Week 9: Mormon alarms, Pianist, & The Anti-Christ

This week has been an interesting one, we had a lot of weird experiences.

Blessings: Alright, so this is probably one of the biggest things that happened this week. We were out tracting one night in a big dom (the generic concrete towers all over Ukraine that people live in). We start from the top to the bottom, and so about halfway down we knock on a door and say our usual greeting. "Hey, we're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ." We usually tell them we have a message about Jesus Christ and a free calender, and people either don't answer the door or take the calender and close it. We knockedon this one door, and as a lady was talking through the door we heard her husband come up and start yelling. We left with "have a good day", and went down the stairwell. Since there are so many apartments, we usually don't waste time. We knock one door after the other, without thinking about it. So we get down the stairs (there are 3 doors per level, sometimes 4) and after knocking 2 doors we just sit there staring at the last one on the floor. At the time, I don't know if we were just waiting for the other person to knock or what, but it was a noticable pause. Then, we heard the door directly above us slam open, and this guy that yelled at us screamed at the top of his lungs "WHERE'S THE MORMON CHURCH". I really wanted to shout back" Za D.K Kechegarka!" which is the location of our church. But, alas, I didn't. I got a good smile out of it though. The guy was screaming at the top of his lungs sitting there, and we were directly below him. There's no doubt that the guy would have come down to beat us to death if he heard us talking. It was the wierdest thing. Some guy was within 15 feet of us, wanting to kill us and we sat there smiling. Instead of running away the second we heard him, we waiting until we heard his door slam again. We looked at each other and said "Wow, we really pissed that guy off" and left the stairwell. We went to the next stairwell in the same building, and about halfway down we could hear that guy yelling. He was so loud that we could hear him through 2 apartments and tons of concrete. At about that time, some person set off an alarm to warn people the Mormons were there. That's when we were like "This is just ridiculous". We left the rest of the doors unknocked, and washed our hands of that building. So yeah, the biggest blessing this week was safety. There's no doubt that guy wouldn't have hesitated to do the worst do us. He just sounded evil! Weird sounding voice, and it didn't help that it was in deep russian too. At the time, we weren't afraid at all. It's really cool to see how the Spirit works to comfort people who are out doing the Lord's work.

Week: Alright, since I wrote that novel I don't have much time, but I somehow ended up becoming the branch pianist. Since the Southams left, our branch has been singing without a piano and it was uh...we needed a piano. Smith made me get up there and play, so I guess that's my job from now on. Shoutout to Nana, Mom, Christina, and Aunt Lois for encouraging me to play the piano. I guess it payed off. This week I bought an accordian piano. It's like a piano that has a hose you blow air into. A more convenient accordian. It sounds the same as one too, it's way awesome. I've taken the liberty of playing the USA Anthem every morning on it. Good buy. I'll try to send some audio or pictures next week. And yes, I've gotten way, way more patriotic since I've been here. You can't believe how pro-america I am now. I guess out of anywhere in the world, Ukraine would do that to you the most. It's ironic I say this, because this week we've had more people than ever yell American slurs at us, and tell us to go back to america to preach. I must confess, I smile and nod when I get called  a yankee. That's us, America baby! I'll expound on this more later. Oh, this week we also met an Anti-Christ. This guy was everything the Book of Mormon makes Nehor out to be. The guy was pretty creepy, and we met him outside our apartment, so I'm wondering what the chances are we'll see him again. Probably pretty high.

Scripture: Psalms 118:24

This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Nothing feels better than to be an optimist. When we are out in the snow, all wet and no one will talk to us, you HAVE to be an optimist! Always look on the brightside! No matter what happens, something could be worse! The Lord works in mysterious ways, and everything happens for a reason. I'm a firm believer in that. No matter how awful life gets at any one point, we must always remember that it will always get better. "now" is a gift, that's why it's called the present. When one door closes, 2 more open, we just have to keep our eyes open for them! 

Love,

Kyle

Sasha Teleuc, a member we reactivated.
Soo Russian, haha. Reminds me of a harsher Opa.