, which means his baptismal date will, unfortunately, have to be pushed back. However, he's still doing well and everything's still going great with him, so I have no doubt that he will be baptised, it'll only be a week or two later than we'd hoped.
So an interesting thing happened on a street car the other day. We had just finished our district meeting and were going to district lunch, and the restaurant we wanted to eat at was a little ways away. We all got on a street car (or tramvay, pronounced "tram-vye") and for the most part spread out, as usual, though two elders--Elder Campbell and Elder Ledbetter--stood by the door. After we got on, a group of four gypsies followed us quickly and stood in the doorway also. One of them stumbled a little, and before he knew it Elder Campbell realized the man had tossed his jacket over his (Elder Campbell's) shoulder bag and was rumaging through it underneath! Elder Campbell pulled his bag away and turned aside, and Elder Ledbetter--being a former track/football player, and large in stature--saw what happened and started yelling at the gypsies. Before we knew it, almost everyone on the tramvay was yelling at them, and they beat a hasty retreat off empty handed. It was...an interesting experience. This is the first time for any of us that this has happened; in fact, I've only heard of maybe one or two other similar cases happening to missionaries here. So, the thing to remember--always keep a close eye on your things when on public transportation.
Well, that's all the excitement I've got time to write about today. I love you all, and I hope everyone has a good week!
Love,
--Elder Brett
Well, this was an interesting week. I can't remember if I mentioned this last time or not, but our investigator's dad died (Volodymyr's dad), so because he's been busy taking care of that, we've been unable to teach him like we'd wanted to, which means his baptismal date will, unfortunately, have to be pushed back. However, he's still doing well and everything's still going great with him, so I have no doubt that he will be baptised, it'll only be a week or two later than we'd hoped.
So an interesting thing happened on a street car the other day. We had just finished our district meeting and were going to district lunch, and the restaurant we wanted to eat at was a little ways away. We all got on a street car (or tramvay, pronounced "tram-vye") and for the most part spread out, as usual, though two elders--Elder Campbell and Elder Ledbetter--stood by the door. After we got on, a group of four gypsies followed us quickly and stood in the doorway also. One of them stumbled a little, and before he knew it Elder Campbell realized the man had tossed his jacket over his (Elder Campbell's) shoulder bag and was rumaging through it underneath! Elder Campbell pulled his bag away and turned aside, and Elder Ledbetter--being a former track/football player, and large in stature--saw what happened and started yelling at the gypsies. Before we knew it, almost everyone on the tramvay was yelling at them, and they beat a hasty retreat off empty handed. It was...an interesting experience. This is the first time for any of us that this has happened; in fact, I've only heard of maybe one or two other similar cases happening to missionaries here. So, the thing to remember--always keep a close eye on your things when on public transportation.
Well, that's all the excitement I've got time to write about today. I love you all, and I hope everyone has a good week!
Love,
--Elder Brett
Well, I'm a father (Sept 12, 2007)
Hello again everyone! Well, I'm officially a trainer now--my son's name is Elder Higgins. It's been a little difficult (especially since on Sunday I got sicker than I've been so far my entire mission), but it's really cool to see how well I can understand people when I don't have a senior companion crutch to lean on. The other day I had a conversation with a man about Jerusalem, the crusades, World War ii, and Ukrainian history, all in Ukrainian on my part and Russian on his, without ever really missing a beat. It's amazing to me to think that I can actually speak with people about most anything I want (at least in a round-a-bout way) in a language I didn't know existed a little more than a year ago, and then understand them when they answer in an entirely different language back! I've been working on my Russian a bit lately also, but there's still a ways to go with that.
So here's something strange--I have less than a month until my year mark...time passes really quickly. It still feels like I just started the transfer before this last one...thankfully I've got Elder Higgins here, because the first transfer always feels like it takes forever.
Well, we have another meeting with Volodymyr tonight, which we're excited for. We haven't been able to meet for a while because his dad just passed away, but he said he wants to meet tonight. We're looking forward to it; the only problem is, we'll probably have to push his date back a week or two because we haven't been able to meet more often. But, he's still right on track towards baptism, so everything should be fine!
I love you all, and wish me luck this week!
--Elder Brett
So here's something strange--I have less than a month until my year mark...time passes really quickly. It still feels like I just started the transfer before this last one...thankfully I've got Elder Higgins here, because the first transfer always feels like it takes forever.
Well, we have another meeting with Volodymyr tonight, which we're excited for. We haven't been able to meet for a while because his dad just passed away, but he said he wants to meet tonight. We're looking forward to it; the only problem is, we'll probably have to push his date back a week or two because we haven't been able to meet more often. But, he's still right on track towards baptism, so everything should be fine!
I love you all, and wish me luck this week!
