Week 8: Hobbling to the end: physically and emotionally

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Well this week was quite eventful! It all started on Thursday when I sprained my ankle. It could have been easily prevented, had I not been fed up with this huge elder and decided to block his hit as he came hurdling through the net. I landed on his foot while he tripped over himself and the rest is history. I now spend my once favorite hour of the day in PT instead of playing volleyball, which has since died a slow and painful death. I do actually enjoy PT, I just don’t get to have a blast with everyone else and I can hear them on the court from the room. It’s kinda depressing actually, now that I think about it. However, me and the trainers are pretty tight now. I’ve talked to them a lot about sports medicine and I think it could be interesting to check out when I come home. We’ll see how I feel about it in 16 months.

Because of that fateful event, I have hobbled on crutches a few days this week, but I am crutch free now! For those of you who don’t know, crutches are the worst. My arms and good leg hurt worse than my swollen sprained ankle. Sister Bunderson was just the biggest help this week. I love her so much. I had some gnarly bruising but I forgot to take pictures so sorry about that.

We got our travel plans this week so we are officially leaving! It is insane to think I am moving on. I can’t even remember life before the MTC. What did I do for fun? Couldn’t tell you. I’ve always been a missionary, reading the Book of Mormon in my spare time. Anyway, I leave on Monday at 6:20 am for Portland, Amsterdam, and finally Kiev! I am ALL ALONE though. Loneliest day of my life. I have a layover that lines up with Elder Lindsey’s but it’s an hour long so I’ll probably be dashing to my next flight and won’t even get the chance to meet up.

Our classes have become insane at night because we are going stir crazy in here by the end of each day. We finally broke our teacher, Brother Buth, because we were joking around, but we did it all in Russian and it was still funny. Sister Bunderson spit her water out all over her notebook and we all lost it. The man who will only ever let out a chuckle or a sigh of disappointment was hunched over in his chair gasping for air. We count that as a success. We also made memes of him with screenshots of a video we took with him featuring his catch phrases. Our teachers are honestly the best. They’re going to make saying goodbye to the MTC so much harder.

Our investigators have been progressing. Ксения is unofficially officially baptized! We are done with Женя’s lessons now. It’s really sad that everything is coming to and end, but we’re off to go do it for real now!

The oldest district left yesterday and it has been so depressing since. After we leave there will be only two districts in our zone! Our zone has always been so huge! But we’ve lost a district every week for a few weeks. I’m so over goodbyes. I’ve made so many good friends here and every goodbye is harder than the last. CANT WAIT FOR MONDAY. I’ve made a second family here and I hope I’ll be even closer with the people I meet in the mission.

I am so pumped for this weekend! Not only is it general conference but it’s Easter too! We have a completely different schedule as missionaries that we won’t find out until Friday. We are definitely going to end with a bang. We’ve been preparing the past week for this amazing opportunity and have talked about it a lot. We’ve been challenged to write down questions we have and then we will find an answer. General conference is definitely something I took for granted my whole life. It is revelation straight from God through his prophets and apostles. Don’t take this opportunity for granted! Especially since we will be sustaining our new prophet on Saturday. I’m so excited! Being a missionary definitely puts a whole new perspective on Easter. It is seriously the most important day in all of history we remember and I think sometimes we forget with all the Easter traditions, but I am super hyped to seriously focus on what it really means for us. Jesus Christ suffered for our sins and died on the cross in order to break the bonds of death. He rose from the dead so that we may return to our Heavenly Father and live with Him once more. I love my Savior and I am forever grateful for His sacrifice.

I love all of you and hope you all have an amazing Easter, General Conference, and awesome weeks!
Сестра Вихар

Elder Blake's mom shared this photo of the Russian zone.

Last Pday at the Provo temple with my roomates.

It snowed again!

These ducks live at the MTC and they just brighten our day when they swim in the fountain.

Could this possibly mean Sister Vehar's visa has FINALLY come?

Sister Vehar sent a special email today (non-Pday) with her flight plans. We are sure hoping this means that the Church has her visa finally. We dare not convince ourselves just yet seeing as she had flight plans to Madrid without a visa too. Praying all goes well and works so that she can get to Ukraine and catch up with the rest of her group and report to the mission field together.

Week 7: Seven weeks down

Hey everyone!

This week was another good one for the books!
THE NO CONTACT RULE IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT!! We don’t have to secretly
shake hands anymore!

Other crazy news, we got a new district this week and since their
visas came they (4 out of 6) left us for the Spain MTC. I’ll see them again in the
mission though since they’re going to Kyiv. They left behind one
sister and one elder so they joined the youngest district. They’re solo
missionaries now since their companions are three weeks ahead of them.

Our teacher, Sister Williams, joined us for lunch in the cafeteria this
week so that was so fun. We love her to death!

