Hello all and happy happy Monday! This ones going to be a little quick because Sister Sowards broke her phone (oops) and we also got a little sick this week so we're going to go sleep for a little:) Because these next few weeks are going to be crazy (more on that next week but president Wirthlin had an impression that Sister Sowards and I should go down to Odessa for zone conference since there aren't STL's there right now and we'll do exchanges with the sisters there after conference! That means that I'm going back to my first area! Never thought that would happen while I was on my mission... needless to say, we are a little excited).
This last week was good! Some highlights:
Friday was a particularly miraculous day. This whole week we were trying to meet with Lena, a women we met on the street last Sunday who was really interested in our message and especially the Book of Mormon. But every time we tried, she ended up getting off work too late and wasn't able to meet. But Friday she was able to! We met outside on the sidewalk and she had brought her 10 year old daughter! Her name is Nastia and she was listening to the whole lesson as well, it was so cool. We taught the restoration and it was a really spiritual lesson and Lena could feel it. She was so focused on what we were saying and she talked about how she was on a search for a church and she had been to many churches but never felt like they had everything. And then she said that she felt different here in our building sitting with us and we talked about the Holy Ghost and what his role is and how we can have him with us when we are worthy after baptism. She loved the lesson and even though they needed to go to catch their bus home, you could tell they didn't really want to leave. She said that she would pray about the Book of Mormon and she asked us about church and when it was and if she could come and then on Sunday she came! She really liked sacrament and the speakers spoke on really inspired topics--it was just what she needed. Anton, a recent convert spoke about how he had found the church and how he had felt like there was a piece of truth in each church he went to, but never a fullness. It was crazy because that is almost exactly what Lena had told us a few days before. And then at the end of sacrament meeting, I had been sitting at the piano and before I could get to the back of the room, our relief society president, Elena, was already sitting next to Lena and was introducing herself to her! It was SO good! And later Elena told us that she could help us with lessons! Perfect member-missionary work woot!
We also had MLC this week and so I got to see my old Kharkiv district! It was weird to be the one waiting for them to get to the mission office in order to start breakfast... We planned for the coming year and set some goals for the mission and ate some good food. It was a solid day.
Sister Sowards and I also discovered a fun way to contact--tram contacting! After our lesson with Lena on Friday, we were sitting on the tram and at one stop a bunch of students got on and two sat across from Sister Sowards and I and we started to talk to them. One was from India and the other was from Nigeria. They were so nice and we did a little resto lesson with them and they were really interested. Mini, the girl from India told me as we were getting off at our stop that the minute first got on the tram and looked at us she felt the love of God! And when we told her that we were missionaries she was so blown away!
Speed Round:
-Contacted with some of our elders in a park with a bunch of old rockets in it (cool, also our district is huge! We have 6 elders! usually there's just 2!) and met some cool people, also met a babushka who told me to go home because Ukraine doesn't need God... I told her I would in 4 months and that seemed to make her feel better haha. But you gotta love babushka's--for the most part they are angels.
-Shout out to the AP's for giving us their yummy food that Sister Wirthlin gave them for Elder Williams AP orientation dinner thingy with President:) Strawberry shortcake!
-Did some weird trackting for a possibly deceased relative of a member who lives by Kiev and we saw lots of miracles that helped us finally find her door including a random food delivery man who somehow knew the apartment code and let us in without knowing it. Crazy story.
-We finally got the last of the stuff from years and years of sisters out of our apartment! It seems so much bigger now!
-Planned for zone conference this week with the ap's and we figured out that Elder Baggely is Joseph Smith in the mural at the MTC. Wut, our minds are still blown.
That is it for this week! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Kropelnicki
Monday, January 27, 2020
Monday, January 20, 2020
Week 62: Transferred to Dnipro!
