4-26-10 Teaching the Chinese in Ukraine

Anyways, this was a really good week, a lot of stuff happened. Sergay's baptism was great, we had a good member turn out and there was a great Spirit there. He's a stud and will be a great priesthood leader. The Branch was quiter than I had ever heard them while we were giving him the Holy Ghost, it was really cool. Lilly, our Chinese investigator, also came to the baptism and she even brought her Vietnamese friend, Solnechka, that we had met with once before. It was funny though because every time we asked Lilly a question, such as "When would you like to get baptized?" She had a habit of turning to her friend and saying. I don't know, when do you want to get baptized?" Ha, it was funny. They even got into a funny conversation about how many people they would want at their baptisms. But Lilly has to talk to her parents about baptism first, which is a huge obstacle because she would never want to go against her parents will. But in fact, her parents and relatives are also interested in Jesus Christ and they like the teachings they have heard about. They are a very wealthy, influential family in China, so if everything goes perfectly, they could be one of the main pioneers that could bring the church into China. She didn't make it to church though, which isn't good, but we'll try to talk to her later today. Yes, Lilly is awesome and needs to get baptized then go back to China, teach her family, baptize them, and then bring the Church to China. They could, her Dad is friends with the emperor. He is the mayor of a big city outside of Beijing, and the president of a university.
We also met with this new in-active girl who hasn't met with the missionaries or been to church in over 5 years. That was really cool, and we're planning on having another in-active night with those other 5 in-actives tonight at the Gorsky's. We're going to get all 6 of these in-actives back to church, actually we are not, the two missionaries that are white-washing in behind us. Me and Elder Baly are both leaving. How transfers work is we get a call on Friday of week 5 (last Friday) that we're leaving, and then the next Friday is transfer day when we move to our new area. I'm still staying in Harkov somehow. I'm going to break the record of the missionary to live in Harkov the longest, I'll be here for over a year. It's crazy. But its great.

4-19-10 Pure Missionary Work

This was a pretty good week but it was really difficult to meet with people. We did find one way cool new investigator, Alex. He is 21 and he works in America in the summer. He is awesome. We just met with him once, but he committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We couldn't meet with ANY of our other investigators though, it was awful. We couldn't even get ahold of them because all they do is text us but we don't have texting to write back. We really need to and want to meet with Oleg to see how he's doing with his reading, and with Leelee. It feels like we are just doing good, pure missionary work right now, but unfortuantely I think I'm probab;ly leaving Alekseevka this transfer. I've been in Harkov way longer than any other missionary. I love it though, and I'm not going to think about leaving or staying or anything. We still need to meet with a lot of our contacts and we are going to find some great new investigators this week. There were a lot of people at church but a lot of the in-actives who told us they would come, didn't. We are taking them to a family night at our old Branch President's house, so that will be really good. And Pres. Aleksay is still a stud, I have never seen the crazy kids behave so well in Young Men's as they did yesterday when he sat in on the lesson. He just has that presence that demands respect. So life is good, and we are going to see some miracles this week. We have a baptism this Friday, this awesome young guy, Sergay, that the other Elders are teaching. It might have to be postponed for a business trip, but we're praying that it won't be.

4-12-10 Loving Conference

This week we have successfully passed all 3 of our investigators to other Elders. It's always tough passing investigators, especially when they are your best 3 investigators, but I love doing it. Our new Branch President, who is still the coolest guy ever, is a businessman and read that Burger King and KFC are coming into Harkov by the end of this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's good news.

