zaraz tse vash hram!

In latin text, that's how you say 'this is your temple now!' We're all beginning to memorize the Kyiv cultural celebration video on LDS.org for the temple celebration. There are only a couple of people who speak Ukrainian on it, but it's fun :) It's been another great week at the mtc. Lots of things have happened. First off, our branch president was released, so now we have President Cranney instead of President Childs. It was sad to see them go, but we were blessed to know them while we were here. President Cranney is awesome too. He was the Mission President of a Moscow Mission previous to this calling, so he loves missionaries.
Another event was that Sister Chan, our Thai-speaking roommate, went to Thailand. Now it's just sister V and in the room, and we don't get any new girls in our room this week! Excellent!
Elder Holland was our devotional speaker last night. He did his usual stare-into-your-soul-over-the-pulpit routine. I don't know how he manages that, but he does. It's incredible. He talked to us about using the BOM as our main conversion tool - 'I feel like we're in first gear when we should be in overdrive.' It was a phenomenal talk - He went 15 minutes over, and I took three full pages of notes in teeny tiny handwriting. I'm working on starting my own set of large plates, I suppose. :) He told us that we are all apostles, but that Missionaries are apostles with little 'a's,' and he's an Apostle. Our district leader, Elder Robinett, says he feels like it's more of a APOSTLE and we're aPOSTLES. Haha
No big language mistakes this week. We are learning more grammar, and it's really difficult, but we'll make it.
All of the Russian speakers who have been here since before Christmas are leaving next week. They're headed to Ukraine, Moscow, Moscow West, and the two Siberian missions. It will be really really weird to see them go. Our gym time will be significantly different, and the best volleyball players will be leaving :( I'm getting much better at volleyball, because I play it every single day. I also try to run a mile, and this week I was even foursquare champion one day! I think that's about it for now. I love you all! Skyler
Sorry for the delay in posting last week's letter! Just think of how fun it will be to get two posts right in a row! - Rebecca