Tacos

02/13/2017

New transfer. New companion. 

Not that my other one was bad or anything.

My Companion now is Elder Ruslan Konstantynov. He is a native Ukrainian from a city called Mariupol.

He is a lot taller than me and speaks better Russian than I do. But I speak better English and Spanish than he does. He is super goofy and life is so far has not been boring at all. 

We had a lesson with Oleg this past week. We showed up and Oleg seemed a little bit off. He later expressed his disappointment that Elder Carr left without even saying anything. We explained that we don't know before hand what happens. Who goes where. He is still bummed but seemed to enjoy at least a little but our meeting. Later that evening I called Elder Carr and explained to him what happened and asked him to call Oleg.

Do any of you remember Demitri? The guy who we had one lesson with and became some what scarred of us? The guy who didn't answer his phone for a whole transfer? Yeah that Demitri. He came to Church! Elder Konstantynov called him and invited him and he just came like that! Crazy.

We have lots of work ahead of us. This Elder knows howto work and how to love. Hopefully some of that will rub of on me. 

One thing that I have already seen with Elder Konstantynov and fear will only get worse as the amazing food we make together. We both can cook pretty well and know how to make pretty good food. So the combination of us two makes a problem in the future when we hop on the scale. Even though I have been the same weight for about seven years, I have almost made it to 150 lbs with Elder Komstantynov. The trick is to just switch it to Kilograms and then you can relax.

One of the fisrt things that Elder Konstantynov said to me was that he wanted to make Tacos with me. So we did. . . And after that I felt like I was going to die. They were very tasty.

It's been snowing today. It's Ukraine. I'm a missionary. 

Старейшина Класон / Elder Clawson

Bowling in Kiev

02/06/2017

A little bit of a crazy week was had among us Pechersky Elders.

Well we know what transfers will be now! And they happen on Wednesday! 

*Drum roll please*

I will be staying here in Pechersky as District leader again. But this time I will be done training (Finally. (I'm actually done training as of today)) and I will be serving with Elder Konstantynov who is a native Ukrainian. 

Elder Carr is going to the complete opposite side of the country to a tiny little place called Kodyma. And this is the only area int he mission where it is against the law to proselyte or wear name tags or any kind of missionary attire like Russia. 

This should be an interesting transfer this next one. 

This week we got to meet with our investigator, Oleg. We called him to see if we could meet one day but he didn't answer. He called us a few hours later and said that we could meet at a McDonald's by the Voksol (Train station). We hurried over to meet him and came prepared to teach him the Word of Wisdom. We walked in and just thought how on earth can the Spirit be here with us when we teach? We've got young love couple in the corner and thirty year old guys drinking and loud music playing. Plus we noticed that Oleg had a cup of tea that he was drinking. We didn't really know how everything was going to work out, but we just went for it. When we sat down, we could see that he had this new light and radiance about him. We knew that he was keeping his commitments by the way he spoke and looked. He said that he had been reading a little every day. However, according to where he turn to in the Book of Mormon to tell us something that he learned, he read more than a little. We started to introduce the Word of Wisdom to him when he had to take a phone call business related. But after a few more of these phone calls and talking a little more each time, we could see that he didn't miss anything. One very interesting thing that I saw was when we just barely finished explaining what we should avoid as part of living the Word of Wisdom (which includes tea), he had to take another one of his phone calls but this time he stood up (and I think he was hoping for it to be discrete) and threw away his cup, which had a good amount of tea left. He without hesitation committed to live the Word of Wisdom and thanked us for helping him to know how to live a better life. Both spiritually and physically. Both Elder Carr and I were surprised how the way Oleg took what we talked with him about. We have high hopes for him. 

Today we decided to do something fun with the Zone leaders as kind of a memorial on behalf of Elder Carr departing us. So we went bowling at the Gulliver (a Mall) near us. It was pretty fun even though I forgot how to bowl. 

Sunday morning was very strange for me. I woke up with super duper dry skin. And what I later realized was dehydration. And it has continued to today even though I have been drinking sooooo much water. I don't understand it. I also finally bought a wallet in place of using the little case the Missionary handbook comes in to keep my money and metro card. 

I am excited to meet my new companion on Wednesday but sad to say goodbye to Elder Carr, my Step dad/trainer. 

Старейшина Класон / Elder Clawson

I was kind of dying, that's why it looks like I am a little bit scared.