This week was kind of insane, but really really good despite the craziness. On Monday we had a lesson with Gleb and Egor on a bench outside because their parents weren't home yet. They are so smart! We taught them about the commandments but they already knew them all (and showed us all the cutest song to remember them) and we played a scripture chase game at the end and gave them candy so I think it was good:) Right now we're trying to also work with their dad who is a returning member so that he can baptize them when they finish the lessons. That would be so awesome!
On Tuesday we got 2 sets of bunkbeds from the Poltava Elders delivered to our apartment and luckily the Shepherds came and helped us take them up to our apartment and set them up (you are now looking at a pro bunkbed setter upper) and we then went to the train station to catch our train to Poltava to do an an exchange with the sisters there. Unfortunately, the APs got our times mixed up and they bought us tickets for Tuesday morning instead of Tuesday night! So Sister Egbert and I asked the ticket counter if there were any more trains that night to Poltava--and there was! So we bought them, so relieved that we could still do the exchange... until we got on the train and realized that our train would take 3 hours instead of the usual 1.5 to Poltava! It was a super slow, old, all night train that was going all the way to Odessa but it stopped in Poltava. Oh my goodness, that was probably the most stressful train ride (maybe when I'm home I can tell you all the whole story!) but короче we made it to Poltava, way late but we made it. Never buying my own train tickets again!
But! The actual exchange was great! I was with Sister Perry who is on her second transfer and beforehand we talked about what she wanted to get out of our exchange and she said that lately they've had a really hard time getting good conversations with people, and so we decided to talk to everyone we passed and we got tons of conversations! It was awesome and we had a good time. She knows Russian sooo much better than I did my second transfer, wowwy. Also, Poltava is so pretty! And we ate this Poltavian specialty called "galooshka" for lunch and it's basically bread balls in this gravy sauce with chicken and it was REALLY good the first few bites and then woah, it was just a little too heavy...
That night we took the train (normal) back to Kharkiv because the Poltava sisters had interviews, and then we all went back, now with the Sumy sisters and had a big sleepover the night before Zone Conference!
Zone Conference was SO good and we talked about The Restoration lesson in Preach My Gospel and how to improve how we teach people. We role played and Sister Egbert and I had to role play doing a 1-minute version of the Restoration in front of everyone and it went really good I think. President Wirthlin also talked about Michelangelo and how, when he sculpted, he was letting the person go from the rock. They were in there the whole time, and only he knew what a big rock could become. President compared that to Heavenly Father and how He is the master sculptor and knows what masterpieces we are capable of becoming. Sometimes we have to go through times when it seems like He's taking big chunks off, and sometimes he's just doing little things to make us who we can become. And as missionaries we have to see people as what they can become, and not just what they are right now. And that includes ourselves!
After conference we met with a recent concert, Ira, and read 2 Nephi 2 with her and talked about opposition and how much of a blessing it is. We also lost our keys that night because we gave them to the Sumy sisters to lock our apartment and then they left them at the branch building but they kind of disappeared :) So we also had to call our landlord that night so he could let us in!
Friday we had a really awesome lesson with Jannah and Peter and talked about baptism and what they thought about it, and religion and churches in general and we learned a lot about where they are at preparedness-wise and we extended the commitment for them to pray as a family every night about baptism. They were also able to come to district conference on Sunday and meet Elder Sumiken of the Seventy and President Wirthlin was there too and it was really great.
That is about it for this week! I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful Monday!!
С любовью,
Сестра Кропельники
Poltava exchanges! Me and Sister Perry
Ditto
Pre-Zone Conference Sleepover!
Ukrainian wheat fields😍
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