"Dryers are a gift from God. And black people are awesome." - Ukraine Week 3

Family,

First, some random thoughts.  Dryers are a gift from God.  And black people are awesome. 

As you know, I don't get a dryer here.  It's bittersweet to wash clothes, because, while on the one hand, they are now clean, they also get all crusty as they dry.  Fun fun!  And black people here are amazing.  They're all from places like Nigeria and whatnot, and they are the nicest people ever.  They speak English and are extremely open to hearing our message.  They're here in Lugansk for Medical school.  Just last night we were walking around and two black guys stopped us to give us their number because one of them has met with missionaries before and really likes us.  So awesome!

Probably the best thing I've discovered here is Blinok.  It's a fast food chain they have around here.  Blin is Russian for pancake.  They essentially take a pancake and roll together whatever you want in it.  For meals you can put meat, sauce and cheese in, and for dessert it's great to get chocolate and strawberry.  And the pancakes are more like crepes than american pancakes.  It's hard to describe, but it's really good!

By the way, before I forget, I took out 1000 greevan from my account last week.  Just thought I'd make you aware of that.  I've bought a sweet black side bag to carry Book of Mormon and everything.  The greevan conversion thing is interesting.  It's about 8 greevan to an American dollar.  Yet, with the budget that we have as missionaries, we end up scraping the bottom of that, so we scrimp and save wherever possible.

The other day we were walking to a member's home, and some really heavy rain came out of nowhere.  Luckily I had an umbrella (thanks, Mom!) so we were fine.  But as we walked, there was a blinding lightning strike, followed by thunder that was so powerful that it set off every car alarm in Lugansk!  We just sat there laughing for a bit, lamenting the fact that we did not have our cameras out to take video recordings of it.  Take my word for it, it was epic.

Russian sounds beautiful when it is spoken right.  It can be so melodic, I love it.  However, since I am around it so much I end up turning my brain off of Russian every once in a while.  When I'm not listening for comprehension, it sounds a lot like the characters in those Sims games. 

Speaking of Russian, I still get complimented a lot for my accent when speaking Russian.  It's a great confidence booster!  That doesn't, however, mean that I don't make mistakes.  In Russian, it is crucial to get the accent in the word right.  There's one accent per word.. it's hard to explain.  I usually have a good sense for it, but I have those little stories of messing up the language.  For example, I told my companion the other day that I wanted to "peet vah-DOO" (transliterated from Russian letters) and he started laughing really hard.  What I meant to say was that I wanted to "drink water" or "peet VOH-doo".  What I had said meant that I wanted to "drink in hell".  I figure that would be a good phrase to know if I ever found myself there.  I'd only be there for proselyting purposes, of course.

Also, I forgot to tell you my first ever mistake in country.  On my first day, Antamanov asked if it'd be alright if we spoke only in Russian all day while on the streets.  I responded with what I thought was "I'll try" ("Ya staraioos")  But instead I said "Ya stradaioos".  This phrase means "I will suffer".  That did not bode well for my first day in country.  But it's a good story!

Cooking has been going well.  We are invited over to members houses to eat more often than I was led to believe, which is awesome (since I was told to expect none).  Our apartment is the only one in the mission without a stove and oven, but we do have a hot plate.  We've experimented with a bunch of different recipes and have found some good foods to make.

Me and Elder Antamanov get along really well.  We have pretty similar personalities, plus we enjoy the same music and movies!  We have great talks about all sorts of stuff.

Everything is going pretty well here overall.  I don't have a lot of time on the computer today, because of plans bumping up against internet time today.  But it is always great to hear from you all and I love sending you mail.  You're great, family.

Enjoy New York this week and Happy Birthday, Mom!

Love,

Brandon