The Great Search for Grocery Bags

Heya'll!

I'm doing great here in Ivano-Frankivsk!

Things are going really well, and we've got a lot of work to still do.

Like always.

Today, really, has all of the best stories.  The rest of my week was just the usual... contacting, calling from the area book, meeting with some of our investigators... NOT meeting with a lot of them... so many dogged appointments.  

But no worries!  We are still going foreward with faith!  There are people in this city  who are ready to put the cleansing power of Christ's atonement to work in their lives!  We just have to do our very best to find them!

Okay, story time!

So today... we went grocery shopping at a place called Velmart.  Yeah... like Walmart.... with a Ukrainian accent.  

There, we bought all of our groceries for the week, piled up the wagon, and went over to the cashier!  Quick cultural note;  Most people buy groceries either every day, or every other day here.  It is strange to by a large mass of food.  Not to mention, we are already in our missionary gear, so we stick out as Americans throughout the entire store.  So, we get to the cashier, and start loading up the little conveyer belt with ALL OF OUR AWESOME FOOD.  It always brings a tear to my eye to see such a masterpiece.  My joy was cut short though... when my companion asks the cashier lady for 3 large bags.

"We don't have any bags...."

"Oh... should we ask the other lady?"

"No... we don't have ANY bags.... at all."

Awkward.

How are we supposed to get all of this food out of here??

I quickly explained the situation to the assistant manager, and after he finished laughing, he told me that he was sorry, but that he couldn't do anything about it...  

Erm... 

So we got a brilliant plan.  You know those drawstring backpacks?  I bought five of 'em.

Elder Stout just carried the massive new pot we bought and all of our eggs in his hands.  I felt pretty proud, no matter how ridiculous we looked.  It was a success.  

My companion, as I'm sweating and about to pass out under the heat and the weight of our weekly food, being as determined and harworking as he is, is still contacting people.

"Excuse me sir, do you have a second?"

"Look boys, just go home and eat your eggs."

Fine. We will, and we will enjoy them.

I talked to a man, and actually, just like a normal person, explained the hilarious story that just happened to us.  He immediately opened up, and we had an amazing conversation about the city, and about the reasons that we need God in our lives.  

I call it drawstring contacting.  *INSERT PATENT HERE*

I also had an interview with President Lattin today.

He gave me a lot of great insight, and I have a lot of great things to start working on. 

It was inspiring.  He's an incredible man.

I know that Christ is our Savior.  I know with all my heart!

Well, I'm having a lot of fun here being a missionary.  

This is definitely the Lord's work.

​I love you all very much!  

Elder LeBaron​

3 Watermelons, 2 Exchanges, and 1 Very Heavy Piano

Hello Everybody!

I'm going to explain now why this email is so very late...

Once upon a time, Elder LeBaron and Elder Stout both have a problem with things happening on time, when we plan them... no matter how hard we try.  

Yesterday, as we had begun our internet time, we were interrupted with the most terrifying and exciting noise that we as missionaries experience.  It was our phone ringing.  In Ivano-Frankivsk, when you get a call on P-day, it either means that a miracles is happening -- someone called the number on the back of the 123,334,112th pamphlet that you've handed out and explained -- or Brother Fooshtay is calling to tell you to do something.  Brother Fooshtay is our Missionary Coordination Leader here, and he is also incharge of all the registration and deregistration paperwork whenever missionaries move cities.  Every missionary in our mission knows him... he's notorious for throwing a monkey wrench in your P-day plans.  

I think that explaination helps you know which of those two gave us a call.

But this was a new sort of adventure.  No, we were not off to the government office where we do registration paperwork!  We were going to go move.... a piano?  What?  Well, when Brother Fooshtay has got something planned, you've just gotta go with it.  It's impossible to argue with him, considering that most of his hair-brained schemes actually turn into fun activities with productive missionary work involved.  

But that kind of shot my email time in the face.  Essentially, I've only got time to type up this bad boy, and then we're off to go splatter this city with English Practice advertisements.

Back to the piano.  So, we head off to meet the Zone leaders (they're the only other Elders in the Oblast [district... aka  each district is one "state" of Ukraine, situated in it's capital city) with us), and we met them by Pizza Plus (there's awesome pizza here in Ivano).  Met with the Zone Leaders, Elder Peterson (yup, my trainer), and Elder Clairidge (yup, cool guy), and took a taxi all the way to the other side of the city.

