Seeing Ukraine...Missionary Style

I started this blog posting many months ago but never took the time to finish it.  I thought I would go ahead and post it now even though all of this information is over six months old.

Vivian and I are leaving for Kharkiv today as part of our missionary assignment.  Tomorrow we will be attending sacrament meeting in the morning, training the district priesthood leaders and auditors in the afternoon and attending a fireside in the afternoon to hear the new mission president, President Richard L. Wirthlin, speak.  On Monday morning we will do a little sightseeing.  We are looking forward to going to a beautiful park near where are hotel is.  Then in the afternoon we will board a train to take us back to Kyiv.  I will post some pictures from our weekend and you can compare them to the ones you will see later in this post.

And Now...on with the show

In our primary assignment as missionaries in Ukraine we have the opportunity once every six months to travel to a number of the major cities where the Church has established congregations. We train the priesthood leadership in these cities on the policies and procedures pertaining to the audit of Church funds by these congregations.

From December 2017 through early February 2018 we made training visits to Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkiv, L'viv and Odessa.   What follows are some photos of these cities.  We had a great time traveling to these places and see a little more of Ukraine outside of our home base in Kyiv and meeting with faithful and devoted Ukrainian Saints.

Dnepropetrovsk - December 2017

Our first trip outside of Kyiv was to this city.  We traveled by train which took about 5 hours.  This city is in the eastern part of Ukraine and sits along the Dnepro River.  It is the 3rd largest city in Ukraine.  We didn't do much sightseeing on this trip.  Travel Friday,  Meeting on Saturday.  Travel Sat eve back to Kyiv.

In the first class car of the Intercity train to Dnepropetrovsk

 Looking down on the train after arriving in Dnepropetrovsk.  The building is the back side of the train station.  The lettering on the building spells out "Dnepro" in Ukrainian.

So the taxi cab driver took us from the train station to our hotel...

Which was across the street.  Whew!

The view from our hotel room looking toward the downtown area

The Holy Trinity Cathedral on our walking tour of downtown Dnepropetrovsk Friday evening

The Central Branch Church Building where we did our training

 This is Sergei Podol'skii.  The Dnpropetrovsk Mission Audit Committee Chairman.  He made all the physical arrangements for our training meeting and met us Saturday morning to unlock the gate and let us in.  This building is tucked behind retail buildings on a main street in the downtown area.  It is hard to find with a nondescript gate the only way to get in.  He is one of the pioneers of the Church in the Dnepro area.  He spoke very little English and I speak very little Russian but somehow we were able to communicate with each other.

We met with these wonderful brethren to discuss and train.  The man on the left is Aleksandr Cheban.  He is the Donetsk District President and oversees the welfare of Church members who live in the war-torn area known as the Donbass Region of Ukraine.  His faith is incredible and stories and pictures of the members that live in this area are unforgettable.  He acted as my translator.  He served as a young LDS missionary in the United States and he sounds like an American when he speaks.  

This is the way we roll.  On our way to the train station after the training meeting.  

This walking strip is right down the middle of  the street outside of where the Church building.  Note the bus on the left.  This is a common mode of transportation.  It's called a "marshrutka"; a small bus that you pack as many people in as humanly possible and then add 10 more!  It's how we got from the picture above to the train station.

This is the front of the train station.  The letters on either side of the building spell "Vokzal" meaning "railway station".  This concluded our visit to Dnepropetrovsk and was our gateway back to Kyiv.

Kharkiv - January 13 - 15 , 2018

Our next trip was to Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1.4 million.  It is located 480 kilometers (300 miles) east of Kyiv and 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of the Russian border.  We took the intercity train from Kyiv to Kharkiv and back again.  One way took about 6 hours.  We left on Saturday and returned on Monday.  Very nice trip and we saw a lot of the country.

Due to it's proximity to Russia, Russian is primarily the language spoken there.  This city has a great history and I refer you to Wikipedia for all the details.  It is a city rich in culture, education and the arts.  

We did our training Sunday evening so we had part of Sunday and Monday to walk around the central part of the city and take in the sights and sounds and smells.  Our hotel was in a central spot so we saw Freedom Square and the National University of Kharkiv.

Pictures will follow.  Please note, although the sun was shining and the sky was blue the temperature was 5℉.

Central (downtown)

We arrived by train early in the evening and left during the afternoon.  A couple of views of the train station.

 The street where the Kharkiv Central Branch of the Church is located (red brick-like building on the right)

Me at the gate to the Church building (left).  The entrance beyond the gate to the Kharkiv Central Branch where we attended Church on Sunday and then trained priesthood leaders later Sunday afternoon

Priesthood leaders I had the opportunity to instruct on the nuances of performing financial audits of branches (formal, small congregations) of the Church.  These leaders are the auditors and various branch presidents representing various branches of the Church in the Kharkiv District.  Wonderful group of men.  Vivian is taking the picture.

Above left - the Kharkiv Palace Hotel - one of the best in the city.  Above right - Vivian with a metallic snowman in front of the hotel.  Below center - the view from our hotel room of part of the central part of the city.  

The three pictures above are of Freedom Square.  At this time of the year it was dressed up for Christmas; lots of activities, food stands and an ice skating rink.  The picture above left shows one end of the square and the picture below center shows the opposite end of the square.  This is the 6th largest city square in Europe and the 12th largest in the world (according to Wikipedia)

This is the Kharkiv Regional Administrative Building.  During the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution this building was occupied by Ukrainian separatists (sympathetic to Moscow).  They eventually left after not receiving support to have Kharkiv separate from Ukraine.

 I love this picture of a little Ukrainian girl out with her babushka.  This is typical dress for the little kids during the winter time.  They are so cute and really bring smiles to our face whenever we see them.  This was taken on Freedom Square.  I was able to sneak taking the picture.  Ukrainians are very "guarded" in the demeanor and I would not have asked them to pose for a picture since I didn't know them.

This soccer ball was in the lobby of the Kharkiv Palace Hotel.  In 2012 Kharkiv was the host city for the UEFA Euro Championships (Union of European Football Association).