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.
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