WEEK 5: ZONE CONFERENCE

Another Good week in Lviv!

We had zone conference this week (which was phenomenal). It was good to have our whole MTC district back (minus Ct R., who is in another zone). I got to see Sister V. though! What a joyous reunion. 

This is the last week for two of the elders in my district - our Zone leader, Elder R, and our District Leader, Elder S. It'll be sad to see them go, but it's been good to have them for a transfer. 

Zone conference was fantastic! We watched a movie called The Quest for Go-Getters about a young man named Billy Peck with only one arm and one leg...Everyone go watch it! It's really neat. We learned a lot too, and even had a question and answer session at the end. It ended up going until 5 oclock. 

Also, here is an excerpt from my letter to the President:

"...However, this week, as we were contacting, I was having trouble doing so. Sister W. really showed her example to me though, as she greeted a person on the street that looked to me as though she would not care to hear our message. Thankfully, she did! She speaks eight languages, one of which is English, and was interested in what we had to say. Unfortunately, she was waiting for a marshutka, but told us that she would come to church on Sunday. She didn't even give us her phone number, and wasn't a potential, so I thought nothing of it, really. However, she called us on Sunday to tell us that she would be late for church, but that she was coming. How grateful I was when she showed up with her 5 year old daughter.

After church, this woman told us, "I have never sat through an entire church service because nothing ever seems right. I usually get bored and leave. But when God tells you to stop and listen on the street, you had better do it."

I couldn't believe it. I thought I would never see her after the first conversation we had, and here she was telling us that she recognizes that this church is from God for her. I am humbled by Sister W.'s eagerness to contact a woman I was too prideful to stop for. I have more confidence now in what I need to do and how I need to do it..."

End excerpt.

I'm still really struggling to understand anyone here. I'm getting better at reading, but definitely not at speaking. Sigh. At least I'm not having to learn serjick or Russian yet...hahah. I hope to stay in L'viv for quite a while to learn 'Pure Ukrainian.' 

I love you all very much and hope that you have a fantastic week!

Sister D.

WEEK 4: THE KITTEN

It was SO wonderful to talk to y'all on Saturday! I loved seeing everyone. I realized how very little I asked about y'all or how y'all are doing or what is going on. I'm sorry about that. I was so caught up in being able to see everyone and talk that I really didn't have my right mind about me. Oh, and the people in the internet cafe were not happy with how loud Sister W. and I were. It was funny. We didn't care. Hahaha. 

So here are funny stories from the week :

We went to contact a lady on the street in Center L'viv...she was standing still. As expected, she turned us down. Her excuse? "I don't have time. I'm holding a kitten." <-Hahahah seriously? It was hilarious. We get some good excuses. 

Today all the elders/the two sisters are in town because of zone conference tomorrow. It is FANTASTIC to see Sister V. again. We were laughing and talking so much that we walked off in the wrong direction and all the other sisters laughed at us. Good times. 

I'm still working at getting my balance on Marshutkas...let's just say I am not the most graceful person and leave it at that :)

We're playing Ultimate Frisbee as a zone today :) I'm so excited! Our MTC district will all be here, minus CT. Ream. He's in another zone.

I forgot to tell you about our new investigator last week! We stopped her on the street on Wednesday, and she was immediately interested. She showed up to her appointment on Friday, and told us," I might come to church..." She ACTUALLY CAME! For all three hours too!! And she accepted a Book of Mormon, a Liahona, and some other things. In between Friday and Sunday, she had already read all of the intro, the testimonies, and the first 2 chapters of 1 Nephi. It was unbelievably exciting. We'll see how this goes. 

Sister W. spoke in sacrament meeting and did a really great job. We were all very proud of her.

I don't have much to say today, because I talked so much Saturday. Does anyone have questions? Sorry I'm really bad about telling everything. I LOVED seeing all of you. Can't wait for Christmas!

Much Love,

Sister D

MOTHER'S DAY SKYPING WITH SKY

12 May 2012

As a family we were able to have our Mother's Day phone call with Skyler on Saturday morning, May 12.  She had told us earlier the details of the call, and that if we wanted to have a Video SKYPE call she would need to call us on Saturday morning from an Internet Cafe.  Of course we wanted to have the SKYPE call so we could see her. We logged on from 3 different computers and got very excited when we saw her SKYPE account show up-- SHE WAS ONLINE!!  First thing I noticed was her smiling eyes--evidence to this mother that Skyler is very happy and in a good place.  She entertained us with stories and experiences and Culture, including her challenges and struggles and upbeat contacts with people who want to know about the Gospel.  What a clear window into Skyler's mission we were able have for a short time.  She makes the world a better place.

WEEK 3: HOLIDAYS

03 May 2012     Another great week in Ukraine! I'm learning so much. Mostly, that I don't speak Ukrainian...but that's a work in progress. I love this country a lot. 

This week, there were a million holidays in Lviv - Ukrainians celebrate Holidays for at least a week each, apparently. May 1 was their Labor day, I think? And Saturday and Sunday were the celebration for the birthday of Lviv. Yay parties everywhere! I even saw a jazz band! I was so excited, I made Sister W. go with me. I'm dying, not having touched a trumpet in this long...kind of ridiculous, right? I know. They were on some balcony, or I would have gone and asked to play. They were playing a song I know.