We went all out for St Patrick’s day since we did not want to get
pinched all day. However, I think the elders had the opposite idea. I
wouldn’t put it past some of them not to wear green for a pinch from a
sister. Unfortunately for them, our zone follows page 33 in the white
handbook fairly well.

We lost power in our room for a day and a half since the sisters next
door blow dried their hair at the same time in the same room and blew
the fuse, then we couldn’t open the breaker cause it was locked. That
was an adventure.

Remember how our teacher Brother Buth does the weird manspread squat
when he writes on the board? Well Sister Bunderson has taken so many
pictures of it. It’s like a challenge to see if you can get a selfie
without him noticing. Well, after 7 weeks he finally caught us!😬 We
were dying laughing! In the picture we took, you can see him start to
turn around.

Our investigators are doing pretty great. We’ve taught them all the
lessons so we’re just reviewing with them. Last we spoke to Женя, he
said he hadn’t smoked for 3 days so we’ll see tomorrow if he hasn’t
smoked for almost a week! I hope he stopped. It’s really exhausting
and it’s not even real yet.

It’s crazy to think we’re out of here in less than two weeks. It’ll be
like leaving the family all over again. We have to keep reminding
ourselves that we will leave the MTC. We discovered that we will have
spent 1/9 of our mission in the MTC! We have 8 more MTC stays left of
a mission and that is so scary that it will go by that fast.

Also, our district is pretty blessed because last night apostle #3:
Elder Dale G. Renlund spoke to us last night. He had a great message
about our Savior and our missionary work. When you have three apostles
talk to you it really makes 9 weeks in the MTC feel like forever
because apparently some people never hear from an apostle. It feels
like forever but I’ll miss it. We’re losing another district next week
and that will be the second to worst one after our own because we
spent 8 weeks with these people.

I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Сестра Вихар


He's on to us!


Helen came to the MTC!!!


Trivium Reunion!


We took this last week when it was sunny. Yes, Elder Cole and Sister Bunderson are shoeless.

Week 6: The week I would have left if I was speaking Spanish

Hello Friends and Family!

It has definitely been a week! I don't even know where to start!

We can start with TRC (Teaching Resource Center). TRC is where we teach members, usually Returned Missionaries at BYU, who can speak our language. It was our last time this week. But we had a really cool experience with the spirit. To prepare for TRC, we have to plan two 20 minute lessons. We always teach the same lesson twice because we teach two different sets of people. This week was cool because with the same scripture verses and same theme of charity, we taught two completely different lessons. I can testify that the spirit definitely tailors messages to the people. There were thoughts I was prompted to share with a member that I hadn't even thought of in the first lesson. It was an amazing experience to strengthen my testimony of the spirit.

Yesterday we started Skype TRC. We Skyped a grandma in Bulgaria solely in Russian! It was hard with connection issues, her cute, yet distracting, granddaughter, and the fact that we understood maybe five words from every sentence she said. there were times we understood whole sentences, but they were aimed at her granddaughter to stop distracting her. The spirit is miraculous though because we still felt it and still had those promptings to share our message with her. She really liked the verses we shared with her and took them to heart. It was cool because even though she was in Bulgaria, her family was from Ukraine. I'd say we learned a lot from her about our missions, but if only we understood.

It is so warm here that we have started studying outside everyday! It is gorgeous. I've gotten mini sunburns everyday, but they're gone the next day so hopefully I'll get a tan before I never see the sun for 16 months.

We said goodbye to one of my favorite districts this week. It was really hard, but they were all so ready to leave. We are getting to know the younger districts since there's less people to talk to. They are pretty cool. At least the sisters are. The elders are either awkward because they are either foreign or too flirtatious. I can say there are some elders that I just choose not to sit next to.

We get a new district today. There are 4 elders and 2 sisters. Three of them are going to my mission. Supposedly all but two of the new missionaries were supposed to go to the Madrid MTC. Ukraine is really slacking on the visas. Hopefully I get mine in time!!!!!!

Sisters Mulberry and Goodell are the Sister training leaders now, and Elders Curtis (Australian), Moline, and Stowell are the zone leaders. Elder Cole is still our district leader.

These past few days have been weird because my neck was messed up from sleeping on it weird, but I decided I would go to the physical therapist if it felt weird again yesterday. In my nightly prayers, I asked that it would be healed. But as we are working on patience as a district this week, instead of being healed, my back went out yesterday. Now I'm not saying anything, but it seems like I was being taught a lesson. So I saw the PT yesterday and got a heat treatment. I wish there was a Chiropractor here. The cool thing is that when my back went out yesterday, it hasn't felt that bad since I originally hurt my back and couldn't do anything without hurting it. I thought about that throughout the day as, even though it still hurt, I was able to do everything I needed to do as a missionary. Heavenly Father does bless His missionaries, even if it is not the way we want Him to. For the record, my back still hurts, but it is a lot better.