That was one of the best conferences ever. I loved it so much, we didn't want it to end. I can't believe it's taken me so long to realize how awesome conference is. The talks were great and I have never gotten so much out of it. I can't pick a favorite talk, they were all so good. But Pres. Monson and Elder Holland are the best public speakers ever, the perfect balance of humor, doctrine, and personal experiences. I am so impressed by how all the apostles can go from so hilarious to so serious and spiritual just like that. I can talk forever about the conference, how it helped us (especially with our investigators that are struggling, I heard so much advice that I thought was perfect for them), and what we learned from it. Zone Conference was also really good, but of course it doesn't compare with the big GC. We talked a lot about using the Area Book, which we really needed to do because too many missionaries don't use the Area Book like they should. We also talked about other things that needed to be addressed and we need to improve, like what happens to the work during transfer week. It will help out our mission. Our mission is at an entirely new level and still improving everyday. The battle between the missionaries and the mission president that was so present when I came into country is finally gone, and you can just feel a huge difference. It's incredible.
As for our investigators, like I already said, we passed our 3 best ones, and the rest are difficult to meet with. But we had a huge step in the right direction with Oleg. Oleg is an English student who is going to America to work this summer. We hadn't been able to meet with him for 2 weeks because he was sick and/or really busy. But he finally committed to take, read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We are way excited because he is a good kid and our Branch President (whom I will now on refer to as Aleksey, but we call him Al-yo-sha), is sitting in on our next lesson with him. Life is good, but I really want to meet with the rest of our in-actives this week and find a few new investigators that will be great members one day.

4-5-10 The ice has melted!

I'm glad you didn't tell me too much about General Conference because we're watching it this weekend. It's a crazy schedule, they are packed one right after another. We have the Priesthood session and Sat morn on Saturday from 4- 8:30. Then the other 3 sessions will back to back on Sunday from 10 to 6. I'm not a huge fan of the schedule, but I'm way excited for it, I've probably never been this excited for it. You definitely appreciate it and look forward to it more and more the longer you're on your mission. This week is going to be crazy, we also have a fireside tonight, Zone conference tomorrow, interviews, apartment checks, and a lot of stuff. It will be awesome though. We had a really good week and have a lot of young investigators, but not many on the other side of the spectrum that are really close to baptism. Alla's daughter, Julia without the J, is doing good but still doesn't feel ready. She has a W of W problem, like everyone else here, because you can tell she feels something during our lessons. We had an Easter fireside thing at the branch last night where we had a small spiritual thought, watched the Lamb of God video, then had some treats. The cool thing was that our Branch had 7 investigators there?! I don't know about you, but in Ukraine, that is a lot. Leelee, our Chinese investigator who is actually progressing and doing really good, brought 2 friends. One from Viet Nam who didn't understand anything, but this other one from some Middle East country who really enjoyed it. We had a great lesson with all 3 of them afterwards and we asked this great member to sit in on us. We gave them all Book of Mormons to read and set up another appointment for tomorrow. We also found a few other people to meet with that could be very promising, the hard part is trying to find time to meet with them this week. As for the Muslim guy, he is very difficult to meet with and pretty flakey, and Tatyana, the English teacher, unfortunately seems to be fading. We are still going to do all we can though. But on Sunday, our Branch President, who is like Superman and is one of the most amazing guys I've met here, got released. And we were worried about who would replace, but this young 26 year old guy, who had been in a different branch where his family lived, and he owns one of the missionaries houses (sorry for the run-on sentence). Whatever, he just moved into our Branch and he is one of the coolest guys I have ever met. I am so excited to work with him, we all are, he is just going to tear this place apart. We going to be getting so many more people at church, we are all so pumped. That's about it for this week. I can't describe the most amazing feeling in the world of walking on dry ground with the sun out, after walking on ice for the past few months. Indescribable I tell you. Oh, Easter is a huge holiday here, but some of the traditions here, are really awkward. It's cool though, all week you walk around and greet people by saying "Christ Resurrected!" And they reply, "Truly Resurrected" Great time to teach lesson about what he did after he was truly resurrected.

