I'm in Love!

Yippy! Today my day was made!  I have been in search for an attachment in order to charge my macbook for forever.  Well not exactly but two weeks before I left I started my search.  Unfortunately, they try to gouge you where ever you go for this little lousy piece to attach to your charger box/house thing.  Seriously it was like 50 bucks and the apple story.  Those stinkers! Today we were walking down the streets of York and we passed a little apple reseller story I walked in and told him what I needed and asked if they sell them.  He said no and I was not surprised but then he said that he thought he had some upstairs.  He runs up stairs and hands me one.  I offered to pay and he said it was just left over and that I could just have it!!! What a gent right! I would have kissed him for that! So I am in love with the nice gent at the fake apple store that I don't even know his name!!! Today has been a great day!

PS: Today I officially ate fish and chips and enjoyed it!! and I just had the best curry of my life! Who would have thought I would find the best Thai in the small town, Richmond of North Yorkshire England!?

Tiffer-Wiffer-Taka-Sniff-Tiff

I just need to let you all know what an amazing friend I have.Tiffany has been one of my loges friends I have ever had.  I think she is the coolest and truly miss her. Well being the stellar friend that she is she got me an Ireland gift.  She got me a little bag for inside my purse packed with everything I could need for my travels.

I some how completely forgot to bring lotion on the trip.  I didn't even think about it until my OCD kicked in and I COULD NOT sleep because my hands were so dry.  Surprisingly thats probably one of the highest reasons I can't sleep. Well I opened the hand dandy bag and put some lotion on and went straight to sleep.  When we first got to Ukraine and all our luggage was lost I had my bad with just in case make up and and touched up with some eye liner and mascara.  Just the other day dad and I were out walking and he stepped in a stinky puddle of water and it splashed on his leg. This nasty stench followed us everywhere till I grabbed my little packet of wipes within my little handy bag.  We cleaned him up and smells went away.  On the train just the other day I was really bored and my cuticles were pretty rough with hang nails so I whipped out my mani/pedicure set from, once again my sweet bag, and did my nails and put some great lotion/wax on my cuticles.

What would I have done without here!  She totally knows whats up when it comes to travels! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! You are me hero! Love you!!!!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles.... and Boats

The adventure has begun!!!

We got up Monday morning at 3:45 to take mom and the boys to the airport.  Dad and I  got back to the hotel just in time for me to meet up with Katya Klebingat for a run to the temple to meet up with the sisters.  We were both so excited to see our former companions!  I couldn’t believe I was seeing Sister Stiles in the flesh again on our old stomping grounds!  It was so surreal!  We pretty much eye flirted the whole time!!! 

After our run we did some laundry and headed into center to once again meet up with the sisters at Puzzies (nickname for a Ukrainian restaurant given by the missionaries) for lunch.  It was 5 sister missionaries, the mission president’s daughter, me being a former sister........ and HOWIE! Oh plus another companionship just happened to show up when we were leaving! Howie was such a good sport coming and being stuck with us gals having mission talk!  He treated us all to lunch and ice cream! I sure love my daddy!

One of my dear friends Natasha never believed me when I promised her I would come back to Ukraine.  She promised to feed my family if I really came.  I was good on my end and she invited us over for dinner Monday night.  In traditional Sister Schmidt style, we were late!!!! Surprise Surprise! We had a great time chatting and reminiscing. Then we were off to the train station to hit our next city L’VIV!!!!

So In Lviv I was able to see some friends.  Unfortunately, we were only there for a day and a lot of the people I wanted to see were gone or busy.  I would have loved to see some other members.  We went out to dinner with Ihor Petrichko and his family and I played tag with Ephram for ever!  He is was hilarious.  I love little kids that speak pure Ukrainian!

After Lviv we jumped on a night train to Krakow Poland! Oh my hilarious! So our first train was normal we bought four beds so we were alone. But the night to Poland was more expensive so we couldn’t well we get to our cabin and there is a little Polish lady already there.  She was so sweet but Dad and I couldn’t help but laugh because of the small space!  It was three beds on top of one another.  Naturally I took the top.  I didn’t even have room to make my bed.  I was laughing the whole time!

