Week 28:End of Transfer

Today is my last day in Gorlovka. I got my transfer call last night, and was able to pack all of my stuff up in one night, so that's good. I have finally started to feel better after my 2 weeks of absolute Hell! My level of sickness was similar to that of when I had my appendicitis attack, but 24/7. Constant sweat, fever, churning stomach..it was nooooot fun. Luckily it's over. As far as I know at least, haha. In total I lost 12 pounds over the whole experience, but I've gained most of it back because i've been eating like a mad man. 

On the brighter side of things, we finished up this transfer strong. I'm hoping that whoever comes in and takes my place will keep this area alive. It now has the most investigators, lessons, etc etc in the mission and it would break my heart if someone just came in and let it die! Luckily, the missionaries in this mission are awesome, so I'm sure it will be fine. 

Other than that, nothing big has really happened. I was still sick for most of last week, so there was a bunch of laying around wishing for death, and yeah. Like I said earlier, I went around the Kvartal and talked to a lot of the less actives and investigators we have and it was a really cool experience. It's hard to believe I've been here for 7 months. That gave me a lot of time to get to know people, and to be able to help them. I have a lot of good friendships here in Gorlovka, it will be sad to move on but at the same time I'm quite ready to get a change of scenery. I'm going to send some pictures your way, and I'll make sure to put some captions on. Those pretty much sum up the last week. Next week's email will be a lot more interesting because I will know where I am going. So yeah. Sorry to leave you hanging again! At least monday isn't too far away ;)

Proverbs 29:18

Where there is no vision, the people perish. 

Keep your eyes ahead of you. Always look to the future and have some sort of goal. How can you progress if you don't even know in what direction you should be progressing? Love that verse, definately one of my favorites. I could go on forever, but luckily for you I need to send these pictures ;)

Take care, I love you all.

Kyle

Also, the last picture is me standing on the bridge overlooking the kvartal. This has been my home for 7 months, and I love it!

I am the King of the Kvartal, Czar of Gorlovka. 

Our last District picture
Left to right
Yefoshkin, Myself, Nuzman, Johnson, Gittins, Goletschokov

So, a quick explanation about this picture. This is called DOM41. Anyone that has ever served in the Kvartal knows that this is the apartment building from Hell. We had to go visit a referral that lived there. Half the doors are broken down, abandoned, and infested by criminals, drug atticts, and RATS. Huge rats. Giant rats. While walking down a hallway, I saw a cat and was like "Cool! No rats in this hallway!" Then, I saw a rat as big as the cat run by it into one of the rooms. My face was similar to this :O. Yeah, the rat was too big for the cat to kill. So, I decided I would rather die than see that rat again. Hence the gun to my head. Yay for rats! For those of you that don't know, I have a phobia of rats.

This right here is what Ukrainian chicken can look like sometimes. And no, we did NOT eat that. Nooooooooo way.

So, this car is called a Lada. It's an old soviet era car. When people have cars here, they are usually lada's. There is one Lada in Gorlovka that is the king of all lada's. I've tried catching a picture of it, but never good. Then, on my second to last day here, I caught it in all it's glory. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw how perfect the picture is. I feel like Oscar and Sebastian will especially appreciate the creativity of the mods the guy thought of. Oh, the other day we saw a Lada that had 10 headlights. For what reason, I don't know. But it did. 

Someone just happened to graffiti "I love Christina" right outside our apartment door, so I just decided to use the bad for the good!

Of course I had to get a companionship picture on these tracks. Us walking back home. I really like this one.

Me. Railroad tracks. Buildings. I've been in every single one of those apartment buildings. Weird.

Almost getting crushed by 500 billion pounds of rock that are just chilling by Ukrainian railroad tracks.

Gittins and I taking a companionship picture in center Gorlovka. Good times, I love this kid! 

This doorway is all that's left in a field of ruins on the way to the Kvartal. I thought it looked pretty cool.

While walking to a lesson the other day, I saw somethign move by my feet. I thought it was a huge rat, but it turned out to be a cat with a bunch of little wild kittens! They were so cute! Loved them.