UKRAINIAN APARTMENTS AND NOT CONSTRUCTED TO HOUSE A PIANO.  Fact.  We literally fliped the piano, bottom over the top, twice.  It was the most ridiculous and unorthodox moving job of my entire life.  I was covered in dust and dirt.  Good thing I wore my oldest pair of slacks...

Then, we get that monster onto a moving van, and the Zone leaders ride in the back to makes sure that it doesn't tip over during the ride.  There is nothing strapping this down... just two american boys with a dream; Survive to the end of the mission-- don't get crushed.

Sometimes, I realized after the fact that businesses are run differently here in Ukraine.... like moving companies.

Elder Stout and I rode in a taxi.... to the OTHER other side of the city.  You know, to where the Fooshtay's actually live.  

Turns out, this scheme entailed giving us a chance to provide service, have family night with the Fooshtay's, and have our MCL, because he also invited the sister's over for family night.  He bought 2 watermelons (By the way, watermelons to Ukrainians are something you eat AFTER you have a meal.  I have come to appreciate this commodity as NOT a fruit, but as dessert.  Weird.)

Okay... also, I went on an exchange with my trainer!  WOO!!! We tore it up here in Ivano, and hit the streets so hard. Starting of the morning with a 3-4 mile run... 4 hours of contacting, english practice advertisement, Jehovah's witness discussions, a member present lesson with the Zone Leaders investigator, Serhy.  I was exhuasted by the end of the day.  It was awesome.

Yesterday, Elder Jolstead and I also spent some time together on Exchanges (Assistant to the President from L'viv).  It was incredible to be on a lesson with an investigator from our area, and finally have the language down enough to really get in deep to his concerns.  The only problem is, he told us that he had no desire to change his life and live the law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom in their entirety.  Promised blessings.... explained the commandments... used parables, and every method we know as missionaries.  It all came down to bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, and his power to cleanse us through the atonement.  He left by only saying "I will try to live them.  I'll read if I have time".   

Disappointment....

But yeah.  I'm also getting better at ping-pong, as a happier side note.  Members love to play here when waiting for appointments, and I'm TOTALLY down for that.  

We also had a massive picnic in Calomia with 3 districts!  All the members from Kmelnitsky, Chernevtsi, and Ivano-Frankivsk all met together, shared spiritual thoughts, ate a TON of great food (I had my first Shashlyk [ukrainian BBQ]).  It was awesome, and investigators were there, including one of ours from a little city on the edge of the oblast.  It was a miracle that he was able to come, because he lives so far away!  President Duchak really helped out, by letting him sleep over at his place.  WAY TO SUPPORT THE MISSION!!!

Awesome.

I just blabbed for a good long time... But it's because I love you all and I want you to know what's goin on here.  Good things people!!

Love you all very much.

I know the Gospel is true, and that this is God's work.

Thank you family.

Thank you friends.

Keep up the good work.

Elder LeBaron

Pictures:  I'm eating well... we're having lots of fun.... good times on adventures.

Sweating Onions, Crazy days in Ivano Frankivsk.

Day 4 -- Just barely put real food in our fridge.  I have eaten onions and fried potatoes for almost every lunch and dinner since getting here.  I woke up this morning with the most pungent smell of onions filtering through my nostrils.  It was me.  I am sweating onions.  Strangely, I always anticipated this day would come.  

I'm in Ivano Frankivsk!  It's a beautiful city with lots of old buildings, very green, and oh, a 2 story apartment for missionaries with two bathrooms and a full sized kitchen.  WAPABAM!  The only problem was the lack of things to eat in the fridge... don't worry, I bought real food, and I won't die.

I walked into the craziest schedule of my life, though.  My new companion, Elder Stout, is 100% consecrated.  I haven't ever once heard him say anything that wasn't a quote from preach my gospel, I'm pretty sure.  He's on the phone with investigators, potential investigators, and members almost non-stop.... which means I'm contacting people left and right while he's got the airways.  I've never worked harder.  It's only been 4 days, but I come home so exhausted each night... I feel like I've already been here for a month.  We're working with 7 investigators, which is basically unheard of in our mission.  I have no idea how that happened, but I'm glad to say that they're there.  Unfortunately, no one will commit to being baptized... ever.  Most of our investigators like to learn the doctorine, and like to try and make us argue with them about religion, but none of them seem to be sincerely looking for an answer about if the Book of Mormon is true.  It's been very hard to get the lesson to go in a direction in which the Holy Ghost can really teach any of them... We get the facts down, but we can't get the real teaching done.  It's impossible to get the Holy Spirit to stay anywhere when the spirit of contention is reekin' up the room!

