Ты Прибарахлился? Круто.

This week was good. Pretty busy, and my brain is still floating somewhere in the weird goop river that flows inbetween Russian and English, but a good week. There was no pizza this week (not for lack of trying, mind you!).

On Monday we met with Lyuba to teach her again. She's doing good. We also ate corn on the cob for lunch. It's not quite as good here as it is back in the states. That night we went to visit a member family and had dinner with them and talked about life and happiness. We also played liar's dice with them. Remember from Pirates of the Carribean 2 how the weird, half-fish half-boat crew members abourd the Flying Dutchman were playing that dice game? Yeah, that's Liar's Dice. It's super fun actually.

On Tuesday we went to the Rynok of Old Things ("Rynok" is the English spelling of the Russian word for market, but market doesn't accurately describe the feeling of a rynok. the "y" is pronounced almost like 'ee' but mixed with the 'i' in 'bit'. Don't worry, there won't be a test on how to say this.). In this rynok you can find: old things. Lots of them. It's kind of cool, but I don't love shopping, so it didn't hold a ton of interest for me. That night we went to meet with our friend Aleks. On the way there we heard a girl speaking English with an American accent, something that is, understandably, very rare to hear on the streets of Ukraine. We didn't have time to investigate further though. That is, until we got to the branch to meet Aleks and discovered that he was going to be pretty late. So, we did what any self-respecting small group of Americans would do in a foreign country; we went back to see if we could find another small group of Americans in said foreign country.

They turned out to not be there anymore, so to avoid having awkwardly walked back and forth in such a short time, we made it seem like our return had a purpose by going to Digma (imagine the worst, most overpriced cornerstore in the world and then multiply it by a normal shopping center) to get the ice cream that is currently half-price there. To our surprise, the American girls had also gone into Digma with the same idea, but they were walking in as we were walking out, so we couldn't really stop them.

We bought our ice cream, then left, only to find that they were standing in the middle of the path that leads back to the branch, so we finally took the opportunity to stop and talk to them. They turned out to be from Tennesse. One girl was there visiting her Ukrainian mother's family and the other was her friend who got dragged along for the ride. They were cool. The mom and uncle were a little buzzed, but nice.

We did end up meeting with Aleks, who taught us a bunch of Russian slang for fun.

Wednesday we went to do service, but we didn't end up having to do anything, so that was fun. We got to pet adorable husky puppies afterwards as a reward for having done nothing. Not quite sure what the moral of that story is.

After the not-service we set Elder Cannon loose with a hatchet on a pile of branches to collect wood for English practice that night. We taught our class how to tie lashes and then built a tower together. Those familiar with the Bible might notice an interesting twist in the fact that a group of people all trying to learn a foreign language all got together outside of a church and tried to build the tallest tower they could while speaking that foreign language. Similarities to Biblical events aside, it was fun.

Thursday we had a good district meeting, and that night we went to and English club to help them out. That was fun.

Friday once again drew the shortest straw this week, and so I won't write anything about it. I did figure out what we'ver been doing Fridays though, we plan for the week on Fridays. Anyway, that's already too much about Friday, I've mentioned it 4 times already in one paragraph.

On Saturday we had a good game night. Nobody really came for the sport part of game night because of rain, but that was OK. The sport part of game night usualy involves soccer, and I don't play soccer.

Sunday was a rainy, cold day, not fun. Church was really good though. Lyuba came again, and her son Artyom came too. We visited a member that day who we found out has really bad cancer. Pretty scary stuff, but he seems to be handling it well.

Well, that was basically my week.

Peace out!

Elder Robison

I Should Be Ashamed..

... of how much pizza I ate this week. You know, the more time I spend eating pizza, the more I realize just how much I've missed eating pizza. It's a simple thing, true, but it tasted really good. And if you can find stuff that tastes good and is cheap, you're set for life. I had pizza on Monday, pizza on Wednesday, pizza on Saturday. I'd have eaten more if I'd have had more opportunities! I unfortunately did not have more opportunities, so I didn't eat more.

So, Monday we went and gave our friend Joseph a blessing before he went in for surgery. That night we went to start finishing the moving proccess of Elder Mayberry and Elder Cannon from their old apartment into mine. We called a taxi, which turned out less than pleasent. We got in and the guy immediately started driving like a crazy person. I got a bad feeling even before he started driving, so I said a silent prayer. About 2 minutes after we set out I saw a green car quite a ways ahead of us in another lane and I got the strangest feeling that we were going to end up hitting it eventually. Lo and behold, not long later we rear-ended this guy. Everyone was alright, and the cars were still driveable, but we had to call another taxi. That was a fun conversation to have with the taxi operator by the side of the road in Russian.

