Khrystos narodyvsya! (Slavuyemo yoho!) 1/30/08

Hello again, everyone! I hope everyone had a good week. As I’m sure you all heard (probably long before we heard), President Hinckley passed away this last Sunday. The only Prophet that I can actually remember has just passed one from this life to the next. It’s interesting to me how this works. Before my mission, despite having a firm knowledge of the Gospel and the Plan of Salvation, I was still very upset over death; to my thinking at that time, death may not have necessarily been the absolute end of existence, but it certainly appeared so, and that troubled me. However, in the past year I’ve been able to realize more clearly than ever before that the departure from this life of a loved one—for example, a beloved Prophet—is about as final as the departure of someone from their living room. Though they may not be with us on this plane of existence, yet will they be with us in the future, and if that be so, then why should we mourn? President Hinckley isn’t gone; he’s just one step ahead of us on the Plan of Salvation. We’ll catch up in time.

This has been a good week. This week we sat down during our weekly planning and counted out our total teaching pool, and we reached the total of 15 investigators. 15! Bear in mind that in my last week or two in Sviatoshinsky, that number was 3. Our main investigators are:

MARYANA, a 25 to 30 year old girl who’s met with missionaries before and is very, very close to a baptismal commitment for February 16—her birthday. The only thing holding her back is her boyfriend, who disapproves of the Church because the Church disapproves of his intentions with Maryana. We’re not big fans of him.

OKSANA and RUSLAN, a 30’s-ish couple with several small children. Oksana works at a beauty salon, and Ruslan’s a taxi driver. They’re both really nice and really cool; they’ll be ready for baptismal commitments as soon as they settle a little marital trouble they’ve hit this past week.

VOLODYMYR, a late 50’s-ish man who loves feeling the Spirit, but hasn’t quite overcome his Greek Catholic traditional background. He’s so close! We just need to get over this last little hurdle, and he’ll be golden.

We had a fun day today. For our P-Day, we chose a random village on our map and went there for a picnic lunch and a game of Risk by the side of a frozen river. It was really cool, really pretty and a lot of fun, and not only because I won at Risk (dominated, actually, may be a better term). Among the more memorable moments happened when we were on the way to this village (its name is Pereshinske, by the way). We were packed on a marshrutka full of people, one of whom had brought his pet black lab. The dog was really friendly and nice, and one of us missionaries, Elder Hokanson, decided to take a picture of it. I was sitting two people over from Elder Hokanson, and so I couldn’t see exactly what happened, but I definitely heard the distinct “Hack!” noise as the dog vomited all over Elder Hokanson’s leg and shoe. Now, unfortunately I don’t have my camera cables with me this week, because Hokanson took a priceless picture of his knee covered in the slimy remnants of Ukrainian dog food (mysteriously found to contain a tomato slice), with a very sick looking doggy face staring at the camera. Remind me next week and I’ll send it…

Well, that’s all for this week. I love you all, and I’ll write again next Wednesday!

Pictures! (1/24/2008)

Hello again everyone! Sorry I'm writing a day late, Elder Palsky and I had quite the adventure yesterday. Elder Palsky's ancestors, as it turns out, come from Ukraine, so he got special permission from President Davis to go and visit his great-great grandfather's home villages. We spent all day racing from small farming village to small farming village, searching through cemetaries and talking to town councils. We started by going out of the Ivano-Frankivsk oblast ("oblast" is like a state, or district of the country; they're all named after their principle cities) to the Ternopil oblast (not to be confused with Chernobyl), to the town of Chortkiv, the largest town in the area, by marshrutka (a three hour trip). From there, we went to Tovste, which in Ukrainian means "Fat." We spent some time there in the town, looking at a large beautiful church there and, most especially, getting a special tour through the Tovste town musuem (all four small rooms of it) by Jaroslav Pavlyk, an eighty-year-old town historian who knows everything about Tovste, and loves to tell it all to you. Tovste has a large Jewish cemetary that was really interesting to look through.