Hello everyone and happy Monday from Dnipro! Last Saturday we got a call from President Wirthlin and he told us that I'll be coming to Dnipro to be Sister Training Leader there and Sister Dehart will be training and Sister Chen will be staying in Kharkiv and will serve with Sister Butler--my half-daughter (I trained her for one transfer before being transferred to Kharkiv!). It was really hard to leave Kharkiv and the people there, and looking back it was a really great last week there (Nastia got back from Poland and we met with a sister in our branch whose husband is a non-member and it was a great first lesson! The spirit was really strong and we planned another lesson and they're going to invite some awesome members to be in on the lesson. I love Kharkiv and it will always have a special place in my heart. I am so grateful for the time I was given to serve there and I will never forget it!
Real quick recap of this week. It was honestly a weird but super cool week. My new companion is Sister Sowards and we are both new in Dnipro center ("whitewashing" for all you RM's) so it's been kind of crazy because there is tons to do! Especially because we are the only sisters here and there are 6 elders! We're like two districts, and our district is with the AP's (Assistants to the President) but we're also like one big district at the same time so it's really fun!
This week was full of meetings with President and doing a train the trainers with all the missionaries that are training. This transfer we got, wait for it, 6 NEW SISTERS! It was so awesome! Just to give you an idea, before they came we had about 15 sisters in our mission! I felt so lucky to be here in center to be able to welcome them and get to know them, they are all so great, fresh out of the MTC (missionary training center) and ready to serve! Haha during orientation they were all kind of nodding off, but they were troopers and made it through the day. We had a few other meetings for training new leaders and then we are trying to get a handle on our new area. It's been fun and crazy and a little overwhelming but we're learning a lot and Dnipro is starting to feel a little more like home :)
We had English practice, district council, saw Sister Shepherd (!!) for the first time in a few months, got to see President and Sister Wirthlin's apartment when we went to pick up Sister Bevzuk since she went home on Tuesday and the Wirthlins do a departing missionary dinner and testimony and Sister Sowards and I got to sit in on their testimony meeting and it was so cool! And then super early Tuesday morning we said goodbye to sister Bevzuk (sad, but wow I am definitely seeing that girl again, I made her promise to show me around Kiev when I come back to Ukraine!).
Sunday we got to meet our branch! There are so many kids I was in shock!! And I played the piano for sacrament and then a member asked if I could play in primary and it was so fun! The kids are adorable, I want to take them all home with me! They called me their "aunt!" We also met with Katia after church who is a recent convert, and then a couple in the branch invited us over to their apartment for dinner! So nice! We contacted on the way to their home and we met a super awesome lady, Lena and she was super interested and really wanted my Book of Mormon and we exchanged numbers and she wants to meet tomorrow! Woo.
I could write a book about what's happened, but this was a very condensed version and if you are dying to know the rest, you're just going to have to wait ;)
This week I've been reflecting a lot on my mission so far, basically a year ago this week I was the one getting off the plane in a strange place where people spoke a crazy language that I thought I would never learn and now I'm on the other side and doing things that 12 months ago I thought were impossible to do. It's cool to see the progress and everything that happened in between. I am so grateful for my mission and for this new chapter of it.
Love you all and have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Kropelnicki
Real quick recap of this week. It was honestly a weird but super cool week. My new companion is Sister Sowards and we are both new in Dnipro center ("whitewashing" for all you RM's) so it's been kind of crazy because there is tons to do! Especially because we are the only sisters here and there are 6 elders! We're like two districts, and our district is with the AP's (Assistants to the President) but we're also like one big district at the same time so it's really fun!
This week was full of meetings with President and doing a train the trainers with all the missionaries that are training. This transfer we got, wait for it, 6 NEW SISTERS! It was so awesome! Just to give you an idea, before they came we had about 15 sisters in our mission! I felt so lucky to be here in center to be able to welcome them and get to know them, they are all so great, fresh out of the MTC (missionary training center) and ready to serve! Haha during orientation they were all kind of nodding off, but they were troopers and made it through the day. We had a few other meetings for training new leaders and then we are trying to get a handle on our new area. It's been fun and crazy and a little overwhelming but we're learning a lot and Dnipro is starting to feel a little more like home :)
We had English practice, district council, saw Sister Shepherd (!!) for the first time in a few months, got to see President and Sister Wirthlin's apartment when we went to pick up Sister Bevzuk since she went home on Tuesday and the Wirthlins do a departing missionary dinner and testimony and Sister Sowards and I got to sit in on their testimony meeting and it was so cool! And then super early Tuesday morning we said goodbye to sister Bevzuk (sad, but wow I am definitely seeing that girl again, I made her promise to show me around Kiev when I come back to Ukraine!).
