Family in Chernivtsi

Today a couple of the missionaries and us were invited out to Visil and his wife, Volya's home. Visil gave a wonderful talk in church a couple of weeks ago. This little farm keeps him very busy but we're hoping he will decide to come to church more often. Look at this big turkey with his feathers all out.
This is them with us. They are so sweet to invites to their place. It is located in a Celo (village) that's not too far away from the church but is in a hilly part of Chernivtsi.
This is Elder Chamberlain looking it all over and Volya who also grows beautiful flowers of many kinds, she picked a wonderful bouquet and gave me. I took it to the church so we could all enjoy them tomorrow. They have really listened to the Prophets about being prepared. They have all they need here except a cow. They even have fruit trees of different kinds and there are several plots twice this size that they take care of. Besides he's building a house for his daughter which will be very nice.
They just kept feeding us fresh berries. It was so nice to just sit under the trees and enjoy the sun and good company.
Of course after we were fed the cherries (two different kinds) and strawberries, we were brought in to a wonderful meal that his wife had prepared. The red drink at the end of the table is some that he made himself from his fruit. What a blessing to be in there home of these good people and rub shoulders with them. Of course we couldn't understand a word they were saying unless the Elder's translated but we could feel their love and hopefully they felt ours.

Home Evening

On Monday night a couple of weeks ago Lena, the lady in the green shirt came to Home Evening and gave the lesson, her husband came late, he's also in green. The Oldham family was there with 3 of there children. He is in the Service and is getting reassigned and his son used to serve here in Lviv. It's always fun to see Americans. Lena gave a great lesson on President Bensons talk on Pride. We had a very good visit with everyone.
This is the Oldham family. They didn't get to see there son but they did meet Volva the man that Elder Oldham baptized who has the blue shirt on. He's a great guy and is helping to bring others in to meet the Elders.
They are a great family and I can see why Elder Oldham is such a good Missionary.

Branch Picnic

On Sat. a couple of weeks ago we had a combined branch picnic in Lviv. It was a beautiful day and it didn't even rain on us. This is both branches of the ones that came. It's a good time to draw closer together. They also invited some of the English students to come but there is just a few. They play soccer, Robert the only baby in either branches was enjoying himself by sleeping.
His Mom on the right and Masha, the activities chairman for Cixiv Branch, we don't know what we would do without the youth.

They even have a ping-pong table in the park. You have to bring your own paddle and ball but they love it. As you can see there is two basketball hoops, you have to bring your ball and it's in the grass or dirt but who cares. There is things for the little kids to climb on. and they play soccer and we always have a lot to eat. Sandwiches, fruit cookies water or juice, it's not fancy but it brings them out. There is a pond that you can fish in on the other side of this park. It makes for a great day.

This is what the guys do to have fun so I had to get a video of it.

Temple in Kiev

This is our group from Lviv that went to hear President Uchtdorf and Elder Andersen, our missionaries and four members. What a wonderful experience that was.
This is our Koupa. If you go to Kiev it takes a long time but this was a new train and it was clean!!! If it would have been in the day, the windows were so clean you could have seen everything but it was dark and very late by the time we got on. Compare with the other pictures that I just posted.

The temple is coming along. Not as fast as we would all like but it has such a special feeling as you walk around the grounds.

This is the Hotel that they are still working on that is to the right and forward of the temple as you're looking at it.

Chernivtsi

This is the University in Chernivtsi. It looks like a castle and the grounds are beautiful. It's a big square so these pictures are on three sides. Click on one and see the roof and the different design, it's very unique.


This building has drawings toward the top of the building, it's really quite beautiful.
This building was designed to look like a ship. The road runs on both sides of the building. I thought they did a pretty good job.

This video is of the City Hall and every day at noon there is a man that plays a short piece on his trumpet. He moves to each side of the building and plays the same song.

Kaiser Hotel, Chernivtsi

This was on our tour. It was our P-day and Pavlo the 2nd from the left was our English speaking guide. Two of these Elders are new here so we went on a tour since the other things we had planned fell through. Pavlo said he would come to church but his wife had a baby so he didn't make it.
We went on Sat. to orient a new Y.W. President and they were having this big celebration in the square across the street where she lived so we stopped off and watched while we were waiting for Elder Williams to come from the church after he was finished doing an interview.

This is our home away from home, the Kaiser Hotel. They even put out the American flag for us. This last weekend they had 3 different flags out, one for us and 2 other countries.
Our church house is this building. It's a rented building but it serves us well. We spend most of our time on weekends here.
Also on the square they had different dancers dancing and music playing. They were from different countries. This one is from Moldova we think.