Me: "Yeah, there was an accident en route, and, well, basically, we need a taxi on *Where we got into the accident*."

Operator: "So you want to make a repeat order?"

Me: "Yeah, something like that."

The new taxi got there, and this guy was much better than the first, so that was good. He also turned on his radio to a good rock station which happened to be in the middle of playing "Rainbow in the Dark", one of my favorite songs. We got home alright.

We met with a bunch of different people on Tuesday, but the most memberable moment was as we were walking home and we met some... thing. A creature in the form of man, but made entirely of bulging, steely muscles. It was Stanislav the Huge! He stopped us in the way using his immense gravitational pull and a cry of "Пацаны!". He asked what we do for work, so we told him about how we're missionaries and taught him a bit about our church. We asked him what he likes to do. He responded with a resounding "Sports!". We asked him what kind, and he responded by simply flexing his arm and chest muscles in the most comicbookish muscle pose I've seen. I'm pretty sure I could hear a light thuderclap from the force. He was really nice. Offered to work out with us sometime. We're a little scared to take him up on it, but we do want to talk to him sometime again. he's cool.

Wednesday we ate pizza after district meeting. This is old news, though, and probably seems pretty insignificant now that you have images of taxi accidents and Stanislav the huge floating around in your heads.

On Thursday we went back over to the other apartment to finish packing the last of the things there. On the way there we stopped at this place called Burger Home. Or Burger House. We can't tell which one, the advertizing was confused on this matter in particular. It wasn't in Russian, and seeing as home and house are the same word in Russian, there was a translation issue that nobody caught. We noticed that there were only 3 people there other than us and that we were the only ones there to actually eat food. It was pretty funny.

While the others were packing I did a bunch of book work, organizing a bunch of the records that we keep. That was good. A member helped us move this time, so there was no sketchy taxi to worry about.

Don't really remember what we did Friday. We were busy doing something I guess, but that's just based off of the recent trend. Anyway, this email is long enough without Friday.

Saturday, we finally closed the other apartment for good! We also ate pizza.

Anyway, Sunday was good. A lot of people came to church, including Lyuba. We also went and visited Joseph, who is recovering well from his surgery.

Well, that's about it from me. Hope you guys are doing well!

Peace out!

Elder Robison

This is how we moved their stuff on Thursday. Way less sketchy than taxis.

Exercise is Horrible

Truth is found in the statement above.

This last week was Zone Conference on Friday, which was super cool and sad all at the same time. But, that's a different story to be told later on!

On Monday we met with our friend Layla in the park and had a good conversation. She wanted to know more about how we as missionaries get assigned to our different areas, so we explained the whole proccess to her.

On Tuesday we had to go to center to practice a musical number for Zone Conference. We got there, and Elder Mayberry and I were given the music and told to find where the harmony parts were for singing. Upon looking at it for about 5 seconds we determined that there wasn't, nor had there ever been, a harmony part for the voice. So then they told us to come up with one. And we said no and went and found a version of the song that already had the harmonies written out. 

After that we went and hung hammocks in a park with our friend Aleksei and talked with him.

On Wednesday we met one of the most interesting people I've met in quite some time: Bogdan. We've decided that he is a child of the internet. He knows everything there is to know about anything that's ever been put on the internet. And he knows English really well. Probably too well, seeing as he didn't stop talking at all from the time he came until the time we said goodbye to him at the subway stop. We think that some anomaly happened in the connections of the internet and he was created as a result. It's basically the only explanation we have for his existance. He's funny though, cool guy. 

There's this game we enjoy playing with investigators and friends called Bang. It's a cowboy game with cards, look it up. Bogdan ended up being the sheriff and a character called 'Man-with-no-name'. He also assumed that he had no legs because the picture of his character didn't show his legs. He was a nameless, legless sheriff. Wanna know how he lost his legs? "When I was a boy my mother used to bake peach pies. Anyway, I lost my legs in the war! Now, which of you scum is a bandit!?"

Bogdan, ladies and gentlemen. Bogdan.

On Thursday we went to a couple of English clubs. That was good.

