We got videos and pictures! There are some below and we'll be adding more everyday!
6-1-09 - Cooking and Teaching
С Днём Рожденья (Happy Birthday) Бабушка Питерсэн (Grandma Peterson)!!! I told all the missionaries that you're turning 31 today and still getting younger. And Happy Anniversary to you both as well, sounds like a weekend-long party at the Peterson household. So I write you last week knowing that I was going to be the only one staying in Lugansk. But as it got closer to transfer meeting, more rumors/secrets start to leak out. And I was hearing more and more that SISTERS were coming to Lugansk (I say that with love and excitement, not fear and frustration). It's just that having sisters in Lugansk means we would have to do everything with them and we'd have to have 4 elders so there's not a Double-Date District meeting every week. And sisters always get the best apartments so I was thinking I'd have to move all my stuff out of Center, which is the perfect location for an apartment, and leave my area. All that came true except for the last part. I'm currently in a 4-some. My comp is way cool and we're already way good friends. We both like to work as hard as possible and enjoy ourselves while we do it. And we both love sports. We thought it was going to stink, because we have 2 beds, a couch, and 1 closet. That's not that bad, because we just got another mattress, But mainly not having a oven isn't very cool. We just have 2 hot plates and the grill thing I just bought. We're making it work though, and let's be honest, it's alot of fun. I actually really like it because 4-some's are great if you all stay working hard and do everything you're supposed to. Obviously breakfast and dinner take longer for 4 people, especially when you only have 2 hot plates, but other than that it looks like we're going to stay focused and diligent. Andre still works all the time and is really hard to meet with, but our 2 new investigators have a ton of potential. There's the Katya girl I told you about and this older lady, 50ish maybe, that I contacted on the street named Vuta (Victoria). We had a lesson set up with Vuta, in the park but it was one of the weird Ukranian weather days where it pours rain for 5-20 minutes, then is sunny and warm for 5-20 minutes. But God stopped the rain long enough to have a good lesson where she listened intently and was really interested. Then at the very end of the lesson it started to pour again. Musiurenko was like 'Yea! Testimony for her!" in his thick Ukranian accent. It was funny. We're meeting with her tomorrow again, so we're really excited about that.
Our 2nd lesson with Katya wasn't under the most desirable conditions, she was feeling sick and had a bad stomach ache, and her member friend Anya felt really sick and had bad allergies. But they both still came! So that was great in itself, and the lesson went really well. She also listens intently and took notes, copying down the whole Plan of Salvation. Part of me felt like it was to discuss it with her JW father at home, but she's awesome so it doesn't matter. I mostly just remember the end of the lesson, when she prayed to Heavenly Father, using her own words, for the first time in her life. The Spirit was overwhelming, and I just felt so happy and proud of her. It is so strange to someone like me who grew up with that, and seeing someone look like a child again, doing it for the first time. Just a simple, innocent, and direct prayer to their Father in Heaven. I wanted so badly to ask her if she felt the Spirit while she prayed but she was clutching her stomach the whole time and I knew she was in pain, so I don't know how it would've gone over. We have a lesson set up with her tomorrow, I hope she did her reading and praying so badly. We have a few other people we're meeting with or about to meet, but the work is looking really good right now.
There's these really cool kids who come to sports night, and like me a lot because I play basketball and talk about sports with them. We think we can get them to come to church with us. They're like 17ish and just really cool kids. Last thing, there is what they call 'Fluff' everywhere. It's the white stuff from dandelions, and it is EVERYWHERE. It looks like it's snowing with no gravity. I wonder if this happened to Brady? It was cool the first day because I had never seen anything like it, but now it's just the most annoying thing in the world, especially on days when your allergies are acting up. So life is great here in Lugansk, have lessons set up with members or investigators most everyday, which is amazing. And me and elder Thompson are really excited to work together.
5-25-09 - "A Fetching Transfer!"