After Tovste, we went back to Chortkiv and spoke to the town council. From them we learned that a family with one of Elder Palsky's ancestral names, Sorokivsky, was still living in one of his ancestral towns, Zalissya. So, we got on a marshrutka until its route ended, then into a private car as close as he could take us (this is a very common practice in Ukraine, by the way), and then by foot for about 1 1/2 hours until we reached one of the smallest, oldest-fashioned towns I've ever seen. Tovste has paved roads, a movie theater, and marshrutkas. Zalissya has horse-drawn wagons, a one-room schoolhouse, and two trains that stop within three kilometers of it: one at noon, and one at midnight. The walk to Zalissya was beautiful, and one of my favorite pictures I've taken so far has come from there. There were absolutely no buildings or people--just fields, a small forest, and a large dirt road.

We hitched back to Chortkiv just in time to catch the last marshrutka back to Ivano; then, after a three-hour nap, we were home again. It was a really cool day.

So, here's what's on my pictures:

Walk on Water: I was feeling particularly faithful that day.












Icy Lake: All right, so the secret is, the lake near our apartment was frozen over with over a foot of ice, and after watching about thirty people walk out and go ice fishing, Elder Palsky and I decided to give it a try.








Ice Cross: Last Saturday we were in Verkhovina, a really cool little village in the Carpathians. It was the Pravoslavnic holiday of the baptism of Christ, so they made an ice sculpture cross that people came and prayed to.










Hill Shrine to Mary: This was in Tovste. They have little shrine things like this all over the place.










Polish Sword: In the Tovste museum. Jaroslav let us hold this sword and a Nazi bayonet.

















Jaroslav Pavlyk and I: There he is, the eighty-year-old town historian. (By the way, Elder Palsky didn't do too well photographing this one).
















Middle of Nowhere: There was a little while during our hour and a half hike where we wondered if there was even anything down that road at all.











Ukrainian Field: My favorite picture. Imagine walking past this in real life on a solitary dirt road in absolute silence except for you and the wind, without even buildings or farmhouses in sight.








All right, have a good week everyone!
--Elder Hurst

Greetings from the old country! (1/16/2008)

Hello everyone, it's time again for news from the East! Things have been going really well in Ivano. The work has picked up considerably since I was here last. Apparently, Ivano has been in a six year slump, and it's just starting to come out of it. We've been working really hard, but it's paying off very well. We have a good list of investigators that we feel will very shortly be ready for baptism. We've been working on teaching more clearly and basically, and it's definitely working. Just yesterday, we had a lesson with a lady who usually just likes to Bible bash with us, which isn't very effective as a missionary tool; so, what we did was we kept to a very simple lesson about Christ's church, the apostasy, and the restoration. It was then that I was able to implement something that I thought up while in zone conference on Monday. We talked about how when Christ established His church, he built in using a specific organization and His own authority, the priesthood. Without these two items, the church isn't the church of Christ. Put very simply, this is like a glass of water; if you want a glass of water, you don't want just an empty glass, or a tub of water; nor do you want a plate, or a rock, or anything else. A glass of water, in order to be what it is, needs to have a glass, and it needs to have water--it's very simple. When Christ established His church, He established an organization--He set down a glass. He then gave His servants the priesthood--He filled the glass with water. The full church is the glass of water. But, people rejected and persecuted His church, and many of the apostles--the chief earthly leaders of the church--were killed; and, importantly, new apostles were not called in their stead. The glass was knocked off the table, where it shattered, scattering bits of glass and water everywhere. Even if it were possible to gather all the pieces of glass and put them together, one can't flue them together--that would be something different than the pure original church. And if one can't glue them together, one can't fill this with water because of all the cracks and holes. After the fall of the apostles, there was no church with the organization and the authority of Christ. There was no glass with water, which means there was no glass of water. There was no church of Christ. What was needed was for Christ to get a new glass--the same kind as the first--and refill it with water. A restoration was needed.

