Kharkov

Kharkov was a very interesting city for us. We could not tell if the minister of religion liked us or not. We were constantly fighting him about the number of missionaries in the city. Early in our mission, the missionaries were kicked out of Kharkov. We only had three missionaries who could legally stay in the city. They did a marvelous job of keeping everything going and getting the members involved in missionary work. We moved the other missionaries to Donetsk and they worked hard getting converts in Donetsk for a couple of months. We don’t think being kicked out hurt the over all missionary effort - just another road bump in the life of a missionary. The three missionaries who stayed in Kharkov did not want to leave the city. When we did transfer them, they let us know how disappointed they were with us. They wanted to stay in their beloved city. A few of the Kharkov police loved messing with the missionaries. For some strange reason, we had more missionaries taken to jail in Kharkov than any other city. One missionary was arrested seven times. He also stepped on a needle that went through his shoe into his foot and was bitten by a dog which required him taking the rabies shots series. He has the record for bad luck in Kharkov and we are sure it will stay the record for years. We had a lot of conspiracy theorists talking about our missionaries being watched and targeted but we think it was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or just one or two policemen who like to harass missionaries. We loved holding the zone conferences in the National Hotel. It was so convenient to hold interviews in our hotel room one day and the next day to hold the zone conference in the hotel. We used two different rooms – one room was smaller and had some black leather chairs and we could open the windows if needed. The other room was just off of the restaurant and we used this room when we had multiple zones at a conference. The only draw back in this room was it could get very hot in the summer time. We loved hearing about the work in Kharkov at these conferences. We invited President Ashannan to some of the conferences and if I had it to do over again we would have invited him more. We loved him and we were extremely happy when his wife was baptized. He added a different perspective to the zone conference meetings. We enjoyed it when the missionaries from Poltava and Sumy came to the conferences. We think they enjoyed it also. We liked to see old companions getting together and friendships being renewed. It was also nice to play soccer or ultimate Frisbee together. It was fun to move the zone conferences from the hotel to our chapel which was just a little drive from the hotel in Alekceevka. We were really surprised when the city let us put the satellite dish on the building our chapel was in so we could see the Nauvoo temple dedication. This was a very historic event in the history of the church. District conferences were wonderful in Kharkov. President Ashannan was always prepared and did an outstanding job leading the church in this city. We met monthly with him when we were in the city and had pleasant conversations. He was always prepared when the area presidency came to town. We are not sure that the missionaries liked translating for us when President McQueen did temple recommend interviews and Sister McQueen met with members out in the old dentist building. We remember one winter evening when our car was broken into and all our Christmas packages stolen. This was not a good night. We had temple recommend interviews that lasted until about 1130 and then we went to our car and found a couple of windows broken and a tire slashed and all the packages missing. Elder Roberts was with us and helped us get through this situation. There were numerous indications of a set up. We enjoyed walking around Kharkov in the morning. We walked around Liberty Square a lot and it is fun to have a webcam looking at the square. Our favorite place to eat was at Norma’s. We also liked the donut/pizza place. We had a few meals at the hotel and it was also fine. We also liked the McDonalds and Baskin Robbins place. On the drive to Kharkov, we passed Slovonogorsk and Izum. Two places that we thought were fairly beautiful. We took pictures with almost every assistant companionship at a rest stop near Izum. The scenery overlooked a river and some open fields which would have made a really neat 18 hole golf course. Izum was known for the mushrooms grown in the area. They had some “renoks” that sold nothing but bottled mushrooms. The police also set up some interesting speed traps along the road to Kharkov. We were stopped one time for the “intent to pass” and fined 17 griven. We tried to get as many missionaries as possible to Slovonogorsk to see the lime stone caves on the Russian Orthodox Monastery compound. Sister McQueen was apprehended one time for taking a picture of a priest without permission. The assistants had to rescue her from the security guard. We told him we would give him the film but after a discussion he let us keep the film and we left. We gave one of our Ukrainian guides a Book of Mormon. The first Book of Mormon placed in this area of Ukraine. We really didn’t like driving to Kharkov during or after a snow storm. There were lots of hills and the driving was dangerous. During the winter of 1999, we had so much snow we had to take the train to Kharkov. The next two winters were fine and there was only one other time that we were delayed in getting to Kharkov because of the snow, but that was only a one day delay.