Friday was zone conference, which was good. It was really sad to know that this is the last zone conference for most of the people who I've spent the last 2 years working with. I still have one more to go.

Right after Zone Conference, Sister Sullivan thought it would be a good idea to have everybody do a HIIT exercise. That was a torturous amount of squats and jumping for about 12 minutes. It was pretty funny actually. My legs are still sore though. Exercise is horrible. I'm alright when exercise is lifting and push-ups and things of that nature, but this was a whole different story.

On Saturday we had interviews with President. That was really good. Afterwards we had game night.

Sunday we went back to that park after church and talked with more people. It was cool.

We decided on Tuesday that we want to learn Ukrainian. So, now I speak a very small amount of Ukrainian, and I'm constantly asking all of our friends for help learning words and pronunciation. We got some Ukrainian hymn books and we sing in Ukrainian to practice. The Tri-lingual train is about to leave the station!

Well, that's about it.

Peace!

Elder Robison

FREEDOM DAY!!

YEAH!

AMERICA!

FREEDOM!

HECK YEAH!

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! 

Ok, now that that's over with, we can get into the actual email.

Happy 4th of July everyone! This week has been insanity to the max. I thought a lot happened last week, but this week lasted forever! We did so much this week. So much.

On Tuesday we hauled Elder Downing's stuff to Novy Doma. We called a taxi. Somehow, the taxi never showed up. After a few calls, they sent another taxi. This one showed up and took us to Novy Doma, where Elder Fuller and I had a good reunion. Elder Cannon and Elder Mayberry came and picked me up from there, and we went back to Saltovka. That day we went to do some slack lining with a friend we have from Turkmenistan. He's really cool, speaks a ton of different languages. Except English. He's trying to learn English right now. That night we sat down and made a plan for how to best combine our areas the most effectively. 

That was also the FOURTH OF JULY!! YEAH!!!

Sorry, that just came out. Anyway, we had lots of fun with that over the course of the day.

Wednesday we had district meeting and made plans for the sick BBQ that we planned for the 8th. English practice was fun that night. We combined the intermediate and advanced classes, which is working out pretty well. Unfortunately, I'm not sure all of the people in the intermediate class are really ready for that shift. We may have to suggest they join the lower group. They probably won't do it, but we'll probably at least suggest it.

On Thursday we went to a store called Caravan to buy the meats and such for the BBQ. We figured that we didn't have the right tools to make good smoked BBQ, but we could definitely make some good pulled pork and pulled chicken sandwhiches, so we bought pork butt and chicken quarters and all of the stuff we needed to make BBQ sauce, because they don't sell that here in Ukraine. That night we went to an English club that the other Elders normally go to. They appearantly go by first names there, so I got to awkwardly introduce myself as Stirling for the first time in an eon. I then thought it might be hard for them to say Stirling, so I said they could call me Doug if it was too hard. Doug ended up sticking. Thanks, Dad!

On Friday we took Elder Mayberry to Center for a leadership meeting that has been affectionately dubbed 'Jedi Council'. This left Elder Cannon and I to wander about a bit in downtown Kharkiv while we waited for a meeting that fell through on us. We ended up waiting in the branch building there, when a member approached us and asked us to go with him to give a blessing to an old man in a hospital. We agreed and got permission to go with him, because we don't really belong in Center, so we have to get things cleared. We get going and he only then explains that it's a 40 minute ride to the hospital that we're going to. You know, 40 minutes outside of already being 40 minutes outside of our area. We keep going when Elder Schwaighart texts us and tells us to come back. We ended up having them send 2 missionaries to take Elder Mayberry to us and then continue further with the member to go give the blessing. That was a fun adventure.

Saturday was the day of the picnic. That was about 2-and-a-half buckets of crazieness. Elder Cannon and I pulled out all of our cooking experience and made enough BBQ sauce and spicy ketchup for about 19 pounds of chicken and pork. Turns out, that's just the right amount to be able to feed 60 people. Thank you, Herbal Life, for teaching me how to weigh out portions of food for a meal! The picnic turned out awesome, there were a ton of people there, and everyone had a good time and enjoyed some really good pulled pork sandwhiches. I'm not even going to bother being humble on that one, those were some good sandwhiches. We spent literally all day running around to different stores and doing different errands, and then frantically shredding the pork and chicken and dishing everything out. It was super fun, and we got to talk to lots of great people.

