The Updates: Episode Ukraine

There have been many events that I haven't blogged about. I will now change that. For the next week I'll be posting a bit about the bigger events from the last several months. 

Lets start with the trip to the Ukraine. 

Last November (I know... it's February...) my mom and I went to the Ukraine to pick up Kathy from her mission. 

Getting on the plane was a miracle in and of itself. We had some problems with our tickets and reservations. Luckily we were working with the nicest most amazing United gate agent in the whole world named Kristen. She sat with us for a good hour, all patience and kindess, as she tried to sort everything out. She essentially had to call the President himself to get everything in order so we could board the plane. She could have easily turned us away and told us we were out of luck but she completely went out on a limb to get us where we needed to go. Amazing example of charity. Good way to start a trip. And so the adventure commenced. 

Travelling isn't my favorite thing because I greatly prefer the comforts of home. We flew from Salt Lake to Chicago (4 hours) to Dusseldorf (8 hours) to Kiev (3 hours) and then we took an overnight train ride from Kiev (9 hours) to the city Kathy was in called Zaporozhia. By the time we pulled in to the train station, we were tired and a little overwhelmed by all the Russian. I thought that because I lived in Europe, travelling in Ukraine would be no problem.  

I WAS WRONG.

We landed in Kiev and the first thing I noticed that everything was in Ukrainian and/or Russian, neither of which I speak or read. Miraculously, we met the only other American at the airport. His name is Ben and his Russian knowledge was better than ours because he had lived in Ukraine for a few years. He was back visiting his (gorgeous) Ukrainain girlfriend Vika. Turns out she speaks Ukrainian and Russian perfectly. Once we figured out that our bags were lost, Ben and Vika saved our lives by getting us on the right bus, riding with us for over and hour to the train station, helping us buy tickets to get to the right city, showing us which train to get on, and helping us find out where we needed to stay. It was incredible. Already we had met 3 people that made it possible for us to actually get to Zaporozhia for this moment:

REUNITED.

We met other amazing people while we were in Ukraine, including Alyona's family. Alyona is one of Kathy's investigators and she has the sweetest parents and little sister. They had us over for dinner one night. They gave me caviar.

We went to Southern Ukraine to visit Kathy's first city Sevestopol and got to go to the coast of the Black Sea. It was beautiful. 

We also got a Ushanka to take home to Dad. Mom modelled it. It smelled like death. 

We saw all sorts of things in Ukraine.

We got to meet a bunch of the members that Kathy worked with. They were such sweet, kind people. I can see why Kathy loved them so much, especially this little old lady. Her apartment was about 100 degrees and she was wearing about 20 layers of clothes. 

We also got to go to a city called Yalta on the coast on Thanksgiving Day. It was beautiful. There was a castle there and inside the castle was a really good Italian restaurant. We ate Thanksgiving lunch there. I was thankful for Yalta.  

The view was incredible. 

We played around a bit with cannons, naturally. 

We also got really cold.  Really cold. Yeah, like reeeeeally cold. 

 And basically just had a great time being together again. 

Kathy and I are making the exact same face, only backwards. 

My favorite part was probably when we got to go do a few sessions in the Kiev Temple. It is the first temple in Eastern Europe. We met people from all over Eastern Europe that were coming to the temple, oftentimes for the first time. Amazing. 

 Look! She's home! And she needs new boots. 

 Great trip. Totally worth it.