Lugansk

Lugansk was a three hour drive East of Donetsk. It was one of the branches that fell under the mission president and therefore we visited there fairly often. At times, it seemed like we were there twice a month because of all the activity going on in this branch. The branch president, President Letvidov, was just about the nicest and most humble man we had ever met (I wrote an article about him blessing Elder Eyring). He was so worried about how to tend for his little flock. He would often call me on Mondays and talk about questions which had been raised by members the previous day. We always had interesting discussions. The missionaries loved working in Lugansk. They had a number of programs going and the branch seemed to grow. English classes were productive and lots of young people were joining the church. Some of them eventually went on missions. I remember one day during a zone conference in Donetsk, all the missionaries arrived with new rabbit fur shopkas. Apparently for Thanksgiving they wanted to have rabbit, they decided to buy rabbits, kill them, eat them, and then have their furs made into shopkas and they did this all on their own. The missionaries came to the zone conferences with an “official” church driver. The taxi driver drove them so often that he had a sign made that he would put up in the window of his van – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He loved the missionaries but didn’t seem interested in getting baptized. We met in two different buildings while we were there and both of the sites were old, big, and cold. It was not hard to pay attention in meetings because we were freezing in the wintertime. The members seemed oblivious to this discomfort and just took it in stride. We marveled at their faithfulness and desire to come to church. We have been told they are meeting in a nice facility at this time and we hope that is true. They really deserve it. When we first started going to Lugansk, we would leave on a Saturday afternoon and stay over night in the Druzbah Hotel. The rooms were old initially and then they decided to renovate the second floor and make some nicer accommodations. This made staying there much more pleasant. The hotel had a good restaurant and there was a good Ukrainian restaurant near the church rental. We remember eating one night in the hotel restaurant and they were playing some music that was not on the approved music list. The Elders were getting worried until I told them to relax because they were playing some country music that we hadn’t heard for months. Later in the mission, we would just get up early on Sunday and drive to Lugansk stay all day and drive back. I don’t recall a missionary ever saying they disliked serving in Lugansk. The missionaries had good apartments and seemed really involved with the branch. We also let them hold open houses and sponsor city concerts in our rentals. The city seemed to be supportive of all our activities. We even rented the Children’s Theatre one night for our jump rope program which was a huge success. Elder Cunningham was a seven time world jump rope champion who took over the stop smoking puppet show program and added a little twist which included his jump rope skills. The puppet show plus the jump rope program made for a very entertaining night. The missionaries from Lugansk attended zone conferences in Donetsk. It was always nice to see them and hear about their experiences.