Merry Christmas to all!

Matt (00:00.863)
Welcome listener to another episode of the Latter Day Lens. This is our Christmas 2023 episode. So we're gonna just focus this on Christmas in Ukraine. So there's a lot of like information I'm gonna give at the beginning. Hopefully you all don't tune out and say, stop sounding like a boring professor. And then we have some questions we'll talk about. So most people don't know that Kiev is the birthplace of Christianity in the Slavic world.

Ukrainians are used to having foreigners try to control the way they worship. In the 13th century the Mongols kind of controlled the territory. They invaded Kiev and the Ukrainian territory. The communists did it in 1921, kind of changed the way that they the public worship of Christmas in the Soviet Union. At the same time Ukrainians have always seemed to find a way to put Christ at the center of their Christmas festivities.

And we all served in Ukraine at a time of great economic depression. Uh, I remember just deep, deep poverty. You guys probably remember this. Um, we were in, I served in a coal mining town and there were times when the coal miners, I would come to their houses and there was like a big pile of sugar in the living room and I'd be like, what is this sugar? And they're like, well, they owed us a whole bunch of money and back pay and they didn't have any money, so they gave us all this sugar.

Sam (01:17.275)
Yeah.

Matt (01:24.863)
and we can sell it and then we can use that to try to pay our bills. There are other things like that, right? Like just deep poverty because of the economic crisis they were facing at the time. But at the same time, they continue to celebrate Christmas. And here we are again, they're in a season of economic and political turmoil because of the Russian invasion, and they're still finding a way to celebrate Christ's birth.

shawn (01:28.374)
Oh my gosh, I never saw that.

Matt (01:50.695)
One thing that's notable is that this year for the first time since 1917, 1917 would be the year that the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsar in Russia. So for the first time since then, Ukraine is celebrating Christmas on December 25th. In that communist period of time and then in the time since then, they would celebrate Christmas on January 7th, I think it was, with the Russians.

shawn (02:17.538)
Seventh, yeah.

Matt (02:18.843)
with the Russian Orthodox Church. But despite that being the new official holiday, most workers in Ukraine still have to work on December 25th because there's martial law and a war going on and so they don't get the time off the same way that we do. Anyhow, so there's, I put in the show notes some other kinds of unique Ukrainian traditions, things that Ukrainians do to mark the holiday, but there's a couple of things I want to discuss with you guys. The first

What do you remember about how Ukrainians celebrated Christmas during that time of financial and economic turmoil?

shawn (02:57.514)
Man, it was hard because I remember a lot from the mission and I love it all. And I remember a lot from Easter, a lot of traditions, a lot of experiences. But as I was considering the question, I looked back and I thought, holy cow, I can't think in my brain of a lot of Christmas experiences. So I pulled up my journal and luckily I actually put quite a bit in there. But one thing I realized was I think because...

Matt (03:07.375)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (03:24.374)
We're ingrained to think that the 25th, and we get to call our parents on the 25th of December, right, I associate that with Christmas, and the Ukrainians are, at least where I was, they weren't doing anything around that time for Christmas. And so I don't remember having this like, vivid, vivid fond memory. I have very good memories of the two Christmases I spent there, and I can share some of those stories later, but did you guys get to experience, like have a Christmas experience in Ukraine? Because...

Matt (03:29.012)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Matt (03:36.866)
Right.

shawn (03:54.026)
when January 7th came around, that's kind of when they all did their thing, but I was out working. And so they were there with their families.

Sam (04:00.742)
So, so, so it is interesting to your point, Sean, like Christmas is in Christian United States of American commercial US, right? It is an enormous holiday, like the entire year focuses around it. It's a big selling season, economic activity, and then religious worship. And it's just not that there, or at least it wasn't back then. And I remember how surprising that first year, I was like, wait, what do you mean Christmas isn't on December 25th?

Matt (04:21.587)
Yeah.

Matt (04:29.407)
Yeah.

Sam (04:30.446)
That's when Christ was born, it was December 25th. The Catholics do midnight mass because that's the minute at midnight. I can't remember which time zone it was, if it's Eastern or West, you know, mountain or whatever. And I remember being so shocked that it was a different day. And that was part of, you know, I think that's one of the benefits of being on a mission is you get to go outside and see the world outside of, you know, not only kind of the bubble of the West, but the bubble of the United States.

shawn (04:33.677)
Hehehehe

shawn (04:39.882)
Hehe

Matt (04:41.965)
Yeah.

