Cucumber Boats and Priesthood Power

   GIRLS CAMP

                             

This week we traveled three hours to the northwest to visit eighteen girls at the Donetsk District Girls' Camp.  We spoke to them.

I told how, as a little boy, I would make cucumber boats

 with the too-old yellow, heavy-seeded ones; put a stick in for a mast and put on a scrap of a sail.  Then I would float it down the little stream.  I compared my little cucumber boat to  gigantic aircraft carriers that hold an entire city of 11,000 plus 300 aircraft.  Food, surgons, nurses, supplies, theatres, libraries,  power,  ability to repair holes in itself are all in this majestic ship.  There are radar, global positioning technology, radios, computers and sofisticated guidance systems.

I promised them as we sail the sea of life it wouldn't always be smooth sailing and romantic sunsets but there would come  storms and waves and rain to beat without on their ship.  One who had only prepared a cucumber boat, without learning to work, without kindness and consideration for young and old, without knowledge, without purity,  without power and without knowing how to comminuicate with his God,  would not be a very good captain to trust with their dreams.  Imagine as the little boat starts sinking in the tempest and darkness and there isn't even a place to keep your footing; there is not a shelter overhead.

                                                                                                                  

How are you going to prepare in order to share the captaincy of, not a cucumber boat, but a mighty ocean vessel. 

Whence comes the power?

(You all know the rest of the story)

 The camp Constitution, schedule, assignments and menu

 How do you keep food cool in Ukraine?  You dig a big, deep hole, cover it over with poles and dirt, build a ladder, and put your food in.  Fortunately for me, this storeroom / refridgerator just happened to house a cumber-boat in the making.

Mom spoke first.  She talked about preparing now to enjoy Priesthood power as a vital part of a future family.  She was convincing and emotional as she told how a worthy, priesthood husband was directed to the very place a lost daughter would fall.  Because of this Priesthood she still has eight children and now a sweet little Violet.

(You know the rest of the story)

 Notice the value-colors on the neckerchiefs of girls deep in study of their scriptures.

The girls really loved your mother.

Friends bring new friends!

Paul brought Юлиа (Julia). 

We gave her a Book of Mormon. 

She really likes to learn about God's word. 

She said that loves what she heard. She told Paul she would like to be baptized.  

He suggested that she learn more first.  Chidi registered for new FamilySearch tonight.  He is anxious to go to the temple.  Vitali invited everyone to join the single young adults at institute and he announced the upcoming activities.  Paul also brought Michael.  They are roommates and all three young men play on different soccer teams.  Michael shared his testimony about the Holy Ghost.  He loves the Bible and is interested in hearing more.

The Elders gave a short lesson on the Holy Ghost and Sister Hatch told about great pioneers and how we can see living pioneers right here in Ukraine and "your children and grandchildren will look back and honor you". Julia and Michael each accepted an appointment to begin the lessons.  We still have soda left for our next visitors, but we ate all the popcorn.

On missions we make friends

It is amazing how the gospel does this.  Ani and Ashot, Chidi and Paul are our friends. Ани and Ашот came to dinner last Sunday.  We served very American roast beef and potatoes.

Friends bless each other.  They brought some of the world's best bread
-- Armenian bread -- to share with us.

They are helping us learn Russian.  Ani is very patient and speaks slowly to help us understand her Russian.  We are going to help them discover more about their ancestors so that they will be able to share temple blessings with deceased family members . We are helping them perfect English. Ashot will be baptized Saturday and we are all very excited.

Monday we had a great family home evening.

Elder Duke and Elder Hazen gave a lesson about missionary work. 

In the picture above, Paul is front right.  He taught us a fun game. It was like the old Mathew, Mark, Luke game where you would slap your thighs twice and then clap your hands in rhythm calling out some one else's assumed name at the perfect time.  Only in this game a motion or sign like an elephant, or butterfly or strong man or blowfish is assigned to each chair or position, and as someone makes a mistake and moves to the end of the line, you would move up the line of chairs, then the sign you must respond with changes.  Everyone had a great time.  For us, watching Paul make these outlandish signs in perfect rhythm with such fluid motions was especially fun.   For refreshments we served a food combination new to our guests: ice cream floats with cookies on the side.




You would all enjoy our new friends.


We teach an English-language Sunday School class.  Last week's lesson was on Priesthood and this week's was on temples. Chidi, another Nigerian socccer player friend whom you have already met, was a fantastic participant in the temple lesson. He is not well today and we gave him a Priesthood blessing.  Tomorrow is Monday night again and we think there will be at least one new visitor who is not yet our friend, but will be by this time tomorrow.



Our First Ukrainian Picnic

Saturday we were invited to join the Obyedeyoni Branch on the other side of Donetsk for a Branch picnic.

You have already met Sister Yana who extended the invitation.  She is our hairdresser.  She met us at the the big bus terminal where our knowledge of the end of the earth ends, and went with us on another bus out into the country.  On the bus ride we were visiting together in English and a white haired man who had been sitting on the far end of the bench, scooted over to join the conversation. 

