Week 48, 49, and 50 - August 31, 2020

Hello, friends and fam!!

I'm still alive and love you tons, and am so sorry about being the worst e-mailer of 2020!  

So much has been happening over the past however-many-weeks it's been since I last wrote!!  I wish I could let y'all in on every detail haha.  Thanks everyone so much, though, for all the kind birthday messages!  I love you all so much!!  A bunch of the homies from the mission called me up to wish my a happy birthday as well, and it was the best thing ever.  

Elder Glass even made me the best birthday music video thing 😂. 

We even konteeked with Николай и Анна to celebrate!!  They were so sweet and gave me birthday wishes lol.  Love this mission!!))

I got my new companion, Elder Ospina!  He's from Colombia/Canada.  He's awesome, I love the guy.  

These three weeks have honestly been so legit together.  We have been getting tons of work done, he speaks super good Russian so that's been helping a ton, and I have been teaching him the ways of звёздые империи (that card game we always play), but literally crush him every time.  I have never beat anyone so bad in this game.  I'm scared it's crushing his spirit lol.  

In short, this transfer has been awesome with him thus far.  I will probably stay here with him one more transfer after this one, and send him off seeing as that he will he finishing his mission then.  Sidenote, he has taught me new ways to kill spiders... with homemade mini flame throwers lol.  

Also, we bought a taser and he has scared me with it multiple times already lol. 

Also, if anyone is wondering why I added the picture of the wall art, it's because I thought the man looked like a different race version of Stephan Curry 😂.  

Also, we found the CUTESTTT porky pine (hedgehog), omg adorable haha.  

We finally have the opportunity to join an in-person Zone Conference this Friday as well!!  It's our first one in forever, we are so excited!!))

I love you all so much and will try to be better with the emails!!  Enjoy all these pictures, though, in the meantime!!))

Elder Wilde ❤

Pics of the Week:

Week 47 - August 10, 2020

Всем приветик!)

Water problem to start off the email... so they came and fixed the shower, and then the washing machine ended up being broken too!!  So we haven't been able to wash our clothes for the last week... let's just say were nearing our last pairs of clean clothes... 

Transfers came!!  Holy our transfers were HUGE.  So much changed because 13 people are leaving our mission!!  It was crazy.  Older Olsen is being moved to the Odessa Zone after being here in Sumy already for 9 months straight.  My new companion will be coming this Friday!!  Well, I am driving down to Kharkiv to drop my companion off, and pick up my new comp!!  Three hour drive there, three hour drive back. ROAD TRIPPP!!  He only has two transfers left, and I have heard so many great things about him!  I hear his Russian is super good, so I'm super excited for him to just drill me and correct all my mistakes so I can speak even better!!  I've been asking for a fluent comp for a while, WOOO I'm so excited!!  More updates for him next week!!  However, my whole district is leaving, and sisters won't be coming back, so it's just gonna be me and my comp alone wayyyyy out here in Sumy.  That part may be a little rough 'cuz it's nice to have that extra companionship here, and our Sisters were way fun, but I'm sure we will manage!!  Haha.  In commemoration of this being our last time as a district together, we of course celebrated with district konteeks haha.

This week we met with a ton of people in person, and even ran into a ton of members!!  It was AWESOME!  I took a ton of pictures and videos, so enjoy!  

Fat shout out to the pictures with the бабушки (grandmas) because I have been working on getting a picture with them for weeks now lol. FINALLY I GOT IN.  (Our grandma/bob is the one in the purple-like jeans and stuff lol.  She's our neighbor).  At first, she was trying to shoo me away with her cane, but the other bob told her to let us take a picture with them and she gave in!!  We were all laughing, good times, those pictures are legend lol.

Enjoy the pictures and videos everyone!!  Love you all, you're amazing, keep pressing forward. 

Старейшина Вайлд ❤

Pics of the Week

Elder Wilde and Elder Olsen make their own borscht!

Week 46 - August 3, 2020

Hello, hello!!  Got some more quick updates for y'all this week!

Well, our mission president's car broke down so we never ended up going to Kharkiv this week lol.  It was a bummer, but okay!  We got other news this week that our mission has been accepted to enter into Stage 1 of quarantine!!  WOOO! Pretty much what that means is that we can now meet with members and people we teach, outside, and socially distanced.  We can also bring members the sacrament!! Such great stuff!!  I'm gonna start to meet members for the first time after being here for months!!  WOOO!! 

When the Kharkiv meeting got canceled, Elder Olsen and I decided to do a little renovation to our apartment lol.  We moved around our beds, desks, couches, and other furniture, and now our apartment is popping!!  Legit, call us up anytime you want some renovations, we got your back)).

And okay, so y'all probably thought that after about two months of water problems, all would be fine. right??  Well, nope.  

We had a week's rest from water problems, and then the shower decided to take a LEAK.  Apparently it has been leaking for the last few weeks, to the floor beneath us (which is actually this super abandoned hall behind a store, so it wasn't KILLING anyone).  But so, they sent a plumber to come tell us.  And comes up and says, "Yeah, you can't shower until someone comes and fixes this."  So.... we haven't showered for four days now.  AND LET ME TELL YOU, I LOVE SHOWERING.  So, that has been a big blow.  And then we went downstairs to check out the problem, and the lady was highkey sassing and going off on us.  And I'm all just like, "Lady, do you think we wanted this to happen?  Do you think we knew this was happening?  Do you think if we did know, we would have fixed it?  Do you think we are going to fix it?  Yes, we're going to, so everything is fine!  And lastly, we can't even shower until it's fixed, so trust me when I also say that I want it fixed too!!" lolol.  We, also, only turn the water on for the toilet under extreme cases or else the pipes that hold the water would leak... water problems in this apartment don't end lol.  We just love it!! 😂  Honestly, though, love that I can add this to the mission stories.  I think all that I'm gonna remember from my mission 50 years from now, might actually even just be this water!!😂

Much love,

Elder Wilde