Wow.... it has been a whole month!!!

Craziness!!!   Even though it seems just days ago.....  it also seems like months.  One month ago we were just arriving and getting settled in.  Now we are deep - up to our necks in the city, the ward, the people, and especially the temple!!!

So---  this is going to be extra long!!! You might need to take it just a bite at a time or you might get overwhelmed!!!

As many of you have heard, on Aug. 29th, Brent was call by General Authority 70 Elder Christoffel Golden to be the 2nd Counselor in the Temple Presidency.  He was also set apart to be a Temple Sealer.  I was set apart to be an assistant to the Temple Matron.  We are very humbled and shocked at the calling and pray that we can do what is needed to support the wonderful people who attend and work at this beautiful temple.

Since that time we have been in training and working with the Rotis (amazing people whom we love dearly).  They are teaching us what our new responsibilities are.  It is very overwhelming, But as it says in 1 Nephi 3:7

"I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men,save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

The temple closed for cleaning from Sept. 3rd until the 17th.  The first week we helped clean the temple, went to lunch with some of the missionaries, Brent met with a member who is helping him get involved in the local international Rotary Club, I commissioned his wife to make me a picture of the temple, had many sessions of training with the Rotis, and did a walking tour of one section of Kyiv.  And that was just the first week off.

I was so excited when I found out that Kathy Chandler had been transferred to Kyiv from Moscow.  She had been in the Choir with me for over 15 years and it was good to see a friend from home.  They are in our international ward and she is working in the temple one day a week, so I get to see her Sundays and Thursdays...  just like old times!!

I have to add some pics here about that first week off.  I probably took....  well let's just say hundreds of pictures so I will try and scale them down and give you just the basics.

We started the week with the Kyiv summer olympics,  You will get a flavor of the missionary activity by reading the invitation...

You are cordially invited to participate in the Kyiv Summer Olympics in the events of 

 Unfair Badmitten

Boomerang Chase

Hot Wheels racing

The heats will begin at 1800, 3.09.2018 in the commons room.  

This may be beneath the dignity of some of you. But since some of us have no dignity, the committee felt it appropriate to go ahead with the events.

Then the group of us went to dinner. Part of the missionaries were out of town this week, but those of us that were left were:

Dale and Liz Hoskisson

Glen and Kathy Beus

Alan and Dorothy Tomlinson

Kathy and Scott Roti

and us.

I don't know if it is just the places we go... but restaurants around here really know how to plate a meal.

I told you about Marina.  Here is that beautiful woman and one of her creations.  She has won numerous awards and is so talented.  She started with  painting, then photography, now she is working in multimedia art and I have ask her to make me one with the Kyiv temple... smaller than this one, so I can take it home. 

One of our excursions on the first week off was to the museum of Gold in Kyiv.  It documents the history of the region through gold and silver.  Most of it has been found in burial mounds close by.  We are talking a LOT of gold here.   It was very interesting.

This is their main display piece.  It is huge.  I don't know how someone could wear it.  It must way over 20 lbs.

This is a unique piece.  The king was bored with all the pieces of silver cups that were being made by the silversmiths.  So he created a challenge.  This was the winning piece.  It can be used by 2 people who can drink out of it at the same time.  The king loved it.  And as a prize for the contest he was given the hand of the King's daughter in marriage.  The skirt of the dress and the urn are the 2 containers that rotate so that 2 people can drink out of it at the same time.

It is kind of difficult to see, but this car is painted with an arm wrestle between Jesus and satan.

We are standing in front of the Golden Gate of Kyiv.  It was the original gate to the city.

Alan and Dorothy Tomlinson

Scott and Kathy Roti

Dale and Liz Hoskisson

Brent

I have been amazed at the flowers around here.  There are sellers all over the place on the sidewalks, in the underground tunnels, and in stores. Lots of people are carrying bundles of them on the Metro and the marshrutkas.

