I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say . . .

Another school year is at a close and with the culmination of studies comes Seminary graduation.  Donetsk District (like a stake but with branches, not wards) held their graduation exercises on Sunday evening at the Bogdona building in Donetsk. 

Young people gave talks.  Leaders gave talks.

The Donetsk Mission office is located in the same building as are the CES and Physical Facilities offices.  This building was the first churchhouse in Donetsk but the classrooms are now used for seminary and institue and the hall is used for mission meetings and seminary graduation.  The hall was filled with youth, parents, friends and leaders.  The picture above was taken as people were arriving before the meeting began. 



Graduation certificates were presented.





The group that sang was accompanied by piano and violin, then the violinist performed a beautiful solo. 

The theme for the year was taken from Doctrine and Covenants section 82, verse 10:

          "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say;"

 <<Я Господь обязан, когда вы делаете то, что Я говорю;>>

Because the course of study for the year was Doctrine and Covenants, a painting illustrating an incident from chuch history was used with the scriptural theme.  Each graduate was given a notebook and a pen engraved with the theme to use for recording promptings of the spirit they will receive as they continue to study their scriptures.  

The week before graduation Mom was helping a member of the district presidency, who is the Seminary and Institute director, as he prepared the notebooks.  He liked this handcart picture to emphasize the theme but said he wished he could find one with a picture of angels pushing. Mom located another handcart picture with angels but he still liked the feeling of this one, so she just popped an angel in (well, it took alot more effort than just, pop!). 

Старейшина Хэтч and Систра Хэтч (that is who we are in Ukraine) had an experience that helped us feel the reality of the promise the Lord gives in that scripture.  The Russian language is difficult, and though we have put a lot of effort into study and practice, understanding and facility with the language seem to come very slowly. 

Yesterday we gave the opening talks in a Family History Seminar in Gorlovka, a city about 40 minutes from Donetsk. We wanted to be able to speak to these people in their own language, but felt woefully inadequate.  Nevertheless, we prepared, studied and practiced presenting our thoughts in Russian.  We wrote our thoughts out then re-wrote them to closer think like a Russian speaker and then translated and refined and hired help.  Then we had sweet Sister Lydia, our cook, record her voice reading our talks which we listened to over and over again on our headsets - stopping at each word to mark accents and to perfect our pronunciation - not hours, but days.

Well, we did it. We like to design our talks so one takes up right where the other one ends.  I stood up first and Барбара (Barbara), the younger lady on the far right (the only one who could speak English), came up to stand by me to translate.  Translation takes twice as long and something is lost.  I wanted to try alone.  I stumbled badly.  The words didn't seem to come out of my mouth as fluidly as I thought they were in my mind.  I felt bad. Several times I had to ask if they were understanding what I was saying.  But, even though I didn't do what I wanted to, I know that I had help.  Someone told them better words than the words that I spoke.  We know that the promise of the Lord in D&C 82:10 really is true.  We gave all that we had to give, and He made up the difference!  The result was everything we could hope for in setting the stage for the training to follow, and after the seminar, they asked for copies of our talks.

Above are some who gathered to visit with us afterward.  To our right is our Donetsk Centraly branch president and his wife. Sister Kasakachova is a Family History Support Missionary like Mom has been.  During the training there was very lively discussion on hard things like, "Who can be sealed to whom and who does she belong to in the resurrection".  Often they appealed to the master (Mom) for the final answer.  We had to answer other questions like how to best approach non-member family for information and how much to tell them about "why" you want names. 

Speaking was hard.  It stretched us.  We were glad that it was over.  Would we do it again?  ?  ?  ? . . . . . . . . . well,  yes.  We HAVE to keep going.  This is what we have promised . . . to do what He would do, one step at a time.