We got to Krakow and had an amazing morning looking all around the city.  We then headed off to Auschwitz, the WWII Jewish concentration camp.  That was such an amazing experience.  I really couldn’t believe it all.  It felt so weird walking on the grounds of where all those awful stories took place.  Looking at the rooms where people had been tortured and starved to death were all most too much to take in.  They real heartbreaker was going into one building where they had the hallway full of hair that they buzzed off of everyones heads to make money off of.  That really was awful and then the case of children's’ shoes that were collected from the people that went to the gas chambers really got me.  I am so grateful I was able to go and see the place I have learned so much about.  I was able to pay my respects but most importantly be reminded and never forget the things that people have gone through.

After Auschwitz we hit the night life of Krakow!  Howie and I couldn’t get enough of the town.  There were people everywhere street performers on every corner!  It was incredible!  I would recommend traveling to this city! I think my favorite was the fire dancers with all the drums! Howie loved this band of all super old men and then one really pretty young gal singer!  They drew the most attention on the main square!!

In the morning we went for an amazing run around the city, saw the cool old town center and then headed on a bus to a different city to catch our airplane to the Netherlands. Once we got to the netherlands we jumped on three different trains in order to get to Brugge Belgium where we then jumped a taxi to take us the the sea area.  Yes in one day we truly did planes trains and automobiles.  Get this tho,  Tonight we jumping a ferry boat to cross the sea to Hull England!  Yes we are using ever means of transportation, that is except for a bike.  Hopefully, we can hit up the bike today as we find out what Belguim has to offer!!! Apparently chocolate is the thing to eat!!

Not very missionary like!

I love Ukrainians!  I love members of this church!  I was able to go to the ward by the temple where I served 9 months of my mission!  I was so excited to see so many people that I love so dearly! 

Funny story.... I had just bought a dress from Old Navy (Yes Tiff, I went back and bought the same drew as you! I just want to be you!!) Well the dress got pretty wrinkly in my suitcase.  At out hotel they do an ironing service and so we paid quite a bit of money for our sunday clothiers to be ironed.  Well those little sneaky people just put them in the dryer not ironing them at all.  Well my dress comes back still wrinkly but it shrunk so I was wearing a pretty borderline inappropriate dress to church! Not very return missionary appropriate!  I was totally feeling awkward but what can you do!? so anyways, my heart was pounding when I got there.  I was warming welcomed by Katya, President’s daughter and some of the sister missionaries that I met when they were in the MTC.  Sister Moore and Sister Daniel!

Left to right: Sister Daniel, Me, Katya, and Sister Moore!

After the first sacrament meeting with the international branch I went to the Borshahivskiy Ward where I was able to see many people that I love so much including Layra and Lyuda

Picture with Layra

As well as Polina.  I wish I would have been able to take more pictures with the members but it was pretty crazy!

Picture with Polina (who looks adorable but I need to stop talking.  My tongue looks crazy!)

After church my family was able to go over to Frank and Oksana Plashel’s.  They are the coolest family ever!  Every member of their family speaks english amazingly, even little Fruktik who is about four can speak in English. Fruktik loved to play with Braden and Garrett.  I think it was because they were still in their dress clothes so her thought they were missionaries.  I giggled all night long!

Best goodbye I got from a boy....  too bad he is four!!

Greg, Fruktik and Bubs (Braden)

Kossac and his Celo

Saturday we left Crimea and came back on a little plane to Kiev.  We met up with Natalie, a member from Borshahivskiy.  We started the day with going to Peregov!  It is a HUGE outside museum.  They took real houses from little celo’s (Ukrainian Villages) and restored them and put them in the same area.  There were a ton of houses.  It was out in the boonies with trees everywhere.  It had the coolest feel to it.  

They even had Kossacs to take pictures with.

He was kinda mean tho.  We got ripped off by some random guys which was totally lame but Howie came to mine and Natalie’s rescue and paid the guy off. What would we do with out Howie!?? 

We then headed to andreevsky spusk.  I was so happy the church was all repainted and absolutely beautiful.  For my whole mission it was covered in scaffolding getting it refurbished.  

After the Spoosk we were able to go to the best Ukrainian restaurant in Kiev.  I had never been there but walked past it all the time not knowing what it was, because it is right by the church on Shota, in center. Of course I got Verenikiy z kopustoyu (dumplings with cabbage) They are my favorite!!

Fat guy in a little speedo!

I will start with my apologies to anyone that actually reads this, or those that hope to read it but never can because I never have put anything up.  My computer died and I haven’t been able to but I have been writing things down a little hear and there for posts. 

