Week 4

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

For real this time! Ukrainians celebrate New Year's on the right day! It's kind of bad though, because it means there's going to be a lot of drunk people. Like, an unimaginable amount of intoxicated Ukrainians will be filling the streets after 5 O'clock this Thursday. Even more than the usual amount that are out on the streets anyway. We're not allowed to go out and contact with people after 5 O'clock, because it's going to be that bad. So that's fun!

I spent the majority of this last week with Elder Montgomery because Elder Ditty was in Днепропетровск. I'm not sure, but I think I've spent enough time with Elder Montgomery to fill an entire transfer, so I'm not sure if I should count him as having been one of my companions while on my mission. I think he'll at least be added to the honorable mentions list. Of course, I still have a lot of time left on my mission. We could end up being official companions at some point with how few people are in our mission! I also have a good chance of serving with Elder Fuller again, which would not be the most exciting thing I've ever done...

So, somehow we ended up with 2 new investigators last week! We met both of these people while visiting a less active member in our branch. It was pretty crazy! Totally unexpected! Especially since one of them agreed to be baptized! We thought they were going to come to church, but neither of them came. Hopefully this week!

On a side note, I made fried chicken on Christmas Eve! I made some waffle batter, floured some strips of chicken breast, battered them up, and fried them! They were delicious! Also, drank hot chocolate through Контик, highly recommended; made MANCAKES, which are like pancakes only 5 times more intense because you dip them in the batter 5 times; made lemon sherbet by total accident, I won't say how; and we made chicken fajitas, which we ate on pieces of fry bread for extra deliciousness!

On Christmas we got to Skype our families, which was awesome! It was even more awesome because I had just barely received a Christmas package from my Mom literally 10 minutes before the call. I got to open presents with my family! Technology is awesome, high-five for technology!

I'm not sure what else I can say, other than this week is about to get cold. It's going to drop from 55 today, all the way down to 33 tomorrow... and then it's going to keep on dropping... So that's about 10 pounds of nope in a 5 pound bag.

Peace out! Don't freeze!

Elder Robison

MERRY CHRISTMAS (week 3)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

IT'S CHRISTMAS!

IN UKRAINE!

NO ONE CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS HERE UNTIL JANUARY 7th BECAUSE OF RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY!

YAY!

So, yeah, totally Christmas here, and it hasn't snowed yet. In fact, the weather is going to hover around 50 all week. Basically, I don't even get to see a white Christmas when I go to Ukraine. It's like I bring Texas weather patterns with me wherever I go...

I'm not entirely sure what happened this week. I feel like a lot happened, but then I realized that nothing happened. We went down to Николаев again (that's Nikolaev for those who aren't familiar with the Cyrillic Script) for a zone conference. A 2 day zone conference. It was super good, I learned a ton from it!

We have an investigator who we're currently working with to help him to baptism. He's super cool, he has a good testimony and comes to church almost every Sunday. His only problem is that he can't quit smoking. It's really sad, he's been meeting with the missionaries for years, he just can't quit smoking. He's a really great guy, and he has a really sweet family, and we just really have to help him get past this so his wife will have more reason to get baptized and then they'll be able to be sealed together as a family for all eternity! It will be so здорово, we just have to help him with his smoking!

He's basically our only investigator right now. We can go ahead and call him Саша, because literally every other person is called Саша, so there's no way of identifying who he is.

I'm not even joking about the whole Саша thing. EVERYONE is named Саша (The short form of Александр), Сергей, Владимир, Богдан, or Виктор. And all of the women are named Наташа (Short form of Наталья), Ирина, Оксана, Лена (Short form of Елена), or Алина. It's also possible to run into Тамила, Мария, and Людмила, but they're a little rarer.

Something that I'm realizing that I've forgotten to share with you all is Супер Контик (Super Kontik). Imagine an Oreo, but with vanilla cookies. Now imagine it was bigger, say 3-4 times as large. Now, cover the entire thing in chocolate so that is has a nice chocolate shell. Now you have a Супер Контик!

They're amazing, I don't even know how to describe them! Basically, the eating procedure is as follows:

1. Take the Контик and find a small hole in the chocolate shell. If there is no hole, take a small bite into the Контик, not too deep. There may be multiple holes, which will prove to be difficult for the rest of the eating process.

