Week 41: Home for a Day and a Scared Goat

Hello everyone and happy last week of August! Woah where did August go, I have no idea. Also, shameless shout out but it's my Mom's birthday on Wednesday so put that on your calendars if you haven't already because she is the best and she deserves all your love and goodness (well, always but especially on Wednesday ;)
This week was great and lots of great stuff happened. Some highlights:

On Tuesday I got to go HOME--as in back to my last area, Novy Doma (which means new homes in Russian haha) for an exchange with Sister Bevziuk!!!! It was so fun and I also got to see Nastia who was baptized last month and we talked about the youth conference that she just got back from (she absolutely loved it) and it was so good to see her smiling face. I love that girl. I also got to go to English practice there, and I saw Vika and Veronica and their Mom again and they grabbed me and told me that I couldn't go back to Kharkiv Center haha. And Sister Bevziuk! It was like the good ol' times. Just a good day.

On Wednesday we met with Nastia (the one here in Kharkiv) and talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's so awesome, usually with lessons we have to be the ones to stop the small talk and start the lesson, but she always is the one that says "Ok, I really want to learn more about ___ today. What can you tell me?" It's so cool! It was a great lesson and we talked about baptism pretty directly and she even took out her phone to look at when she could be baptized! The only thing is in a week she's going to Donetsk for 10 days so we're really hoping to set a date before she goes. We set up another meeting with her for this Wednesday and so hopefully we will set a date with her!

On Saturday we received permission from our mission president to go outside of Kharkiv and visit one of our members, Sister Svetlana, whose husband passed away a little while ago and who hasn't been visited by the missionaries for a while. We took Sister Shepherd with us as well, and took an hour-long uber to the village where she lives. It was waaay out in the middle of nowhere but was so cool! We also scared someone's goat away from their front yard as we were finding her home--still feel bad about that... But we had a great time with Sister Svetlana and we also met her daughter who is pregnant with her second child and is also a member but hasn't been active (and up until this point we didn't know her at all) and she sat and talked with us too! It was great and they were so happy to have us all over. The coolest part was the next day, Sunday, they all came to church! Sister Rawlinson and I could not believe it, it was a miracle and so awesome!

Today I also got my hair cut woohoo. Wasn't as stressful as I thought it would be seeing as it was in Russian and my hairdresser didn't speak any English haha but she was SO nice and so impressed with what we are doing here and how we are learning Russian. People are cool.

That is about it, the second counselor in our branch presidency is moving to Madrid to study which is awesome for him but sad for the rest if us! He's a rock in our branch and we'll all really miss him. The branch here in Center is like a big family--it's so cool.

That's all for this week! We're cleaning out the shelf that fell on me last month so we're gonna do that now :) I love you all so much!! Have a wonderful week.

С любовью,
Сестра Кропельники

New Haircut!

Vika and Veronika

Sister Rawlinson and me in one of my favorite parks in Kharkiv

We bought honey from these sweet people (who also offered us their mead ;)

Soup in edible cups!

We went inside a Russian orthodox church

Week 40: Babushka Chocolate

Hello everyone and happy Monday once again from Kharkiv. It was been hooot this week but yesterday it rained and was typical seattle weather so this girl was happy. Some highlights other than the weather:

This week we had zone conference and as sister training leaders we helped out with the setting up, food, scheduling and all that stuff so we were busy. It was my first zone conference as an STL and I wasn't super looking forward to sitting in front of everyone for the whole conference but it wasn't too bad. It was a particularly good one too--we talked about the "learn the language" section of Preach My Gospel and my old companion, Sister Бевзюк (Bevzyook) talked about verbs of motion and she was so into it, it was awesome and sooo helpful for everyone. Sister Shepherd, one of the senior missionaries here, made her famous carrot cake so all in all it was a great day.

We also met with Настя (Nastia) this week (which is becoming more and more difficult because her job is crazy and she literally works like 13 hour days!) and we talked about the Plan of Salvation and it was great. She had so many questions and we would read and scripture with her and then she'd have another question and we'd turn to that and that went for almost 2 hours but she was really into the lesson. It was really awesome how the scriptures really speak to her, much more than what we say most of the time. She has a day off this week so we'll try to meet with here again! She is so cool.

We also had an exchange this week with the sisters from Poltava and I don't know what it was, but people we talked to were just not having any of it (didn't help that it was almost 100° outside), but it was still a great time. Also, it was Sister Perry's first exchange and she saw her first nude man in a park while contacting (had to happen sometime, but I would have preferred it to happen when she was not with us haha).

We also got some really awesome news this week that the two sons (the ones that made us bracelets a few weeks ago) of the Relief Society President (her husband got offended and is less active) want to be baptized! So we're going to do a lesson with them this week. Cool.

