The Wonders of Flight

Our dear friends, the Velikanovs, treated us to an airplane museun visit as a farewell.

I probably can't fly this clear across the ocean

                                                                We had to take out a few vipers.

I must be getting rusty---Mom said the landing was a little rough.

 It feels like an amazing kink in reality that we actually are here, standing on the soil of a former USSR Republic, surrounded by evidence of Soviet technological progress.

. . . and enjoying the experience with East European friends who have become as close as family.

These are replicas of early Ukranian living.

They were displayed in small, medium and large.

Lilliputians live here?



Home away from Home?

We are just visitors in Donetsk, passing through on our way home, but we have left many friends here.  One evening we were invited to dinner at the home of a wonderful member couple who have two beautiful little girls.

 He needed a companion to give a blessing to a sister in a part-member family that he home teaches, so we went with and of course the sweet sister had planned on feeding us.  The two little girls make up almost all of the primary.



Don't remember what kind of exotic cat this is, but they love it a lot.



 

 

This family has a very sucessful business raising quail for meat and eggs. These eggs have very little cholesteral.

 It was all housed in a little barn in back of the house. 

 

It made us feel right at home.

Our last transfer . . .

We are moving from Lugansk.  It is becoming very real.  Elder Hatch offered each of our missionaries here in Lugansk a Snickers Bar for a good packing box.  The cupboards are looking empty and the hall, table and floors are filling up.

Where did all of this STUFF come from, anyway?

It's REALLY Hot.

Summers here get warm.  Most of the stores have air conditioning and so does our apartment.  Well, our apartment has fans.  The air conditioning unit works very, very badly, but it is not as bad as riding on the slow train from Donetsk to Lugansk.  We don't like trains without air conditioning, especially when we must board thirty minutes prior to departure in order to find a seat.  In those long minutes before the train starts to move so that air begins to circulate our "wagon" turns into an oven.

The four hour ride on an unventilated train makes one feel to loosen ones tie.

For a while there, we wondered if we might loose Elder Strading to the heat -
. . . and he is from Mesa!

But there are things that like the sun.  Massive fields of yellow heads, all moving in unison, ever turning toward the sun..

 There is a message here. We should all turn our faces toward The Son

So . . . THIS is Lugansk . . .

Walking to our apartment from the train station we usually stop once or twice

 to take calls from missionaries . . . or thrice or . . .

This is our Kvatera in Lugansk.  Our kitchen is small but efficient. 

I know that you have seen the living room because

that is where we hold our FHE and district meetings. 

 In the winter the two hooks in the entry hall hold coats. 

The rest of the time they keep our umbrellas handy.

The bedroom is not as large as it looks. 

It is amazing how much more space one has if one can forgo the

Queen sized bed we once thought was a necessity.

The other place where we spend a lot of time is in at the church. 

Here, below is Lugansk Branch :

Our Seminary - From left to right:

Safonova Natalia - Сафонова Наталья

Safonov Sergey - Сафонов Сергей

Patokina Yevgenia - Патокина Евгения

Grishchenko Natalia - Грищенко Наталья

Litvinova Anastasia - Литвинова Анастасия

Kucherenko Artur - Кучеренко Артур

Gorbenko Olena - Горбенко Олена

Prytulyak Artyom - Притуляк Артем

Our Lugansk Centrale elders are always willing to help with the Aaronic Priesthood boys.

Young Men's activity night is usually held at our apartment. . .

Artur brought a nonmember friend.

Victor lives in a kvartera on the second floor of the building our church is in.  He came to the open house that our Branch held.  He used to teach metalurgy in one of the institutes here in Lugansk, but now he is retired.  Some of our branch members knocked on his door and invited him to come down to our open house.  Brother Vladimir is an elderly member of our branch who has also lost his sight, just as Victor has.  Vladimir's wife promised Victor that her husband would call him . . . and he did.  Now they are great friends and Victor is studying with the missionaries and attends our church meetings.

Sister Zoya teaches our Gospel Essentials class and is a counselor in the primary.  Some sisters have described her as a sort-of Mrs. Santa because her purse is always full of wonderful surprises that she offers to anyone she feels would be blessed by them.  Our primary is very small . . . no boys, usually two little girls.

Yulia is our Family History Director.  Every branch in our mission has a family history center.  Those attending our open house who had questions about family history research were invited to take a seat in our family history center so we could explain why this is such an important part of what we believe.

Office of our Branch Presidency

To us, Lugansk is an old city.

 Within walking distance from where we live, Lugansk has a wonderful historical museum which presents a very comprehensive picture of this area.

On Yulia's birthday we toured the museum with Yulia and Lance.

Ukraine is one of the places where bones of prehistoric mammels have been preserved.

There were displays of endangered animal populations.

Display cases below mirror the timeline banner above.

We found it fascinating to contemplate lifestyles of those people so far distant in both time and place.

The beautiful Ukrainian handwork has been used to ornament homes and clothing for many generations past.

Case after display case was filled with a treasure-trove of wonderful handicrafts.

I absolutely loved the nineteenth century, pre-soviet era furnishings

I felt enveloped in the world of War and Peace,  Anna Karenina, or Doctor Zhivago

Elder Hatch was also fascinated by that era - just a different aspect of it.

The following century was not as pleasant.

Finally the war ended. 
Then came the first television, "sputnik" and mass industrialization.

This is familiar.  This is the Lugansk that we know. . .

. . . a city in a land, not greatly changed since those years of enforced productivity.