суббота

This past Saturday was a good day!  A very productive and fun day!  Because of the time difference we weren't able to watch conference but that will be what this coming weekend is for.

We went to St. Volodymyr Cathedral.  It's beautiful inside!

After we walked around for a little bit and found this awesome park.  There were lots of grocery carts like this holding trees up.  Too great!

They had lots of fun colored benches.

Then we started wandering some more and found the Roshen candy store!  Alyssa and I were really excited!  Liuda, our host mom, gives us Roshen chocolate at every meal and we both love it!

Alyssa and I.

Then we met up with the whole group and our coordinator to go to the Lavra.  The grounds at the Lavra are beautiful!

Ukrainian eggs.

People ringing the bells.

So I guess I should explain what the Lavra is.  The Lavra is a place where there are lots of churches but most importantly there are underground caves.  Basically what happened was there was a monk who wanted to be so close to God that he decided to build these underground caves so that he could be away from the world.  Over time more monks joined him.  What would happen is every day people would come down to the cave to feed them and they would slide a plate through a door into their room.  Eventually when the people stopped accepting the plates or sliding them back they knew they were dead.  They just left them there.  Eventually because of the temperature they realized that they were being mummified.  So now it's a sacred thing for the people to go and see these mummies.  I was really nervous to go but it actually wasn't too bad.  All of the bodies were in glass caskets and they were covered in ceremonial robes.  Occasionally you would see a mummified hand and I did see on man's head.

This is Jaimee and I.  In order to go in any of the churches here in Ukraine or the Lavra they have women wear head scarfs out of respect.

Sarah, Me, and Holly.

After we were done a group of us went over to a member of our branch's house to watch the relief society broadcast that we missed a week ago.  It was so interetsing to me because at the Lavra I could feel the spirit and the faith of the people there but I still felt empty and not full.  But as soon as the broadcast started I was filled with the spirit.  I'm so grateful to have the fullness of the gospel in my life!

Cat in the tree... he he he. :)