Week 17-The Still Small Voice

This week was a little slower than some, but blessings abound anyways! We had to travel to Kiev for my SECOND mid transfer training... wooo😐... so that ate up a lot of our week but no big deal because we still got to do some lessons with our friends. 

Like i said we had mid transfer training this week. We traveled to Kiev and back in two days. On the way to Kiev we took a Marshutka and instead of sitting next to a companion, we split up to hopefully catch someone that we could talk to. Jokes on me because instead i got an 8 year old child sitting next to me😓. I honestly had no clue what happened. I thought her dad was gonna sit next to me and i could talk to him maybe, and all the sudden he steps aside and there's a child there and he's motioning towards the seat.

Anyways, this child sits next to me and knocks out IMMEDIATELY (it's about 6-700 at night) and starts snoring. Hard. I've heard some impressive snoring in my time, but coming from this 8 year old I was absolutely floored😅. It was honestly impressive. And then when the father went to wake this child he had to give her a good shake to wake her😂. I thought it was pretty funny. Also, minor blessing, but i heard the ever glorious song Take On Me play whilst traveling on this bus👌. Needless to say I very much enjoyed that.

We also played Sparkle in our english class this week. For those who don't know we basically take turns spelling a word one letter at a time until a word is spelled. Little did I know that somehow we were going to end up spelling the word eleemosynary😅🤨😅??? Yeah. I felt bad afterwards and just gave them a few synonyms to make them feel like they learned something. 

To finish this off ill just share a really neat experience we had this week. We had a lesson with витали (Vitale) one of our quickly progressing friends. During the lesson we asked him a question about the importance of the Spirit and while he was giving his answer the Spirit was insanely strong. Just us missionaries were talking about it after and we were just like "Holy smokies I think he's ready for a bigger commitment..." we all felt the spirit super strong when he was talking and our next lesson will be fun we are thinking.

So that was super awesome and the next day he came to Church with his Girlfriend! They were both super into it and oddly enough both of them at different times commented on the hymns. They really enjoyed them! If everyone could throw a quick prayer out for him that would be peachy! The Spirit will be there when you need it, you just have to recognize it and act in accordance with it!

Love yall and i hope you have an enjoyable week! 👍😁👍

1. Homemade chips and salsa. They don't have any mexican food... so we improvised

2. Some absolute lads that are hanging around our apartment all the time. I caught them just lazing around that day.

3. BBQ chicken wraps with homemade tortillas. (We were really missing some staple foods this week)

4. This park banned a lot of things, but not Proselyting!

5. Helping Hands project cleaning up leaves at a local orphanage

Week 16 -Travels and a Small Message

I'm going to cut some people some slack and say that if you are bored or don't have time to read the whole thing, id just read the Spiritual thought. Stories are fun, but if you're low on time read the thought👍 

Hello Hello! This week was BUSY. Holy smokies. Not that every week isn't busy or anything, this week just felt busier because we had some traveling to do. How about I give you the rundown? 

So this week we had Zone Conference with Elder Golden, our Area Authority. We had to travel up to Kiev for that (roughly a four hour endeavor by the end), which was interesting. It went kinda like this.

Hop in a BlaBlaCar (Uber, just think Uber) To the Metro to where we were SUPPOSED to meet the Elders who were gonna host us for the evening. They weren't there so we got on a Marshutka (A bus) and had a minor scare we had gotten on the wrong one. Got off the bus (STILL no Elders) so we call them and they said to wait in a shop, but its 1000 at night and they were all closed or closing.

We onLy figured that out after we walked into a store and the owner was in the process of closing. It was this healthy food shop where they sell all natural foods or whatever. Anyways, I felt bad and bought some expensive healthy food (why? Why does healthy need to be expensive?) and we moved to a 24 hour Bread shop. The owner happened to be a member and got really excited. Him: "Are you Mormonski?" "Yeah..." (Expecting maybe a little heat or something) Him: "Sweet, Me too!" and then I got lost and when he went rapid fire russian. All i got was that he'd been a  member for about 4 years and he loved it and was glad to see us😀👍

Anyways the Elders found us and brought us to their apt. The next day basically finishes the more exciting part of our travels when a drunk guy stumbled right into me on the metro, I caught him, redirected him, and he sat down ALMOST on the guy next to him. Fun stuff.

