MEXICAN NIGHT!

So, this week was, in fact, jam packed with stuff.

Tuesday was a normal English Practice. That day I had been on exchanges with Elder Fuller. We made an archive of mission test scores, created a mission master score sheet. Tons of stuff went wrong, there were some bugs in the system, but we're working all that out right now.

Wednesday there was a baptism. We weren't planning on being there because we didn't have any investigators going, but we got to stay because Elder Balyas had to lead the meeting, and the person who was supposed to be giving the first talk never showed up, so I was asked to fill in 30 seconds before the meeting started. That went pretty well, considering it was totally impromptu and in Russian.

On Thursday we had Zone Conference, which was awesome! I got to play guitar as prelude music, something that doesn't really ever happen. There was a worldwide broadcast for all missionaries that was super cool. I got to hang out with Elder Walker the whole time, which was super cool.

That night I went on exchanges with Elder Fuller once more to finish stuff at the office. On the way to their apartment, we stopped by a little store to get some flour for tortillas. The lady didn't have any flour, and then she asked us if we were trying to make vareniki (they're like Ukrainian dumplings). We told her that we were trying to make tortillas. She had no clue what those were, so we explained it. She asked if she could find it on google as we were leaving. We're pretty sure that from now on there will always be tortillas sold in this little shop in downtown Dnepro.

I ended up on exchanges with Fuller for 2 days. On Saturday we made tons of tortillas, refried beans, shredded chicken, and tortilla chips. Then we ate it all at Mexican Night. I got to play guitar, we all wore fake mustaches, there was lots of people. It was super fun.

And that pretty much sums up the week.

Peace out!

Elder Robison

Taped to a Chair

So, this week was pretty standard. Except it wasn't.

On Tuesday for English Practice I led a zombie apocalypse. The group had to choose a leader, explore about, not get eaten. It was pretty fun. Elder Fuller and Elder Cannon both died, but the English group managed to make it out of the city alright.

The next day I was stuck at home because my leg decided that it wanted to be incredibly painful for no reason whatsoever. That was unfortunate.

On Saturday we all got together and started to prepare for Mexican Night, an activity that we want to do this upcoming Saturday. It's going to be so much fun, we're going to make so many tortillas, lots of chicken and rice, there'll be fake mustaches, the whole shebang!

It was during these preparations that Sister Savran took it upon herself to tape me to a chair. I made the unfortunate decision of asking for tape by saying "tape me". Sister Savran took this literally. Don't worry, there's pictures!

On Sunday, I gave a talk in church. That's pretty normal. But it was in Russian. For like 10 minutes. I got through it pretty alright. I was worried because a lot of people are snobs about the language. A couple of people actually referenced my talk throughout the day, so I guess that means I did alright.

After that was the best Sunday dinner yet. I made a bunch of rolls, oven-roasted a bunch of chicken breasts, and we made sandwiches out of that. It was supper good.

So, that was my week. This week will be jam-packed with stuff.

Lots of photos, inbound!

Peace!

Elder Robison

 ​Elder Fuller decided that it would be a good idea to take a pizza, put it into a loaf of bread, and call it a sandwich. Note Elder Litchfield's look of disgust. 

Elder Fuller did in fact eat the entire thing. We're not sure how.

The reason for the email title

One of the giant mustaches for Mexican Night

Coming Up With Titles is Hard

It really is hard to title these emails sometimes.

This week I wrote a new test for the language program, administered it, and now I'm revising it and creating a study guide. On top of that, English practice is going well, and we're trying to find new investigators and new people to come to English. Game night was super fun on Friday. Also, I built my first snowman on Saturday! It was super cool. Check that one off the bucket list, add "destroy snowman I've built" to bucket list.

It's really hard to walk places right now, because the snow is melting, refreezing into ice, and then more snow is falling onto that ice. It's pretty tricky. I've developed a good skill of almost falling and then catching myself and pretending like I didn't just almost fall.

Well, that's pretty much what's going on with me right now. A lot of stuff happened this week, but you kind of had to be there to really get most of it. And by "be there", I mean that you'd have to know a lot of our inside jokes and understand just how wierd everyone in our district really is at heart.

Anyway, peace out!

Lots of pictures? On the way!

Elder Litchfield broke an apple open with his head after district meeting. Yeah. That's a thing. 

