Ballet!

We went to an actual Russian Ballet! It was amazing! We saw the Swan Lake. The costumes and dancers were amazing! The building was breath taking! It was so neat! The best part was, our host mom was trying to dress Breanne and me up with way elaborate jewelry that she had hand made, and when I had a shirt on under my dress, she asked me, “why you have this?” I told her it was more comfortable for me. Then she went on to discourage my wearing it. But, I finally prevailed and we were fancied up for the elaborate Ballet! Modesty and all. It was way neat! We are going to another one on Thursday (Romeo and Juliet), and this time, I will take my camera.

Another week in this awesome place! They tell you that the third week is the hardest, and well I am a believer, cause it was pretty dang rough. The kids were PsYcHoO! Like, we are talking crazy talk! It is so hard to teach them right now, we have pretty much been placed in these positions with a few rules and one direction, to have them know English by the time you leave. They want you to contrivance as much creativity as possible, but it is fairly difficult. I never realized how high maintenance children are. They are always requiring attention and something to entertain them. They have vast sponges for brains that are trapped in tiny little bodies that require infinite experimenting. But, they are the greatest kids ever! Just testing the waters a bit too much. And winning. They are so smart, just misunderstood, because they honestly have very little knowledge of what we are saying to them. But, I hope it goes better this week. I have lots of things planned and I have things to keep their little minds entertained and active if things start boring them. . . lots of backup plans.

Did you know that you can click on the picture and it will grow? I just found that out.

the teaching is as psycho as ever! the kids are wild! and i mean WiLd! But, they are so cute! hopefully soon we will figure them out. Everything has been so good. I can't believe I have only been here for two weeks, it feels like I have lived here my whole life, but just never really understood anyone or anything. But, then again as i was introducing the calendar and the day of the week to the kids this morning, I kept pointing to September 3 instead of the 10, time is just zooming by. We are always doing something! Walking, watching, mostly walking, Eating, Planning, Reading . . . Breanne and I have a goal to finish the Book of Mormon by the time we leave, we started last week and are on page 70. We have a schedule worked out and everything! It has been going good so far. My testimony has grown so much since I have been here. My love for the gospel, my family, friends, and how I was raised has increased 20 fold! It is so neat to be here. I am learning so much and growing everyday. (Not to mislead you though Amber, I am shrinking. :) down by 17, only 7 more to go! But seriously! Life is grand! I love all of you so much! Thanks for all of your support! Love yah tonz! Have fun and good luck with all of your endeavors! :)

The attempt at teaching has commenced.

We have started teaching the kids! And I tell you what . . . They are C-r-A-z-Y! They are definitely testing the waters this first week. It didn’t help that we had no idea what we were doing – at all. But, now we have a general grasp of how things go and what we need to do. We need to put so much effort into teaching these kids. We have to be just as energetic as them in order to focus their attention so that they don’t go to wild. They always need to be captivated by what we are doing. So, planning a lesson is essential. And not just simply planning them, but going into explicit detail and having at least 8 different things to look at within a 20 minute lesson period. It makes me wonder how my teachers dealt with my classes, cause I know there were some crazy uncontrollable kids. Hopefully I will figure it out and it will get better. There is one boy that just goes extremely nuts!!! And he drags everyone in the class with him on all of his crazy episodes! It is way funny to watch it happen though. Cause there is one girl that is seriously the most entertaining thing I have ever seen. Maybe we will get a video of her going psycho (the epitome of a wilderness wild child). Cause seriously! I laugh so hard!!! But, then it gets bad because all of the kids spiral into this crazy cyclone of terror. It is way fun though! I love the kids so much already! It is going to be way hard to leave them. But, for now, we will just enjoy all of the time that we have together. Crazy fun!

Experiencing Kiev first Hand. . . or foot.

So, I thought that we walked a LONG way last time. But, that was before we took our walk yesterday!! HOLY CAZOLY! And if I thought it was hot last. . . Boy was I mistaken! It got up to at least 34 degrees celsius (which is 93.2 degrees fahrenheit) And to top it off, we got home, and naturally had a bowl of boiling bot borsch and a cup of boiling hot water to quench our thirst! But, at least I got to play in this fountain that cascaded over the stairs. Yay! But, we saw some pretty sweet stuff yesterday. Our host mom took us All over the place, Pretty much saw the entire city of Kiev on foot. It was actually really neat. We will have to have a get together when I get back to look at all of my pictures Because, the internet just doesn't have enough juice.

The Gang

We are always waiting for our group. We will stop and won't get started for 10 minutes some times. Whoo! And I tell you what. . . for those of us with ADD that is not a very easy task. But, it is worth it. I get to get some sweet pictures while we are stopped. This day, we walked down a street called Kreschateek. On weekends, they close off all of the traffic and just let people roam the street and shop like crazy! So, that's what we didn't do. We got a history lesson of Liberty Square and the fight against Orange or something like that. Dad, you will appreciate that Paul McCartney came here and gave a live concert on this street. Pretty sweet eh. The girls are way funny though. You never realize how spoiled we are, until you see how other people live. I

The Church on the Hill

We walked and walked. . . and . . . Walked! All the way up a gigantic hill to this beautiful destination! It is probably the prettiest church I have ever seen. And the plus side was. . . Breanne and I didn't even get lost! We found our way back home through 7 miles of craziness! It was pretty awesome! We conversed with some street venders and bought a couple of Soccer Jerseys they are pretty sweet. We will take a picture soon. No worries. It was really fun today. We Just did whatever we wanted without having to wait for 25 other girls and their silly habits. What a cool place!