Bridges in Blizzards and the Infamous Fidget Smelly (3/19/08)

Hello again everyone! We had a pretty good week, although it was overall pretty ordinary. We got to go to a selo on Friday for a meeting with an investigator (selo being Ukrainian for "village," by the way); we rode a marshrutka for about two and a half hours, only to arrive and see him at the bus stop waiting for a marshrutka to another selo an hour and a half away. So, we talked for about ten minutes until his marshrutka came, ate lunch, and then waited to go home. Usually when people stand us up on meetings it's no big deal, but if it requires five hours of total travel time, it kind of becomes a little more frustrating. We were kind of sick of sitting on marshrutkas by the end of the day.

I've been getting several compliments on my Ukrainian recently, which is surprising because I still feel like I'm brand new at it. I had one man on a marshrutka ask me which selo I was from, and our landlord, after overhearing me speak to my companion a little in Ukrainian, asked me what my native language was. I told him English, and he didn't believe me. Another guy told me that I spoke as well as my last companion, who was finishing his mission and had therefore been studying the language for a lot longer than I had. Our last zone conference was done entirely in the language, and ever since then my current comp has been telling me that I speak Ukrainian better than just about any other missionary there. Yeah, i hear that, and then I always remember every single moment from the past week where I'll try explaining something simple (for example, getting a contract stamped) and all I'll see are blank stares.

I finally included some more pictures, as you can see. The one of the bridge is actually from about a month ago. Elder Palsky and I went to a selo called Yaseniv, and about five minutes after we got there, a blizzard started. I don't know if it was technically an actual "blizzard," but if it wasn't, then it was dang close. The town had two parts, a normal small town on one side of the river with roads and stores, and then a REALLY small village on the other side called Verkhny Yaseniv, with cottages and small farms clinging to the side of a Carpathian mountain, and all that connected the two were about three rope and wood plank bridges. It was really cool, and also really cold. (Yeah, that's me on the bridge). (And, by the way, there's a big mountain in the background of the picture, but there's so much snow...you can't see it).

The second picture is of a menu at a place Elder Horne and I ate at yesterday. The menu had English translations under the Ukrainian names, and a few of them were a little odd. There's a few interesting ones in the picture, but my personal favorite is #5. The last picture is a picture of my study journal. If there's one thing I've become prideful of, it's my personal studies (apparently I need to study the fall of the Nephites a little more...). Last transfer especially, I finally started finding out how to study the scriptures very in-depth. These pages are a study of D&C 88, with a little aside in D&C 93 at the beginning. (Elder Hinckle, by the way, is a senior missionary in Ivano who knows a lot about a lot; there's a little aside in there also where I asked him a question and then took notes on his answer).

Well, I love you all and I hope you all have a good week!

Love,
--Elder Hurst