Everyone here thinks that we're Jehovah's witnesses. I learned those words really fast. I haven't run into any Jehovah's witnesses yet, though. We hear lots of missionary stories about that. 

Last Monday we had a really neat experience - we could not find ANY families from the branch that could let us come over for FHE. They were all busy. So we went to an older lady's apartment to surprise her (she loves missionaries), but she opened the door in tears, spoke to us in Russian, and apparently wanted us to leave. Sad day. So we contacted went to the Church for our dinner hour to practice piano, and there was a random family hanging out at the church. We actually got to talk to them a lot about what we believe and who we are. Interestingly enough, they wanted to know mostly about how much the sacrament means to us, so we got to tell them that it's the entire reason we have church :) Happy day. They didn't give us their number, but they now have a Book of Mormon (which we don't really get to give away very often here!) . I know that sounds bad, but it's not. We mostly just save them for people who are truly interested. We still hand out pamphlets and things to lots of people. 

We have gotten quite a bit of rain this week, but it's just cooling it down and making it even more beautiful here. We're grateful for it. 

I love you so much family! Have a great week!

Sister Skyler

WEEK 2: I WILL SURVIVE!

30 April 2012

This week has been a wonderful experience for me. I was very concerned about going back and forth between Kyiv and Lviv, maybe missing mission conference, and overall adjusting. But I learned quite a bit in that single week. When I was in Lviv the first time, I was terrified to speak and would not contact at all. I felt hopeless as the language overwhelmed me and I felt useless as a missionary. In short, Satan was taking advantage of my fear by feeding it metaphorical steroids. It was really hard to focus or to even feel like trying.

By the time I got to Kharkivsky, I was hot, tired, disheveled, and frustrated. But over the course of the next week, Sister D. (my "grandmother" in the mission - she trained my trainer) helped me to know what to say, how to react, and to work on the short things I could say while contacting. I even got to go to stake conference in Kyiv! The theme of it was Members: HELP THE MISSIONARIES and Husbands: let your wives know that you love them! There was more emphasis on the first one, if you couldn't tell by my caps lock.

Eventually, with my return to Lviv, I had much more confidence. The spirit was back in my life, and others had helped me to fight off the fear that clouded my vision before. Now, I'm excited to contact and communicate in Ukrainian with a horrible accent, and struggle to understand what others are saying to me. It's not easy, and people chuckle at my Ukrainian... (I met a young girl in Kyiv who tried asking me some questions in Ukrainian, and when I obviously couldn't understand, she repeated the question in perfect english...I felt slightly dumb. Then I asked her how bad my accent was and she just laughed...haha I'll get there, but I'm definitely not fluent yet). Most people are kind and want to help me though :)

I love Lviv so so so much. It turned lush and green almost overnight after my arrival. The weather is fantastic! No humidity (well, it seems like that to me. However, the Utah missionaries seem to disagree...most people are saying how hot it is...but it feels like Texas to me. Thank you, parents, for raising me in Dallas, so that I am conditioned to be a missionary :)

Oh random connections of the week! My companion, Sister W., told me that her mom also grew up in Farmington, New Mexico!  

Zone conference was cancelled on Friday because the 6 missionaries out of our zone due to visa trips to bulgaria weren't back. Sister V, my MTC companion, ended up in kyiv because her companion was one of those in Bulgaria. We found out later that they all missed their flights back from Bulgaria...dun dun dun....But we still had 'zone meeting' - the rest of the zone met up in Lviv and President and the APs weren't there. The meeting was good though. The two senior couples were there, the E's and the M's. The E's serve in Lviv. He's the Branch president here and they take good care of the 8 missionaries in Lviv. They're going home soon, which makes me really sad. I already love them so much. I don't know the M's very well yet, because they serve in Chernivsy. I don't even know if I'm spelling all of these city names right in the Latin Alphabet, by the way...the cyrillic alphabet is awesome. Hopefully I can become extremely proficient with both Ukrainian and Russian alphabets (slight difference - Ukrainian has 4 i's and 2 h's, Russian uses the 'g' sound a lot more.

I'm really looking forward to my Mother's Day phone call home.  Details need to be worked out with families. I'll send more info separately.

Cool spiritual experience of the week. It was Saturday, and we had scheduled to do weekly planning (normally it's Friday, but it changed because of zone meeting). The other sisters got a call from a member with a referral of a co- worker that wanted to hear about our church from the missionaries. They already had a lesson planned, so it was up to us to go visit her. However, it was a 40 minute walk, we were tired and hot, and we didn't even know if this referral would work out . We prayed about it and didn't get any lightning-bolt answers. However, we decided to go ahead and go, and reschedule weekly planning. So we went, got there, and the woman was extremely interested. She's coming to church next Sunday for sure! Also, another worker there sat down and attentively listened to us. She gave us her name and number as well, and she's going to try and come as well. It was definitely worth the long walk and change of plans.

That's about all I have to say right now, but I love you all and hope that everything is going well wherever you are. I pray for all of you daily! 

Sister Skyler