Got another little taste of Heaven...

We had a great day today! The bishop of Voskresenski and his wife took us (which includes about 60 other people, many of which were former missionaries, the rest were their families) on a Church History tour in Kyiv. We stopped by places like the first building where the members met once the church was introduced to Ukraine. The first, second, and third mission home/offices. Government buildings that had influence with the Church. The spot where President Packer dedicated the land of Ukraine (it had a very Sacred Grove-ish feel to it). And of course, our last stop, the Temple. It was really cool, yet intimidating, to be around so many former missionaries. The majority of them were some of the very first in Ukraine. But what a thrill it was! We had a great time. What was better - my mission president just happened to be walking the grounds when we got to the temple site, and gadzooks, was it great to see him! I've missed that man. I LOVE that man.

Down this hill, by the statue of Vladimir the Great, was where President Packer dedicated Ukraine for the preaching of the Gospel.

President Steinagel

Tonight was the Cultural Event, something we were very much looking forward to. I was pumped because I knew all the missionaries were going to be there and I was not going to pass up a chance to see them all again! We went with a Lena, a member from Vinnitsya, one of my areas. She was just the first of many other members I got a chance to see and talk to once we got to Palace Ukraine. Holy smokers...if you ever read any of my letters home, you might have seen me mention how transfers felt like a taste of Heaven, well, I got another taste of it tonight. Seeing so many old friends was absolutely indescribable! Seeing all the missionaries made me incredibly jealous of all of them, and I told many of them after the show that I was planning on missing my flight home tomorrow and just stay with them here. Man...to be a missionary again...Dad's right, I'm definitely going to have withdrawals. Again.

Going down to the Metro with Lena

The Thatchers - two of my favorite people that I got to serve with in one of my areas

The Cultural Event was absolutely amazing. Elder Nielson, President Uchtdorf, and President Monson all came. I don't know what was better - watching President Monson kick the piano player out of his seat to play a few simple songs or when he pulled his translator up at the stands into a held lock and gave him a noogy. We were all in tears laughing! That right there is a Prophet of God! And what a stud he is! The show included dances and songs from each of the countries that will be attending the Kyiv Temple, including Ukraine (obviously), Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Romania, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and I'm not sure on the other 2? It was a great event - tears welled up in my eyes when the choir sang The Morning Breaks - what an awesome song! And what a symbol for this occasion!

One last day in the South

It was a pretty relaxing day yesterday, one last day in Odessa. We left the hotel atl 12, chilled on the beach for a few hours - I took my first dip in the Black Sea, and I must say, it was quite the liberating feeling! We went to another movie to kill a few hours - More than a Friend, highly NOT recommended. And then, it was off to Kyiv!

7K and the Black Sea

Right now I'm sitting in an Internet Cafe, the same internet cafe that I came to almost every week on my mission while I served in Odessa. It's an interesting feeling being here again. And what's more, being here on my own.
I took dad to 7K, a huge outside market (really it should be it's own city) to do a little bit of shopping. Originally, it was just to get some ties and some gifts, but we found a container that sold suits, so...we had a looksy. Half an hour later, we left with a suit for each of us.

If I had Photoshop here, I'd have done some editing...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the day was spent at the beach, there I realized how incredibly white I am compared to the sun baked Ukrainian bathers that surrounded us - but what can ya do? It was very relaxing and we'll be going back again tomorrow.

So until then!

Back to the old stomping grounds

It's great to be back in the city that I spent over a year of my life.
Yesterday was a fun, but exhausting day. We came home absolutely beat. I took dad to a few of the sites in Center, which was a lot of fun. But near early afternoon, his back and my foot persuaded the two of us to get some lunch and then relax for a little bit at the hotel.

The fact that we are in Odessa, and the fact that Odessa has one of the most beautiful Opera Houses in the world, and the fact that that Opera House was showing an opera that night, dad and I were not about to miss that. We saw Turnadot, an interesting story and performance, I thought. Although I was having a hard time staying awake near the end. Both dad and I enjoyed our experience, but couldn't help but think (like we have this whole trip) "Mom should be here!"

My seat.

Dad's seat.