Sunday was much more subdued by comparison. We were pretty tired from the whole ordeal of the picnic. That night we went out to a park as a district and talked to a bunch of people, it was really nice.

And that was my week. It probably doesn't sound half so crazy in this email as it actually was when we were doing it. I guess you just had to be there.

Peace out! 

Elder Robison

Here's some sick pics

 Me on the yard by our branch. The big blue-gold building in the back is a православный храм. As you can tell, I've been practicing my "I'm-too-cool-to-smile" face recently.

This is me with some bones at a museum we went to today.

Hanging Out Windows, the Finns, the Hunt for Ladas, and a Surprise

So, a lot happened this week. As can probably be told by the title, none of anything that happened this week has any connection. It was a bunch of separate days with separate adventures. Shall we begin?

To start at the beginning, on Tuesday we went to help Artyom (Lyuba's son who was baptized in April) with some things around the house, because he and his mom are pretty short and I, as you know, am not. These things were pretty normal, changing the lightbulbs, helping him with some English pronunciation questions, hanging out of a 3rd story window to tie new lines up for drying laundry. Normal. It was a ton of fun though, even though it took pretty much all day to do everything we neededand travel around. We had to wait about an hour for transport to his house because of roadwork that's going on. He gave me a couple of ties and a Russian illustrated encyclopedia.

Wednesday was actually normal, believe it or not. English practice was really good.

Thursday we went to Camelot like normal. That was a good time. Afterwords, while we were in the car with Oleg (The husband of the lady who runs Camelot. He normally gives us a ride home if he's not busy.), he turned on some music. At first it was the Imperial March, but Darth Vader didn't seem to be giving Oleg good vibes that day, so he grabbed the remote for his sound system and switched it up a little bit. After a moment or so of silence, this pretty sweet, heavy jam started playing on a guitar that was tuned way too low. Then some drums joined in and it got even better. I looked back at Elder Downing and grinned. Oleg saw it, grinned too, laughed a bit, and then turned it up some. I was enjoying it, and then I thought "man, this is good. I hope the voice isn't weird and screamo, that would ruin it.". This is when the unexpected happened. The voice was weird. It was also Finnish. We were sitting in a car in Kharkov with our Ukrainian friend listening to Finnish Death Metal. This experience probably made me happier than it should.

We talked with him about Finnish and his desire to learn Finnish once he's finished learning English. It was a good ride home.

On Friday we went out to try and see if we could find people who wanted help quitting smoking, because the church has a good free program for that, and there are lots of people who smoke here and quite a few want to quit. To our surprise, we found not one single person smoking on the streets that day, a rare occurance. We did however see a lot of Ladas. A Lada is a type of car. It's old, it's Soviet, and Elder Downing and I realized that we just really like them for some reason. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of ugly Ladas out there, and none of them have good inner-workings. But, if you took one for the body, replaced the engine and transmission, then painted it, it'd make a pretty cool, unique little car. If you did it right you could make it into a muscle car. Almost. They're a bit small. It'd be more of a muscle midget.

Anyway, long story short, we both want to come back to Ukraine someday in the not-so-close future, buy a Lada each, then drive it out of through Europe and find a way to get them to America, be it by ferry or shipping company, so that we can make them into nice vehicles.It's probably just a pipe dream, and it may not be super likely to happen, but it'd make a fantastic adventure, and it's a fun idea.

English Practice was good that night.

On Saturday, we received a surprise call from President Sullivan. Turns out, Elder Downing is getting transferred! To Novy Doma. He's going to be with Elder Fuller, because appearantly he's destined to only serve with other Texans. He will be missed, and a selection of quotes from our time together will be placed at the bottom of this email in his memory. As always, context will not be provided.

What will become of me, you ask? I'm going to be in a tri-panionship. Again. This time, I will be with Elder Cannon and Elder Mayberry. If that's not the plot twist of the century, I don't know what is.

Well, that about sums up life for the moment. This was a long email.

Peace!

Elder Robison

"Refried beans: the national fruit of Texas."

-Elder Downing

"Corn is holy to me."

-Elder Robison

"You can't just hiss at your problems and expect them to go away!"

-Elder Robison

"You sound like Morgan Freeman with a sinus infection."

-Elder Robison

"There's something so satisfying about wearing a dead animal on your head."

-Elder Downing

"I'm a potato kind of guy."

-Elder Robison

"---What's in these beans?

 --- The blood of the chupecabra."

