The First Week in Kiev

Family and Friends

We have actually been in Kiev for five days now. The Lees, from Pocatello, have been showing us the ropes. Where and what groceries to buy, how to take the Metro, the city buses and the vans, where the church is, where to buy a new pillow for John and whatever else we may need. We have now found a return missionary that is taking us around and who will tutor us. Just a cute note about that _ John asked him or told him that we would pay 6 greva (a greva is about 20 cents) for an hour. Costra looked a little hesitant about that amount. Finally saying we could discuss that later. John kept talking for a while - then saying oh I meant $6.00/hr. We all started laughing - it was a funny moment. We have managed to stay pretty healthy so far. I think the airline food was harder on me than what we have had here. John has taken on the role of dishes while I am doing the cooking. I think I got the better end of that deal as we have eaten out more than we have cooked. And he will even cook the breakfast if needs be. We have gotten the bleaching of the vegetables and fruit down pretty good and they don't taste like bleach. We have a good filter on the water to wash our hands and food so that is also working out well. The hardest part about that is the toilet arrangements. The toilet is in one small room, then we have to go in where the sink and bathtub are to wash our hands and then we go into the kitchen to wash our hands with the filtered water. A good trick during the night. Our apartment looks pretty worn on the outside. It is one long building that covers a block with 500 apartments in it. The entry way and stair wells haave this "landfill" odor about them. On the inside we have a very nice apartment. It has been remodeled. Our landlords are a couple who helped the Church obtain land for the Temple. However, they are not members of the church. We have two bedroom, a living room, kitchen, office and the toilet areas. Everyone that comes by states that it is very nice. It has nice colored wallpaper that looks like a good speckling job. We also have a small area off the kitchen where we can put our water during the winter and a larger balcony off the front where we can hang the washing. We had to buy some new sheets as the ones we had were very harsh and also a new pillow for John as he left his at Sarah's. We attended our branch in Obalone ( Eng. sounding) today. There were about 50 in attendance. There was an investigator who was 96 years old and who is excited to be baptized as soon as the weather get warmer, 23 February. He is in pretty good shape, he was a poet/journalist. I think that is exciting! Even though everything was in Ukraine the three hours went by rapidly. Met a few people, a sister sitting by me in RS translated a few things that were happening so I could follow the line of the lesson. It is amazing in Kiev to see all the people who wear furs or have fur trims on their coats, even the men. I have priced some items and find them to be very expensive. Boots, with 3 in. spikes, the kind Ivanna would like, are $100-$200. And most of the young women wear them getting around faster than we do. The furs can run in the $1000s. Don't think I will be bringing any back with me. We will try to buy more things in the rentinks (eng. sounding) which is the outside market. Here you can barter for items but I don't think dad will do it at first as he thinks they deserve what ever they ask. Often we see little grandmothers sitting on the sidewalks selling their wares even in the freezing weather. There are a lots of cars here, Sis. Davis told us there are 300 new cars a day added to the streets, this also means the sidewalks as this is where they like to park. We are still waiting to be orientated to our specific assignment. Dr. Mc Cune will come tomorrow from Russia so we will meet with him Tues_Thurs so we hope to have a better idea of what we are to do. Hope this jet lag gets better soon. Only probles is that we wake at 4:00am and when we go back to sleep we fail to wake up early enough. Will have to set that alarm.

New Mission Blog

So here's the deal. Mom asked for help setting up a mission blog. I haven't okayed any of the ideas with her, but I'm sure that this will be fine. Questions, talk to me.

D-Mann