Sunday we got to meet our branch! There are so many kids I was in shock!! And I played the piano for sacrament and then a member asked if I could play in primary and it was so fun! The kids are adorable, I want to take them all home with me! They called me their "aunt!" We also met with Katia after church who is a recent convert, and then a couple in the branch invited us over to their apartment for dinner! So nice! We contacted on the way to their home and we met a super awesome lady, Lena and she was super interested and really wanted my Book of Mormon and we exchanged numbers and she wants to meet tomorrow! Woo.
I could write a book about what's happened, but this was a very condensed version and if you are dying to know the rest, you're just going to have to wait ;)
This week I've been reflecting a lot on my mission so far, basically a year ago this week I was the one getting off the plane in a strange place where people spoke a crazy language that I thought I would never learn and now I'm on the other side and doing things that 12 months ago I thought were impossible to do. It's cool to see the progress and everything that happened in between. I am so grateful for my mission and for this new chapter of it.
Love you all and have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Kropelnicki
Monday, January 6, 2020
Week 60: Horse Highways and Creepy Chocolate
Hello everyone and happy Monday! It's been a while since we've had a regular monday p-day because of the holidays so we had our p-days on two Wednesdays in a row! But that means that this will be a little shorter, so you are welcome (if you read these all the way through--no hard feelings if not, sometimes I'm not sure why I do these haha).
Thursday! We met with a member that Vitya in our branch got us in contact with and she's been living in China for the past few years with her husband. She talked about how it is to be a member of the church in China (they do sacrament meeting over skype and it's all foreigners because the laws there are kind of crazy) and it made me so grateful for our religious freedom and being able to believe and worship how we want to. She also talked to Sister Chen in Chinese and sister Deheart and I was like "wut" but it was cool! She loved The Christ Child and wants us to come over to her apartment once her husband comes to Kharkiv from China next week.
We also met with Sister Olga, a babushka in our branch whose daughter is married to a non-member and is less active and Sister Olga watches their daughter (her granddaughter) during the day while they work. She told us about how she has other grandkids in Donetsk (where she is originally from) and they wanted to get baptized a few years ago but there weren't missionaries and most of the church buildings there are abandoned/bombed out from the war and time passed and now they don't really talk about wanting to be baptized anymore. It broke my heart and made me realize how important it is that we get missionaries back there! There are so many people ready to accept the gospel! Sister Olga also told us that she knows the church will be back there someday, maybe while she's living or maybe after, but she got emotional as she talked about how badly she wanted her whole family to enjoy the blessings of the gospel (her husband was against the church most of his life, but one day he said that he supported her decision and then he got sick and died before he could join, but before he died he told her that it was his last wish to see them all join and enjoy the happiness that he noticed it brought to Sister Olga). She is so awesome and we are praying for her daughter and her daughter's husband!
We also met with an investigator that Sister Deheart and her old companion were teaching and she really wants to be baptized, but she is having a hard time not drinking green or black tea (super popular here). We talked about the Word of Wisdom and how Heavenly Father blesses us when we commit to keep His commandments. It was a really good lesson, and we're planning on meeting with her this week as well!
We did a table with our members by one of the entrances to the metro and it was great!! And freezing! We used the whiteboard that we used from a few days ago with questions written on it that The Book of Mormon answers and we would bring people over to it and our members would tell them about The Book of Mormon. We got some really good contacts and we have a few meetings set up this week with them.
We met with Peter and Janna and showed them a Book of Mormon video about when Nephi breaks his bow and then makes a new one while everyone else is complaining that Heavenly Father abandoned them. We talked about going on faith and how sometimes you just have to act on what you already have in order to get where heavenly Father knows you can be. I also told them a story about one of my ancestors, Luman Andros Shurtliff, who had a really powerful experience with going off of faith when he chose to be baptized.