3-29-10 Humble Pie

This week was awesome. We've picked up some new investigators, and had 3 investigators come to a baptism that was in center on Saturday. They are all great today, Urie, Artyome, and Artyome's sister, (who is a new investigator and seems even more ready than Artyome. I honestly think she might be the one to bring him into the church and not the other way around) Oxanna. They all loved it, but Artyome was the only one who came to church the next day. The bad news is that we are passing all of them to other missionaries because they live in other areas. But it's cool because Artyome and his sister live in XTZ. We had a good lesson with Tatyana and the Reeds, she's having a really hard time right now and is way over-stressed about her work. But we are starting to teach Alla's daughter- We baptized Alla abd Vladik when I served here last time, and we're really excited about that. We also found some new, cool, in-actives that we're going to work with and get back to church. And last night we almost got in the first fight of my mission. It was a big, drunk, Russian guy and he slapped my comp in the face so hard! Ha, it's funny thinking about it now. He tried to hit me, and it was hard to move faster than him. It was cool. So also, my comp had diarrhea like all week, and one day during studies he was in the bathroom and was laughing about it. I was probably being prideful aout how everyone gets it except for me, I've only had it once my whole mission. Thinking my stomach is just such a steel trap and all that, after all the crazy foods I have downed. Then, it started to happen. I was like, "Ok Heavenly Father, I realize Your trying to humble me, and thank you, but now I'm humble and You can stop." Then it happened again, and I was like, "Ok, Heavenly Father, I know I wasn't really last time, but now I am, and You really can stop now." It didn't. For 2 days. Yea, that sucked. I know you don't like that word , but there is no other way to describe it. I never want that to happen ever again. But yea we're still working with a lot of new people and the work is going great, so we'll keep you updated.

3-22-10 1 companion, 1 area

And Happy Birthday DAD! It is bad in Ukraine to wish someone a happy birthday or congratulate them for an event before it has happened, which is why I can't wish Karen a Happy Birthday yet, or you guys a Happy Anniversary, I have to wait til next week so everything will go well on those days.

This week was pretty crazy, but it feels so good to be a normal missionary again, with one companion and working only one area. I didn't really get a new companion. Elder Belyeu, who had been in the 3-some with me for the past few weeks just moved over. It's nice because there isn't really any transition period. He's a good kid from Alabama, actually it's a small city in Landry's mission called Alexandria or something. We're going to work really hard and have a good transfer. We found a new investigator this week, he's an Arabian guy named Syhap. He's 19 and really cool, and he's already started reading the Book of Mormon. We're excited about him, and also about Artyome. We hope that he is starting to get the courage to do what he needs to do. He knows it's true and already knows what he needs to do, he's just got to do it. Tatyana is still stuck and not really progressing, but the Reeds (that senior couple that wrote you) are helping us a lot with her and that is huge. Not much else than that though, it is really difficult to meet with our Olegs, but hopefully we can do that this week. Life is good though, I am so ready for a very boring, normal transfer. Keep up the (missionary) work back home.

3-15-10 Crash and burn

The 'comp' that I referred to earlier is Elder Goodfellow, who I will be with for this week because his comp is in Bulgaria. He lives in a different area of Harkov called Cold Mountain, so we'll be covering both areas still. He's cool and we're going to have a fun time. And it was great to hear that UNLV beat BYU because he's on the BYU swim team and we've been talking alot of trash. He talks about how they killed UNLV in swimming his freshman year and how they stink, but I remarked that I was surprised because I didn't know they had collegiate swimming, I always thought of it as more of a hobby for old people :) Sadly, just because Women's Day is a big holiday doesn't mean they treat women like they should, but the church really helps with that. And as for our performance. . . . . worst experience of my life. You may think I am joking, but Oh, if you do, then you are surely mistaken. I have never, ever performed so badly in my life at anything. The magic tricks bombed, when I hid the hankerchief in the plastic thumb, I opened my hands and the fething thumb flew at the hands. Clearly, they didn't understand the skill and mastery it takes to do such a trick. Then, us three missionaries memorized this famous Ukranian poem (poetry is big here), and as we went to recite it, we all completely blanked. You see, but the other 2 elders I was with are good, smart eagle scouts who prepared for such a situation by bringing their lines with them so they could at least read it. But me, no no, I am much to good for that. I found it much more satisfying and enjoyable standing there for 5 minutes like an idiot with everyone staring at me expecting me to say something. Afterwards, as I shamefully sat alone in a corner and reflected on this last year in Ukraine, I realized that every performance that I have taken part in since I have been there has turned out similar to this last one. I have found a profound new sense, meaning, and understanding of the phrase "to crash and burn."