-Elder Downing

"The family that burns trash together, stays together."

-Elder Robison

"But Короче, I got us a limo."

-Elder Robison

"This milk tastes like udder sweat."

-Elder Downing

"Those guys are nerds! Lets start cooking the chicken without them."

-Elder Robison

"People do weird things to get with me."

-Elder Robison

"I feel like someone started a volcano inside of me. Not in my heart, in my GI tract."

-Elder Downing

"'I mean this from the bottom of my heart; fig you.' - Elder Anderson"

-Elder Downing

"Ooo, the caustic double tazer fig!"

-Elder Robison

Elder Downing --- I'm gonna need a published source on that.

Elder Robison --- I'm about to publish my foot up your butt.

"As your friend, I recommend not to drink bleach."

-Elder Downing

"Yeah, it helps when your hands are the size of small bald eagles."

-Elder Downing

*Looks around for a weapon to defend himself*

*Realizes he can kill Elder Robison with his bare hands*

*Looks back at Elder Robison*

*Smiles*

-Elder Downing

Elder Robison --- This is the last time you'll get sick... cuz you'll die.

Elder Downing --- it's like a бабушка blessing!

"I have the cheese AND the knife. I have ALL the power in this situation."

-Elder Robison

"--- What kind of dog do you want?

 --- Uh, do you know anything that can wield a halberd?"

-Elder Downing

"TBH: tuberculosis happens."

-Elder Robison

"I don't want your pity ramen!"

-Elder Robison

"If life weren't so hilarious, I'd be pissed off."

-Elder Robison

"You can't eat cheese while paranoid. Cheese is supposed to be a joyful activity."

-Elder Robison

"Я вам скажу: #@!*!"

- The бабушка at the milk truck outside our house

"There's a path. What's the path? We left the mayo out..."

-Elder Downing

"Sinnnhuleuaboopa."

-Elder Robison

Elder Downing --- Why's peanut butter so good?

Elder Robison (from the other room) --- Because black people made it!

"Russian: the only language where there's a fine difference between 'printed' and 'sorrow'"

-Elder Downing

"If you keep the Sabbath day holy, you'll get buffer"

-Elder Robison

"Chicken as matter."

-Elder Downing

Revenge of the Pizza

You know, I just really like pizza. A lot. I enjoy pizza more than the average person probably has a right to enjoy pizza. Is it a crime? No! It's delicious! It even has vegetables on it, therefore it must be healthy!

That may sound little bit defensive. To be fair, I didn't have as much pizza this week as I did sthat one week that I had it pretty much every day. I only had pizza on Tuesday this week. I was on exchanges with Elder Mayberry on Monday, and we went to visit this really cool member family. I taught the dad how to play some guitar, we all ate a super tasty desert, and then I taught Elder Mayberry to play one of my favorite Ukrainian songs (Все Буде Добре. It's by this group called Океан Ельзи. Look it up, it's cool). On Tuesday we got some pizza on the way to meet back up with Elder Cannon and Elder Downing. That was a good pizza. 

Later that night, the kitchen was messy and I didn't want to clean it. So, I gave Elder Downing an ultimatum; either he could clean all the dishes in the kitchen so I could cook dinner, or he could call a pizza place and order pizza. Elder Downing hates ordering things and talking on the phone in Russian, but apparently not as much as he hates washing dishes, because he took the phone in hand and ordered a pizza. I think the lady on the other end might have thought he was a bit drunk, but we got our pizza, and it was delicious.

On Wednesday we had district meeting, and then everyone took tests. Pretty normal, nothing extraordinary.

I think the next interesting thing was on friday probably. Only one person showed up for advanced English, which would've been boring, but then we saw that the sisters were going to be outside talking about camping, so we just moved outside and were parasites for their class. That was fun.

On Saturday there was a district picnic. Not our missionary district, the Kharkov district. So, the whole city. We were uninformed that we were allowed to come in casual clothes, so we showed up like nerds in white shirts and ties. The zone leaders were apologetic, but there was nothing to be done other than take off our ties and pretend like it was normal. The picnic was fun, we played a bunch of sports with the members in Kharkiv. We left before the food was ready to be back in Saltovka on time for some activities there. It was a fun day.

On Sunday we taught Lyuba again. She's doing great. She's super happy, and it's awesome to see that she's feeling more and more happy every time we meet.

Well, that's about all from me.

Peace!

Elder Robison