I love to see...

THE TEMPLE!! 

So I got off the bus on my way to church and BAM its the Kiev temple!! 
I had no idea it was RIGHT beside the church!! 

This is literally the view as soon as you exit the church! 

Here's the chapel we go to, I had no idea we'd have a real one..

I picked up a HYMN book and then thought, "well thats a problem.."
 luckily they had them in English too. :) 

I am really tired at the moment so I apologize for the briefness of the post. I meant to post about this on Sunday and never really got to it. Sunday was an amazing day. I was expecting to go to a native ward in some foreign rented out building with a few members and to have to repeat my favorite lines in Russian all day, which are, "I'm sorry I don't speak Russian," and, "I don't understand." However when we got on the bus we met two missionaries!! American ones!! English speakers!! GLORIOUS!! So exciting. Then when we got off the bus we could see the temple! My day was made. SO great. Then when we were walking in the church, an older couple said, "watch out! It's slippery!! and welcome to the international branch!" MORE AMERICANS!!! YEEEEES!!!! we walk in, 50-60 people. 2 Ukrainians. Even more Canadians, but mostly Americans. The whole thing was in english. EVERYONE SPOKE ENGLISH!
I can't tell you how this felt. It looked like home (it was a mormon chapel.. they ALL look similar), it smelt like home, it sounded like home, it was warm inside, the people were like home, EVERYTHING was like home. I felt like I stepped right back into North America for 3 hours. Amazing. I am loving every single new experience here in Ukraine, even the not so nice ones, and I was even looking forward to the different experience with church.. but having this one piece be home couldn't mean more to me. It felt perfect. We were invited to the temple, which is also run by americans. :) I felt nervous about that one a little when I thought that it might only be in Russian.. but no-- just one more amazing blessing from God.
We met other BYU/BYUI/BYUH interns in the ward and made some friends. We also got to know many senior missionary couples. Every 4 or 5 ILP teachers or Interns here in Ukraine get assigned to a missionary couple in the ward and have kind of "grandparents" you could say. A time to get taken care of in an American way again. How cool is that? It felt like we were given a whole new support system. The branch president and RS president acquainted themselves with us and made sure we had their contact info and made sure we knew that they were there for us, we also met another american who now lives here and knows her way around perfectly and speaks Russian.. she also made sure we knew how to get ahold of her at all times.. she had actually done ILP a few times before. We also got set up for institute. It is at 7 on tuesdays and sadly a bunch of us teach till 7 every night so they made another morning class just for us! We also got set up for FHE. Amazing, once again.
I feel so bad for a few of the people that chose not to come, and those who won't take the time out of their weekends to make it happen while we are all here. We are so taken care of. God is so good to us. They told us that while we are here in Ukraine, church is a huge part of the experience. I can already say that I know that to be a fact.