But we'll keep working, and praying, and hoping, and reading, and trying to invite the spirit teach.

I just want to testify of the gift of tounges for a moment;  My whole mission so far, I thought that I spoke Ukrainian pretty averagely.  I got along, and that was enough to not get down on myself.  I've prayed every day that Heavenly Father would help me to become a good speaker, and be able to help people understand our message when I talk with them.  It just didn't seem to be coming to me though...

Something happened when I got to Ivano though.  I've had almost no issue speaking to people since I got here.  My language skills have seemed to improve a lot, and out of nowhere!  I've really enjoyed teaching on our lessons, and have been able to teach all of the principles and my thoughts about them without much difficulty.  It's seriously a miracle.  I know that God gives us gifts for a reason... so I figure this just means that he wants me to be talking to even more people!

Now... there is a rumor about there being a lot of crazy people in my area.  I still don't believe it, but, I have had several strange encounters since getting here.  One of them occured during a lesson with an investigator... who spent about 10 minutes explaining to me about how God is actually not a man, but a Giant Pink Chicken.  Another happened when a man ran up to us and started explaining Satanist symbols to us... and there are many, many, many more stories like these. 

Did I mention that I've only been here for 4 days?

It's been a little weird here.

But hey, what are ya gonna do?

Serve a mission, I suppose!

I love you all very, very much.

I'm excited to hear from so many of you, and I hope that things go well for everyone.

I'll be praying for your success!

Work hard, Play Hard,

Elder LeBaron

The Last of the First....

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELDER LEBARON!  I've got something great to tell you!"

"Uh- thank you president!  What's going on?"

"You've been in Lutsk for a long time now, huh?"

"Yeah! I love it he-"

"Well, I'm sending you to Ivano Frankivsk!"

"Oh.  Um.  Thank you president."

"Great? Great.  Have a nice birthday!"

"Th...Thanks!"

*Click*

I'm finally leaving my very first area.

I've lived in Lutsk, Ukraine for almost 6 months, and now they're sending me to a bigger city in the other zone - Ivano-Frankivsk.  I was a little bit shocked to get the call.  It was a stretch for me to expect that I would get to serve in the incredible city for 7 whole months, but hey, it was a miracle I was hoping for!

The members are incredible here in Lutsk, and leaving them will probably tear my heart out and stomp it into a million little dusty pieces.  We get calls almost every day from members who just want to ask us how we're doing, want to know what we're up to, and if they can talk to us before I leave the area.  I love this place so much, and if President Lattin allows, I would love to come back to this area and serve here again.  Lutsk will probably always feel like home to me in Ukraine.  Brother Zhuk said he is going to get a Skype account so he can talk to Elder Hadfield and I when we go back home.  I love him a whole lot.

Luckily, I've got a testimony that President Lattin is listening to Heavenly Father, and knows exactly where I need to be, and who I need to be with.  So, Ivano Frankivsk -- Look out! I'm on my way!

Things we did this week --

1) We went to the village again and gathered up hay bales.  Three 19-21 year old boys were left alone in a wide open field with just one bale of hay, and three boards of wood.  I wish I could show you every picture that we took, but let's just say that over 100 pictures of shenanegans later, we may have found every single way possible play with one hay bale, and three boards of wood.

2) We went and blessed the Sacrament for Sister Matsyoha again!  I love that woman.  Her husband walked out without pants on, and started chuckling and laughing.  He's kind of crazy, but he's got a sweet heart.  She told us that he puts on a sweater, a coat, a blanket, and still complains about being cold, but "he won't put his darn pants on!"   It's quite an interesting situation there...

3) I learned how to make Borshch from Brother and Sister Kostachyuk.  I'm going to get started practicing for weekly meals, that way I'm a pro when I get back.

4) Our investigator who dropped his baptismal date and dissapeared came to church to say goodbye on my last sunday!  He wants to start meeting again!!

5) I had an awesome birthday, and one of the members even called me to sing me "Happy Birthday" in english.  (Shout out BROTHER CADOVIE!)  [he doesn't have internet... so he'll never know I did that...]

And yeah!  I got a lot of adventuring to do ahead of me.

