Elder Robison in Ukraine: January 2016

Monday, January 25, 2016

Week 2

I'm not sure what to write for this last week. We've got a couple of new investigators who are showing a lot of promise, and we've been talking with them quite a bit.

This next week is going to be extra fun because Elder Ditty is going up to MLC, so tomorrow I have to go to Nikolaiv and pick up my two temporary companions! One of whom has only been in the country for about 4 days at this point! The other one's only been here 6 weeks!

This week... This week will be interesting...

Elder Robison

I'm not sure what I'll write (Week 1)

This transfer, I'm:

GOING TO STAY IN KHERSON!!! WITH ELDER DITTY!!!

Yeah, tripanionship didn't happen! It was about to, but the transfer changed at the last minute! It's such a relief, I don't have to pack up, and I get to stay and keep trying to help the branch here!

This last week... I don't know what to say about it. We went all over the place, got to eat lunch with a member of the Kherson city council, did a really cool activity for our Friday class. It was a pretty busy week!

Yesterday, while we were at the Branch building, Elder Ditty and I were looking out the window from the second floor. We saw this big lady walking towards this dumpster that sits basically in the middle of the street about 20 meters from the door of the branch. We were super confused because all that she had with her was a child of about 5 or 6 years old, who she was carrying with one arm. We couldn't figure out what she was trying to throw away. She got right up next to the garbage can, and then held the kid directly over it! Elder Ditty and I were freaking out at this point, and we were about to go downstairs when, out of nowhere, the lady pulls out this hidden garbage bag and hucks it in the bin! She then walked off, still holding the kid in one arm.

It was overall, hilarious!

"Excuse me, just gonna throw away this ki--- nope! Throwing away garbage, that's what I'm doing!"

To close on a good note, we've got a good number of new investigators and potential investigators, and we're ready to hit another 6 weeks!

And this is now officially a week late. Sorry, my computer turned off last week!

Peace! I'll send this week's email when I finish it. If I finish it...

Elder Robison

Monday, January 11, 2016

Week 6

I don't even know what to write for this week. Um. We taught a whole bunch of lessons, did a cool class on Friday. We went to Nikolaev again on Thursday, and then we came back.

I got a winter coat!! It's so cool! It has fur on the hood! I feel like I'm about to go explore the Arctic Circle! It's awesome, I love it so much! It was pretty cheap too, so it's all benifits!

I also found baking powder, so now I can make all of the delicious baked goods that I couldn't make before! We also found a really wierd, mystery-berry syrup in the store. It said on the bottle that it was 100% delicious. It was also in Ukrainian, so we're not 100% sure what it actually is. Yeah, that's the problem with only learning Russian; we can't read any of the things that are in Ukrainian!

Anyway, we turned an entire loaf of bread into French Toast, and then poured the mystery syrup on it. My companion was aprehensive about buying it, and he didn't really want to try it when the time came. I convinced him to try it though, so that's good. We're still not sure what kind of syrup it is, but it was pretty good. I mean, I'd describe it as pretty close to 100% delicious. I would 100% buy mystery syrup again!

I think that pretty much sums up our week. This next week is going to be fun, transfer calls happen on Saturday, and we had a somewhat ominous call from President Sullivan last week in the which he said that he had come up with "a solution for our district meeting problem". You know, the problem where we can't have a district meeting because there would have to be someone else present for us and the Sisters to be together? Yeah, that problem.

Well, he didn't say anything specific, but the only way that Elder Ditty and I can interperet that statement as meaning that we're either going to get another Elder or another Sister. Meaning that one companionship is going to have three people in it... the dreaded Tri-panionship! Nobody wants that to happen, but that's basically the best case scenario.

Also, Elder White wants to come down to Kherson at the end of this week so he can be there for transfer calls. Which isn't suspicious at all! Not even a little bit suspicious! I'm sure there's absolutely no ulterior motives for that! None at all!

It's sketchy.

So... Next time I write, we'll get to see what happens with this whole situation. I'll put a codeword in the subject so you can know the answer right away!

If a Tri-panionship happens, I'll write "TRI-PANIONSHIP OF DOOM"

If something else unforeseen happens, I'll write "THE SKY IS OVER"

If nothing changes and all is normal, I'll write... I'm not sure what I'll write, but it won't be either of those other things! It'll be like a game!

Monday, January 4, 2016

WHAT'S THIS!?! (Week 5)

IT SNOWED! I'M FREAKING OUT! IT SNOWED!!

I can't even describe what it feels like to finally be in snow, while it's snowing! The only other times I've been around snow in my life is after it's already fallen, I've never seen actual snowfall before! It's so amazing! I've always been fascinated by snow, and now I've been in it! Elder Ditty got a video of me when the snow first started to fall, and it's actually kind of hilarious how excited I was about it!

So, that was super cool!

I also got to try Холодец (Khuludyetz) on January 1st. Холодец is disgusting... It is literally spiced meat gelatin... Imagine jello with broccoli floating in it. Now imagine that the broccoli is old meat, and the jello isn't fruit flavored, it's weird old meat flavored. It's not as bad as it sounds. It's worse!

On that same day, I got to play Abinidi as part of our new Book of Mormon class that Elder Ditty and I organized for the ward. Quick backstory, Abinidi was a prophet on the American continent way back in the day. His people were really wicked and contentious with each other, and their king had a lot of false priests that tried to twist doctrine to make him seem as if he were just. Abinidi was called to warn the people that if they didn't pull themselves together and start following the true doctrines of the gosple, then the Lamanites (Another group of ancient people that dwelt in the land) were going to come and enslave them all. The king's priests had Abinidi captured and thrown in prison so that they could try him and excecute him. He's bound in chain's and brought into the king's court, and once he gets there he prophecies to the king and bears testimony to them. At one point they try to seize him so they can kill him, but he withstands them and strikes fear into them with merely his voice because he hadn't delivered the message he had been called to give yet. It's a super cool story, it's found in the Book of Mormon, Mosiah chapters 12, 13, and 14.

On January 2nd we had a branch party. That was fun! Elder Ditty had an idea to do a skit where I had to be his arms and do ridiculous things. The first thing I did was put a ton of shaving cream on my hands and smack it ALL over his face. It was hilarious! A video of it exists somewhere, I'm sure.

So, the other day we were walking down the street contacting when we came up to this guy who was walking towards us. He was just barely lighting a cigarette, so we decided to just wish him a happy new year (с новым годом, in Russian "With the New Year"). Elder Ditty says "с новым годом!" and the guy tries to respond, but he chokes on his cigarette and ends up just coughing out "с ноKOFF-KOFF-KOFFвыHACKм WHEEZE!". And then I turned to Elder Ditty and said, "That's a good indicator that you should probably quit smoking."

And that pretty much brings us up to now... EXCEPT FOR POSSIBLE PICTURES!!