This is my snowman. 

This is me with my snowman.

This wasn't as many pictures as I thought it was going to be.

​

Merry... Um...

I'm out of holidays now, so I don't know what to title this email...

Moving on!

I spent a ton of time at the office this last week. I actually spent most of the week being companions with Elder Fuller, it was easier to manage that way. We cleaned out the entire language program system and finished setting it up so that it's now at maximum efficiency. It's pretty cool, I'm super excited that it works so well.

It snowed a ton on Ukrainian Christmas, so everything is now blanketed and icy and cool looking! Woohoo! I love it!

On Saturday, we went around caroling. We ended up outside of the branch building. Right before we started caroling, this guy comes up to us and is all like "Are you guys gonna sing or something?". We were like, "Yeah..." thinking that he was going to start harassing us, but then he got really excited and said, "That's awesome! Give glory to God in song, right? You guys are cool! I'm Christian too!" and then he started to sing with us and tell us about things he does with his church. It was really weird, but it was also really cool. A bunch of Hari Krishnas paraded by us as well. Twice. So it was a party.

We had lunch that day with the APs. Elder Jensen had made a lot of beans the night before, but they hadn't eaten any of them because they hadn't finished cooking. So, I took those beans, re-fried them, and then we ate bean and rice burritos with some lavash (weird Arabic tortillas).

Last night for dinner I made some chicken in the slow cooker and then made a TON of tortillas and rice, and we all ate TONS of pulled chicken and rice tacos. It was so good. I want more.

So, that was pretty much my week. 

Peace!

Elder Robison

Merry Ukranian Christmas!!! (Just to Continue the Trend)

Yeah, Ukraine celebrates Christmas on the night of the 6th to the 7th, so I get one more Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Anyway, not a ton of things happened this Christmas. Week. I meant week when I typed Christmas. I'm not going to correct that, it's better this way.

Anyway, I got my Christmas package from Mom! I had a ton of fun getting to open it and share with Elder Balyas. We know both have sick Christmas ties to wear, and cool mugs to drink hot chocolate from. Also, hot chocolate, which is important when you have a mug to drink hot chocolate from.

I figured out a program for spreadsheets that allows me to pull data from multiple sheets across folders so I can organize the scores for the language tests of the mission into new sheets composed of individual district members and... that's a pretty boring scentence. I'm not going to finish it, it's pretty much only cool to me and Elder Fuller. Elder Peterson would think it's cool too. We're nerds.

We had to go in early on Saturday and Sunday because of the New Year's celebration. So not much happened.

Overall, decent week I think. Just kind of... not super interesting if you weren't there.

Here's some pictures!

Peace out!

Elder Robison

 My cool new mug with hot chocolate. Elder Balyas's is red. You can kind of see it on the left there.

​Also, not sure if you guys were aware, it's cold in Ukraine! Like, cold!

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! (Also, little early)

Yeah, seeing as these things are exactly one week apart, I figure I'll just do this early too. Happy new year!! 2017! Yeah!

So, this week was pretty interesting. I have another new companion! Whoo! Elder Cannon made it all of 10 days with me! I'm sad we didn't to spend more time together, but he's basically moving down the street from me, and we're technically in the same "companionship" still. My new companion is Elder Balyas. He's from Odessa.

I guess the most interesting part of the week happened on the weekend, so I'll skip to that. We had a Christmas Zone Conference that was super good, it was a lot of fun.

Saturday began the day of running all around our part of the city, back and forth like 6 times in order to get everything ready for the Christmas party. The Christmas party was a ton of fun! Afterward we went home to make cinnamon rolls to eat on Christmas morning.

On Christmas we had white elephant gift exchange in our district. I got a stuffed hedgehog who I have affectionately dubbed Dima, in honor of all of the Dimas I meet who can't speak English, but try to anyway. It was super nice that we had the white elephant, because the post hasn't come through, so I haven't gotten the package I was expecting for Christmas yet.

That night, we filled a pot with corn oil and fried chicken, mushrooms, onion rings, and ice cream. Fried ice cream is amazing...

Well, that may not seem super interesting from reading the email, but it's more interesting being a part of those kinds of things.

The first 2 pictures are before and after Elder Fuller cut my hair. After that, feel free to enjoy the contextlessness of the photos!

Anyway, peace out!

Elder Robison