On Sunday we met a lady, Таня (Tanya) who just walked into our church (always heard of that but it's never happened to me with a woman!) and she is so awesome! She also came all alone last week while we were in Sumy. Wow. We exchanged numbers so hopefully we can start teaching her!

This week we had a lot of really great conversations with people (and some of the most adorable, sweet babushkas (grandmas) that insisted on giving us their chocolate by the end of our conversation) and it always impresses me just how good the people of Ukraine are. Sometimes to start a conversation we ask them what gives them happiness and almost every time they talk about when their families and friends are healthy and happy and when around them is peaceful. Hardly anyone tells us "money" or "a bigger house" or things like that. They always talk about others. I love that a lot, and I love Ukraine.

Well that is all for this week! I love you all and hope you have a blessed week.

С любовью
Сестра Кропельники

Tanya and her daughters Vika and Veronica from my last area 

came to Center for English practice!  It was so good to see them!

They gave me a super sweet card, too :)

SHOUT OUT TO HANNAH AND RYAN FOR THE

STUFFING!! They sent it to me from The Netherlands

Our district at zone conference

The Sumy Squad!  They kind of adopted us into their district and I'm not sad at all!

"We Love Kharkiv."  Yep, I do.

Week 39: The Sumy Spies

Hello everyone! Sister Rawlinson and I got up at 4 this morning to catch our 6 am train back to our area in Kharkiv and the Elders who bought our tickets picked the party train haha. Half the people in our car are celebrating someone's birthday and they sang to her and are now eating cake. It's a good time.

This week was crazy awesome and flew by but also I feel like SO much happened  and there is no way I am fitting it all in this email, but I'll give the highlights (but this could easily be very long...)

Last Monday we met with a contact from the Elders and she wanted to know more about The Book of Mormon so we talked about that and she wasn't super interested in meeting up with us to talk more about the church, but she gave us some of her clothes (?) and a coupon for a free massage, so woot.

On Tuesday we had an exchange with some of the sisters in our zone, Sisters Carpenter and DeHeart, and Sister DeHeart was with me and it was only her 6th day in Ukraine! So it was super fun! We contacted a lot and talked to a lot of cool people. She impressed me so much by her boldness. She would just go up to anyone, even if they were talking to someone else, and try to talk to them. She's awesome.

On Wednesday we had a first lesson with another contact, Alexandra, and it was SO good. She is SO NICE and we found out halfway through the lesson that her grandma was a member but her parents tried to keep it all under wraps and Alexandra found her grandma's old Book of Mormon (!) and then she met the missionaries on the street! WOAH. Awesome. She said that everything we told her just makes sense and she said the closing prayer and she cried! The spirit was really strong and it was a great lesson.

Wednesday we contacted in the morning and stopped by our branch building to drop off something for one of our branch members, but somehow we timed our arrival so perfectly because a van pulls up as we're walking up to the building and out comes 5 huge guys in helmets and bullet-proof vests and they go to the door and start to unlock our church building. We came up and told them that we have keys and they say that the building's alarm went off and it called them and now they're slightly suspicious that we had something to do with it because we're not on their list of approved people (it has the branch presidency, the facilities manager, etc. but not the missionaries!) So we just chilled for a half an hour with these giants until one of the branch presidency members came haha. Just our luck, we never found out why the alarm went off, but of course WE were the ones there at just the wrong time. Our Elders had a good laugh at least.

After that little debacle we got on our train to Sumy! It's about 4 hours away from Kharkiv and about 30 minutes away from Russia! Woo. President Wirthlin asked us to go and see if Sisters could potentially be put in Sumy permanently, and the senior couple there have been begging for sisters for a long time so President finally gave the green light and we spent Thursday through Sunday there and it was SO COOL. Definitely some of the best days on my mission. We saw so many miracles and met so many awesome people and I learned so much, it was like drinking out of a firehose but every night we got home and were completely exhausted, which is the best!

Recap of Sumy:
We got into Sumy on Thursday night, met the Fasts (who I will say right now are probably two of the coolest people I have ever met), went over our plan for the next three days (woah, Sister Fast is a planning master!) and then ate dinner (even though Sumy is kind of small, it has a weirdly large amount of really good restaurants. Bonus).

