Day 3:
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| The path to church...behind most of these buil |
Today was an intense journey to church! We woke up and left the house by 8am, hopped aboard the metro for an hour, met up with some other girls from our group, rode the metro for 30 more minutes, got lost and went the wrong way, found our way back, and then got off the metro in a part of town we didn't know; which at this point is every part! There we met up with the rest of the girls from another part of the city where we attempted to find our bus that we needed to get on. It took 10 minutes to find our bus and even then we had to run across the street a few times dodging traffic to get to the right bus! We rode the crowded bus for about another 20 minutes and were finally greeted by someone from the branch at our bus stop around 10am. She guided us to the room that church was held in and they had politely waited for us to come to start church!
There are about 12 or so members in the branch and with all of the ILP girls and boy added to it, that branch gained 30 members :) It was a beautiful experience--one I will never forget. It is so amazing to see the strength in the testimonies of the Ukrainian people. It was a fast and testimony meeting and I have to say, I have never ever felt the spirit stronger in my life than I did in that small, green room today. I immediately felt welcomed and loved by all the members of the great Kiev International Branch. The sacrament hymn was 'Because I Have Been Given Much'. I bore my testimony on how grateful I am for this experience and that because I have been given much, I too must give. I'm here to help and serve the Ukrainian people in every way I can. It is an amazing misionary preparation experience. We need to recognize when the spirit is guiding us in our lives and to follow its promptings with great care. It was such a beautiful meeting.
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| On the bus! |
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| The sign outside our church! |
After church we met up with more girls that didn't come and our head teachers at a park in uptown Kiev for some training. It is an awesome park!
The Opera House!----->
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| A model and photographer on the streets |
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| We ended training around 6pm and by then none of us had eaten since 7am so we were all famished. We went to a delicious Ukrainian restaurant downtown and after, made our separate ways home. |
The first squatter toilet I experience in the Ukraine. It was at the restaurant.. here you can't flush your toilet paper because it clogs up the toilet paper..the only plus to this toilet is that they have actual white fluffy toilet paper! haha But when you go out in Ukraine you have to be careful and make sure you empty your bladder before you leave your house because you have to pay to use restrooms in the city--and they will always be squatters.
What a great day. I am so glad it all worked out. Thanks for the awesome pictures! Love the babushka on the bench and the squat toilet. It is weird to think that they thing we are gross for sitting our butts on a toiled someone else had their bare butt on. Makes sense I guess.
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