So we went down to Crimea to find some the sun and some warm weather.  We got there and I had some pretty high expectations for the Black Sea. This is what I was looking for.....

That wasn’t exactly what I found.  Instead we found two small triangles of “beach” that were covered with half naked people showing a lot more of themselves off than anyone would wish. The beaches don’t have sand but have big rocks that kill your feet when you try to walk on them.   I will include some of the pictures.

Well the first day we just pushed our way onto the beach just to say we did it and we actually started to enjoy it and then the rain came.  Everyone booked it off the beach before you could say “RAIN!!” 

At that point the family decided that was too much fun and we would have to go back to the black sea to hang out for our last day.  It was the best choice thus far!  We even tok it to the next level and laid out at the black sea in style!!! Loved the black sea!!!

The sun will come out tomorrow!

I think this post will just have to take on the same ideas that were in the last. On Monday we had a member offer to take us on a tour of some sights in Kiev. We talked about some of the places we would go and I was excited for my family to see everything. Well it rained ALL day! We walked around for our tour for a few hours and then my mom was tired and cold so she went home to rest and we attempted to carry on the adventure by eating some Visuvios Pizza. 

I was able to go out to dinner with my mission president, President Jorg Klebingat and his lovely wife, Julia Klebingat. It was to see them again and have them meet my family. I love my mission president and look up to him so much. 

After Mondays adventure with the rain we hoped Tuesday would be better. Unfortunately it rained Tuesday as well. We went to the temple and I was able to see some dear friends and missionaries that I serve around, elders Shurtleff and Hubble!  They are doing great and it was fun to chat with them. 

We have decided that we are going to ditch this bad weather and head down south to the black sea, where it's expected to be blue skies, sunny and gorgeous!$

All is well that ends well!

You know on my mission I heard myself saying, “things did go as planned.”  I asumed that, that was a mission thing.  I felt that everything I planned got flipped upside down.  Not for the worse, sometimes for the better but it would just never go as planned.  I have come to realize that it’s not the mission that makes you say that it’s Ukraine.  

Starting for the beginning, things started to go off course.  We were sitting in Salt Lake International waiting to board our plane to Paris when they announced that they needed a part for the plane and that it wasn’t in SLC.  They would need to go get the part put it on and then we would be able to depart.  So we sat, waited and ate for four hours and they said that we were able to fly to Paris.  By this time we already realized we were going to miss our flight to Ukraine.  I, of course, started to cry when I realized I would not be able to attend a ward that I loved dearly because I served 9 months of my mission there. Well the flight was okay we got to Paris at two in the afternoon.  They gave us a hotel and we decided to go play in Paris.  It was wonderful we saw the Eiffel Tower, the arc de triomphe and shopped on the Champs Elysees. It was nice to soak up paris in a few hours.  We went to our hotel and slept for only a few hors and were right back at the airport.  After some complications of them not being able to locate us on the flight roster they pulled some strings and got us to our gate really fast. I was so excited to be on my way to Ukraine!!!

We got to The Kiev Airport and we waited for 30 minutes for our luggage to come out for the plane.  Everyone else came and left with their stuff and to our surprise our luggage never came.  we filed a lost luggage claim and went to get our rental car.  Up until this point things were fine we enjoyed out detour to Paris and were just happy to make the flight to Kiev but a lack of luggage and no knowledge of when it would come was a little frustrating. Well we get our TINY rental car and decide we are going to church.  

We were able to still make it to sacrament meeting in a different ward that I served in.  We were late and tried to sneak into the back.  Well the bishop of the ward who i know very well noticed us and announced to everyone that Sister schmidt has returned to Kiev with her family.  everyone looked back so we waved and then he invited me to the front to bare my testimony.  As I walked from the VERY back of the room to the front I felt completely out of my element!!! I was walking to the front of a ward that I served in as a missionary, now as a returned missionary IN JEANS AND SNEAKERS DURING SACRAMENT MEETING!!!!!!! It was completely awkward and not how I ever imagined it would be, when I revisited my mission! But I was so happy to greet and hug everyone!  They are amazing people!! I was so glad to see them no matter what attire I was wearing!

So things may not always work out as planned, but they still work out.  Sometimes life takes you in a completely different direction or maybe just on a detour. It maybe for the best and sometimes its just because, but no matter what the circumstance “all is well that ends well.”