Monday, October 30, 2017

President Martino, Sloppy Joes, and a huge wall of Dimitri

10/30/2017

There is a special place in my heart for those who serve down in Odessa. Their trials and travels are no alien thing to me. I know because I have experienced it myself.
This week we had another special Zone Conference. But this time the special Zone Conference was extra special. We had not only both Kiev Zones together but also with the Odessa Zone. Those poor Odessa missionaries had to get on a bus at 3:00am and ride for 6 1/2 hours up here to Kiev in order to make it here by the conference at 10:00 am. I understand this because this was me. But it was awesome for me because I could pay attention probably unlike them. 
Also what made this a super special all mission conference was that our Area President, President Martino came and taught us. That was a really neat experience. And then for lunch we had sloppy-joes which was made by Sister Mitchell as one of her last hurrahs that would continue even after she left. She made everything and then froze it about a month ago and then left and then we got to partake of her dedication to us. Another one of her "last hurrahs" was completing (we actually did most of the work) the cook book for the Senior couples here. The title is "Family favorites with a touch of Ukrainian". Probably my favorite recipe in there is called "Sloppy-joe meat for a 100 people". 
After that there wasn't much that went on. I got sick and was out for four days and am still by no means in the clear. But despite that I was so sick we still didn't get home form the office until after 6:30 pm which probably aggravated it.  
But one thing that is noteworthy is that among all of the many special conferences and meetings we had a special area broadcast on Sunday. There we heard from Elder Golden on the Area Presidency, Elder Martino the Area President, Sister Bingham the Relief Society General President, Elder Kearon of the Presidency of the Seventy, and finally President Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
This week while at the office we got word that there was "a big man who wants to learn more". We walk over front he office to the church part of the building and the first thing we see is this huge wall of person. The guy was a giant and not exactly thin either. We talked with him for a little while and for a little longer while with Brother Rudenko our MCL. Dmiti (the guy we are talking about) came on Sunday and watched the broadcast with us. While Elder Glade was doing something I got cornered by him and he just talked to me. He has a lot of strange ideas but there are those little glimpses of promise. So we'll see what happens. 
Before we watched the actual broadcast on Sunday we heard from our local leaders. During this period the International Branch and the Borschagovsky Ward were together and we first heard from the Branch President of the International Branch who spoke to us in English while our Borschagosky Bishop Translated into Russian, then President Podubny our Stake President Spoke to us in Ukrainian and the same Bishop who translated before translated for him into English. That was pretty impressive.
Elder Glade is Elder Glade. He made me chicken noddle soup. 
Things are going to get pretty difficult here in a little bit due to the fact that we are loosing even more missionaries and not getting enough in return. But as a mission in response to that have decided that we are going to need to compensate somehow. And that some how is Spiritualhow. So we are all going to read the Book of Mormon from Nov 1st to Orthodox Christmas. This is going to be a really cool experience for us.
That is all.

Старейшина Класон / Elder Clawson


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