Monday, October 24, 2011

don't worry

Dear Wonderful everyone!
well to start off the letter, no I'm not in Kyiv yet to serve. We went there this last week for Leadership Training and then 7 hour train ride back. It was deffinently an interesting experience. (no dad the travel is on the mission) at the endof this week in principle I will be in Kyiv to serve. so yeah we started off the week in a threesome. my new companion, Elder Hair, and I and it was interesting, we found some cool people that later decided to investigate the church. What I have to report on this week is basically what went down in Kyiv. President said that this was the first one that he had heard of as far as what we did there. We had a skype call with another mission president and his assistants. It was the Samara Russia mission. they are the highest baptizing mission in Eastern Europe and have half the number of our missionaries. it was cool! I really enjoyed it, infact one of the missionaries on the screen there was one that was in the MTC when I was there... says alot about how old I am :S so anyway thats pretty much all the good news. all the rest of the news is not so great... and I would send dad his own specific email but I've learned from the past that mom knows the password. So yeah honestly I tried to stay away from trouble...lol yeah actually dad more of the craziness in Ukraine happens in Kyiv. So I'm on exchanges in Kyiv with Elder Reynolds (if you notice, he is the same elder that I ran into trouble with last year... about this time lol) so we are walking out around 6 or 7 and its pitch black. we are trying to find some people to talk to on the busy street. its tough because we dont know the area at all.. I have never served in Kyiv and he hadn't either. We were walking by one of the resteraunts there when these three guys were talking amongst all these other people but I noticed these three in specific, anyway so I keep watching while walking and I can tell its an arguement. one of the guys takes two swings, a right and a left and knocks one out cold and the other guy just gets knocked back he then proceeds and flips out a knife. obviously that was our exit. any walking furthur away but down by the apartment that we were going to stay at. its really hard ( I think) to contact at night but we were still trying, talked to some nice people in the apartment complex, found out where some members lived, lol that was a funny story. anyway Elder Reynolds contacts these two people, older, man and woman and they were way nice. we finish the conversation and walk off. as we do this guy in a tuareg SUV has his door open, or opens it I dont remember about 20 paces from us, he beckons us to come over. This was right after the previous contact so we thought that perhaps he wanted to know more or what was so interesting about it. I came over to him and he asks in Russian what we are doing here, I told him we were representatives of our church, of Jesus Christ. He then said something in Russian that I didn't quite understand and I thought he asked about our Visa's, but now that I had time to think about it he was using the word "to see" in the conjigated "I" form which sounds like Visa. Anyway at the time I didn't understand so I said "what?" he then said something totally different. Now I was pretty sure I understood him, but the languages can be so unpredictable with Idioms, culture, so I asked to say it again but in Ukrainian... well .. unfortunantly it was exactly what I thought he had said. He reached for my dangling tie from his sitting position and what I had asked him to repeat was "I'm going to break you legs". Anyway This guy yanks down on the tie bringin me in closer( a really nice tie, one that I really liked...jerk lol) I stepped back and slammed my left hand down on the tie to break his grip mean while cranken up the right one to "clean is clock". I dont know how I was thinking normally at this time but I thought to myself ... this man isn't drunk. I couldn't smell anything, nice car, and he was dressed nice... and he started the fight without any invitation from us. well 1+1=2, I figure if I was him I wouldn't start some random fight with strangers unless I had the advantage, especially rich lookin guys like ourselves. I didn't want to find out the advantage. Stocky guy, had a gut, but was built in the shoulders. I got loose and he tells me that he never wants to see us here again. I told him that was stupid that we live here, he then asked where....lol well duh, what was I born yesterday. said I'm not stupid and I'm not going to tell him, he says "fine, then you live in that apartment quietly and I dont ever want to see or hear from you again" I called him a "fool" and walked off. (yeah probably shouldn't have called him a fool but still, we hadn't done anything) yelled after us, "did you understand me!!!" and we just kept walking. problem was is this was like right next to the assistants apartment. an apartment that as far as I understand it... I'll be occupying soon. oh boy.. yeah so... it wasn't the best experience. but what do you do... our fellow brotheren that we love and hope to convince dont' always use there God given heads. anyway! later! so I have pretty much signed my life away! haha in Kyiv I had to figure out how to pay for this Youth Conference that we organized... talked to elder Park at the office (you need to talk to the office if you coming) and he made me sign this paper and then he gave me 10 "G"'s to pay for this thing... woof! so I'm hoping to get rif of it all soon. because of circumstances we couldn't do it Electronically. this sunday was kind of stressful... president took the assignment of assigning talks from me this week and then assigned me to talk....lol what the heck! so I prepped a talk that I actually felt ready for.. I still had to play the piano this week again... :( poor members. and then found out that everyone who was supposed to prepare the lesson for the second hour didn't... oi vey. so I pounded on the piano, DIDN"T give me talk because we had a member talk for a half hour ... :S and then the sunday school lesson was mine! aug! lol I couldn't but laugh at it all but still... I was happy to sleep last night. this week was interesting and so yeah I'll be in Kyiv I beleive at the end of this week! right after the conference which should be really good!
GET CHRIS"S PAPERS DONE! and dont tell me that there done... until there done! lol he bryndon good job! I hope you get the job! that would be sweet! heard nothing from taleya today... so hope she is well and thank you mom and dad for the fact that you exist. I told you that thats a big compliment here when you thank someone for the fact "that they are" is how you say it. my birthday was alright. the entire city was out of water so resteraunts were pretty much a no go! but it was still cool! had people call and sing me happy birthday from cities that I have served in. another called that I didn't know and after singing just hung up, lol however we have connections and I figured it out. ... I think. all is well I suppose here... the holidays are right around the corner so this is going to get alot faster! ... and so you know its Elder Hofeling, thats his name... not Elder Hofelinger. The sisters said that the members in Rivne put up a video of the wedding... lol kind of emberrassing because I did mess up. tell me how it is. Love you guys! keep me posted
Старійшина Джонсон
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