Ukrainian Village Adventures

Yet another week has disappeared. I don't even remember what's happened. I suppose I could start with an apartment update because I know some people were wondering about it. Well, the first thing that happened was we were informed the fridge wouldn't be fixed until after Easter. We called her on Monday and she said it would be on Tuesday. Then on Tuesday she said he Grandmother died so it'd be in a day or 2. Then we had Pres. Solomein call her for us so she wouldn't use as many excuses and he spoke to her once. Since Wednesday she hasn't been answering her phone. It's really too bad because it's just going to cause more problems for her. If she doesn't do it by tomorrow we'll be talking with the police again and the tax authorities and the Church with fix the fridge for us. We've been without a fridge for about 4.5 weeks now. Somewhat annoying.

My companion, Elder Brinck, had to go in for a blood test on Tuesday which was interesting. They do all the blood tests from the fingers here. Seems more painful too me. Elder Brinck confirmed that assumption. He's alright though, just has so chest pains so they wanna make sure everything's okay.

For the record, McDonald's breakfast here isn't quite as good. The sausage doesn't have the same spices. Some of lunch menu is better though. They have a mushroom pie there that I've gotta try one of these days. We just don't go there often. Ukrainians have a strange love of mushrooms. There are mushroom salads and mushroom flavored chips. I love cereal with bananas. It'll be nice to have a fridge again.

On Thursday the whole mission was told to travel out to a village and work for about 3 hours. The villages are definitely interesting. It's a very different life. Everybody is growing something out there and there are plenty of animals. The other companionship here taught a nice lesson to 3 people, but we were just swarmed by children and didn't have much success at all. We had probably as many as 15 kids following us around. It was certainly interesting though. The village we went to has 5 streets and a distinct lack of anybody between 15 and probably about 35. We got a couple neat pictures I'll try to send soon.

We were able to visit a couple members one their birthdays this week which seemed to be well appreciated. In both instances we were invited in for some food which I well appreciated. =D We had an Elder's Quorum activity with 4 missionaries, the EQ President and the Branch President. The Branch Pres. left before he has a sore wrist and the EQ Pres is about 65. We were supposed to play sports. I thought it was kinda funny to just step back and think about the situation.

Church was great yesterday. I love Sundays. I love the members here. The woman I baptized, Valentina, bore a powerful testimony in testimony meeting. It's been awesome to see the change in her and her husband as they've embraced the Gospel so fully. I love this work. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Kingdom of God on the earth. There is a living prophet on earth today. I love the scriptures and I love God's laws. Thanks to everybody for the love and support. Endure to the end.

Love,
Elder J. Mahoney

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