Independence Day

We got kicked out of our hotel at 12 on Tuesday, so we spent all day out on the Khreshatik - celebrating Ukraine's Independence with the rest of Kyiv. It was weird to think that I had also been there exactly two years before at the same celebration. The festivities were fun to watch. Bands played on the streets. A concert at Midan Nezalezhnosti went on all day. There were bike competitions. Break dancing. A bunch of fun stuff.
Mid-day we met up with Elder Obering and Elder Dorius and took them out to lunch at TGI Friday's. We spent quite a while with them (I felt bad at the end that we had kept them so long, but it was still great to spend more time with them!). They told us more about what's going on in the mission, and a little about what will be going down on Saturday at the Cultural Event.

In the evening, we still had about 5 hours until our train left for Odessa, so dad and I went to The Ghost Writer. That was a pretty good movie! The movie was all in Russian, of course, and I occassionally had to lean over and fill dad in on what was going on (he was a good sport - whenever he'd hear the rest of the crowd laughing, he'd join right in). When we left, we spent a lot of the trip to the train station talking about the movie, even though we had only gotten so much out of it. I definitely recommend watching it - I'll feel really bad if it's rated R - Ukrainians don't have ratings here, hehe...
The train ride was nice and bumpy as I had always remembered it, but it was fun to be back on one!
Now...welcome to Odessa!

FHE

And yet another post from Monday! This time it's Jamie talkin' at ya.
I had a very interesting and new experience tonight. I walked the streets of Kyiv, and my old area - alone. Once I got to Lena's place, I mentioned to the Elders how strange it was to be traveling through a city that I spent so long in with someone right next to me at all times, except this time, I was all on my own, with nothing but my iPod and Relient K to keep me company. It was a cool adventure though! Like dad mentioned earlier, I almost felt like a native in the city. I knew the city. I didn't need a map. I didn't need directions. I knew where I was going. Very new to me! (I always had a map by my side on my mission and was constantly asking people on the streets for directions!)
FHE was a lot of fun. It was at a member's house from the Voskresenski ward - Lena. She's like my sister - it was a lot of fun being able to joke around with her again! There were also two missionaries there. Elder Obering, who I actually trained, and Elder Dorius, a hilarious missionary that reminds me A LOT of Ian. The Elders gave a wonderful spiritual thought about diligence. Sharing the story of Christ in the Garden, and how He held on and did what He knew His Father wanted Him to do. It was a great lesson, but strange for me, because I wasn't one of the ones that was leading it anymore.

(L-R) Elder Dorius, Little Christina, Elder Obering, Lena, and me

It was fun riding home with Elders Obering and Dorius after FHE, talking to them about what's been happening with me back at home, and me drilling them with questions about how the work's been going with the temple. It didn't surprise me much when they said the work is exploding here. I'm so jealous of them! What an incredible time to be a missionary!
So that concludes yet another day on our Sweden/Ukraine adventure. I'm hoping to be able to run into my mission president tomorrow, if so, I'll have updates for y'all. Till then - poka!

Memorial

This is quite a somber place, memorializing the millions killed from starvation by Stalin in 1932 - 1934.  It's referred to as the forgotten holocost.  Jamie is looking at the names of those who died in Odessa.

Missionary meet-up

Here's Jamie picking up our train tickets to Odessa from the Assistants, Elders Drzayich and Jensen.  Tuesday is Ukrainian Independence Day, so most everything will be closed, but we're having lunch with Elders Obering and Dorius and dinner with the Thatchers before we head to Odessa later in the evening.

Full day in Kyiv

This is dad talking.....Monday was our sight-seeing day here in Kyiv - we must have logged at least 10 miles (my back would argue it was closer to 20!  This city is beautiful and I again got a kick out of watching how Jamie acts more like a native than a tourist - proud of my boy!  We saw a 1300 year old monestary, a memorial to the 13 million who died of starvation under Stalin, and a war memorial (that's "Big Momma" or Mother Ukraine that Jamie is standing in front of.  Evidently, a Ukrainian president a while back decided to cut off the tip of the sword because it was higher than any other buildings in Kyiv... brilliant!  Jamie is off with Alena and a few missionaries tonight for Home Evening.  I decided to give the back a rest here at the hotel.  Love to all.  

