Bob and Alice Preece LDS Mission : Turkey Time!

We got a GREAT letter from my parents today, telling us all about their adventures and Thanksgiving with the elders in their area! And, bonus! We even got some pictures to share!!

December 2, 2013 this is week five of our mission to Donetsk Ukraine. For those not keeping track it is week two and ½ of being in country.

Last Monday evening, we had a Family Home Evening in our apartment for interested persons. One person came. She has been attending English class on Friday evenings, and was interested enough to try this experience as well. Bob taught a lesson on SMARTER goals for the next year. We played a game and ate cookies and ice cream.

Thanksgiving was the big challenge for the week. Please remember there were no Pilgrims settling Ukraine in the early 1500’s. This area was settled at least 3000 years earlier. Thanksgiving is an American holiday. There is no big push for turkeys. In fact the mission leaders started more than a month ago trying to locate a turkey of any kind. They announced that the couples in Donetsk were getting turkeys. We could get one too for a reasonable price. We chose to make this a good Thanksgiving and have a turkey on the table. So we asked them to add our request to the list. Our turkey was supposed to be picked up at a ranch between here and Donetsk and delivered on Monday. There was a lot going on and the driver didn’t have time to make the side trip to us. He said that would be ok. He would be driving by on Wednesday morning and he would deliver it then. Wednesday morning came. No Turkey. Wednesday afternoon came. The phone rang. The driver wasn’t going to be able to make it today, but would be back in town next Monday. (I already said that Thanksgiving is not a Ukrainian holiday, didn’t I?) That was unacceptable. A fresh turkey should be eaten and not left in the refrigerator that long. This was an emergency!

Knowing that elders can leave their district areas for conferences and emergencies, we explained this emergency to the district leader and the zone leader. They agreed that this was a true emergency. Their Thanksgiving was at stake! The district leader spent last Thanksgiving in the MTC. He will be home before the next Thanksgiving comes, so this is his first and last Thanksgiving in country.

It only cost an additional four cab fares. (2 down and 2 back for a pair of elders.) The cab drivers here always drive like they are going to a fire. The thought seems to be that the quicker they can get this one delivered, the sooner they can get started on the next. But it does take a while for an American to realize that it is ok to drive on the wrong side of the road, weave in and out of traffic, and swerve to miss the biggest of the road holes. The elders were only out of the district for four hours and the turkey was at our house.

Imagine this. Alice is standing in the hall with only one eye partially open. This is a full sized turkey if you measure height, but it weighs only 10 pounds. It is Skinny. It is Scrawny. It still has pin feathers! Bob’s guess is that this is a field turkey, closer to wild than to what we grew up thinking a turkey was like. There is no meat to be seen anywhere. It still looked dangerous! The elders were very careful about picking it up to have a picture taken. Bob insisted that it was dead and couldn’t bite them. We realized that Thanksgiving wasn’t saved yet. The elders agreed and ran to the store to buy three packages of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. We found out later that the couples in Donetsk bought whole chickens and roasted them like tiny turkeys. We didn’t think of that. But they had two additional days to consider the turkey. Even with all of that, this was a turkey and he was our turkey. He was to be the center piece of our Thanksgiving.

Bob didn’t sleep well Wednesday night. He dreamed of turkeys and how to cook this one. He finally got up early, researched wild turkey recipes on the internet and decided that skinning this one before cooking would make it look far more like food. It took a bit, but he got it done. Mom Preece had advised to cook a turkey long and slow to keep it moist. So we gave it four hours at 300 degrees. That seemed to work. It was done and moist, what there was of it, for our Thanksgiving feast.

Each missionary companionship brought a favorite dish. One brought two pies and made the gravy. Another mashed potatoes and fresh bread. And the third brought dried bread dressing which was exceptionally good. Adding to that, Alice made layered Jell-O salad and two kinds of vegetables. It was finally Thanksgiving. Each and all of the dishes were excellent!

We ate in true Thanksgiving tradition, everyone had seconds and there was still some left. We visited and played thankful games. At the end we had a district meeting where the topic was charity and loving and caring for your companion. We ended by eating the pies.

On Friday it was time for Bob to have his first solo adventure. No, this was not Christmas shopping on black Friday. It was just that Alice needed the rent money for Saturday morning. The best bank-o-mat is in front of the AMCTOP (in Russian C sounds like S and P sounds like R so it is pronounced “Am store”) grocery store. This is a cash society and even rent is expected to be paid in cash. Our rent is 5000 in local currency plus internet and utilities. Bob was a bit uncomfortable with so much cash. He normally carries only about 100 to 150. He also has always had companions at his side who speak Russian. Not this time. The trip to the store is fairly easy. It involves a bus ride down three stops and walking through a couple blocks along a well-traveled pathway. He survived. Bob also brought home milk and a few groceries. This helped with the weekend food. Our refrigerator was close to empty after thanksgiving.

Saturday was a second trip to the store for additional supply and the rest of the money for a week. It, too, was solo but not quite the adventure the first one was. In the evening there was missionary correlation and a game hour at the church for members and investigators. Bob met the elders on the bus and they walked from the bus stop to the church together. On the way home, the elders took him a different route and stopped at the EKO (pronounced “echo”) store, which is like a large Home Depot to get light bulbs for the apartment. There are some different types of bulbs here that Bob hadn’t seen before. This means that Bob can now get to the church and to a second major shopping area on solos or with Alice in the future. By the end of the day on Saturday all the lights in all the rooms of the apartment worked. It only took eleven bulbs and tubes.