We had exchanges with the Sisters from Poltava also and Poltava is notorious for people speaking a mix of Russian and Ukrainian (or just straight up Ukrainian) so they were so blown away by all the Russian in Kharkiv haha. We contacted in the park together and met a weird man who followed us after we ended and wanted to give us chocolate. We politely declined, but it was a nice gesture? We also met a guy from Vietnam, Bin, and he ended up coming to church yesterday! It was awesome and he went to the English group and liked it! The Elders are hopefully going to do a lesson with him this week.
Sunday was a miraculous day! Because I saw Nastia who I taught when I served in Novy Doma and she got baptized a few weeks after I got there, but a few months ago she kind of dropped off the face of the earth a little and no one really knew what happened to her! But we were contacting by the big square and I heard her voice and I was like "huh??" and I turned and there she was! So crazy!! We hugged and exchanged numbers and she said she will be working there (doing pony rides, there are SO many horses there right now because of the holidays and you have to be careful not to get run over!) for the rest of the week woot!
We also set up a meeting with a sister in our branch and her husband who is a nonmember and just got back from being in Poland for a year. They are super awesome and Sister Ira was so excited for us to come and teach him! Also, this Sunday was the first lesson on the Book of Mormon for Come Follow Me and it was so good!! The members here just have such strong testimonies of the Book of Mormon, it is so inspiring. They know it personally and they are goals!
That is all for this week, more or less, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Love you all!
Love,
Sister Kropelnicki
Thursday! We met with a member that Vitya in our branch got us in contact with and she's been living in China for the past few years with her husband. She talked about how it is to be a member of the church in China (they do sacrament meeting over skype and it's all foreigners because the laws there are kind of crazy) and it made me so grateful for our religious freedom and being able to believe and worship how we want to. She also talked to Sister Chen in Chinese and sister Deheart and I was like "wut" but it was cool! She loved The Christ Child and wants us to come over to her apartment once her husband comes to Kharkiv from China next week.
We also met with Sister Olga, a babushka in our branch whose daughter is married to a non-member and is less active and Sister Olga watches their daughter (her granddaughter) during the day while they work. She told us about how she has other grandkids in Donetsk (where she is originally from) and they wanted to get baptized a few years ago but there weren't missionaries and most of the church buildings there are abandoned/bombed out from the war and time passed and now they don't really talk about wanting to be baptized anymore. It broke my heart and made me realize how important it is that we get missionaries back there! There are so many people ready to accept the gospel! Sister Olga also told us that she knows the church will be back there someday, maybe while she's living or maybe after, but she got emotional as she talked about how badly she wanted her whole family to enjoy the blessings of the gospel (her husband was against the church most of his life, but one day he said that he supported her decision and then he got sick and died before he could join, but before he died he told her that it was his last wish to see them all join and enjoy the happiness that he noticed it brought to Sister Olga). She is so awesome and we are praying for her daughter and her daughter's husband!
We also met with an investigator that Sister Deheart and her old companion were teaching and she really wants to be baptized, but she is having a hard time not drinking green or black tea (super popular here). We talked about the Word of Wisdom and how Heavenly Father blesses us when we commit to keep His commandments. It was a really good lesson, and we're planning on meeting with her this week as well!
We did a table with our members by one of the entrances to the metro and it was great!! And freezing! We used the whiteboard that we used from a few days ago with questions written on it that The Book of Mormon answers and we would bring people over to it and our members would tell them about The Book of Mormon. We got some really good contacts and we have a few meetings set up this week with them.
We met with Peter and Janna and showed them a Book of Mormon video about when Nephi breaks his bow and then makes a new one while everyone else is complaining that Heavenly Father abandoned them. We talked about going on faith and how sometimes you just have to act on what you already have in order to get where heavenly Father knows you can be. I also told them a story about one of my ancestors, Luman Andros Shurtliff, who had a really powerful experience with going off of faith when he chose to be baptized.