And we're off to Ukraine!

Hey folks, Jamie's taking over the blog now, heh heh.
Yesterday we left Sweden fairly early, took a couple of puddle jumpers and made it to Ukraine a little after 1 in the afternoon. It still hadn't really hit me yet that we were actually back in the country that I had left just 6 months before, but it soon came back once we were bombarded by taxi drivers trying to rip us off, sat in a hot a muggy bus for 45 minutes, and got into a taxi that didn't really understand the concept of a speed limit ("Usually it's 60mph..." - I looked at his speedometer, and he was going 100, ha).
Once we had gotten settled in our hotel, which was a bit of an upgrade from the broom closet we had in Sweden, I took dad to the first and last restaurant I ever ate at in Ukraine - Pusata Khata (I would have included the picture we took there, but the manager yelled at me for taking one and made me delete it, that wasn't the first time I had gotten in trouble with him that night...nice guy.). After we had thoroughly stuffed ourselves of Ukrainian goodness, we headed over to the temple. On the way we ran into quite a few missionaries that I come to know very well.

The temple was absolutely amazing. It looks huge from the highway and even bigger up close (obviously)! It is the most beautiful and most peaceful place in all of Ukraine, even in all of Eastern Europe for that matter. We got to the temple around 6, and stayed until a little after 9. It just so happened that several members from Odessa and Illichovsk (two areas I served in on my mission) were at the temple for the day. I honestly wasn't expecting to see many people I knew, but every other person there seemed to be someone from one of the branches I served in! It was so great to see so many familiar faces.

Natasha and Dima from Tairova, Vova from Illi and Tanya, also from Tairova

I can't even describe the feelings I had as we toured through the temple. Each room is so gorgeous and even though it hadn't been dedicated yet, the Spirit could still be felt in a very strong and special way. I walked out on the verge of tears! We walked around the grounds for quite some time, all the while running into old friends and mission buddies. What a wonderful experience!

(L-R) Elder Drzayich, me, Cvetlana and Maksim Anisiforov from Odessa, and Elder Sheets

Bro. Kikhno, the MCL in Voskresenski

This morning we went to Sacrament meeting in my last area - Voskresenski. It's a pretty big ward, but there were several more people there that had come for the dedication. Once again, it was so great to see so many people that I had come to know and love so much. Being back in that ward made me realize even more how much I love this country and these people. Both dad and I are stoked for the upcoming week. We'll be having FHE with one of the members of the ward and the missionaries tomorrow and we'll be heading down to Odessa on Tuesday night.

Bishop and Sister Gulko

More updates to come! Yeah buddy!

View of Stockholm

Hope you can see just how beautiful this city is!

Acommodations

Our first hotel was perfect for sleeping and not much else (had to say our prayers standing up... no room to kneel!)  As Jamie would say; It' all good!

Vasa Ship

We spent the afternoon looking around a beautiful section of Stockholm and taking the ferry over to the Vasa Museum - a ship from 1628 that sunk on it's maiden voyage and was razed back in 1961.  I had seen it in 1974 before they had built a permanent museum for it. 

Stockholm Temple

Jamie wanted to do a session at the Temple and I wasn't about to say no.  Must have been inspiration, because the station just happened to be 5 minutes from where we are staying and a walk then from the train!  Jamie was  able to do the session in Russian and I stood in a SWEDISH prayer circle.  What a thrill!!

In Stockholmm

After a long but eventless flight, we are here and loving it!  Spent the day in old town and taking the subway out to my old tracting area, Fitja - how the memories returned!  Our "room" serves its purpose... sleep and there is a great sauna!  ´We had dinner at a great restaurant, on the patio, it Old Town.  today, we will head down to the Vassa Ship museum.  More pix to come.  Love to all!

Stockholm.... har vi kommer!

The day has finally arrived for father and son to begin our ultimate road trip!  Wednesday at 10:30 starting with a 5 hour skip to NYC then 8 more to Stockholm, arriving at 9:30 AM Thursday morning (Should have some fun Ambien stories to tell by trips end...12 pills / 12 nights - I'm good).  More from Stockholm.  Vi ses ju!