3-8-10 Teetering investigators

3-8-10

This week has been crazy going back and forth between areas, but we're getting it down and more organized so next week will be a lot better. We're still having a lot of good success with our investigators, but we need to get them to really committ and start coming to church. They seem to be at the teetering (is that a word? like teeter-totter) point where they will either really start progressing and moving forward, or drop. Unfortuantely, Tatyana says her family still isn't interested, but I think part of that might be that she is just really scared and doesn't want to force it on them. English Oleg is doing well, but Older Oleg is difficult meet with. We have 2 more African investigators, Soey and Bummey, and they are way cool. All the Africans here are so cool and believeing, but translating for all of them at church drains you and they show up late to everything. Anyways, today is Women's Day, which is a huge holiday here and the streets are pretty empty. We are having a Branch party later today and we have to do a skit, so I'm doing some of those magic tricks and we're reciting this Russian poem. It will be fun.

3-1-10 Teaching two Olegs

3-1-10

Hey Family,

I have loved serving with Elder Bryce, he's been such a great example and help to me; and we had a lot of fun together, working really hard, and having great success. But now I'm in a threesome with missionaries in our branch, Elder Valverde and Elder Belyue, who are really cool too. Me and Elder Valverde are really good friends, because I teach him a lot of things and help him a lot since I have 1 semester of a high class BYU education but he's only finishing his doctorate up from this crappy college I have never heard of in Connecticut. (I think it's like Yell, or Yaleys or something???) Anyways, we are going to have fun and work hard. This week has been great though, we have had tons of success. We finally had a lesson with Tatyana and her whole family (it was the lesson that the Reeds wrote you about), and it was awesome. We gave them a 1st lesson and watched the Restoration with them. Everyone felt the Spirit very strongly and the father even commented on how they feel when they are with us. It was so great and we're really excited to meet with them again. We also had a really good 1st lesson with Older Oleg, the Hardy Krishna guy, and with this other Oleg- a young 19 yr old kid from English class who is going to work at a Sonic in Louisiana in a few months. We had 1st lessons with both of them and they were both really interested in the Book of Mormon. I know that older Oleg will read it, but younger Oleg is praying and counseling with his parents about it because he has a good relationship with them, which is great but rare here. And older Oleg was supposed to come to church on Sunday but he didn't show. We're excited to meet with them again though, and we have a lot to do since we are covering 2 areas now. Thanks for all your prayers. Wednesday will be exactly 1 year from the day that we flew into Ukraine. Your year in country mark is kind of a bigger deal than you overall year mark, but who cares, we're too busy to celebrate (which is a good thing). We'll just make a nice dinner and cookies or something. I love you guys, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be out here serving the Lord and serving these amazing people in Ukraine. Thanks for everything you did to help get me to this point. Take care, and tell everyone I say hi.

3-1-10 Teaching with Elder Hyer

We just had to include a portion of the note we got from Elder & Sister Reed who are a senior couple serving in Ukraine:

Dear Parents,

My wife and I are serving in Kharkov on a CES mission. We have the privilege of meeting with your son on occasion and today he was teaching with his companion in our apartment. I want you to know that Elder Hyer is a powerful missionary. He taught with full command of the Russian language and with the Holy Ghost as a companion.

Wasn't that nice of them to write us?

2-22-10 Prayer works

This week has been great. At the start of the week, we had a few minutes in between lessons so we did a little tracting. We talked to this one nice family, but mostly the wife, Tanya. The day before was her husband's birthday so he was still pretty drunk. She is nice though and was interested to meet again. We were supposed to meet with her later in the week but it didn't work, so we'll definitely meet this week. We had another cool exprience in between lessons a different day too. We walking to lessons and I wasn't in the mood to contact, but I realized we had time to do a little contacting on the way to our next lesson. So I said a small prayer to get the desire to contact and for some help, then after 3 people rejected us, this guy stopped us and asked us where we meet. He wanted to take a book and willingly gave us his info. He wanted to come to church and meet with us sometime. I don't think that has ever happened to me on my mission, when someone stops us and wants to talk to us. So that was a good lesson for me to learn from, how just small things like that can bring instant and potentially large results. His name is Oleg and he is a Harty Christian?? or Hardy Krishtka? or something like that? I only know how to say in Russian but I think it's a cognate. He didn't come to church but hopefully we'll meet with him soon. It was weird, yesterday was the first time I haven't gone to church in a really long time. My comp has been sick the last few days, so I have had plenty of time to study. Thankfully, Saturday we did a split so I wasn't stuck inside for too long. He's an awesome kid and we're working hard together. I'm also learning to be more sensitive and lovey-feeley, which is probably good for me because that isn't one of my strong points. Alekssevka is so amazing though, I hope I'm here for a very long time. I have a great relationship with a lot of members here so that's helping us meet with a lot that they kind of stopped meeting with, or had a hard time meeting with earlier. And Alekseevka always has the most success in Harkov because the branch and the leadership is just awesome. Anya's baptism on Saturday was great and I loved seeing everyone in XTZ again. I think that is about it for now. (oh yeah, the funniest thing about Bulgaria is that they shake their head No when they say yes, and vice versa. It was so funny, it messed with us so bad because it seemed like everyone was being sarcastic as they shook their head one way and said the other).

