Well my friends, here we are again. This is our third time serving in Eastern Europe. This time, we are in Kyiv, Ukraine. We have been assigned to work in records preservation. The church has contracted with several companies to digitize records from the many archives and museums throughout the country. Our assignment, so far, is to upload (ingest, as they call it) the many hard drives (shuttles) into the computer system developed for Family Search. The camera operators use solid state hard drives to capture the images from the archives. With many operators throughout Ukraine, we receive many shuttles every week that need processing. We are also responsible to keep track of the financial records. We currently live on the temple grounds in the housing made for temple missionaries. When the temple goes to phase 4 and we receive the temple missionaries back again, we will need to move out to make room for them. In the meantime, we are enjoying our little place here.
We left on Tuesday, the 12th and arrived in Kyiv on the 13th. We breezed through every checkpoint along the way. Church travel had us well prepared. We were met by our supervisor, Sasha, who escorted us to our new home on the temple grounds. We made a small detour and picked up some groceries on the way there. While shopping, we ran into another senior couple, the Southwicks. It turns out they live just above us. Our accommodations are pretty nice. In this picture is where we live. In the background you can see the spire of the temple and to the far left is a church building. Look real close and see if you can spot Sister Allred peeking out our window.
This building is also used to house patrons that come from far away. There are kitchens and laundry services here as well as a distribution center.
We are slowly recovering from the jet lag and finding a more regular awake/sleep pattern. Fall is currently underway. There are dozens of oak trees on the temple grounds and they drop their acorns quite regularly. If we were squirrels, we'd be in heaven. Actually, living here next to the temple is kinda like heaven already.
Congrats. Nice to know that someone from home is on the same continent with Tim while he serves in Slovakia.
ReplyDeleteYour housing arrangement sounds very much like what we had in Samoa--Mission President and office, temple attendee housing, and a nearby chapel.
ReplyDeleteRich and I are so thrilled to hear from you both! How wonderful it must be to be a part of gathering the House of Israel on both sides of the veil! Sharon has been ever enticed with the idea of photographing documents for family research purposes, so it is great for you to share your mission with us! Thank you for including us in your letters! Love and prayers, the Hardys
ReplyDeleteLooks like a heavenly arrangement to me. :) Be of good cheer, with all our love and best.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on arriving in Eastern Europe without a hitch. I left some of our paperwork on the plane from Salt Lake to Seattle. I had PDF copies of everything needed on my phone so I was able to print it out at the airport. I just had to navigate a Korean computer. We are still experiencing Kelsi as well but are close to being on schedule. We will talk to Elder Taylor as soon as we get his Korean phone number. Have a great day
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