They are taking Misiurenko from me! We recevied a fetching transfer call Friday morning. We thought for sure we were going to stay together for one more transfer. We kept saying we were doing awesome and wanted to stay in our letters to President each week, but I guess that didn't work. It was funny because he can't really write in English so he never writes President, but last week this return missionary in the branch who wanted both of us to stay helped him write one and it was all about wanting to stay here. This was supposed to be the smallest transfer ever because no missionaries are leaving and only one new missionary is coming in, but a ton of people are being transferred and a lot of areas are being white-washed. They pretty much white-washed Lugansk too because I'm the only missionary staying here, all the other missionaries here are being transferred. So, next time I write home, I will be the most experienced missionary in Lugansk with 3 weeks experience. Ha, that'll be fun. I hope my new comp likes to get lost a lot. But this week has been pretty good. The zone leaders came and went on splits with us, so that was cool. The week was actually pretty crazy, but I finally got to meet our investigator, Andre. He's a stud. He's a young guy in his 20's, he's read the Book of Mormon, D&C and is in the Pearl of Great Price right now. He's quitting smoking and saving up money to marry his girlfriend that he lives with. He has a testimony that it's all true, but he needs to take a leap of faith and sacrifice work to start coming to church, so that's what we talked about the whole time. We also found this new investigator from a member referral. She's this teenage girl who is really just searching for the truth. Her mom is the general Orthodox religion and her father is a JW. She isn't really satisfied with those and so is meeting with us. She's great and really eager to learn everything, and has a lot of potential. She has good questions, but also her father gave her some of the Anti-Mormon JW material to read and bring when she meets with us to asks questions. She doesn't really buy into it though, and sides with us on most all of the questions. We're meeting with her again on Thursday before English class, so that should be really good. Other than that, we just meet with the members and contact.
5-18-09 - Loving Lugansk
We still don't have much going on here. I guess we have one solid investigator who wants to get baptized but needs to quit smoking and is saving up money for him and his girlfriend to get married because they live together. And we also have another investigator that still needs to read and pray and gain a testimony. This is just what my comp told me because we still haven't met with them since I got here. We've called but they've been busy, so hopefully we can meet with them this week. I am still loving it with my comp, I would say his name but I'm not sure how to spell it in English. I've never been so immersed in the language like this, because we spend a lot of time with the youth members too so it's just a lot of Russian. I can feel my understanding of the language gradually improve everyday. But Lugansk is still great, the city is awesome and the people are cool. We do a lot of contacting and a lot of walking around the city. Our area is HUGE. It's bigger than all of Gorlovka, it's pretty ridiculous. But we go contacting a lot, and they have a weekly youth and sport night here so that's a lot of fun. I didn't tell you about what happened my last English class in Gorlovka. I told all the girls that I was leaving to Lugansk. Then this week after English class, the Gorlovka Elders called me and said they didn't come back. Ha, hopefully it was a one time thing. It was funny though, after my last class I taught there, they all came up and asked for my info and if I was on facebook. I told them I couldn't go on until after my mission, so they asked how much longer I had. They all got really mad when I said I still had 1 1/2 years and they said "Elder Hyer, we like it when missionaries come to Gorlovka at the end of their missions, not the start." And they continued to tell me about that. I just laughed and said I didn't know that but I'll be sure to remember it. The Gorlovka Elders just laugh about it and make fun of me alot for it.
5-11-09 - Missionary = Police?
Elder Hyer was transferred to Lugansk this week. His new companion is from Kiev so he is really speaking a lot of Russian. When we talked with him on Mother’s day he had only been there a few days. We had a great visit with him. He wasn’t going to write on this Monday but he did stop to answer one of his dad’s questions.
When we are tracting we usually don't say who we are until they ask, we just say we have a message about. . . . whatever we feel like we should say. Then, if they ask, we just say we are representatives of the church because the word missionary is similar to police, so it could sound like that through a door.
5-4-09 - "It Just Comes?"
One day we had to go into Donetsk for interviews with President Fry, on Friday we had Zone Conference here in Donetsk. We just talked about how my Russian is doing and how I'm studying. Russian is still really hard to understand, I hate the phrase "It just comes" because that's what every missionary says. I'm seeing that though and it is coming, it would be really cool if it would hurry up though. It's fine though, they say I speak really well for a new missionary, but that doesn't mean anything. I don't let it get to me though, but of course you get frustrated at times. I'm learning to rely on the Lord more and really pray.