Like I said....  The plating and presentation of food is stunning....  here are some more....

cabbage rolls and grilled vegetables 

  

 Grilled shrimp and vegetables 

creamy chicken and Pork medallions

 Napoleon for dessert

 The metro and buses (called marshrutkas) are the main mode of transportation around here for the majority of people. They come in all shapes and sizes, age and cleanliness.  Somehow I managed to get 5 fairly good looking ones.  Some look like they might not get to the next stop they are in such bad shape.

 You can see how crowded they are....  this is a pic in the
metro train...  but the
marshrutkas are a lot smaller and a lot more crowded.  The pic on the right is a money box.  We were told when we came here to be sure and keep all valuables and money safe. Because the pic pockets are active.  Which is true.  But what is surprising is that when each person gets on the bus they hand up the money to the bus driver through these packed vehicles hand to hand and if change needs to come back it comes back the same way.  And the drivers money sits out in the open.   No problems.  Most of the people are very respectful and honest.  If an older woman or handicapped person or mother with a child get on... usually someone will get up and give them their seat.   So sweet.


Yes there are cars and it bumper to bumper on a 4 lane highway during rush hour, but most people use mass/or rapid transit.  One of the Metro stops is the longest and deepest stop in the world.  You ride the escalator for 7 minutes (2 different escalators, because it is so long) down to the stop.  as you can see....  you can barely see the bottom it is so far down.

We finally got a chance to ride a tram.  By far our favorite.  They are much less crowded and usually pretty clean.  Some of them...  like this one, is pretty new.

 One of our favorite things in Sherbrooke were the murals on the sides of buildings....  we are finding that Kyiv also has some great murals.

   

 This is one of the beautiful cathedrals of the city.  I have lost count of how many of them they are.  This is St Andrews and next to it is St Andrews decent where there is always a street full of reynoks which are kind of like kiosks.

  

The second week off we headed to Lviv.  It is to the West and is closer to the Polish border.  If you look close.....  Kiev is the one with the white star.  If you follow the red line  to the West it will take you to Lviv (in the orange province)

We took a 6 hour train ride.  We went with 

Dorothy and Alan

Kathy and Glen 

Dale and Liz.

The first day we did a castle tour.  The first one was pretty run down and old....  but Geeze...  it is from before the birth of Christ.....  it gets to look old.... IT IS OLD!!!

In one of the castles there were a lot of tapestries and pictures from all over Ukraine.  I always loved the stories that they told, but we learned that they did them in pictures because the the people couldn't read and in this way they could learn and understand the stories.  What a great idea!!!  What bible stories can you find?

  

Looking out of the castle...  through the battlement windows you can see the beautiful villages and every one of them has a gold domed church.  

On the way to the next castle we stopped by a local truck stop type diner.  Had lots of local food.  I had my first experience with Buckwheat, used at a side dish.

The next two castles were a little better taken care of.  

Brent on the battlement mound outside the castle....  can you see the cannons?

We love driving through the countryside, breathing the fresh air, seeing the quaint villages, (with their flocks of ducks),  beautiful rolling hills, wooden wheeled carts, and the babushkas walking along the road with their cows.

We got to meet with the senior missionaries (over dinner of course) One of the couples were Elder and Sister Andrus.  Brent knew her from when he was in the Kaysville Rotary. Doesn't he look great in his Ukrainian Shirt!!!

  

 Day two in Lviv was spent walking the city.  We saw the place where the Jewish synagogue was before it was destroyed. This city had a huge population of Jews before WWII.

We walked to the top of High Castle.  It is the highest point in the city and where a castle used to be.  It was a long hot walk, but a beautiful view.  This is what it used to look like.

This is what it looks like from above.

Part of the pathway

the last leg

At the top

 After that long trek we headed back into town, I think it was a couple of miles both ways,  we did some underground tours.  My favorite was the apothecary.  It was very old and survived both wars and is still functioning.  This is above ground.

Heading down.

Underground

 We also did a lot of cathedrals, a cemetery, and parks.  We took a break for a late lunch at Meat and Justice.  A local restaurant that brags of the ambiance is all the iplements of torture used in ancient (and some modern) days.

