For those who think eight Children are a lot care for . . . how about Seventy?

It is difficult to watch our boys fly out of our lives and back to the REAL world

but it is always a joy to greet new ones who arrive the very next day to take their place.

 

The young men who began their missionary sevice last week, newly assigned to the Ukraine Donetsk Mission had spent the previous sixteen to nineteen hours on an airplane.  They arrived in this part of the world at a time that their bodies tell them they should be sleeping.  

As a senior couple, our assignment at this time is two-fold: 

 to introduce them to this new world of missionary service, and

to keep them awake for another six hours to help expidite the process of re-setting their personal body-clocks. 

Despite the challanges this creates for them, this group was alert, attentive and respectful. 

We are still learning to match their faces with their names, but we love them already!

Sisters are wonderful things!!  They are a bright ray of sunshine. 

They are committed, hard working, fun and funny.  We love them. 

We have not yet had the experience of sending home any of our girls, but we were introduced to a taste of how we will feel when that does happen just this week when two sisters were transferred from Donetsk to Kharkov, a ten hour train ride away.

The week before the transfer, Sister Watts went to Makeevka, creating a temporary threesome with the sisters there while Sister Howell flew to Bulgaria to get her VISA renewed.  Sister Howell stayed with us the night before she was to leave for Sofia, so we got up at 4:00 to make sure that she would get to the airport by 6:00. 

 

  When they finally got together again these two sisters had only a very short time to finish packing and have the apartment cleaned up before they were to board a night train to Kharkov.  We helped.  They finished just barely in time to meet the taxi driver.

 

When he saw the pile of luggage he shook his head.  So did the driver of the second, supposedly larger taxi.  One of the drivers called in for reinforcements and a third driver arrived in a hatch-back.  Even he shook his head in amazement!  After we paid him an extra 20 grevin he agreed to help the sisters get their bags to the train.  When they called us later to report that they had safely boarded and were on their way, they described their valiant, driver, red-faced and sweating as he finally got all of their suitcases up the two flights of stairs at the station.  They felt like he had more than earned another 20 grevin which they gave him for helping them.   In the process, the sisters dropped one bag -- the one that contained a special bottle of root beer extract (sent at Christmas from Daddy at home) and it broke, soaking coats and leaking onto the floor.  Someone gave them napkins, many offered help, and they made it into a great contacting experience as they took the opportunity to explain exactly why they were there and where they were going.  They were the last passengers to board the train, but They Made It!!   At 5:30 AM the next morning sisters Haymond and Karteshova met them at the Kharkov station and helped move all of the bags into another taxi and get settled in a new home.

We will miss having them close by.

We stayed late into the night and cleaned the apartment which was full from years of missionaries. We are closing the home and needed to redistribute all of the church furnishings and belongings.  Early the next morning we finished with the help of four Elders, then we took a load of beds and a washing machine to Mariupol.  One Elder living there has been sleeping of the floor for some time.  While in Mariupol we did apartment cleaning checks then traveled back to Donetsk, arriving home late.  That was a very busy two days!  Thank goodness we still have five weeks until the next transfer!