Church at the Alekseevkaya branch

We arrived in the Kharkov train station at 6:30am on Sunday morning. Which wasn't that bad at the time. We went to our hotel to see if they would let us check in, but they said that it was too early and that we would have to either pay for a half day or come back at ten o'clock. They did allow us to leave our bags in their locked storage room for the day. We then went out to the park for a little breakfast picnic since it was Sunday and we didn't want to spend any more money than we had too.
We then walked around and looked at some sites. Nate wanted to show Natalie where the baptisms used to take place and set off up Pushkinskaya toward the sport complex. Nate didn't remember how long the distance was and so it took almost a half an hour to get there. All the while Natalie was in her church shoes. She is a trooper.
After that it was almost time to meet the Chervikovs and go with them to church. We got on the metro and rode it to 23 August station to see a giant statue of a solder. Who would have guessed that there would be a WWII statue in a former soviet city. Nate did, of course, and that is why we were meeting there. We forgot to get a picture. Maybe tomorrow.



Once we got to the branch, thy showed us around before sacrament meeting started. It is a nice little hall that the church has leased for the branch. The most ironic part is the nice mural of Lenin on the outside.
The branch was very excited to have visitors and a lot of people remembered Nate and wanted to say how pretty they thought Natalie was. One very nice lady even commented that Natalie looks Ukranian! The branch president wanted Nate to bear his testimony and say a few words. Being a good sport Nate did his best. Everyone said that it was very good and they couldn't believe that after 15 years he could still speak as well as he can. Luckily for Natalie, they have an English Sunday school and third hour because they have a lot of member from Africa come to study in Kharkov.



After church we went over to the Chervikovs apartment. This was one of the first places Nate went when he was a new missionary in Kharkov. Back them the Chervikovs were investigators and Nate had no idea what was going on. Luda made borsht and meat filled bilini. All was very good and better than the Russian food Nate try to make at home.


The rest of the day we spent relaxing and trying to recoup for the big cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.


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Location:Kharkov, Ukraine