The Son Shines in Mariupol

Last weekend we visited Mariupol. 

Our whole mission is a mining area

but in Mariupol the huge steel mills fill the air with pollutants which cast a cloud over everything.... 

...Except the Mariupol branch.  They shine forth. 

The members of the little branch were apologetic that the "best" of their number were all off to youth conference, but they still kindled the spirit in us. The young man in the white shirt and sweater vest above is a new convert who just received the priesthood. 

The people are close and everyone has a conversion story. 

Missionaries who serve in Mariupol really feel loved, I guess because they are.  Occupying a prime spot in the foyer is a board displaying nametags of missionaries who once worked in Mariupol.  One Elder quietly passed his nametag to a church member whose reaction of disbelief and denial must have been a  mirror of his own feelings because that act of presenting the ward with a name tag was the way of announcing that this would be their last Sunday in the area...they were being transferred.

The members here are inspiring.  An amazing, dynamic Sunday School teacher taught with such power that I felt her message without understanding the language.   She has been sharing Gospel principles in Sunday meetings, institute and seminary for nineteen years:

"Here I learned what, why and how I teach." 

   Some can speak English, like the teacher in Relief Society...a tiny

Russian Babushka...  She taught English and German in school, and remembered her English well.  She was the second person baptized into the LDS Church in Mariupol.  She has a daughter and a son.  The son, she lives with.  He has a problem (as do many men in Ukraine) with alcohol, and so he and his wife are no longer together,

but  her only grandchild, his daughter, still comes to visit.

Then there was a little lady with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a beautiful love for Ukraine who exclaimed: "Where you come from...There, do they have such flowers!"        

      This was the last official visit that the Mission President and Sister Fry will make to Mariupol.  Good-byes are not easy, especially when you know that it could be for a lifetime. 

 But even that momentary cloud cannot obscure the feeling that

 here in Mariupol one can feel the light of The Son!