Anyways, the rest of the week was super awesome! We got two knew really awesome friends who are SUPER interested and one of them came to church on Sunday! Urrah for Igor! We also had another lesson with Ira. She is the one getting ready for Baptism and im pretty excited about her! We have lessons almost everyday with so many people, that its hard to say im not busy. Almost everyone we teach has a desire to know more about the Gospel. And if they don't we still get to teach them some stuff anyways , so... yeah😁 

Something that was said by Elder Golden this week really struck me, and id like to share it because it's remarkable how true it is. 

"The Battle for everyday is won before you leave your apartment."

Or house or trailer or mansion or loft, but you get the idea. If we don't have the right mindset when we get up and get going, that will reflect onto our day, and it just make sit that much more difficult to so things positively. I know that I have sometimes felt this. It's important to make sure you start your day right, however that may be. Good breakfast, exercise, sitting down for a few pages with a good book (maybe a scripture or two?😁🤞), organizing the things you need the night before, etc.

I wouldn't recommend you do much with technology to start your morning other then music. It's an easy way to get you distracted and lose out on time to prepare yourself for the day. Try it out, I think it'll be worth it.

Anyways, enjoy some pics... ill try and take some better ones😅

1. Biscuits! I'm gonna try and perfect biscuits before I get home. these weren't too bad, just a little dense...

2. Kiev Temple!

3. Sweet Drops... I may need to slow down on the sugar, but oh well. Them's good stuffs

4. I Circled my area on this map. you can read the names of each area in our mission

A Note From Shelby

Some people have asked me how the communication with Jacob is going since he got to the Ukraine.  My answer...better than when he was in the US!!  In Seattle he did not have a data plan on his phone, so he needed Wifi to talk to us.  This meant that they had to go to the church building during the day to hop on their Wifi. He was at the mercy of the Elders he was with so we never quite knew what time he would be there or for how long he would be able to talk.

Well, the minute he got to the Ukraine they hooked him up with a data plan, so now when he wakes up at 5 am in the Ukraine he calls us right off the bat (9 pm our time).  Even better he can just call my phone, as opposed to Seattle, where he had to send an email when he was ready to talk and I had to contact him.  If I was in meetings at work I would sometimes miss those windows which, if I'm being totally honest, let me in tears more than once. 

So usually we talk to him Sunday night 9-10:30ish, go to bed, and I usually wake up Monday morning to him trying to get hold of me.  Sometimes he needs money, sometimes he wants a recipe, sometimes he just has the time to chat with me.  So Monday morning is now my personal one on one time with Jake, because everyone else has left for the day.  I generally continue to get missionary related requests (scripture references, conversion story, photos requests of specific events or places, stuff like that) from him until about 10 am (9 pm his time).

So that's how we roll now.  I now live for Monday instead of Wednesday!  Whoda thought?!

In other news, when you go to get your hair cut in the Ukraine and you don't have a really great grasp of the language, you get a Ukrainian cut!  Pretty sure this is literally the shortest I have EVER seen his hair, and I've known him a pretty long time guys.

Week 15-What's happening? Meh I'll just go for it...

This was a week. Yup. This was in fact a week. First full week in Ukraine, and im ready to go for more! So, hows about i get right to the exciting stuff for yall!

So, in terms of food, kinda wrecked me for the first few days not gonna lie. I find that i actually enjoy all the food here. Ive had Borscht, Gretchka, Pelimeni, a whole slew of preaniki... i don know how to spell that in english... and this interesting Dessert wafer thing that was like tres leche, but not because it was like lasagna form of that. I honestly dont know and i forgot to take a pic so... sorry? 😅

In terms of people we are teaching there are alot! We teach quite a few people everyday, 2-3, and we have some people who are progressing really well! This last week we were able to actually put someone on date for baptism that the elders here have been teaching forever. That was a super interesting lesson... story time!😁