We had exchanges with the Sisters from Poltava also and Poltava is notorious for people speaking a mix of Russian and Ukrainian (or just straight up Ukrainian) so they were so blown away by all the Russian in Kharkiv haha. We contacted in the park together and met a weird man who followed us after we ended and wanted to give us chocolate. We politely declined, but it was a nice gesture? We also met a guy from Vietnam, Bin, and he ended up coming to church yesterday! It was awesome and he went to the English group and liked it! The Elders are hopefully going to do a lesson with him this week.
Sunday was a miraculous day! Because I saw Nastia who I taught when I served in Novy Doma and she got baptized a few weeks after I got there, but a few months ago she kind of dropped off the face of the earth a little and no one really knew what happened to her! But we were contacting by the big square and I heard her voice and I was like "huh??" and I turned and there she was! So crazy!! We hugged and exchanged numbers and she said she will be working there (doing pony rides, there are SO many horses there right now because of the holidays and you have to be careful not to get run over!) for the rest of the week woot!
We also set up a meeting with a sister in our branch and her husband who is a nonmember and just got back from being in Poland for a year. They are super awesome and Sister Ira was so excited for us to come and teach him! Also, this Sunday was the first lesson on the Book of Mormon for Come Follow Me and it was so good!! The members here just have such strong testimonies of the Book of Mormon, it is so inspiring. They know it personally and they are goals!
That is all for this week, more or less, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Love you all!
Love,
Sister Kropelnicki
Saw Nastia in Center!
The Vareniki!
Concert
Yummy food!
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Week 59: Slovenes and Новый Год!
Hello everyone and С Новым Годом (happy New Year)!! Here in Ukraine, New Years is bigger than Christmas (which they actually don't celebrate until January 7th so you'd better believe we are still playing Christmas music. It's the best when there's two Christmases! And they even have two New Years but I won't get into that...) so last night kind of sounded like we were in the middle of a warzone because there were fireworks going off everywhere! All night! But we had to be home at 4:00 in the afternoon because it can get a little crazy on the streets on New Year's eve, especially in big cities like Kharkiv, so we are all good :)
This week was good! We had exchanges with the Sumy sisters and Sister Deheart and I served with Sister Pope and it was really great. We went to an outdoor market where a family in our branch has a shop and we stopped by and the father was there (he's a returning member) and we talked for a little and then contacted and did studies. Being a sister training leader is so fun, and the sisters in our zone are the best! Also, side note but in less than two weeks we are getting 6 new sisters!!! That's soooo many because we only have like 18 sisters in our mission! So we are excited :)
We also were able to meet with Peter and Danya this week (Janna was sick :( and we talked about prophets and Peter was just firing off these questions in rapid succession which was cool because he was so interested but also hard sometimes because it can go a little off topic. But it was good, and a crazy nother thing, yesterday when we were getting lunch with a member, we saw Peter while we were eating! He was at the same restaurant and we talked for a little and man he is just a solid, good person. If anyone has any advice on how to help an "eternal investigator family" I would love any thoughts (seriously, I spend time each week writin' these dang letters, if you have any words of advice or something, send em my way pls, ya'll gotta pay up ;)
We also had English practice and one of our apartment neighbors came and he brought his daughter! It was so cool! And we took them on a tour of our building afterwards and they gave us their number and said we could stop by and share a message! It was awesome!
We also tried a new contacting idea in the park with the elders and it was awesome! We wrote questions that people typically have about life on our whiteboard and then where in the Book of Mormon it answers that question. It was really successful and even though it was raining people would stop and participate. Also, holidays are the best in Kharkiv because there are people from all over that come for New Years! We met a bunch of people from Spain, and a group of friends from Slovenia--we saw them not once, but twice! On two separate days! It was so funny and they were really cool. The first time we met them we talked a little bit about our church but they were in a hurry but the second time we talked for a while and they told us that they had seen two boys with nametags like ours in Slovenia when they were younger and we gave them our card with the church website on it and they said that "we just have this warm, positive energy about us" and they are curious about why! It was cool.