Bob had a great time at church on Sunday. He met the elders on the bus again. It was fast Sunday and he got the opportunity to bear his testimony in Russian. Elder Samuelson helped with translation of the words Bob didn’t know. At least it is a first step and the branch members now know we are here. As we were told would happen, they were looking for singing talent. Bob is now part of the ward choir. He is singing bass for the program next week. They are singing “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”. Bob says the music is easy; it’s just that it is all in Russian and he doesn’t know the words. This must be a good hint that he can learn at least these words. As Bob says, “It is just another adventure.” Thursday with the turkey, Friday with the solo trip, Saturday with the landlord and another trip to store for more supply and Sunday with the branch meetings. He has spent the week having adventures while Alice has worked very hard at getting better. Hopefully she will join in the adventures in the coming week. Bob is great at sharing all the adventures he has each time he comes home. Alice enjoys the stories.

Alice wants to know about the Christmas decorations and the Christmas excitement in the stores. Bob says there isn’t any. Of course that is wrong. It is December. There is Christmas excitement. Bob asks her to remember that in Ukraine the 25^th is only a small holiday. There is a big new year’s holiday on the 1^st, but Christmas is celebrated on the 7^th of January. It seems someone has done the calculations and the western world has it wrong by two weeks. Then there is over 90 years of communist influence to deal with as well.

Notes:

Kontik.

It seems that missions throughout the world have traditions to initiate new missionaries to the mission. For my mission to South Texas it was getting new elders to try a hot pepper. By the end of my mission I really enjoyed them, but the first one was HOT!! Here the tradition is much more enjoyable. It is called Kontik. It amounts to a layer cookie dipped in chocolate so it is completely sealed except for a tiny hole on one side. The cookies come in various flavors. What you do is bite a tiny bit of the cookie from the side opposite the hole, and using the cookie as a straw you suck milk through the new hole and through the cookie bringing the flavor and some soft cookie through. It doesn’t take long for the chocolate to collapse and a milk-wet, tasty cookie is in your hand. Eaten this way the cookies are very good. Eaten without the milk they are less than plain. Once it was explained, we bought some Kontik and had the elders explain and demonstrate the system. Bob says he figured it out instantly. Not only is it fun watching someone do it the first time, but it is a way for elders to get extra cookies! Alice tried it this week and she is now official. We have a picture.

Shopping in Gorlovka. Shopping here is a combination of many shopping experiences.

There is a Renik, which is a large bunch of small stores each owned by a person or a family. They sell everything imaginable some at excellent prices and some not so much. Bob bought a headset for the computer for $9 US (76 rpn). The elders warned that it is not returnable and questioned us the next day to see if it worked. It did. They had talked the shop owner from 100 down to 76 before he wouldn’t budge. Alice got a great winter coat at a super price. For those of you who know Alice’s shopping pattern we had to remind her that everything in non-returnable. At the Renik there is also all kinds of food from fish, which smells really bad to fruits and vegetables at farmer prices, and they come with free dirt. The shops are mostly open air and the ownerless dogs wander in and out with the shoppers. There are all kinds of clothing. This is where we can get the better winter gear we were told about. Both of us still need to get boots if we want them for the winter. We will see as the time approaches. Many people shop at the renik. It is like a party for five hours a day seven days a week. Shopping ends at 2:00pm. Everything at the Renik is cash only.

There are many stores like the ones I remember shopping for back to school in downtown Ogden. Most are well staffed and have lots of merchandise. Since they are only a 2 rpn ride (25 cents) from the Renik, their prices don’t get too much out of line. Some are the same as the Renik asking price. Each of these is a specialty store like the missionary store in Ogden. They sell one group of related items and that is all. A few of the more expensive shops take credit and debit cards, but mostly they prefer cash. There are clothing stores of all kinds. Women’s clothing, children’s clothing, men’s clothing and so on. There seem to be a lot of flower stores near the central town square where singles meet to go on dates. These stores do not negotiate prices, since the people buyers deal with are employees, not owners.

Then there are the new super stores like the AMCTOP and EKO stores. They look in every detail as if they were built and run by the Walmart or Home Depot store chains. It is as easy to shop with a card here as with cash, but you have to remember that there is a flat 20 rpn charge on each foreign purchase on most cards. Carts at These stores are chained one to the next and for ½ rpn deposit you unlock the one you want. The coin is returned when you return the cart. There are never loose carts in the parking lot. You check bags from other shopping when you go in and get it back when you leave. The prices here are generally fairly good and there are a lot of pre-packaged items as you find in grocery stores everywhere. All produce is weighed and stickered in produce so there is no need for scales at the registers. The store where we shop has a large bakery in the back and I suspect they sell bread to the owners of the Renik stores and the restaurants around town. They have the best bread ever, but there is NO soft bread here. The bread generally must be eaten within a day or two since there are no preservatives. This is just like French bread at Walmart. So far Bob has been able to eat this bread with no problem. It is as if high gluten wheat has not found its way to Ukraine as yet, and I hope it never does.

Bob has only shopped at the EKO store one time for specialty light bulbs and tubes. He found the light department and was approached by an associate in a vest. He held up what he was looking for and spoke the Russian number. She took him and the missionary’s right to it and counted out what he needed. Then Bob held up the other kind of bulb and the act was repeated. As they were leaving one of the elders said, “I don’t think they ever found out he doesn’t speak Russian.”

At both of the large box stores Bob has found the checkout people are always seated in their register. There is no scale since there is nothing to weigh. The customers always bag their own. Bags with the store logo are available for ½ rpn (6 cents) if you didn’t bring your own.

Nearly everyone shops by bus. There are very few cars, so people make many small trips to get their supplies.