Prevyet!

(Saturday)

Its interesting… this is the first time I’ve actually turned on the TV in my room. I’m watching Lord of the Rings which if I listen carefully sometimes I can pick up the English that they had someone speak Russian over. I will never complain about the length of commercial breaks again in America, the ones in Ukraine go easily over five, sometimes ten minutes. Other things I am grateful for in America: toilet paper, tissues, My pillow back home, not being paranoid I’m going to be stolen from, understanding people, my family, elevators that do not smell (or sound like they are about to break down), among other things. However, Kyiv is very beautiful and amazing to see, and it’s so incredible to be here!!

Larisa and Sergey travel a lot during the summers, and she was showing me a ton of pictures tonight of places she’s been. It’s pretty cool! It’s still hard to communicate, but we are getting better. Its fun to get to know someone through mostly charades! Sergey still doesn’t really talk to me at home.

Our second week teaching went alright; I think we are all getting to be a little more comfortable with our routine and everything. Janelle and I even have gone and explored a little a couple mornings. I like our group of teachers that are all under our marvelous head teacher Kayla. I suppose I would have to like them anyway seeing as how we are all together the majority of the time though! (: we have a married couple, Amber and Tysen, and they are a lot of fun. Tysen knows some Russian because he came to Ukraine on his mission about 3 years ago, and we abuse his power. They are really cute and I swear I met Amber before we came here (Which is possible seeing as how she was in my same major back at BYUI). Tressa and Sharlee are the morning teachers and they are both gorgeous girls. Macall and Jamie are in our group, but teach at a different school in the same-ish area. Macall is very passionate about politics, and Jamie is very passionate about her boyfriend (:  we got to explore around Kreshatik (pretty much the middle of Kyiv, it’s a street) more today and it was one of the first days where you could see the sky without cloud cover.  

(Sunday)

Today was really cold! I’ve been looking for a longer coat a little bit the last week. Tressa, Sharlee and I went to see the temple after church because both are on the opposite side of Kyiv from where we live. It’s very beautiful and I am so glad I have a recommend! The temple opens on Tuesday, and we are hoping to go do baptisms pretty regularly! There is such a cute church house next to the temple as well. We went inside just to see. It was nice to be in a real church building and weird to see houses around the temple (the church built houses for the temple missionaries and the Ukrainian LDS who have to travel a long way to come do temple work). Everything is tall buildings and outdoor markets throughout most of Kyiv. Our church is held within a building that is surrounded by little shops and stores and things (At least that’s what I think they are!). So it was nice. Kayla was asked to speak today and did a really good job. Sacrament meeting was all about hope, which I think a lot of us ILP girls needed! Also, we got a new teacher at one of the other schools. His name is Derrick. His head teacher Christina is pretty scared that all of the girls in her group are going to have little crushes on him since he is the only single boy with ILP in Ukraine. It’s kinda funny. (: 

Until next week!<3<3!!!