Highlights of week 3

Here is what has been going on the past week:

Watching random break dancers downtown. They were actually pretty good. We asked for a picture with them afterwards and as we were leaving they said "peace of you!" I think they meant peace to you or goodbye or something.

I've officially gone to a European soccer game! Ukraine vs. England. It ended up being 1-1, Ukraine scoring in the last two minutes, luckily. It was insane!

Yes, we got jerseys!

Katya had a birthday! She turned 4 and her mom brought cake to share with the class. So delcious.

Brittany's host mom invited some of us girls and her friends over for a sleepover! They dressed us up and wanted me to wear this...

Eating sushi at the sleepover.

They took us to an old football field and surprised us with floating lanterns! Like in tangled!! (Yes Ann Marie, be jealous.) We lit them and watched them float across away in the sky, in UKRAINE! So magical.

The next morning Laria and I woke up early to go clean the church. 2 hours of sleep? Not a good plan. We got to church and found out most of it was cleaned during the week. So all we did was take out the garbage after our hour and a half trek to get there. Luckily our Branch President's family was awesome and dropped us off at Babyn Yar. Babyn Yar is a sight where tens of thousands of Jews were killed in WWII. Many people don't know that Ukraine was hit hard by the Holocaust. This is the memorial sight.

We went downtown to hang out with our new Ukrainian friends, Karina and Lera. They are 15 and speak awesome English and love to show us around and take pictures. Here we are with Spongebob! Random, I know.

It was some fireman day in Ukraine so they had a bunch of fire trucks lined up on the street for pictures! Laria's dad is a firefighter so we had a little too much fun with pictures!

Karina and Lera took us to some random park that was really cool. Here we are in a cat's mouth!

And now in a bunny's! It reminds me of an ugly doll.

Please look at this playground? Mosaic in every piece! It was beautiful and super nice. I think it was based on Alice and Wonderland.

Notice I'm wearing my University of Utah shirt! It was the day of the Utah BYU game. You better believe I was representing the Utes here in Ukraine!

The flower Laria brought me for Clara. Such a sweet friend.

To read Clara's obituary go here

Thanks to everyone for their emails and comments this past week. I love you all so much! I'm so lucky to have such awesome support, even halfway across the world! I'm so grateful to be here. I'm grateful for everything Ukraine is teaching me. I'm grateful for such amazing family and friends back home. I'm grateful for the gospel. I'm grateful for my life. :)