Mission Musings

Can you even say "musings?" I don't think we're allowed to go on dictionaries here, so I'll never know, but I think I've heard it before. Yet another week has gone by on the ol' mission. It really flies. I'm trying to make the best of it. I've been thinking that if we followed a regular mission schedule we'd never get anything done. We typically only come home for one meal a day whereas we are allowed to take 2. If we came home for 2 hours a day it would feel like we never worked I think. I can't really imagine it. A lot of time we have lessons on preparation day too and we can make up the time later in the week, but we never get a chance to. It's all good though because this is the Lord's work. It's really exciting stuff. People are being baptized in this mission. Not in our area yet, unfortunately, but it's coming. I know it will.

This week was a good one, yet again. We found 2 new families. One man is from Nigeria. He's lived in Ukraine for 12 years. His name is Emeka. He's married to a Ukrainian woman and has an 11 year old daughter. He's speaks Russian, but we teach him a lot in English so it's weird because we teach the other two in Russian, but it's a great time. They're such a nice family. He's Anglican, so we've run into yet another religion! They live in what I think they call a hostel. They stay in a very small room and there are communal showers and a kitchen for many rooms together. It's interesting. The other one is a woman we met on the street. She and her husband came to an 8 year old baptism on Saturday. It was great and she was so excited to come for some reason. We'll be meeting with them again on Wednesday. They have a 2 year old son. They're very nice and unusually interested. Haha.

The other day, we were talking to a woman on the street and a little girl walked up to us. I'd say she was about 3 and quite cute bundled up in her snow-wear. She stood in our little circle and just stared up at Elder Larson and I. Her mother was a few feet ahead trying to get her to come along but she just stared at us. It went on for probably 20 or 30 seconds before the woman we were talking to pretty much had to push her along. I pondered a little about how close that girl is to the veil. She knew that the message we are teaching is true just a few years ago. I wonder if she felt something. It was unfortunate we couldn't talk to her Mom. Who knows, maybe it'll happen again.

This week we were asked to give a priesthood blessing, so I did the anointing. That was my first priesthood ordinance in Russian in Ukraine, except blessing the Sacrament the last 2 Sundays I guess. The language is coming along slowly, but surely. It's really weird to me sometimes that I am speaking Russian. I learned a lot when I was in Russia but I was never really sure if I was going to put in the time to get to fluency as I had other languages I was more interested in. So, I think the reason it's strange is because it's just happening now. I never envisioned my future self as "Yeah, I speak Russian." But, I will. It's weird I guess because it'll probably become my 2nd best language and I never really planned on using it for anything in the future so we'll see what happens. All I know is that it's happening. Hopefully I can get Ukrainian down pretty well and maybe even Romanian if I get a chance to go to Moldova. I also hope I can teach in French or Portuguese sometime. I guess French would be a lot more likely though. There are a lot of immigrants in Odessa. Right now I think we are teaching the only black man in this city. I've never seen another though I've heard there were some black soccer players, but we don't have a city team anymore.

I suppose I'm kind of rambling. Oh yeah, one more thing. For the first time, on the street I contacted a man, then Elder Larson spoke a bit and later said that he's American and I'm Canadian. The man looked at me and was so confused. He said "What? Canadian? You're not Ukrainian?" This was the first time somebody on the street actually thought I was a native. I look forward to holding full conversations and having people still not believe I'm not a native Russian speaker. Someday... haha.

I'm happy to be here serving my Lord. Thanks for all the prayers and support. Merry Christmas to everybody, especially back in the Truro Branch. 

Much love from Ukraine,

Elder Mahoney

Старейшина Махони

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