Vol. 25, No. 10

Dear Family,

As parents, there are certain tales and adventures of our children that we are happy not to learn about until after they are over. Sophie’s ordeal in getting to Dnipro, Ukraine, earlier this month is one of those.

It turns out I was right to be concerned when Sophie relayed to me the three-flight itinerary she had received from the Church’s travel office.

Sophie: I’m flying from Spokane to Salt Lake City to Amsterdam to [Kyiv]¹

Me: Aren’t you going to Dnipro?

Sophie: Yes.

Me (looking at Google Maps): Dnipro is almost 300 miles from Kyiv. How are you getting from Kyiv to Dnipro?

Sophie: I’m not really sure.

Sophie did not seem worried about it. I was more concerned than she was but took solace in knowing that the Church’s travel office somehow manages to get thousands of missionaries to hundreds of places all over the world every single week. They obviously know what they are doing and I figured someone had it covered.

Turns out someone kind of had it covered, but no one told Sophie. Having a phone would have helped.

Why did she not have a phone, you ask? Because the written instructions she received from the mission told her not to bring one — that it would be best if she purchased one in country. Sophie’s mission president (who is new — and Ukrainian)² was not aware of that instruction (which came from his American predecessor) and said something like, “Yeah, that’s wrong — we should update that.” Hopefully they have.

Back to our story.

A senior missionary couple on Sophie’s flight from Salt Lake to Amsterdam let her borrow one of their phones so she could call the travel office and find out what to do once she got to Kyiv. The travel office told her that the last batch of missionaries had taken a bus from Kyiv to Dnipro but offered no further details.

Armed with that extraordinarily helpful information, Sophie boarded her flight from the Netherlands to Ukraine (by herself — the senior couple was heading somewhere else). Upon landing in Kyiv and being greeted by no one, she set about looking for a bus to Dnipro. This was complicated by the fact that the signage in Kyiv is in Ukrainian and Sophie only knows Russian (sort of).

Sophie was not able to find a bus to Dnipro, but she did find one going to the train station. She thought she might have more luck finding a train to Dnipro than a bus to Dnipro. And so she converted the small amount of U.S. currency she had into Ukrainian gryvnya,³ paid her bus fare, and rode to the train station.

I’m not sure what all she tried at the train station. But whatever it was didn’t work and she ultimately found herself sitting on the platform, alone with her luggage, crying.

It is at this point that we meet the hero of our story — a 32-year-old man I will call “Ivan” (because I don’t know his real name). Ivan, a native of some other former Soviet republic, noticed Sophie crying and asked her what was wrong. The two of them conversed in Russian for a few moments — just long enough to ascertain that things would probably go better in English, which Ivan also spoke.

Sophie explained her situation — that she was not sure where to go or how to get there and had no way of contacting anybody. Ivan listened intently and observed, “So, basically you’re [screwed].”⁴

Sophie concurred with this assessment.  

Ivan suggested that Sophie contact the U.S. embassy and — here is where Ivan differentiated himself from everyone else in Kyiv that night — lent Sophie his phone so she could actually do that.

If I have the details right, the embassy helped Sophie reach the Church’s U.S. travel office, which in turn put her in touch with the Church’s Ukraine travel office, which in turn connected her with the mission office, which was in an understandable panic having spent the entire evening frantically trying to reach Sophie by various means, any of which would have worked if only she had a phone.

It turns out the mission office had hired a car to collect Sophie at the airport and drive her to Dnipro. But Sophie did not know to look for a car, and I guess the driver did not know to look for a disoriented American girl wearing a black nametag (I guess he hasn’t seen the musical) and so they missed each other. 

The mission office got in touch with the hired driver and instructed him to find Sophie at the train station. Ivan, our hero (and his phone), stayed with her until that actually happened. When she thanked him for giving up basically his whole evening to take care of her, Ivan replied something like, “I didn’t have anyplace important to be–I was just going out drinking.” I love it when people live up to their stereotypes. If I ever meet Ivan, I will happily and gratefully buy him a bottle of his favorite Russian vodka.

The drive to Dnipro took six hours, Sophie said, with the driver smoking the entire way. He asked Sophie if that was okay with her. She said she didn’t mind. Classic Sophie: “I wasn’t going to tell the guy he can’t smoke in his own car.“

So she’s living in Dnipro now and seems content. We look forward each week to seeing and speaking with her on Monday mornings before work, school, and, in Grace’s case, before early-morning seminary. (Sophie is seven hours ahead of us, notwithstanding anything I may have previously written.)

Our weekly conversations along with Sophie’s letters reveal a mostly happy girl navigating the uniquely interesting, if sometimes dispiriting, challenges (familiar to many of us) of service in an unfamiliar place and language. She speaks favorably of the city and says she loves to walk around “despite the fact that it always smells like cigarette smoke and/or fish.” The description reminded me of how I feel about Bourbon Street in New Orleans, which I would describe as a fun place to walk around despite its heavy air and unusual aroma — a distinctive blend of human vomit and mule excrement.

In other news, our household generally considers October to be the best month on the calendar. In addition to the year’s best weather, which it almost always has, October also featured two birthdays: Lucy’s 22nd and Crystal’s 51st.

