This week was great! We had a lesson on Tuesday with Gleb and Egor and it was our last lesson with them until their baptism! They basically taught us the lesson and they're baptismal date is set for next Saturday woot! And their dad came to church yesterday too (he's been inactive but he's been coming to church recently and he wants to baptize them :) It'll be so great!
We also visited Looda and her mom Tanya, and it was a great time. We talked about Ether 12:4 and finding hope in Christ. They also gave us some compote (SO good) and fruit cake (before I came on my mission I would've been like ew but they do fruit cake right here). I also found out that Looda knew Matt Duffy when he served in Kharkiv (he was in my ward back home) and she asked all about him! The members here love love the missionaries, they call them their "angels."
Sister Egbert and I also went on a google maps chase to try and dig up a phone number for missionaries in Poland so we could connect Nastia with them, and after like 5 numbers we finally got one that worked! We were like "Hi, do you speak English?" and the guy on the other end was like "yeah!" so we got the number of the sister missionaries in the city where Nastia is! Haha, it was super weird to talk to missionaries in another country. It was a cool reminder of how many there are of us, day in and day out working to help our brothers and sisters :)
We met with Peter and Janna and we talked about a lot of stuff, but it was a really good lesson I think because they are starting to think a little more about religion in general. There's this idea in Ukraine (and everywhere) that all churches are good and there are many paths to God, and as long as you are trying it doesn't matter what church you are in. It's frustrating but we're working on it.
English practice was great and hilarious. We've got a really great group and it kind of feels like a big family, it's so cool. We were talking about our favorite animals and we learned some... interesting things. One lady apparently has a pet raccoon, and she even went as far as to say that she showers with it hahaha. English is always a good time.
We also had exchanges this week in Sumy! We took a 4-hour bus ride up there and it was so great to be back there!! It's the first transfer with sisters there and I was with Sister Hendricks and we knew each other from Odessa and it was awesome! We visited a cute member and showed her one of the new Book of Mormon videos because she isn't able to see them on her phone and she loved it. Side note: Friday night has become our movie night because that's when the new video comes out every week and its the best!!! SO good.
Saturday there was a baptism in our branch building and it was wonderful! And we also met Martin!!! Martin is a man from China that the Elders met this week and he is kind of my new favorite person! He is HILARIOUS without trying and he is so cute!!! He makes everyone around him happy and we're a little obsessed. It's also SO cool because he doesn't speak Russian and President Wirthlin just organized an English "branch" in our building and they meet at the same time as the Russian branch but since there are so many foreigners in Kharkiv they organized it and Martin was able to go to it! The timing of that still just blows me away. It is so so cool.
On Sunday we also got to finish General Conference and woooooow it was soo good. Also, shout out to Elder Uchtdorf for quoting Harry Potter, so good.
It's also so crazy that this is the last week of the transfer, which means I've been out for 11 months on my mission! Time is going by way too fast and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I love my comp to death and Kharkiv center is literally the best area (not biased, everyone in our mission wants to serve in center Kharkiv, ask them ;) There are hard days, but the good times more than make up for the bad. I love it here.
And I love you all ковши!!!
До следующей недели!)
Сестра Кропельники
Sister Egbert and me with Looda
Vika and Veronika got glasses!
Big flag!!
Exchanges in Sumy :)
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