--Elder Brett
Volodymyr!! (Sept 5, 2007)
Hello again everyone, I just wanted to start out by saying that today I have two very exciting bits of news:
1. Our favorite investigator, Volodymyr, has a baptismal date! On the 22 of September (the day of the big race, isn't it?) he will be baptized. He is pretty much the most amazing investigator of my mission. We found him literally through the promptings of the spirit. We were out contacting one day and after arguing with a man for a long time about the bible and the book of mormon, I felt completely without the Spirit and just angry. I asked Elder Lewis if we could go somewhere and say a quick prayer for the spirit again, so we went into a dark apartment building and offered a prayer. As we left I felt very strongly we should go to one certain intersection I'd seen on a map. In the end, we couldn't quite find it, so we went home feeling discouraged. A few days later we wanted to go tracting, and all of a sudden the prompting came again very strongly to go to that intersection. This time we had a map with us and we found it, only to find that absolutely no one wanted to listen to us. Again, we felt discouraged, but we decided to do one more stairwell. As we were walking up the stairs (we always start at the top and work down), we ran into Volodymyr as he was just coming home from the grocery store. We helped him carry his bags into his house and had a lesson with him that we could only describe later as being like something in a seminary video. He then invited us to meet his friends at work (he's a doctor and a surgeon), so we went to a birthday party his friends threw him at work. We were a little worried after the party, seeing as he spent much of the time trying to get us to drink cognac (we settled instead for something like pickle juice...not sure which would have been worse...), and kept calling us "his American friends" (not usually a good sign; some people like missionaries just because we're American, not because of religious reasons). We went home confused and worried. We decided to have one more meeting, just to see where he's at. And, again, the meeting was like a seminary video. After one more such amazing lesson, Volodymyr now has a date for the 22nd! We've also had to give him 3 different Books of Mormon because he keeps giving his away to his family and friends. He is, as missionaries like to say, GOLDEN! The only problems now: he hasn't heard Word of Wisdom yet (he likes his cognac), and his wife is strongly Orthodox.
2. It's transfers again, and I'M TRAINING! Aaaah! It's exciting, but mildly terrifying as well. This means that my next companion will be straight out of the MTC, with the 20-word vocab that comes with it. Hopefully, he'll have the work ethic of the MTC still with him. (It's gonna be fun though; I get to have a "son" in the mission, as we missionaries would say...so Renee and Quinn, I'm gonna be a dad too!)
Well, that's my week. Wish me luck and pray for me to train well!
--Elder Brett
1. Our favorite investigator, Volodymyr, has a baptismal date! On the 22 of September (the day of the big race, isn't it?) he will be baptized. He is pretty much the most amazing investigator of my mission. We found him literally through the promptings of the spirit. We were out contacting one day and after arguing with a man for a long time about the bible and the book of mormon, I felt completely without the Spirit and just angry. I asked Elder Lewis if we could go somewhere and say a quick prayer for the spirit again, so we went into a dark apartment building and offered a prayer. As we left I felt very strongly we should go to one certain intersection I'd seen on a map. In the end, we couldn't quite find it, so we went home feeling discouraged. A few days later we wanted to go tracting, and all of a sudden the prompting came again very strongly to go to that intersection. This time we had a map with us and we found it, only to find that absolutely no one wanted to listen to us. Again, we felt discouraged, but we decided to do one more stairwell. As we were walking up the stairs (we always start at the top and work down), we ran into Volodymyr as he was just coming home from the grocery store. We helped him carry his bags into his house and had a lesson with him that we could only describe later as being like something in a seminary video. He then invited us to meet his friends at work (he's a doctor and a surgeon), so we went to a birthday party his friends threw him at work. We were a little worried after the party, seeing as he spent much of the time trying to get us to drink cognac (we settled instead for something like pickle juice...not sure which would have been worse...), and kept calling us "his American friends" (not usually a good sign; some people like missionaries just because we're American, not because of religious reasons). We went home confused and worried. We decided to have one more meeting, just to see where he's at. And, again, the meeting was like a seminary video. After one more such amazing lesson, Volodymyr now has a date for the 22nd! We've also had to give him 3 different Books of Mormon because he keeps giving his away to his family and friends. He is, as missionaries like to say, GOLDEN! The only problems now: he hasn't heard Word of Wisdom yet (he likes his cognac), and his wife is strongly Orthodox.
2. It's transfers again, and I'M TRAINING! Aaaah! It's exciting, but mildly terrifying as well. This means that my next companion will be straight out of the MTC, with the 20-word vocab that comes with it. Hopefully, he'll have the work ethic of the MTC still with him. (It's gonna be fun though; I get to have a "son" in the mission, as we missionaries would say...so Renee and Quinn, I'm gonna be a dad too!)
Well, that's my week. Wish me luck and pray for me to train well!
--Elder Brett
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