*Deep Breath*
The sound of missionary shoes
thundering through the streets of L'viv has quieted to the clamper of
6 personages....
The Christmas carols haven't
ceased, but the immense choir that sounded like angels has returned
to their respective cities....
Slowly, the heads of the poor
office elders elevate above the back of the couch, far enough to scan
the ruins of what they once called an apartment...
We recoil in disgust.
More stories in a bit.
AIR MATTRESSES EVERYWHERE!
Sweet
mercy. That was a blast.
As
you can guess, Christmas Conference was a HUGE success here in L'viv,
and we're seeing a lot of Christmas miracles everywhere we go!
Our
mission, looking at many others across the world, is very small.
I mean to say, we have very few missionaries. We cover quite a
bit of ground for 40 total missionaries though. Sister Lattin
(Mission President's wife extrordinaire) gave every missionary a
little origami angel figure, and sent us out into the world to share
the Christmas message with people on the street! We put a lot
of effort into trying to help people appreciate Christ this
Christmas!
Um...
but Christmas happens on January 7th for Orthodox Church members.
So that made some encounters kind of weird.
BUT,
we gave our Angel to a nice man with a beard. He smiled, and
thanked us. He said he'll be thinking of the real first gift this
year :) The Heisthegift initiative is kind of difficult to do
here, but we're trying to do our best!
Okay,
story time;
So,
after we get up the next morning, looking at all of the havoc from
mission conference, we decided that at some point, we were going to
need to clean the place up...
I
(in a half cognitive state that we find ourselves in at 6:45)
decided that I wasn't going to be able to work out with the smell of
a rotten milk container sitting on our counter. I dumped it
down into the sink... to find that the sink was completely clogged.
Bleen. Okay... so I'll just get a really big pot, and drain it
all out by pulling out the drainage pipe... then I can flush it down
the toilet. My logic is flawless in the morning, no?
*Tug,
tug, tug* POP.
I
learned that morning that we do not only have rotten milk in our
drainage pipes, but old vareniki, plimeni, and black mold. You
could say that this lesson quite literally smacked me in the face.
I guess there was some sort of air vacuum in that pipe... so
PERPLOW! I was covered with gnarly sink bile.
Elder
Coumbs exiting the bathroom; "AW MAN! Did you rip one
right in front of the door!? That's not cool!"
Me;
*Shivers* You wish that was all that I did while you were in
there...."
It's
all clean now. Nobody flip out.
That's
just what happens with you stick 8 teenage boys in one apartment for
2 days...
In
other news, our apartments electricity also went out, right after we
had just boughten(??) groceries (I forget how to english sometimes).
And
I was at the train station this morning at 6:50 to send
documents on a train to Ivano Frankivsk... WOO!
This
is the weirdest place I have ever served in.
Christmas
Miracle: VOLODIYA STAYED ALL 3 HOURS AT CHURCH AND DIDN'T HAVE
TO GO OUT FOR A SMOKE BREAK!
AW
BUDDY! YEAH!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND
BAPTISM!
Misha,
our investigator, finally got baptized on tuesday, and recieved the
Holy Ghost on sunday! He's awesome. Gave his first talk too!
*Sniff* So proud!
Workin
on that priesthood!
Okay,
I think that's all for this week...
Have
a great christmas everyone!
Elder
LeBaron
P.S.
Family; Thank you for the package! I got it!
I'm
gonna open it on Christmas!
:)
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