Thursday through Sunday was a crazy awesome busy blur of meetings and lessons and calling lots of people. We had a lesson with a woman that the Fasts are teaching (they do the work of like 4 missionaries I swear). We talked about commandments and at first Tanya was a little cold towards us but once we got more into the lesson she really warmed up to us. Her daughter also has like 15 pet rats because one of them just had babies so Sister Rawlinson got to name one :) We then taught another one of their investigators the plan of salvation and it was really good too, she had lots of good questions. We also spent time walking around Sumy to find people at work from the branch and say hi and get to know them and we also did lots of calls to invite people to church and an activity after church that the Fasts were doing. We crammed so much into each day and it was awesome. We saw sooo many tender mercies (like when someone wasn't able to meet but then we'd see them on their way home and got to talk to them). We also found out that Elder Fast was (maybe still is, Sister Rawlinson and I have a few theories) a SPY in Russia during the Cold War and he has some craaazy stories (including, but not limited to, getting kidnapped by the KGB) so basically he taught us how to be spies and how to look for bugs in your house (may come in handy some day) and get out of handcuffs. He is just COOL. But anyway, on Sunday we met the branch and everyone was SO kind and so excited to see sister missionaries in their branch (for the first time in 4 years)--Sorry this is getting long but we also taught the first lesson to someone the Elders are teaching and it was awesome, she said she would pray about The Book of Mormon! The Elders met her when they saw her struggling with her suitcases and helped her carry them home. Service is the best! Sunday night we had some of the single sisters over and we made cookies and ate weird string cheese and it was just a really fun time.

Sister Rawlinson and I really want to go back to Sumy! It is such a cool place with even cooler people! But it's really nice to be back in Kharkiv :)
If you made it all the way to the end of this email, молодец. Sorry for the length. These past few days that we spent in Sumy helped me to see how much you really can fit into one day (I thought I knew...I didn't really), and how awesome it is to be a missionary. I learned so much--it was a solid week. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,
Sister Kropelnicki

The Fasts, in Sumy

Eating dinner with the Fasts

Sister Rawlinson and me at a restaurant in Sumy

This statue in Sumy is supposed to help you get pregnant if you rub her tummy.  No, we didn't.

Week 38: Busses and Bracelets

Hello everyone and happy August! Today is kind of a crazy P-day and we have a meeting with a contact from the elders this afternoon (hopefully it goes well!) and after we have a conference call for this language program that they are trying to test with missionaries to see if it helps us learn the language faster. And then this evening we start an exchange with some of the sisters in our zone! So it's a busy Monday!

This week was full of lots of bus coordinating because lots of people had to get lots of places for the beginning of the new transfer. Three sisters had to get to Dnipro and came through Kharkiv because they were training new sister missionaries and it was kind of hectic. A sister would come, but to a different bus stop than we thought, or she would be in a train when we thought she was coming on a bus... it was fun. But everything's good now and our mission is now super "young" because 15 missionaries went home last week and 7 came in (a big chunk considering there's only about 70 missionaries total in our mission). So fun stuff, I feel so blessed to be here!

Sister Rawlinson and I took a crazy marshrutka ride with our elders to Dnipro for mission leadership conference (MLC) and we passed so many beautiful fields of sunflowers! And the sun was just rising and it was really cool. At MLC we talked about tons of stuff, one of the things that really stuck out to me was the importance of making sure that the people we are teaching know and understand the significance of the sacrament before their first Sunday. And then I thought about how much I've learned about the sacrament just on my mission alone. Honestly, a few years ago I knew what sacrament was, but I didn't understand what it really meant, and how incredibly beautiful of a blessing it is that we can take it every week. I'm still learning, but one of my favorite parts about missionary work is that as we study and learn how to teach others, my own testimony of those things grows as well.

We weren't able to meet with Жанна (Janna) and Пётр (Peter) and their son this week because we were at MLC when we usually meet with them, but the Shepherds, the senior couple here (they are awesome and are kind of like our mission grandparents) met with them instead and talked about temples. They all said it was a great meeting! The only тяжело вещи (hard thing) is that they are going to be out of town for the next three weeks to visit Пётр's parents! But we'll keep in touch with them over WhatsApp. Summer is awesome here but also annoying because everyone is out of town!

We also contacted lots and lots and met some cool people, but if they were interested they were content with what they already had and were comfortable with. Ah it's frustrating sometimes because they have no idea what they are saying no to, but ладно.

Ok kind of running out of time, but this week we planned out our Sumy trip with the senior couple that lives up there and we leave this Thursday. It should be fun! There's apparently like 15 single returning women and 10 married returning women so we'll be busy! Woot!

There's also these two boys, Игорь (Igor) and Глеб (Gleb) and they just got back from a camp and they made Sister Rawlinson and me cute bracelets! It was so sweet!

Sorry for the kind of boring email, not tons of substantial things happened this week but it was still good and next week is going to be nice and busy so that's good :) I'm loving Kharkiv center with its beautiful parks and yummy poppyseed buns and awesome people. It's a good place.
Until next week! Love you all!!
Love,
Sister Kropelnicki

Sunflower fields on the way to Dnipro

One of the cute sisters in our branch