This weeks devotional talked about loving enough to lift. It was a cool thing to talk about. I have definitely made more goals for my mission and life about how I am going to treat everyone with enough of the Savior's love so their lives can be lifted. I think we should all apply that to everyday of our lives. Our second devotional talked about a lot of details in missionary work. But one thing I took from it is that it doesn't just apply to missionaries. He talked about how we can make all the sacrifices in the world, but no matter how much we give, it won't mean a thing if we don't apply the product of our sacrifice to our lives. I really loved that because as a missionary I have been told a lot about how much I am giving up, but so many missionaries come home and forget what it all meant. Apply your experiences everyone!

I hope everyone has a great week!
Sister Vehar

We got our official Russian name tags this week!

Mark Pankow sent me BAKED "for my Dad's birthday". BAKED is BOMB! Thank you Pankows!!

My cute friends in weird poses.

Week 5: Halfway done!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

This week was fantastic! I don’t ever think I’ve laughed so much in my life. Our district is definitely getting closer by the hour. It’s crazy to think we’re only just over halfway now. We are going to come
out of this so tight!

The people in our zone are definitely the weirdest people I have ever met. I don’t know if that’s cause I didn’t go to public school or if really weird people get called to Eastern Europe. There are definitely some acquired tastes in our zone. It really helps make the 9 weeks durable and interesting.

The oldest district leaves on Monday. It is so crazy and sad! We really get so close here. I can imagine it doesn’t feel much different than leaving the family all over again. They are awesome people. It’ll be hard to see them leave, but the mission field needs them. We do have one district that will only leave a week before us. That’s the Georgia/Armenia district, aka the funniest/WEIRDEST people on the planet. They’ll be the hardest to send off after being together 8 weeks. I dread the day our district separates after the MTC. I love them so much.

We finished learning all the Russian cases this week! During an exercise, we were asked to write an example on the board that we would use “with” in a prayer. For example “please bless my companion with health”. Sister Bunderson misunderstood the instructions, so she decided to write on the board “I write by the means of a pencil” (in Russian, “with” and “by the means of” is the same). We took a picture of it because we thought the sentence “please bless I write by the means of a pencil” was hilarious. However, little did we know at the time, that what Sister Bunderson had in fact written was “I pee by the means of a pencil”. Brother Buth, our teacher, started dying laughing when he came back in and saw that on the board.

Our investigators are progressing! Ксения is getting baptized now. She was a little hesitant at first and we told her to think about it more and she wouldn’t regret it. The next lesson she told us she definitely wanted it but her concern is that she’s not ready. That’s what we’re here for. Женя still hasn’t quit smoking! We had to push back his baptism date. We do think we’re making progress though because he doesn’t want to smoke and he has smoked a lot less this week. He told us he’s made a goal to think about Jesus instead of smoking when he gets his cravings.

M. Russell Ballard came last night! It was really cool to see two apostles here. He tried to start off with a Q&A session, but so many people got up that it lasted the whole time! There were a lot of questions that I didn’t have, but his answers answered some other personal questions/concerns I had. He emphasized trusting in the Lord a lot. He is literally the cutest old man I’ve ever seen! When he came in he didn’t sit down right away and joined us standing and singing, more and more confusion showing on his face with each verse until he realized we couldn’t sit because he didn’t sit first. When he left, he looked over the crowd and just had this little smile on his face and waved a tiny, single wave. He’s so adorable.

I hope everyone had an amazing week!

Love,
Сестра Вихар

PS. I just ate dinner next to the MTC President and his wife! She asked me to write a letter for her to send to ELDER HOLLAND!!!

Mom-I'm wondering how your Russian is doing. How many hours a day do you spend just on learning and practicing Russian? What is your favorite thing about the MTC? What is your least favorite thing?

Kaeleigh-We spend six hours a day in class, one hour in language study, and the rest of the time is up to us to speak your language. My favorite thing is Russian class actually. Our class is so close and I think we’re going insane here because we hysterically laugh together so often. I’d say my least favorite thing is having to be with your companion all the time. That sounds awful, but I don’t mean I can’t stand Sister Bunderson. I love her and we are so close. I mean that when one of us has to go to the bathroom both of us do. It is so inconvenient to have to do everything twice as much or find two seats next to each other. I’ll have to grow to love it though because this is my life for the next 18 months!

Mom-What is TRC? From your email about speaking in Ukrainian last week.

Kaeleigh-TRC is the teaching resource center where we teach members in the area who can speak our languages. This is our last week of it though. Next week we will start Skyping church members in Eastern Europe who speak Russian! It’s the same idea as role playing with our teacher/“investigator”, just with native speakers instead of returned missionaries.



"I pee by the means of a pencil" (in Russian)


Sister Bunderson and Sister Vehar


A sweet stranger sent this picture to Mom via text. They were dropping their own missionary off at the MTC and ran into these cute girls at the temple.


The Ukrainian flag flying at the Provo MTC


Gotta represent!