Aug 27, 2012
Hello Family!!! I’m writing to
you on a key board that has both Russian lettering and English, so it’s pretty
difficult for the eyes J. Oh,
and not to mention that there are kids all around me on computers playing video
games and of course speaking better Russian than me J
So, I'm here in Ukraine! And how fantastic
that is! The people are amazing...amazingly crazy….. but I love them! It’s not too hot here and not too cold, but it
is pretty humid.
I really don’t know any other way
to describe to you my days other than to just tell you them in order. I better start with the blessing-filled
airplane ride over here J
{Elder Claypool and the other six missionaries traveling with him on
8/21 to Ukraine were given phone cards to call their families while in transit
from Denver…a last “good-bye” the church allows missionaries to do that serve
outside the USA, which we were blessed to hear his voice, a few experiences,
had family prayer on the phone together, and we listened to him speak for 5 minutes non-stop “all in Russian”
sharing his testimony and the story of the young 14 yr-old boy, Joseph Smith,
commonly referred to by church members as “The First Vision” which started the
process of the restored church. Of
course we couldn’t judge his Russian but we were amazed how it sounded}
I got off the phone with you
all, which I was very grateful for, and was then immediately approached by a
man named Kyle in the airport. He started asking me questions about what I was
doing, what I believed in etc., and we ended up sitting there and sharing a
short message with him. He was a Bible scholar training to become a pastor and was
headed to Israel for an internship, so we shared a ton of scriptures with him
and vise versa. Although he was more so
trying to tell us very politely that "teaching false truths has eternal
consequences and [he] just didn’t want [us] to waste away 2 years that could affect
[our] eternity." But, it was still
wonderful to bear my testimony and give out my first preglashenyea (that is my best
russian-english I can use for "invitation" to learn more about the
church). Then we hopped on our flight to DC, talked to the lady next to us and
actually found out that a group of missionaries in our travel party were
sitting directly behind two Ukrainians from Kiev who spoke little to no
English. With a 7 hour flight to Munich and plenty of missionaries with plenty
of mixed new vocabulary, we were able to teach them and even place a Book of
Mormon! We helped them in many aspects with translation and such, but it was
such a blessing from Heavenly Father to experience a real Ukrainian in a
friendly atmosphere before being submersed in it completely J And before all that, we even were able to talk
to a member of the US's Department of Defense in DC and give him a Book of Mormon.
Between all of us 12 missionaries on that flight to Ukraine, we were able to
talk to over 10 people, placed 4 copies of the Book of Mormon, and many pass-along
cards too. What a blessing! {pass-along cards have brief information about
the church and a contact for people to call to get missionaries to come by
their home. More can be learned as www.mormon.org }
We finally arrived in beautiful
Ukraine. It was kind of funny actually because when we got off the plane,
looked around to see the beautiful country, and we see pretty much nothing as
it is a very flat country on the eastern side. President and Sister Campero {there are approximately 340 missions around
the world and each mission has a mission president and wife that manage the
territory and the approx 140-200 missionaries coming and going in their mission. MaKade’s mission president couple is from
Bolivia} were there to greet us at the airport with a big hug saying
"Welcome to the best mission in the world!" as well as the
Assistants, Elders Smith and Maronchenko, a native from Russia. We arrived at
the mission home, emailed you, then headed to President's Kfarteera (in Russian
that means apartment) to eat a wonderful first meal in Ukraine (Bolivian, ha
ha). We then had a meeting where we
talked about the mission standards, rules, etc and received all the paperwork,
etc, finishing it all up with a very tiring testimony meeting since we were all
about to pass out (smile). Elders Newey,
Major, and I headed to the office Elder's apartment for the night to catch up
on some much needed sleep. I couldn’t believe I was actually here!
The next day we were able to have
our interviews with the President then go contacting! President Campero is an
absolutely incredible man who loves us very dearly and we were able to have a wonderful
interview. I then left the apartment with the Zone Leaders {some missionaries are assigned duties such as District or Zone
leaders} from the area with Sister Helsten and Elder Berger to go
contacting for the first time! A lot of people simply said no, but there was
one babooshka who was yelling and yelling and yelling at us while the Zone
leader spoke, and was pretty angry...or so I thought she was. I asked my most
common phrase in English I use these days, "Okay, so what did she
say?" and I found out that she was actually giving us a very kind blessing
in Russian! You have to love the culture
here! We also got to talk with a wonderful man named Vladimir who was sitting
in his car when we went on splits with Brother Yuri {members
of the church are called “brother” or “sister”, followed by their last name. “Split” is a word used when one missionary
goes with another member and the other missionary goes with another
member. Missionaries are required to be
with their companion unless they divide up on ‘splits’}.