ALSO!  The "old - folks" went home.  This wednesday, Elder Ward and Millard are flying back to america!  Wow...  It was sad to say goodbye to them.  I wish them the best, and hope that they find a whole new big adventure awaiting them back in america. 

Elder Ward is my size in everything, so I got a lot of nice stuff to prepare myself for the coming winter!  Score.

Anywho, I love you all very much.

Keep up the good work.

Stay faithful and never falter.

I'll stay in touch.

Elder LeBaron

​(Pictures : Limbo in the middle of a field... Me with Brother Sadovie... Me with Sister Mastyoha)

The Elders and Baba Katerina,  "Planking" in a field,  Brother Zhuk and I.

More Field Shenanegans, How we carry Hay Bales,  BORSHCH that we made with Sister Kostachyuk.

Old Folks Home

Ican't get over how witty that title is.

I will explain shortly.

So, this week was pretty darn cool. 

First of all, you need to know a little bit of info:  I was on exchanges with Elder Millard last transfer, and I got him to finally tell me about what his favorite desert from back home is.  He told me it was strawberry rhubarb pie.  I thought, "Okay, heck no.  I'm not making that. That sounds hard."  and kind of jokingly said that if he got me a recipe, I would make it for him.  But then... he got me the recipe.

This week started out by me baking a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie on p-day for Elder Millard, who's birthday is actually in a few days.    

How we got this rhubarb is a miracle actually.  You see, we were on the street, contacting people, not really making a whole lot of friends... when we met a guy named Sanya.  I know. Weird name for a guy.  It's short for Alexander here.  Anywho, he said that he'd be into chatting with us some time, and gave us his number.  FAST FOREWARD!!  We call Sanya to meet with us, and he says that he's bringing us a surprise from his Dacha (house that is not in the city).  Sure enough, he shows up with rhubarb.  

The thing is, I don't know the first thing about rhubarb, or how long it stays fresh...  so I decided to make it as soon as I possibly could.

ANYWHO!! PIE.  I made one.  You know when Nephi was commanded to build a boat, but had no clue how to make a boat?  Well... I'm not drawing any parallels or anything... but... yeah.  The miracles just seem too crazy to be coincidental.

Unfortunately, this whole incident did not mean that Sanya became an investigator.  In fact, whe only really could keep communication with him long enough for him to give us rhubarb.  Darn.

Okay, so then the rest of this week.  We at the pie at district meeting, and it was amazing.  I have been given a surprise gift on my mission that I'm really excited about, just so you all know.

Now the title -- We spent our last weekend with the other Elder's, because we needed to do exchanges with them for this transfer, and we don't have any hot water in our apartment.  These two are part of the oldest group in the mission, and therefore, old folks.  It was a lot funnier when I typed it up at first.  I chuckled about it for a solid 2 minutes.  What happened to my sense of humor....

I digress.  It was incredible to spend some time with these two.  Elder Millard knows how to work, plan, and go about doing good.  It's become a part of who he is, and he's taught me a lot.  Elder Ward may as well be a Ukrainian.  His language skills are incredible, and he has no problem expressing what he wants to say.  His gospel knowledge is nearly flawless, and I really look up to him in that respect a lot.  We've learned a lot from them.  I mean, we spent 4 days over there... so I'm hoping something about being an excellent missionary rubbed off on my somehow!

I've been thinking a lot about goals, and about succeeding.  I think that it's been very therapuedic for me to really dig down inside and think about what I really want to accomplish out here, and who I can help.  

The best goal I could think of is just to do what Heavenly Father wants me to do.  Follow all the rules, keep the commandments, and do my best. 

D&C 123:16-17.  This my favorite scripture.  It really encompasses what I think I'm striving for.  I hope you all can find something enlightening from it as well!

Keep studying your scriptures,

Keep saying your prayers.

Keep loving your neighbours,

I know God really cares.

Elder LeBaron

Icebaths and the Irish Pub

Hello everyone!  

So, this past week, we went on an adventure.  I don't know if you know this about me, but I love nothing more in the world than going on adventures.  So, needless to say, I was way excited to get to go all the way to L'viv for Zone Conference last week.  This was an incredible experience for me, and I really enjoyed it!  President Lattin is a very wise man, and he has a great understanding of the scriptures.  It's admirable, to say the least.  I had a lot of questions answered by him, and felt that this was a much needed experience for me.