He said, "I know a little English."  So we began to converse.

We would say something in Russian and he would answer in English.  As he learned we were from America, he told us of a church he knew from Salt Lake City in America.  He could not remember it's name.

Sister Hatch pointed to her badfge and said in Russian,
"Церковь Иисуса Христа Святых Последних дней"
(Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)?
He shook his head trying to think more.

 I said "Mormon?"

Yes! That was it!  Several years earlier he had attended a church meeting in Ukraine.  He liked it, he said.  The people seemed very nice.  We continued visiting and had a good conversation, ending with an invitation to join us at church.    




 

The people in Ukraine do not speak English, but they act the same way at picnics as do people at home.

 

This is a nice, recently returned missionary throwing the younger little pests into the drink.  They had been throwing water on him.  (Maybe you noticed that the little pest in pink is not really THAT much younger...)

The appetitzer was a mushroom sandwich - a roll cut into sections, each section had a dollop of mayonaise on top with  mushrooms poked in.

The main course was the sausages. 

My favorite was the whole little cucumbers and tomatoes.

The picnic was great but it was the people that were terrific!!

STREET CONTACTING

It was a pretty morning here and we decided to celebrate my mother's birthday with a little street contacting.  Really, we were trying to squeeze in a little bit of our missed preparation days.  We needed to buy some DVD's for the office and some groceries for home. We walked a long way out of our known area and took a planned stop at a pretty park.  We sat on a bench and practiced Russian words like приветствувем  (pre vetst vu yem) or "welcome" and заключителъный   (zack lee you cheetel nee) or "closing".  Lots of pigeons were dancing around us to see if we had bread crumbs.  At least two males tried to entice different females with their fanfare. 

One female pigeon had only one leg.  

She  hopped up onto the bench by Sister Hatch and then another followed.

Well, in the middle of this activity of sidewalk contacting with the pigeons, a human girl walked directly up to us and started to talk in Russian.  We didn't understand even the substance of her monologue, much less the details until she got to the part about our Church.  Those were words that we knew!  What?  Did she ask us to talk about our church?  Here, sitting on a painted bench with the pigeons, in the middle of a city park?  Janet (Sister Hatch) did the most marvelous job talking to her for at least 45 minutes.  We still do not know why she stopped because she could speak so little English and vice-versa.  When she made a comment we listened until we caught a word or two which could be used as a springboard from which we could launch one of our few explanatory Russian sentences.  Did we give her what she asked for?  We don't know.  We do know she didn't want to leave and we were running out of words.  She gave us her telephne number and accepted an invitation to dinner.  Her name is Lira.  She is twenty and a very sweet girl.

Later we took a wrong turn and got lost . . . well, maybe not lost, but definitely not heading toward our intended destination.  We decided to make an about turn to more familiar territory.  As we were walking back along a busy street we passed a young couple sitting on a bench.  I nodded as we passed and he said, "Hello" - English hello.  We had proceeded forward fifty feet or so when they came running after us.

"Are you from America?" 

  

He is a church member from Texas and will be returning home Monday.  His friend is not of our beliefs, is from Donetsk, spoke a little English and had alot of questions about our church.  We were just approaching a big gold domed Orthadox church .  "How is your church different from ours?  What can your church offer that this one cannot?"    What an amazing question to be asked when we know that we do have an answer.  How wonderful to be invited to explain that the unanswered questions have answers and explanations to the unexplained have been revealed through living prophets.  Of course, a few minutes in the middle of a sidewalk on a busy street will not suffice.  The couple agreed to meet us at church Sunday and then come to a roast beef dinner at our home after church.

So that is how today's street contacting (or how they contacted us) began with the pigeons and ended with us wondering if we really were lost today, or if we were led.

Passing the Torch

For awhile now, every little event has gained sinificance
because it was the last for President and Sister Fry. 

The last trip to Mariupol, the last Sunday meeting with each  branch,
the last stay in Kharkov, the last dinner with the couples,
the last time welcoming new missionaries . . . the last time sending them off.

.  I know there were many, many experiences that were, for them, the last. 

Most we did not share.  Some, we did, like the last Zone conference.

Always it was coming, coming, coming. 

The office computers began a count-down

as the Outlook "reminder" screen continued to pop-up

with it's "11 hours until release" . . .

"9 hours 13 minutes until release" . . .

"5 hours until release" . . .

Breakfast with President and Sister Fry their last morning in Ukraine

And then it was here. 

The plane touched down. 

The Camperos stepped onto Ukranian soil

and the hand-off was made.

Elder Campero became President Campero.

"Here are the keys to your office."

"Here are the staff who will help make your vision reality."

"Here are the young men and women who will make a difference."

And so, in Donetsk, Ukraine the torch was passed and the flame burns on.

Diverse Family Home Evening

Monday nights are nights of gathering.  Tonight we hosted guests from Donetsk and Petrovski in Ukraine, from Armenia, Nigeria, Texas and Utah.  It was a wonderful and a diverse gathering.  We sang children's songs using our English song book and two Russian song books each with a different translation of the lyrics, so it felt as if we were singing a round ... all the same, but all different.  Everyone who came is working at gaining a new language, some more successfully than others.  Some of our guests were most comfortable speaking in Russian, but could listen in English while we could listen in Russian and only minimally speak in that language.  It was good.