Later that day was the moment of
truth: Transfer Meeting! {“transfers” are
when missionaries get a new companion and might move to a different area within
the mission. Normally a companionship
changes every three months, and a missionary will get transferred to a
different area/city every 4-6 months}. We had a wonderful meeting with about 50% of
the missionaries in the mission in attendance {because most missions cover large geographic areas you cannot always
get them all together for a meeting}. I was able to bear my testimony to which the
President said I was apparently like some other missionary who had just left (smile). I appreciated the compliment. I was then paired up with my new companion,
after we all stood in a big circle around the room, Elder Harvey. He is a very
fun, funny, and light-hearted Elder who has 3 months left on his mission. We were called to serve together in the
Petrovsky area of Donetsk itself! We
packed up our bags, got in a taxi and headed to the kfarteera with Elders
Harvey, Russo (our district leader and close friend of Elder Harvey) and Elder
Samuelson. Who'd a thought we'd be in a taxi together in the same district, in
the same area, in a country half way around the world, swerving in and out of
near death experiences synonymous with Ukrainian traffic?! Amazing right!! {Elder Samuelson is another young man from
Spokane that graduated high school with MaKade from Central Valley High}
So after being settled in…the
work began...
We wake up at 6:30 in the morning,
get dressed and go contacting from 7am-8:30am, come back to have personal study,
and companionship study, take an extra hour of study for training, and then personal
language study. Then, the rest of the day is sacred proselyting time {proselyting is when missionaries walk
around or knock on a door asking if they can share a message}. We have been
able to talk to a lot of wonderful people here in Ukraine the last few days ---
mostly rejection, or they are too busy, or simply say no thanks, and many have
had too much to drink the night before (very common since we've already
celebrated two holidays this week) and some are interested in what we have to
share --- This area has not traditionally been very successful when it comes to
finding people, which is the very first step of being able to fulfill our
purpose. So, naturally, my thoughts have been focused on finding. We try to
talk to every person we can on the streets and at least say hi to all we pass.
They speak really fast and I pretty much stop them and say a few things and
then hand it over to my companion, but it is wonderful. It’s quite funny though
because so far the nicest people to us are either older women, older
intoxicated individuals, or (my personal favorite) the members of the church that
I have no clue they are members until we go and talk to them or make a comment
like "wow look at that family, they definitely would listen to our
message!" (smile) The People are wonderful here!
There are unfortunately a lot of
restrictions that have been placed on the work due to previous missionaries and
what they felt was best, or didn’t work, and so sometimes I feel like I’m
rocking the boat...but I just want to do all that I can for these people
regardless of what they look like, what they do, how they seem, or what we feel
like doing. I love the story of Ether. I
was able to read it again the other day and to see how focused it is on
missionary work. I'd never recognized it before. He speaks of how with his
faith and diligence, the Lord would bless him. I know that if we give it
literally our all, break pseudo restrictions, and have complete faith in God
that He IS preparing people in this area and that we WILL find, teach and
baptize, bringing others to their Savior, then we cannot hope for anything but
the blessings of the Lord. We have some things that are kosher here in the
field that have become a part of the culture that is not in accordance with the
exact rules of the mission, but we will fix that. I don’t want to feel like I
am being a huge boat rocker to the point where we lose unity in our
companionship, but I really feel like little by little we can do this. Obedience to all rules.
Sunday I was able to attend our
wonderful branch in Petrovsky and see how wonderful, loving, and young the
members are. I couldn’t understand anything but did get to bear my testimony to
them and share Alma 31:34-35 with the message that together we could seriously
help others come unto Christ. I just need to have patience and be more in-tune
to the Spirit in my teaching.
We also have and are going
through the area book to find less actives and former investigators. Most of
them do not really want to be talked to again, but one former investigator had
a really cool story in finding her. We
had knocked on doors trying to find investigators (which again was unheard of
in the area) and we were not having much success. We tried to find this one lady named
Galleena. In Ukraine everyone lives in kfarteeras with a main door to get to
the stair case and then individual kfarteera doors inside. Well, you have to have a key or call to get in
which can be difficult at times, but we were able to miraculously get in. We
let these two little girls into the elevator first since it was so small and
then took it later (elevators are pretty spooky here). We got to the floor to
see an open door and said jokingly, "hope that’s not ours"...but, it
was (smile) and what made it even better was that the two girls were the girls
that this lady nannies...service scores bonus points. She immediately invited us in, closed all the
doors and windows, turned on the air conditioning, grabbed her Bible and Book
of Mormon and sat down ready to be taught. I was a little in shock, and wasn’t
really sure what to say because I had never gotten past the typical "would
you like to hear more about our message" part...(smile). She was super kind and we set up a return
appointment with even more potential.
Heavenly Father has blessed us so
much and can only make me want to serve more. This is hard work, but it is all
worth. Even the turn downs, the rude
people who yell at us ( which I cannot understand yet so it’s not that bad), or
even the investigators that don’t show up for the 5th time an appointment was
made, I know that this is His work. I have a lot to work on, a lot of fear to
replace with faith (especially in the language), and a lot of things to improve
on. As long as I am working and
improving each day, I know I cannot go wrong.
I love you all so much and am so
glad to hear from you. I'll keep praying for all of you and do my best for my
Father in Heaven, Savior, and you all!
с любовью
Старейшина Макэйдъ Клейпул
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