 

We sat in kind of a medievil type setting....  the food was EXCELLENT!!!  

That night we went to the OPERA!!  We saw 

Don Pasquale

Opera by Gaetano Donizetti

 It is a beautiful venue.  It was built over a river 100 years ago.   It is not huge, but it is beautiful.

 Then of course, what do you do after an opera??  go out for dessert!!!  and again.... so well plated.

 Next day again to the streets. More cathedrals, more underground museums, and a Chocolate factory.

 We finished the day at the Italian Square.  A museum/restaurant.  It was beautiful and the food was delicious, both in taste and sight.

 On the way home we walked the streets.  They have lots of night activities.  families and both young and old.  It was interesting that when we walked one street - every restaurant had at least one hookah pipe on every table.

  

giant bubble blowing...  the kids loved it

Our last day we decided to take a drive to the Carpathian Mountains.  Our guide Anatoly, drove us 2 hours to Tustan. We stopped on the way to buy some mushrooms at a roadside stand for his family.

sights along the way

sunflower fields....  they would have been beautiful a month ago...  now the heads are all drooped over and ready for harvesting.  One of their main exports... sunflower oil.  That is one of the reasons that the flag is blue and yellow...  sunflowers and sky.

This is what it would have looked like.....  looks like the flag - eh?

local cheese for sale

 Tustan  was a Medieval cliff-side fortress-city and customs site of the 9th—16th centuries.  Tustan was a defence and administrative center as well as a customs site on the important salt route leading from Drohobych through Transcarpathia to Western Europe.  Here is what it used to look like. 

Here is what it looks like today.

We walked the boardwalk to the center of the rocks.

With our friends the Tomlinsons

Explored a cave

Hiked back down.

Played on the structures

A souvenir reynok and our bar-b-que lunch at the fortress.  That is mushroom soup in the paper cup.

 Our final meal in Lviv with the whole group.  We have this little pizza shop in the bottom of the hotel, and it was really pretty good.  look at the salmon and salad..... in an eatable bowl

 and look how this pasta salad is presented.... pretty unique

Then back home with another 6 hour train ride.  

And I did a Ukrainian lesson for the grandkids....  can you figure out what these signs say? 

 This is what the letters say that are different from English

y = oo

н = N

г = G

п = p

p = R

л = L

c = s

OK....  there is your homework assignment.

THANK YOU FOR READING ALL THE WAY TO THE END!!!  I know it was long, but I was way behind.  Sorry  :)

Love and Hugs

Have a great week!!

Brent and Jan

Aug 25, 2018

I am trying to figure out how to talk about the 2 different subjects I wanted to talk about.  They are so totally different, I don't know whether to do 2 posts or one really long one.

So I will just start with the one, and see how long it gets and then we will go from there.

People.

We have been overwhelmed with the love and friendship that we have been shown in the 10 short days we have been here.  From the other temple missionaries, from the patrons attending the temple, from the ward members, and from all of the texts, emails and Facebook sent by so many of you at home.

Our trainers have been Dorothy and Alan Tomlinson.  They have made us feel welcome and shown and taught us not only what to do in our temple assignment but where to shop and how to get around in Kiev. They are good friends. We are blessed to have been trained by them.  I was going to tell you all about the past 10 days, but Dorothy did a great job of summarizing it in her blog....  I will let you read hers!!!  here is it......  http://tomlinsonsinukraine.blogspot.com/

As you can read....  it has been a week filled with learning and fun.

We have been so impressed with the patrons who have come to the temple the past 2 weeks.   The first ones we met were a couple of sisters from Mongolia.   Yes, you read that right.   They traveled 5,000 miles to get here and that is like going from SLC to NYC and back!! Except for them it was just one way.  We were told that it the eastern coast of Canada was closer to Kiev, than there home was.  That is long way!!!   They were so sweet and so earnest to spend every minute they could doing ordinances for their ancestors.They were there every day and ALL day long. 