We also met with Louda and her mom and man I just love Louda. She is so good. They gave us compote and we talked about Christmas and Christ and what Christmas means to them, and I never wanted to leave!
We also went to a Christmas concert for our cultural activity that we can do once a transfer and it was definitely one that I will never forget... we went in thinking that it would be a symphony type concert because that's what was advertised. And it was, at the beginning. Until they added some pyrotechnics and Ed Sheeran (?) It was an experience.
Today we got sushi with the elders (yuuum) and did a white elephant (Elder Payne gave me a reusable АТБ bag...5 points to Elder Payne). It was fun.
It's so weird to me that a whole year ago I was at the MTC, thinking that I was never going to get to Ukraine. This year has been so many good things, and I am so grateful for everything and everyone that has been a part of this past year. Have a wonderful wonderful New Year! Make some goals, but think more about what you can do each week, from Sunday to Sunday, to be a little better than who you were the week before. I am so grateful that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can become more than we were, no matter what happened behind us.
Have a wonderful week!
С любовью,
Сестра Кропельники
This week was good! We had exchanges with the Sumy sisters and Sister Deheart and I served with Sister Pope and it was really great. We went to an outdoor market where a family in our branch has a shop and we stopped by and the father was there (he's a returning member) and we talked for a little and then contacted and did studies. Being a sister training leader is so fun, and the sisters in our zone are the best! Also, side note but in less than two weeks we are getting 6 new sisters!!! That's soooo many because we only have like 18 sisters in our mission! So we are excited :)
We also were able to meet with Peter and Danya this week (Janna was sick :( and we talked about prophets and Peter was just firing off these questions in rapid succession which was cool because he was so interested but also hard sometimes because it can go a little off topic. But it was good, and a crazy nother thing, yesterday when we were getting lunch with a member, we saw Peter while we were eating! He was at the same restaurant and we talked for a little and man he is just a solid, good person. If anyone has any advice on how to help an "eternal investigator family" I would love any thoughts (seriously, I spend time each week writin' these dang letters, if you have any words of advice or something, send em my way pls, ya'll gotta pay up ;)
We also had English practice and one of our apartment neighbors came and he brought his daughter! It was so cool! And we took them on a tour of our building afterwards and they gave us their number and said we could stop by and share a message! It was awesome!
We also tried a new contacting idea in the park with the elders and it was awesome! We wrote questions that people typically have about life on our whiteboard and then where in the Book of Mormon it answers that question. It was really successful and even though it was raining people would stop and participate. Also, holidays are the best in Kharkiv because there are people from all over that come for New Years! We met a bunch of people from Spain, and a group of friends from Slovenia--we saw them not once, but twice! On two separate days! It was so funny and they were really cool. The first time we met them we talked a little bit about our church but they were in a hurry but the second time we talked for a while and they told us that they had seen two boys with nametags like ours in Slovenia when they were younger and we gave them our card with the church website on it and they said that "we just have this warm, positive energy about us" and they are curious about why! It was cool.
We also met with Louda and her mom and man I just love Louda. She is so good. They gave us compote and we talked about Christmas and Christ and what Christmas means to them, and I never wanted to leave!
We also went to a Christmas concert for our cultural activity that we can do once a transfer and it was definitely one that I will never forget... we went in thinking that it would be a symphony type concert because that's what was advertised. And it was, at the beginning. Until they added some pyrotechnics and Ed Sheeran (?) It was an experience.
Today we got sushi with the elders (yuuum) and did a white elephant (Elder Payne gave me a reusable АТБ bag...5 points to Elder Payne). It was fun.
It's so weird to me that a whole year ago I was at the MTC, thinking that I was never going to get to Ukraine. This year has been so many good things, and I am so grateful for everything and everyone that has been a part of this past year. Have a wonderful wonderful New Year! Make some goals, but think more about what you can do each week, from Sunday to Sunday, to be a little better than who you were the week before. I am so grateful that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can become more than we were, no matter what happened behind us.
Have a wonderful week!
С любовью,
Сестра Кропельники
Visiting sister Ludmila
Mid transfer transfers!
Visiting Sister Sveta
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