(October 31, 2007)

Hello everyone, it's Elder Hurst yet again. We've been keeping very, very busy lately. This transfer, in addition to becoming a district leader, I've also "inherited" this entire ward (there was another set of elders here also, but President pulled them out and put them elsewhere), started teaching English again on Tuesdays, and every Thursday we go to a little town called Irpin to meet with people and, hopefully, start an English class out there on Thursday evenings. This is in addition to other weekly commitments we have, which include district meetings every monday, family home evenings every monday night, meetings with the missionary correlation leader, weekly planning every Friday, church, a meeting with a part-member family every Sunday at 5, a meeting with a really cool parapalegic girl every Tuesday at 3:30, and random district-leader related meetings in center every so often. It's been pretty busy, but it's fun also. I'd rather be in a rush all the time than tracting all day long...

So, a funny thing happened to us Thursday night. We met a man named Serhiy (in russian: Sergey) who wanted to meet with us. We set up an appointment and, last Thursday, we went over and knocked on his door. Someone else answered and, after giving us a confused look, asked if we were Serhiy's friends. We answered yes, and he let us in, saying that Serhiy was running a little late and would be there soon. In a few minutes there was another knock, and a man named Vitaliy came in. Vitaliy was very friendly and spoke a little English, but we noticed when he came that everyone was wearing a suit--not too common in Ukraine when people are just lounging at home (it's pretty common to go tracting and talk to a lot of old men in their boxer shorts). Vitaliy then announced that we would "begin" without Serhiy, and he pulled out a little whiteboard on a tripod. As it turns out, Serhiy was a member of Amway, a pyramid scam that I believe was banned in America (or at least it's not as big there) but is huge in Ukraine. We spent about thirty minutes convincing them that we had absolutely no interest in joining their company, and then the next thirty minutes convincing them that we had absolutely no interest in buying their products. Vitaliy was their "leader," and so he and I had a little "showdown" of sorts about it. It wasn't quite the meeting we had expected. However, we got out of it commitment-free with a bottle of free Amway dish soap.

Last night, we had another meeting with our favorite family, the Tyltins. Sister Tyltina (in Ukraine, most last names change depending on the gender of the person--for example, Brother Tyltin, Sister Tyltina) wanted to have us over for a dinner appointment, which happens often in America but in Ukraine, this is...the first time it's happened to me. It was a lot of fun; we gave a spiritual thought, we heard a violin solo by their ten-year-old son, Yosef, and we ate varenyky, which are amazingly good little boiled noodle things filled with cheese, potatoes, or meat (hers last night had cheese). Varenyky covered with smetana (like sour cream, but good tasting) is one of my favorite foods here, along with borsch and holobtsi (which are like little meat and boiled buckwheat filled burritos, only instead of tortillas they use cabbage leaves, and their boiled in a really good sauce). Somehow I'm going to have to learn how to cook these things, or where to find them in America...

Well, that's it for me. I love you all, and have a good week!
--Elder Hurst

PS - There isn't a Halloween in Ukraine, although if there was, they'd probably celebrate it like they do every other holiday--by drinking beer and vodka and shooting off fireworks at random times at night.

PPS - In case Santa Claus gets this email too, I would love to get any of the following for Christma: MoTab CD's, a long sleeve black V-neck sweater, talks by Hugh Nibley or Leon Skausen, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pictures!, and any interesting Deseret Book-style book about the Book of Mormon or Bible (especially anything dealing with the Pearl of Great Price, or Enoch especially). Oh, and also "The House of the Lord," by James E. Talmage.