2-15-10 Adventure in Bulgaria

So I drove down on a freexiing cold, crappy Ukranian bus for 7 1/2 hours by myself on Monday morning, worst P-day ever. They we had to frantically run around the city getting last minute stuff ready before we flew out. But Monday night was cool because me, Elder Tillotson, and Elder Shipp just hung out around Donetsk because we flew out early the next morning. We had a lay-over in Kiev and met up with Elder Obering (from Cedar City), then we flew to Sophia, Bulgaria from there. We ate dinner with the office elders and AP's that night, then 2 more elders from our group, Elder Kuhre and Elder Bagley flew in that night. They are from the same mission as Greg Bayless, so I got to talk to them about him, which was cool. One Elder from our group got left out and has to come with the next group, which stinks, but it was still so much fun seeing each other again and hanging out all night. We ordered PIZZA HUT!!!!! to our apartment that first night. And the next day, after we got all our Visa stuff taken care of, we ate DUNKIN' DONUTS AND KFC for lunch, then SUBWAY for dinner. As you can guess, it was amazing after eating nothing but McDonald's for 1 year. We had a blast talking to each other about our missions and joking around, and Sophia is a pretty city. But we left the very next morning and I was exhausted from lack of sleep. But we're back in Alekseevka now and doing awesome. We are working with our investigator, Tatyana, and we're taking her family to the Senior couple for a lesson this week. We really want to start teaching her whole family, because her husband and son are great and need to be taught. Another investigator, Denise, said he would come to church on Sunday, but didn't show, which always stinks. We are also trying to visit all the members and do a lot of in-active work like we did in XTZ. This branch is awesome though and I'm so excited and happy to be here again. The people here are also in to the olympics, but all I've heard about is the luge (?) guy from Georgia who died. As for the elections here, of course they are a big deal but not nearly as big as we thought it would be. If I could say my opinion about the new President, I would. Our side of Ukraine really likes him, but that's because our side is pro-Russia, not Ukranian or European, if that makes sense.

2-8-10 Going to Bulgaria!!??

We got a surprise phone call from Elder Hyer about 5:30 one morning. He told us that he was there with his Mission President and had gotten permission to call and get some information for his Visa. He was on his way to Bulgaria to get his visa renewed! What a fun surprise. It was about a two minute call but still it was so wonderful to hear his voice and feel his missionary spirit. Here is his quick letter from that day:

I have no time
-back in the same area, same apartment, and lovin it. The members are stoked too
-Today was the worst P-day ever, on a smelly, Ukranian bus for 7 hours coming down to Donetsk. And I forgot something important so that was bad.
-We fly out to Bulgaria tomorrow morning, early
-UNLV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Today has been really long and tiring, so I'm done. I bet you liked that phone call today though, huh?
-Elder Bryce is young, in his 2nd transfer, but he's awesome and it will be fun. There are a lot of weird things going on because our mission is so young, but I don't care because I'm so happy to be in Alekseevka again.
-Tell Chasen and Tomo I'll write them next week when I have time
-Missionaries say the Bulgaria trip is the greatest thing ever, and we get to see all our old MTC friends from the other mission. We can't wait, we're so excited
Love you guys,
-Elder Hyer