This week there has been a Youth Conference from Saratov, Russia.  I looked it up and that is about the distance from SLC to Austin TX.  There were a little over 70 of them counting leaders, families, and youth.  They stayed in the Patron housing next door to the temple and they were serious about what they came here to do.  We were told that the Kiev Temple averages about 500 ordinances a week.  This last Tuesday there was over 1400 ordinances done.  This group of young people set a goal of doing over 1000 baptisms and they started out with a BANG.  They were so organized, respectful and obedient.  They had Priests and Elders to assist in the work and once they were taught the proper procedure....   they were efficient and precise.   I became instant friends with many of the women who came with the group.  They would be in the temple all day long.  I was wasted and tired after my shift of only 6 hours and they had been there for both the morning and the afternoon shift.  What dedicated women. 

We have been so busy in the temple with them, we didn't even get any pictures.   I will try and remember to do that in the future.

The temple missionaries have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome.  They have spoiled us.

I could tell you stories already about each one of them that have made us love them after such a short period of time.  They are loving, fun, dedicated to their Lord, and a great example.

The Temple President and Matron, the Roths (pronouced ROTE)  are the kind of people that you fall instantly in love with.  They are from Austria so they speak German, but, they also speak English, and Russian.  They are always happy and almost bubbly with life.

The  2nd counselor and his wife the Rotis (ponounced with a long I) have been particularly helpful both before we got here with lots of emails, and now we are here they are always there to make sure we have what we need and we are understanding what is going on.

I am so impressed with the language skills of all of these missionaries.  I hope that some day I will be able to be as good at it as they are. Brent is really catching on quite quickly.  He is working hard at memorizing and is really doing a great job. 

The missionaries come from a big variety of backgrounds.  Some have never been outside the US before. and others, this is their 5th mission.  I think there are 3 past mission presidents.    The 1st councilor is from Ukraine.  They came to Kiev when the conflicts began in their hometown of Donetsk  (I think)    When he went back a couple of weeks later to check on his house.  It had been ransacked and everything including his son's baby grand piano was gone.  They had nothing.  They had previously put in their mission papers and then when they came to Kiev they were called as temple workers.He was then called as 1st councilor in the temple presidency. (They are the couple on the far right on the back row) 

That is just 4 of the 13 couples.  So you can see we are truly blessed with good people to be working with and learning from for the next 18 months.

Here is what the temple grounds look like. (Doesn't it look a lot like the Ogden Temple?!!?)  The apartments to the rear on the right are the missionary housing and the patron housing.  The building you can only see part of on the right is our ward building. We attend the international ward there.  That building also houses the Kiev Mission office and one more ward.   Our ward is a mix of many different nationalities, but English is the main language that is spoken.  Sunday the opening prayer was given in Ukrainian, the meeting was conducted in English and the closing prayer was given in Nigerian. It is a great mix of people who all come together for the same reason.  To partake of the Sacrament, to worship, and to learn. 

I think I will do another blog in a few days to address the other subject.  It will have a lot more pictures and will show the things here that are the same and are different.  Until then......

God Bless

Бог благословил

(Bog blagaslaveel)

Brent and Jan

We made it.

Monday Aug 13th - lucky 13th - right!?!

Off to the airport we go.  We are so excited to be off on this new adventure.  Upon arrival at the  airport we are informed that our flight had been delayed.  Not a big deal.  We should have plenty of time on the other end.    So off we go on our 2 1/2 hour flight to Minneapolis.

Our 777 that is taking us to Paris is HUGE.  The pilot came out to the waiting area and talked to us a little bit about it.  He was so excited to be flying it.  He said it was the finest in the fleet. We were extra excited because for Mother's Day Brent bought us an upgrade for this  8 hour flight.  It was  so nice to not be so crowded. 

 We weren't the only ones who thought that an upgrade was a good idea.  First we walked through 1st class...  there was over 70 first class BED lounge compartments, We were in comfort plus and there must have been almost 250 of us in that section...   then in the back was probably less than 150 in economy class.   So, if my observations were correct there was more than twice as many people with upgrades on the plane than there were regular economy seats.   THAT IS CRAZY!!  

