As a district we have a goal of at least once a week each companionship visit with one of the members in the branch and help them share the Book of Mormon with someone they know, This week we went over to the Bevzyuk family who in fact has a daughter that on July 17th leaves for her mission to the Dnepropetrovsk mission in Ukraine. It was good to go over and meet with them. The last time we have been over to them was mine and Elder Clifford's very first week her in Vinnitsya. since then they knocked down one of their walls in their house. We talked about the Book of Mormon and committed them to give it away to someone. We played a gave that they taught us how to play called "and it came to Pass". It is basically Mormon Uno with some other twists. At first I did not understand at all, then I read the rules and then I understood. But that didn't help because I had already racked up too many sins from when I didn't understand which made me loose horribly. Good thing that isn't how it works in real life.
We did the normal stuff this week life District Meeting which always fun with the lively elders in our district. Also English practice and youth night and church. At church we had a ton of people come. One of which was a young man named Sasha who has been less active for around six months because his friends showed him some things on the internet that scarred him away. But his mom who is a non-member has been coming for over a month and then finally on Sunday he came. That evening there was a small branch gathering thing that he came to as well. I think and really hope that he will keep coming. He seems to like Elder Ulrich a lot. I think everyone likes Elder Ulrich a lot.
On Thursday we hopped on a train which was a pretty nice one if I might add and met up to Kiev. There we had our interviews which we were a little bit late for. We were scheduled at 1:30but our train was scheduled to arrive at around 1:10 and it takes 45 minutes to an hour to get there from the train station. I am not quite sure what they were expecting. But it was all okay because we weren't actually late for our interviews but for the special lunch that Sister Kumferman had prepared for us Vinnitsya elders. The Kumfermans are always so nice. She made yummy enchiladas and even a super delicious chocolate cake for me because my birthday happened to be that day. They are so nice. I am a pretty simple person. At least I consider my self to be. I generally to seek out cake but will eat it when offered. That is probably due to that fact that I don't it general like all of the dry bready cake that is usually around and when they load it with frosting it is also not very appetizing to me. But Sister Kumferman's wonder cake was something else. She knows how to balance. I can honestly say that I really enjoyed my birthday cake. I just thought of this. Where does the tradition of have a birthday CAKE come from?
Let us ask Elder Durtschi who is sitting three computers away from me. He said, looking off into the distance, "There once was a man, and he said, 'Happy Birthday Elder Clawson.' That day was today and that person was me." Well I guess there it is. You can never get a strait answer out of him. It always has to be something witty or referencing a movie our something.
On Thursday we from Vinnitsya were the only missionaries there and so Elder Clifford said that we would probably get done at around 2:30 - 3:00. But I told him that it was not going to be that way because President Kumferman knows that he has more time so he will take it. And that was what happened. We started our interviews at around 2:30 and by the time all four of us had our turn it was about 6:15. I knew that would happen because I have spent enough time around him.
After that the three other elders decided that they wanted to treat me with dinner. So Elder Durtschi took us to this place on Maidan in center Kiev. It was probably the craziest restaurant I have ever been to. It was called O.B. I don't know what it stand for but it was crazy. They way to get there is you go to an underground mall called "Globus" and hop on the elevator and go to a special floor between the first and second floors of the mall and get out and enter into this strange looking Ukrainian-hipster gift shop. You then walk up to the person standing behind the counter and utter some secret password in Ukrainian and then she pushes a button and the wall opens up and you step through. Then you meet a waiter who greets you and gives a short little tour where you come to a big iron wall with hands sticking out that are holding lights. That was apparently the iron curtain and the seventy two hands represented the seventy two years that the iron curtain hanging. You then walk through and enter the actually restaurant where a live band is playing and lots of different no nooks to sit and everything is really hipster Ukrainian. If you are wondering what that looks like you will just have to come and see for yourself. All of the waiters looked like they were getting ready to weld with their leather aprons. We were sitting at our table and we noticed that the people sitting at the bar started moving. We kept watching and saw that it wasn't the people but the seat they were on were moving. I still don't understand the purpose of having the seats move slowly into the next room while people are on them when their drinks are still sitting on the bar but I guess it is cool and not Soviet. There we got something called "compote" which is basically the same as juice but is not in America. It is basically the more natural version of juice. This time though and this restaurant we got a special kind of compote which had smoke pumped through it and so when you drank it tasted like you were drinking a delicious apple camp fire. For my dinner I got mashed potatoes and cat fish which was really good.
The next day we had Zone Conference and it was awesome as always. We talked a lot this time about Preach My Gospel and Teaching Skills. I don't really have much to say about it. It was just a good Zone Conference. Either that or I didn't pay attention very well. Also we had to leave early as is the life of a missionary serving in Vinnitsya in order to catch the train back.
If you were to ask someone in Odessa what they knew about Vinnitsya they would say that there is a really cool fountain there. The same answer would come from those in Kiev and every other city in Ukraine. There isn't a ton here that attracts tourist but everyone knows about the awesome fountain here. On Saturday the fountain opened. We decided to take some recent converts and potential investigators and see "opening night". It was pretty cool but we didn't get to see it from the best angle. I am sure that it would have been cooler if we had been closer. But it was still cool what I got to see. We have a potential investigator named Nastya who looks like she is twenty something and dresses like it (like the twenty something year old Ukrainian girls that are everywhere here in Vinnitsya) but we found out that she is not even sixteen. She is pretty cool though. She taught us how to do bird calls using your hands.
Yeah that's it.
Старейшина Класон / Elder Clawson
Us on Maidan after the crazy dinner.
The I love Vinnitsya sign by the "Tsentralny Park"
The Vishivankas that I finally got for my family.
No comments:
Post a Comment