So heres the deal, the woman has been taught by missionaries for a REALLY long time, and this week we had a pretty normal lesson. But what i wasnt informed of was that one of my companions was planning on dropping her that lesson (telling her we couldn't teach her anymore because she wasnt "progressing"). So anyways, during the lesson i was just trying my darndest to follow, but i was having a rough go of it. All i knew, the only two thoughts that were in my head were "Elder Maximo doesnt look very happy" and "I need to include her son somehow"

She always brings her son to these lessons and from what i was told he never participates to much, if at all. So i said a quick prayer and started looking for a scripture i could have him read. I settled on Ether 12:4 and 6. When i came my turn to give my two bits, i called over her son and had him read. I dont know what changed, but elder Maximo immediately perked up and apparently while i was talking something clicked with him AND her and we invited her to baptism and she said yes! 

So that was our fun, exciting news, now for something funny.

Earlier in the week we were handing out little pass along cards and inviting people to an open house our Branch decided to do (super fun). While i was handing these out i gave one to an older gentlemen who was walking by. He asked "whats this" and i responded "church" because thats the best way to get across what its talking about to help them decide if its something they want (yes people stop and ask more questions when i say that).

So i handed one to this guy and all the sudden ive been stopped in the middle of this public square by him and hes straight up yelling about God and Church or something. Idk. One of the perks of not completely knowing a language is that i dont know what people are saying sometimes, and especially when they are aggravated. At some point he motioned to his belt buckle and it had the hammer and sickle on it so i could only guess what he was trying to get across. 🤔😅

Eventually my senior companion comes over and officially gets him to move on, because all i could do was stand there and smile and shrug. Prolly made im more aggravated, especially when i replied "no" after he asked if i was understanding. Very interesting... conversation? It was pretty one sided.

This week ill just share the scripture that i shared in our super awesome lesson 

       4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

6 And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

Faith is important. Put your faith in God and you will feel him anchor you in life, provide you with something steadfast and sure in the storms of life. Dispute not because you see not. Keep the Faith.

Love yall, enjoy the pics, and enjoy your week!

Дай пять!!!

1. Elder Robinson and Elder Maximo (My Companions) taking a break in between lessons

2. We had a Halloween party with our English class and one of the games was bobbing for donuts. they enjoyed it

3. Georgian food (dont know what its called so uhhh... yeah) Super good. washed it down with apple juice because it was a worthy meal

4. A cool building. not entirely sure what it is, but it looks pretty important so i took a picture.

5. We cut open a few preaniki and put some homemade chocolate frosting in it. super unhealthy, SUPER delicious.

Week14- It's a grand old time

GOOOOOOOOD MORNING EVERYONE. We have officially arrived in Ukraine! Boy oh boy. Exciting stuff. So, where do i start, because ive got a few things to say and not a whole lot of time... ill just pick the highlights and if you want to know anything more specific all you need to do is ask and i will do my darndest to respond next week😁.

So, i got the call that my Visa came in last thursday, and was scheduled to leave on tuesday. My fun begins almost immediately upon walking into the airport because I accidentally walked past my train to get to the terminal, but it ended up being minor blessing. I found two other people who were trying to look for the gate like me and we banded together to figure things out. Together we successfully made it to our terminal. One from the three of us was a man trying to return to China and he spoke not a lick of english. Its ok though, i think i pointed him in the right direction👍.

Next on the plane flight, i sat next to a lady who ended up being able to speak russian. Unfortunately for me russian was also her second language, so we kinda small talked about food and where we were from, but in the end she complimented my russian after i told her it had only been three months of learning. Felt kinda good... more language stories later...

So then i landed in Amsterdam, and met up with 12 other Missionaries who were going to Kiev (I knew them from the MTC so it was cool to see them again) and we zipped off to Ukraine! 

Successfully made it through customs and then waited around trying to figure out where some of the other Missionaries bags were. It took so long that i was like, "Hm, im bored and still technically a solo Missionary sooo... lets go find Pres. Kumferman". So thats just what i did. Here our story gets fun.

I walk through the gate, much to their surprise. "Why surprise" you may ask. "Weren't they waiting for Missionaries?". Well yes, yes they were. Just not ME. You see, Elder Coleman was not on their roster of incoming missionaries, so when i walked through the door it was like a surprise child or something. Fun stuff.