Lucy’s birthday always gets short shrift in these letters, in part because it comes at the beginning of the month and I don’t write this until weeks later. I seem to recall our having done something to celebrate it. It almost certainly involved a pumpkin pie. Lucy prefers pie to cake and I am convinced there is no better use on earth of $5.99 (plus tax) than a four-pound Costco pumpkin pie. I honestly don’t know why anyone even bothers trying to make a homemade pumpkin pie anymore. It’s not as good, it’s not as big, and, assuming your time has any value at all, it’s almost certainly costing you more than six bucks to make.

I also seem to recall dragon-themed gifts and a trip to the thrift store, all of which is on-brand for a Lucy birthday.

My memory of Crystal’s birthday is fresher because it was just this past weekend. Last year, you will doubtless recall, we celebrated Crystal’s 50th birthday with a 50-mile bike ride. She enjoyed that so much that she opted to celebrate her 51st with a 51-mile bike ride. I am uncertain about the sustainability of this progression, but the old girl held up like a champ and I guess we’ll ride this new tradition as long as our aging bodies will let us. There’s no better month than October for a long bike ride, though, so we at least have that going for us.

• 

• 

Crystal’s work-school juggling act feels overwhelming at times but she’s managing okay. She knows she needs to learn how to write faster and be less of a perfectionist. But phoning in assignments does not come naturally to a woman whose only B in life (I think) came in a compulsory BYU religion class. (Don’t get me started.)

Grace’s life continues to be consumed largely by school and preparation for next month’s school production of a musical revue called “All Together Now,” chosen at least in part, I expect, because it’s royalty-free on the weekend they are performing it. Grace features prominently in several of the numbers, including “Seasons of Love” (from Rent), “We’re all in this Together” (from High School Musical), and less prominently in a few others. I also imagine the show was chosen because a musical revue is probably easier to pull off under pandemic restrictions than an actual musical is. Even though Montgomery County’s indoor mask mandate was lifted at 12:01 this morning, masks are still required in all schools, including for musical performers. I’m told they are using “singing-friendly” masks, whatever that means, but it still seems like a major annoyance. Grace doesn’t complain, though. She doesn’t really complain about anything.

You can see Grace perform on November 11th, 12th, or 13th. The show runs through November 14th, but Grace says she will miss that one because it’s Sunday.⁵

Finally, this month marked the end of what turned out to be a rather forgettable 2021 triathlon season (though arguably better than 2020’s non-existent triathlon season). I started three triathlons this year and finished two. A calf injury wrecked the run leg of my first race (in May — I still finished). I crashed out of the bike leg of my second race (in July) thanks to a rogue car that sent me (briefly) to the hospital. Following the natural progression of things, it only seemed reasonable to assume that I would be attacked by a shark in Rock Hall Harbor during the swim leg of this month’s Waterman’s (Olympic-distance) triathlon.

I swam and biked okay (inasmuch as I neither drowned nor crashed) but my running fitness continues to disappoint and I wound up finishing 46th (out of 231 overall) which I guess isn’t awful but isn’t great, either. I was 5th out of 19 in my division of 45- to 49-year-old men, which, for some reason, I think sounds better despite being proportionately worse than my overall finish.

Next year, I get to move up and start racing against guys in their 50s. I’m curious to see how that works out.

Onward.

Love,

Tim

1. It is possible — likely, even — that you are accustomed to hearing this city referred to “Kiev.” The Ukrainian government officially objects to this for the same reason they object to being called “the Ukraine.” The reason (for both objections) is that they don’t appreciate being thought of as part of Russia, because they’re not. Sticking a the in front makes them sound like a region (e.g., “the Midwest,” “the Yukon,” etc.) as opposed to a sovereign, independent country, which they are (except for Crimea and certain other areas currently occupied by Russia and Russian separatists). Kiev is a transliteration of the Russian name for the city. Kyiv (which, as best I can tell, is pronounced “keeve”) is a transliteration of the city’s name in Ukrainian. Living in an area of Ukraine where she is surrounded almost entirely by Russian speakers, however, Sophie pronounces it “Kiev” and is probably charming enough to get away with it even around Ukrainian speakers.
2. Sophie’s mission president’s name is Aleksandr Vladimirovich Cheban, which sounds like the name of somebody I should be afraid of. This feeling almost certainly owes entirely to deep-seated biases formed in my teenage brain during the cold war. Sophie suffers from no such biases and thinks he’s a really nice guy. I imagine I would, too, if I met him. Plus, he’s like six years younger than I am. I don’t think I have ever felt intimidated by someone younger than me.
3. In hindsight, she could have just paid using her USAA debit card. But she did not know that at the time.
4. He actually said, “You’re f***ed,” but there may be children around and I’m assuming children don’t read the footnotes. (I realize “screwed” isn’t the politest word in the dictionary, either, but if you can think of an appropriate synonym for the f-word in this context, I’d love to hear it. I really don’t think one exists.)
5. We leave specific questions about Sabbath observance up to our children. When they miss Sunday sporting events, birthday parties, and beach outings, it’s because that’s how they choose to observe the Sabbath, not because we don’t let them go. When I was the pit orchestra pianist for Moorestown High School’s 1989 production of The King and I, I seem to recall playing for the Sunday matinee performance (and not catching any grief from Mom and Dad over it). Grace clearly takes it more seriously, which makes me happy. Incidentally, Silver Spring is home both to the world headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and to a thriving community of Orthodox Jews. Consequently, a majority (of the small minority) of people around here who actually observe the Sabbath observe it on Saturday, which makes us doubly unusual. According to a PRRI study, we live in the third-most religiously diverse county in America (behind only Brooklyn and Queens).