Things are going great here, and I'm excited to work in this area. This internet place looks like I can hook my camera up to it, so hopefully next week I'll be able to send out pictures again. Until then, have a good week!
--Elder Hurst

Transfer!! (1/09/2008)

Hello again everyone,
Well, the unthinkable just happened: I'm getting transfered from Sviatoshinsky. I've been able to find out where I'm going also...it's outside of Kyiv finally, but I've already been there. That's right, I'm going to Ivano Frankivsk! Again! It'll be fun, I liked it a lot the first time; I just think it's funny that the place I go after 9 months straight in Kyiv is the one and only city that I've already seen outside of Kyiv. Apparently, I'm doomed to never see anything in between. I'll be serving with an elder named Elder Palsky, who'll be going home at the end of this transfer (I'll be "killing" him). From what I hear, not that I should be listening to rumors, but he has a girlfriend, Linda, who has waited for him viciously his entire mission; in fact, she literally writes him a letter every day. He has entire photo albums dedicated to her. He has DVD's of her talking to him. He has an alarm clock with her voice recorded on it. She buys him pairs of nice winter boots and coats, just in case the others are too cold. And next week, I'll fill you in on how many of these rumors are true.

After serving in Sviatoshinsky for almost 6 months, it's been really hard to leave. I've been here long enough that I've gotten to know the ward really well, so this Sunday I had to say goodbye to a lot of people that I know and love. It felt a lot like my farewell at home, although on a smaller scale. On Monday, I met with my bishop and his family. I'm pretty sure that Bishop Hariachi is the coolest guy in Ukraine. He's 24 years old, recently married, with a four-and-a-half-month-old son, Mark. He's really fun, and we've gotten to be good friends here. This has been my favorite area to serve in so far.

We've had another elder in a threesome with us for the past day or two. His name is Elder Hokanson. He's really tall, really big, and 24 years old. He's a little strange too.

The weather has been FREEZING cold. On January 1st, the normal cloud cover disappeared in favor of clear blue skies, and without the insulation, the temperature has dropped dramatically. It doesn't help that there's humidity and strong breezes adding to it all. The good news is, I'm staying very warm (thanks for the sweater, Dad!), and I've been able to avoid getting sick.

I'm glad my package made it home safely. Thanks again for everything you all have sent to me! For some reason, the mail here has slowed up, so a lot of elders haven't gotten some packages their families sent yet. Unfortunately, this includes Renee's package, so I'll have to wait a little longer to get that (especially if I'm off in Ivano...).

Well, have a good week, and I love you all!
--Elder Hurst

2008?! (January 1, 2008)

Hello again everyone, and happy new year! I can't believe it's 2008 already. It seems like yesterday I was sitting in this same internet club, saying ''I can't believe it's 2007 already!'' That means the next big day to look forward to is March 2...

We had an interesting week. Our landlady informed us earlier this month that we'd have to move out because she wanted to sell the apartment, so we spent much of this week packing and moving in our spare time, in addition to our usual workload. It's comforting to know, however, that not only does our new apartment not have an oven, it's also really cold in the morning. Good thing rumor has it I'm getting transfered next week.

New Year's Eve is one of the most fun times in our mission because it's the one night of the year we're allowed to have missionary sleepovers and watch movies in our apartments (as long as they're only church movies or certain Disney movies). We watched Hercules and Aladdin and we played Risk and Uno. The highlight of the night was when I had a come-from-behind victory in Risk (nobody ever suspects Australia...)

Also, as the highlight of the entire week, I was able to talk to many of you last Tuesday! That was a lot of fun. Mother's Day is only five months away...I only hope my apartment then is a little warmer than this one was.

All right, well, I'm running a little low on time, so I should wrap this up. Soon we're going to go to TGI Friday's, the only place in Kyiv where you can order food in English; if it wasn't for the currency and the waiters' accents, it would feel just like America. I'm not really sure how TGI Friday's managed to open in Ukraine, but it's become the unofficial Kyiv Ukraine mission celebration spot.

All right, happy new year everyone!

--Elder Hurst