As part of this adventure, President and Sister Lattin had a surprise for us; A sports activity, some "american food" (a resturaunt called "Tex-Mex" [shout out to Hayden and Kenna]), and then we watched Ephraim's Rescue.  Our mission gets the chance to enjoy some free time like that twice a year, once and Christmas, and once around the 4th of July.  I really loved it, and felt a lot of unity with the other missionaries who are here serving in our mission.  I met and became friends with a lot of the other missionaries who are in our zone, and in turn, and very excited to see them find sucess throughout the mission.  

The focus of our Zone Conference was one four big subjects;  Temples,  The Holy Ghost, Planning, and Setting Goals.  I'm still processing all of the great things we learned, but one of those was just how much of a pinnacle thing the Temple is for all of the members of the Church, and everyone else on earth for that matter.  President talked about how our goal is not only to get people baptized as missionaries, but to set them up to make it all the way to the temple someday!

​Okay, email title.

Icebaths;  Our quadrant of the city is having the water pipes worked on.  We do not have hot water, and will not for a 15 day period.  It is rather chilly, but I'm coming to find it to be refreshing.  

Irish pub;  Yesterday (yes, sunday), we scheduled to meet with a friend of ours from english, so that we could talk with him.  We thought that this would be a stellar opportunity to see if we could get him to meet with us about the Gospel, and help him to start investigating the church.  We met him in front of the major centeral complex here in Lutsk (it's called ​ЦУМ (ts-oom)).  He was with a friend of his who also comes to english practice, and we started walking and talking.  Elder Hadfield was talking with our friend in english, and I was talking with his friend in ukrainian for about 30 minutes.  They took us to an irish pub... and in order to avoid an awkward situation, we explained the Word of Wisdom to them.  It was awesome!  They completely agreed with us, that drinking is bad, and that smoking should be avoided altogether.  Our friend's friend and I talked about how it's bad to have any sort of addiction in our lives, and how we should avoid those things.  They ended up buying us some banana juice (we also told them that we don't really buy stuff on sunday too.. but that was a whole completely different awkward 5 minutes), and we all sat and chatted a little while longer.  

We didn't get new investigators, but I finally got to teach a principle of the restored gospel after a very long dry-spell.  It was like a waterbottle in the middle of the desert.

Well, I love you all very much!  

Thank you for all of your support and love!

I'll be praying for you!

Elder LeBaron

Irony.

Remember how last week I sent an email about working hard, even when it rains?

Well, it rained again.

Lutsk flooded.

We got trapped inside the Church for about 2 hours.

On the bright side, we have a lot of great new ideas for the logo of our english program.  We had a lot of time to just sit there draw pictures.

Okay, but for real, how this week went -- 

We had the Zone leaders Elder Vernon and Elder Inman over for a visit!  They came all the way from Rivne just to come show us how to be better missionaries!  These are the same guys that I went on exchanges with just about 3 weeks ago in their area.  

They're great young men, and I had a blast!  Elder Vernon is a super genius, and he worked in his father's Bio-Engineering lab before coming out here.  He's only got about a month left, so it will be sad to see him go soon.

Elder Inman is a kind of shorter guy with a big personality.  He's hilarious.  It's been a long time since I've laughed that hard.  It was a real treat to spend a day with him, and he'll be in the mission for another 6 months.   We spent most of our day pounding through the Area Book.  I used to hate that thing.  Now, I very much less hate it.  All of the information in it dates back to FOREVER AGO (aka 10-14 years).  Needless to say, they area book needed some TLC.  It was just what we needed, having those two come out to help us.

Our investigator who was going to get baptized kind of decided that he didn't want to anymore...  it's been hard to set up another meeting with him.  We're kind of hoping for a miracle here, so if you could put Volodymyr in your prayers, that would be awesome.  

We have 2 investigators right now.  The other one is a Photographer for the Sports something or other important Of Ukraine!  He takes pictures of soccer games.  Mikola just really is in love with the feelings he receives from the Holy Ghost, and loves the meetings we have.  He has insisted on investigating the church for an extended period of time though before making any commitment to be baptized.  That's good though, because a well thought out decision is better than the wrong decision I guess!

That's really all I have to report this week.  

No worries though! We're going to zone conference in L'viv this week, so there will be all sorts of cool things I'll have to share with you all next week!

I know this Church is Christ's Church, and that this work is His.  

Elder LeBaron