Aint that just something? So I didn't have an assigned companion until the end of the day, and because they had no clue where to put me for the night i got put up with the Assistants to the President (The two Missionaries who work directly with the mission president). Kinda fun honestly. 

Long story short, im now in черкаси (Cherkasy) with 4 other missionaries and we are just having a grand old time. My first Sunday this week was tiring (apparently theres a club) and I accidentally told someone that i like to cry as a hobby... yeah. In russian the words Swim and cry are pretty similar... плакать/plakat (to cry) and плавать/plavat (to swim)... so yeah. Learning languages is fun👍👍. 

That was a SUPER quick summary of my past two weeks and I can go more in depth, but it was already kinda long, so i hope it was at least entertaining. For my spiritual thought i'll just share a quick quote from Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 

"While weak hope leaves us at the mercy of our moods and events, “brightness of hope” produces illuminated individuals. Their luminosity is seen, and things are also seen by it! Such hope permits us to “press forward” even when dark clouds oppress (see 2 Ne. 31:16, 20; Heb. 6:19; Ether 12:4; Col. 1:23). Sometimes in the deepest darkness there is no external light—only an inner light to guide and to reassure."

Stay happy and healthy everyone, love yall!

"Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" (in Ukranian) w/ the Fonz

Kiev Temple!!! and in the fog!! I was like ~50 yards from it...

Endless clouds... Probably. it was just blanketing the Country(ies) in every direction

Who is... is that... it is, Bob Ross!!

 View from my Window of my apartment

Week13-So This is How it Feels?? (10/14/19)

So this week was actually pretty successful. Weve started having alot steadier people to teach, and a few really promising friends! Hopefully that persists through this next week though because a good number of them are college students and its midterms from what i understand. Idk. I dont have to take those for a while  👍😁👍.

We gained quite a few new friends this week too. We had the goal of wanting to actually sit down and have a lesson in someones house everyday, but its pretty difficult to do that, so when we asked "If youd like we would love to come i  and teach you more, itd also get you out of the cold!" People would just be like "Im good but you can teach me here on the Doorstep IN the cold" we did actually get a few return appts. from that so i guess it worked out

Anyways, as far as stories go this week, id say my favorite one is something all of my class from the MTC has already experienced. We found a guy that OPENED up one of the russian missions. He also married a woman who speaks russian fluently... And my companion speaks russian fluently... Next logical thought to us was Lets have dinner! And we did. Блинчики (Russian Pancakes, basically) and Халава. Oh yeah and they all spoke only russian the entire time. 

It was Fantastic! I understood a good portion of it, and contributed every so often. It helped that they were miming some of the stuff and whenever i REALLY didnt know a word i would just look really confused and repeat it. They would tell it to me and i would save it for later use. It didnt happen that often though, just on the stuff i was really confused on.

So that was fun, and it made me A LOT more excited to get to a place where everyone only speaks russian. Dont get me wrong though, i will definitely be enjoying the english while im here😅

Scripture this week is John 4:36-38

36 And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.

37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.

38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.

Doing missionary work is often difficult, and at times it seems like all effort is wasted (this can be applied to everyone, whether wearing a badge or not). 

It may seem like every effort is wasted.

It may seem like the person is just not ever going to listen to what you have to say.

And that is 100% OK

Because the sower soweth and the reaper reapeth.

Do not forget this simple parable because sometimes we forget that the one doing the baptizing isnt always the one who put in most of the work. We simply 'entered into their labors'.

So for all missionaries who feel a little down i would encourage taking a look at this scripture when you do and recognize that BOTH he that soweth and he that reapeth MAY REJOICE TOGETHER. 

(Dont get me wrong, there are definitely times when you can sow and reap, this is just if you feel real discouraged about how youre doing on the reaping side)

So yeah, dont get encouraged, work towards reaping and remember that without the sower the reaper could do nothing.

I hope this helped out someone or maybe it will in the future, but id recommend saving this for a rainy day so you can remember the promise given to BOTH of the laborers.

Finally Some Photos!! (My bad, I Kinda forget)

1. Big ol Russian hat the the Russian missionary i met actually used on his mission

2. Really Cool tree we wanted to take a picture in

3. Funny sign we found while tracting (I found it amusing)