Our plans for Family Home Evening began when a young man, newly baptized, suggested that he would be free tonight if we were holding home evening.  Then Elder Hatch got a call from two missionaries asking if they could bring a young couple they have been teaching to our family home evening.  Before he had a chance to inform me that we would have guests, I had already received a similar call from another young man who is preparing to submit mission papers.

Our discussion focused on eternal families. Elder Hatch shared the great joy that is a part of every day for us because we are able to be here in this "far-from-our-home" place together as best friends.  He explained the amazing feeling of completeness that each of the young men in our home might some day experience when they no longer have to go through life as wandering halves because they have found that special young woman who will make them whole.  He told the young husband who is investigating our beliefs that through a series of miracles, a sacred temple has been built on the soil of Ukraine in which that ordinance can be performed which will allow him to have his pretty young wife forever.

Elder Hatch continued by inviting this young husband and his wife to work with us gathering information about family members who have died without some of the blessings of Christ's gospel that we enjoy;  then, once personal baptism has been performed, they can join the trip we are planning to the temple in Kiev for the purpose of offering these same blessings to those we love who are no longer living here on earth. 

Their response was a resounding yes!, "When will it be?"  and "How soon after baptism might we go?"

How beautiful is God's plan for us!  How wonderful when the Spirit testifies to the heart that it really is so!

Painful Reminders . . .

Of sorrow . . . .
    suffering . . . . .
         of death . . .

Trying to grasp where we are in history and trying to understand a people among whom we live, we have to be reminded of centuries of heartache across this ravaged land.

In World War II alone think of the 60,000,000 people who lost their lives. About 43% of them or over 25,000,000, were from the Soviet Union, and that number is about 14% of the area's total population. (Poland suffered the most with over 1 person in 6 killed.)  Compare that 14% in the Soviet Union with fatalities which amounted to less than 1/3 of 1% of the United States population.   

This will help you feel their mourning, or understand, to a small degree, their "drinking away their sorrows" celebrations commemorating their war dead. 

 Tanks and statues of soldiers are everywhere and a lot of holidays have been established to this end. Kharkov was the chief tank manufacturing city amidst all this steel mining country. This park proclaims their pride and sorrow.

Painful reminders. . .of ambition, and greed, and conquest and resistance. . .

Painful reminders of hunger, of starvation, . . . . . . of dying.


Hanging over the collective memory of these people is the heavy and, until recently, hidden atrosity of Stalin killing his own people. It ranks as equal to or worse than Hitler's Holocaust but was kept from the knowledge of the world.  There are some who would like to erase this part of history that leaves such a foul smell on the system that promoted it. Between 1932-1933 Stalin starved to death, with murderous intent, 7,000,000 people right here in this area. His purpose: to put an end to the "ukranization" of this area, fearing the strength of their family ties, religion and culture. "The Bolsheviks took four steps to destroy the Ukranian nation: destroying 1) the intelligencia; 2) the national churches; 3) a significant part of the peasantry; and 4) the fragmentation of the Ukranian people at once by addition of foreign peoples into Ukraine and by the dispersal of Ukranians throughout eastern Europe- thereby separating families."

This area was all the little farms...the peasants.  Their land was wanted for the rich ore under it so the government took 100% of the farmers crops, stationed armies around the farms to prevent any new seeds or products from coming in, and then let the 7,000,000 inhabitants starve to death. 

Ah, now the land was empty and they could bring others in to work the mines. Donetsk, our city, was renamed Stalin. "Genocide, the product of an extreme manifestation of social engineering, transformed the traditional forms of land ownership and use and swept everything peasants could eat, down to the last crumb, from their villages."

  

Nor did the Jews escape Satan's grasp. Just out side of Kharkov is a pretty little valley where 17,000 women and children were machine gunned as they knelt on the edge of the ravine so they would fall into it.  That would make the task of covering them over easier. 

Today, on the hill overlooking that peaceful valley, a somber black menorah points heavenward in memory of those lives, senselessly destroyed and the beliefs for which they died. 
As part of the memorial, giant stone tablets display in many different languages the words:
"Thou shalt not kill."
            

                             

Painful reminders . . .   

              . . . of hate.

     . . . of intolerance.

          . . . of injustice.



                                          Reminders of sorrow. . . of parting

 . . . of loving and waiting and longing. . .

. . . painful reminders . . . .  

Now there is a very large and beautiful park where we could feel all this sorrow.  There is a tangible spirit there.  The feelings are embodied in a mammoth statue of a mother mouring her dead. The  "Motherland Statue" representing Ukrainian mothers sending their sons off to war. You can see her tears and hear her heart beat as you stand close to the eternal flame burning at her feet.

This century of sorrow is but a mirror of the centuries of the past.

Do you feel a small part of the tragic history in this land?

It is in the eyes and hearts of this people.

Our hearts reach out to them.