And so it begins!

I have quite a bit to catch up on, but since I have so much else to do and so little time, you are getting the shorter, sweeter more illustrated version!

Sunday morning twenty something ILP-ers trekked (and it is a trek let me tell you) to church by metro, buses and of course lots of walking. We attend church at a wonderful little chapel sharing the same property as the beautiful Kyiv temple! After a forty minute travel from the apartment to the end of the red line on the metro and from there another 20 minute bus ride to our actual stop, the temple was a wonderful sight for so many reasons!
Though I was bringing in the tail-end of the group, we only missed the first twenty minutes which is pretty good for our first day tracking everyone down and managing to find it with out any help from our Ukrainian friends!
Sacrament meeting was amazing. I adored it. The speakers, all fairly recent converts, touched my heart and dare I say I felt the spirit more in this day than I have for a while. It's amazing that within minutes of arriving to sacrament the spirit could testify so sweetly and strongly that this church is indeed true, not just in Utah but here in Ukraine - it is the only true church upon the whole earth! It testified to me the power of missionary work and its importance, and how we can all be missionaries through our examples and our willingness to share the gospel with others. These speakers, the two sweet young Ukrainian women and the man from Turkey upon hearing the truth each embraced the gospel so strongly and based their lives around Christ with out any hesitation, they are amazing examples to me. I know I am supposed to be here at this time and no I will learn and have much to learn about the gospel for myself!

..some of the group!..

Church was awesome. I am so thrilled we have it hear to attend each week. They have institute and family home evening, after this first week of settling into teaching schedules I will look forward to attending those as well!

We had to break the Sabbath. We literally had no food in our apartment and it being evening time and our last meal being the veggies and chips the branch supplied for munch and mingle, it had to be done! 

Forgive us.

The grocery store made me so excited though, our cooking resources are endless! Whole aisles of artisan bread and cheese! Pastas, chips, muesli, crackers, yogurt, kefir, veggies, fruit - I even found one of my most favorite fruits from China! Ooh, I am such a foody, I love food. They have really good fruit juice here too so I guess I am a juicey now as well! 

 Cami and myself (notice my ginormous bag)

now with John - one of my teachers who enjoys foods like frog legs and horse meat

We ended our long, beautiful, super cold Sunday with a delicious pasta dinner. Lights out and in bed my 8:30 - we. are. CHAMPIONS!

-SIDE NOTE- Last night, I was pretty positive we were being bombed. After my heart nearly jumped out of my chest and I was trying to figure out how to gather all 12 of my teachers in the rubble we realized that the load window rattling cracks were from a VERY RANDOM fire works display going off two blocks away?! What the heck Kyiv! Are you trying to give me a heart attack??

Today was the first day official day of teaching for my teachers. I can only visit one school per day since the travel for me to any school is forty minutes to an hour long so I spent ten hours at Nyvky school (+two hours traveling too and from) with six of my teachers doing my best to help them feel more adjusted and familiar with the teaching routine and method. It is a whole different story once you get into it and are actually in front of the kids! Everyone is doing great though. It will take us this week and then some to really get it all figured, but I know it will get better. My group is great. I couldn't ask for a better bunch.

Tis late and another long day is ahead, so like always - good morning Utah and good night Ukraine!

 ..on the way to the metro..

 ..the most epic landmark on my way to Nyvky school..

 ..outside attire (notice my amazing, practical, so worth telling Ty to get it for me for Christmas FANNY PACK)..

 ..inside attire + awkward stance do to being a nerd and using the 2 second camera timer..