But it really doesn't matter if you have upgrades or not if the plane doesn't work!!  We were told that the power was out in the Galley and they didn't want us to go 8 hours without eating, so they had us get off the plane and wait for 2 hours while they called in another twin plane and got it ready to go.  

A little - on the side -   When we walked into the boarding area in Minneapolis I got the distinct feeling that I had been here before.  Then I realized that that was the exact gate that we had been at on a choir tour.  It brought back a flood of memories of times with the choir.   A tender mercy for today!!!

After over 3 hours of waiting we finally got off the ground and we on our way to Paris.  It really was a lovely plane.

We arrived in Paris 40 minutes after our connection to Kiev had departed.  It took a couple of hours to get reassigned, ride the shuttle to get to another part of the airport (that took 45 min all by it's self) so we could fly out on Ukrainian International Air - hoping that our luggage followed us from Air France to UIA.

And we are off...   our first ON TIME flight of the day....   WAHOOOOO!  

It was a relaxing flight and we got a row to ourselves and got to get a little sleep and finished the book I started in SLC.

WE ARE IN UKRAINE!!! 

We ended up standing on the plane for 1/2 hour or so waiting for the shuttle to come pick us up.  Passport check line was a little long, but not bad.  So getting to luggage we expected them to be waiting for us....  but not so.   We waited a bit and a few more from the flight came, then they were done.  HMMM.....   4 large 50lb suitcases MIA.

Brent filled out all the paperwork, got the documentation done and almost 2 hours after landing headed out to see if we had a ride.

And there they were.....   Our wonderful Temple President and his wife had waited and waited for us and were the smiling faces that made it all worthwhile.  They are such sweet people and they set the tone for what is sure to be the most wonderful next 18 months.

Pres Roth took us for a walk around the temple grounds while Sr Roth whipped up some wonderful curry chicken for us.  We were blessed to meet our trainers the Tomlinsons and they ate with us.

Our apartment for now is a few blocks away from the temple.  It is a new apartment in a tall complex.  The Temple missionary sisters  set it up so nicely with even homemade cookies and muffins.  Such sweet people.   We are going to love this place and these people.  I can just feel it.

             

Here is Elder Petersen with our apartment complex in the background.  We are the 3rd building in - on the 2nd floor.  It is about a 8-9 min walk to the temple,  Walking is the way things are done here.  Temple Missionaries don't have cars or bikes....  so it is our feet and the public transportation for us!!  Here is what the small buses look like.  We take them to access the metro and the subway.

 

Our first day out our phone registered over 14K steps.  Today we had 8K before noon.   I think I may get my 10K in without even trying!!! 

We went to lunch with some of the temple missionaries and had our first experience with local flavor.  It was absolutely yummy!!  All of this plus dessert for 100 UAH which equals $3.65.    I think I may be eating out a lot!!

 We went to a large mall and store today to try and get some food and supplies to get us by until the luggage arrives and to stock up our apartment.  It is one of the largest stores - maybe even larger than Costco- in the city and definitely looks different than the small shops outside.

I

It has lots of things that are the same as what we are used to, but then there are some that I have never seen before.   For example....  Eggs.   Lots of regular boxes of eggs.  But, then there are these 

I should have put something next to them for proportions, but I am guessing the spotted ones are quail eggs, they were 1/2 the size of a regular chicken egg.  The ones in the basket must be ostrich,  I can't think of any other bird that would have an egg that size.  They were HUGE.  I have been trying to think of something about that size to compare it to....  maybe a cantaloupe? a big one or maybe a small single size watermelon.  Needless to say... they were big.

Mayonnaise heaven!!  There was a whole row of mayo....   many different brands and flavors....  but they are in a bag!  

Well, we have been here almost 48 hours.  We still don't have our luggage, but we have rumors that they may be in Ukraine...  so hopefully they are getting closer.

We have met most of the Temple missionaries that we will be working with.  We have settled into the apartment.  We have had some wonderful meals with great people.  And tomorrow we get to start serving in the temple.  We are so blessed.  

God Bless

Бог благословил

Brent and Jan