2. On the exact opposite side of the Контик from where you found or made the hole, bite a small hole into the Контик, again, not too deep.

3. Get a shallow bowl or saucer and fill it with milk.

4. Use the Контик as a straw to drink the milk.

If you do everything correctly, you should be able to drink quite a bit of milk before the Контик collapses in the center, leaving you with a delicious, milk soaked, chocolately cookie to enjoy.

But odds are, you'll never find Контик back in the states, so you'll never know their joy. For this I am sorry.

Anyway, Merry Christmas again! I'm going to be spending this weekly mostly with Elder Montgomery because Elder Ditty is going to Днепропетровск for a training meeting and leaving me here in Херсон. I'll be sure to eat plenty of Контик because you guys can't!

Peace out!

Elder Robison

Week 2

Hello people!

This week I talked to a lot of people on the street! Well, Elder Ditty talked to a lot of people, and I stood close by and interjected where I could in my basic Russian... It was still really cool though! We never did that kind of thing in my old companionship, nobody would ever actually stop to talk with us before!

Elder Ditty is awesome! I was concerned he'd be a weirdy, but then he turned out to be a super weirdy, which is a good thing because it means that hilarious things are bound ot happen at any moment!

In other news, I cooked so much food this week! So. Much. And I didn't have to clean any of it up, because my companion took care of it! I cook, he cleans it up, we eat, everything is delicious, we talk to people about the Gospel in the cold Ukrainian streets. It's awesome!

District meeting was fun this week! There's a rule that 2 Elders can't be with 2 Sisters in the same place unless it's a public place, or there's another person present. It also can't look like any kind of date. This is all great until you realize that our district is currently 2 Elders... and 2 Sisters... Which works if you have a member to be with you! But none of our members would be with us...

Long story short, Elder Ditty and I sat outside of the Branch building and had the Sisters sit inside, and then we planned for about an hour or so in that configuration. To make things better, a homeless man came up to us and asked us if we were having a church service. But he was drunk, and we didn't trust him, so we gave him a card and sent him on his way. I'll see if I can put up a picture of our strange, strange, strange district meeting. So strange.

Other than that, I don't think much else has happened. I had to give a 5 minute talk on Sunday about repentance! In Russian! That was fun!

This weeks goals:

Learn Russian

Give at least ONE person a Book of Mormon onf the street

Eat good food

Don't get district meeting interrupted by random strangers

Talk to lots of random strangers

Peace out!

Elder Robison

Week 1!

Ha! You probably thought this was going to be Week 7! Well, it's not! I'm resetting the counter in honor of transfers!

Transfers!

My new companion's going to be Elder Ditty. He's coming down here to Kherson to serve as the new branch president. Which means that I'm probably going to be th enew branch seceratary! Woo!

I don't really know anything about Elder Ditty. At all. So, I guess I'll find out tomorrow!

Elder Riddle is probably on a bus as we speak, head back to Dnepropetrovsk so he can catch his plan back to America. He will be missed...

But, that means that I'm not doing the training program anymore! WOO!

I thought I was going to miss Elder Riddle a lot. Then, I got up to make breakfast and realized that he had eaten the last of the cereal, and drunk the last of the yogurt, which meant that we had no food left to eat for breakfast. Yeah, after that I didn't miss him as much for some reason...

On the bright side, I found that we had a lot of flour, baking soda, and a little bit of salt left. Using these humble ingredients, I was able to make TONS of Navajo fry-bread! TONS of it. The stack of finished bread was at the very least a foot or so high. It turned out pretty dense because we had baking soda instead of baking powder, but they were still delicious! We ate most of them, but I got the stuff to make more. I have a feeling that there's going to be a lot of fry-bread made on my mission from now on... A lot... Maybe even with baking powder if I can find some!

Yeah... Navajo bread in Ukraine... that's not something that I ever expected. What's more, my Ukrainian companion it! Of course, it's hard not to like Navajo bread.

On Friday last week we had to clean out the other apartment in our mission, becasue they're closing that one down. We totally looked like bums! We had tons of grocery bags, and we were carrying a twin-bed down the street! We had to take it all like 3 blocks down the street to our own apartment! It was hilarious!

Anyway, that's pretty much what's been happening down here! Up here? Out here.

Peace out!

Elder Robison