Monday, January 8, 2018

Orphan rave and pleasant Christmas zone conference

12/18/2017

"I am kind of sick of there not being any snow" said I. But then everything changed when the alarm went off this morning. Man, as I wrote that sentence I could think of finishing it as "when the fire nation attacked. . . " I guess something things never fade away. . .
This P-day we were planning on going and playing something called "gaterball" with some of the other missionaries in Kiev but then we looked out side this morning and decided against it. 
We had the elders from Cherkassy stay overnight with us because today is when we have nine missionaries leave. Elder Mattina is one of those who is leaving and we got to spend last night with him. I found out that not only did he like me enough to want to spend his practically last night in Ukraine with me but that he also wanted me to hem his new suit slacks that he just bought.  I guess somethings never change.
On Saturday we had a few special things that went on. We had our special Combined Kiev Christmas Zone Conference that was amazing. President Kumferman as part of the teaching part of Zone Conference told the Christmas story in all little bit of a different way. We looked at a variety of different characters in the scriptures such as the shepherds, the wise men, Simmeon, Anna, Herod, and others and asked if they knew about Christ before his birth or not and how they came to know it. It was a very interesting topic to discuss and then we started looking at other people such as the Nephites in 3rd Nephi as well as some others and asked the same questions. After having our "Christmas Lunch" we went back in and started the second portion by hearing from the missionaries who are leaving and then had each district in the two Kiev zones who were there share with us their performances. It was a really awesome experience to hear everyone sing and read scriptures and tell stories all centered around the Savior and his miraculous berth. Our district sang a song that we had found called "Watching O'er the Manger"it is a fairly unknown piece but it is still very pretty. After we all sang that then we each took turns and read a story titled "Papa Panov's Special Christmas" which is a short story by Leo Tolstoy. After all of the districts went then the Kumferman's performed for us and that was pretty special for all of us missionaries. 
Right after Zone Conference we had another event that was happening in the building that we had to help with or got to help with. Elder and Sister Haldeman the humanitarian couple had organized this great big event for a local orphanage here in Kiev and had tons of people make hats for them and had all kinds of donations. So what happened from my perspective is they all came and were fed and then came into the cultural hall where we had set up a mini concert for them where we had missionaries playing guitar, drums, piano, and singing and sang lots of fun Christmas songs. And of course I was some how roped into doing all of the A/V for this thing. Then the MC person whipped out her laptop and plugged it into the projector and started playing all of these strange but weirdly awesome just dance videos and then it turned into a rave with tons of orphans. Apparently President Kumferman walked in at one point and just laughed and started filming everything. 
So yeah it was a little crazy this week. Also, we got transfers. Everyone is staying in this district except Sister Trejo is going home and Sister Archibald is coming here to serve in this area. It is going to be fun!

Старейшина Класон / Elder Clawson

Here are some pictures. 








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