Sam (04:59.758)
You see how other people worship. And it is interesting in Russian Orthodoxy, Easter, I think is a much bigger holiday than Christmas, which kind of resonates with our tradition within the church, right? I have better memories of Easter there. The memory that I have, Sean, as you talk about it, is trying to get a call out on December 25th to my family. And I don't know if you remember this or not, but there were phones.

Matt (05:09.419)
Yeah.

shawn (05:17.035)
Yeah, me too.

shawn (05:23.885)
Yeah.

Matt (05:23.918)
Yeah.

Sam (05:29.174)
in our apartments and they were shared usually by five or six different apartments nearby, or at least one or two. And so as you're trying to make that call out, and it was an enormously expensive call, you had to save hundreds of dollars to talk for 10, 15 minutes, you would get neighbors coming onto the, uh, join the party line listening. Did you guys ever get listened in on?

shawn (05:34.546)
Yep, yep, yep.

Yep.

Matt (05:42.183)
Yeah.

shawn (05:48.69)
Yep.

Matt (05:52.688)
I could never figure out why that was. I thought that was just like the Soviets, like the government listening in on our calls. I was like, who is this person that's like talking on my phone? I never could figure out why that was.

shawn (06:02.574)
Sam, my first Christmas, my first or second Christmas when I was talking to my parents, we kept hearing that voice of some stranger and we're like, oh no, this is the neighbor. Two minutes into it, we hear this loud knock on our door, just bam, bam. And we're like, oh, oh crap. And my mom's like, what's going on? And we're like, oh, I don't know. And for two hours, this angry must have been drunk Ukrainian was so mad that we were locking up the line.

Sam (06:12.366)
Yeah. Koto eto! Koto eto!

Sam (06:20.742)
Get off the phone!

Matt (06:24.779)
I'm out.

shawn (06:31.562)
that he was just screaming at us. We were scared. We got scared.

Sam (06:31.995)
Yeah.

Matt (06:34.271)
No idea. I always ignored people that knocked on my door.

Sam (06:34.319)
Yeah.

shawn (06:38.242)
Hahaha!

Matt (06:40.651)
Yeah, so my first... Yeah, go ahead, Sam.

Sam (06:40.93)
And it made it hard. It made it hard to have a conversation because people would be popping in and out. That was one thing. The second thing was, do you remember to make that international phone call? You actually had to call an operator. The operator would then try to place the phone call. And for whatever reason, there were a limited number of lines that would go out. And so the operator would be like, hey, I'm trying to place this call. The lines are all busy. We're trying to prioritize it.

And I remember that both the first and second Christmas, like it was very tough to actually get that call out. And then once the call was made and completed, somebody picked up on the other end, it probably disconnected two or three times during the course of the 15, very short 15 or 20 minutes. And I think that call was probably $150. I mean, it was outrageously expensive.

shawn (07:20.17)
Yeah.

Matt (07:21.141)
Yeah.

Matt (07:26.239)
Yeah.

shawn (07:27.566)
Matt, this is the people's technology. This is the Marx's phone technology that works. Yes, yes, yes.

Matt (07:32.575)
Really? That's that it's Karl Marx. The fact that they had telephones is like an achievement. Like, I remember on my first Christmas, because we it was my first time being able to talk to my family since I had gotten to Ukraine because we weren't allowed to call people the way that you do now. So I could write letters, but your letters were always like two weeks or a month delayed, like knowing what's happening.

Sam (07:40.518)
Well, it was universal basic telephones. That's what it was.

shawn (07:43.263)
Yes he was!

Matt (08:02.371)
So I remember my first Christmas, I was super excited because I was gonna finally get to talk to them. And I probably did spend a lot of time talking to them. But my second Christmas, I didn't care as much about talking to my family anymore. I think I'd been more into my mission. And so I remember my second Christmas because it was not a holiday for them, it was for us. And I remember going around, tracking, knocking on doors saying, hey, today is Christmas in the United States and it's a special day for us.

Sam (08:02.511)
Or more.

Matt (08:32.223)
And we want to share a message with you about Jesus birth. And I remember it being a really successful, like missionary work day, because they wanted to hear messages about Christmas from the United States. Like, and you couldn't do that at any other day.

Sam (08:40.177)
Mmm.

shawn (08:46.574)
I mean, that is fascinating because they did love Americans, right? They were fascinated with it. And then using that tactic, yeah. But it is fascinating.

Matt (08:51.213)
Yeah.

Sam (08:54.258)
Matt, you, you were a salesman on that day, by the way, you found the perfect pitch. You found the pitch that landed and then you used it over and over again. I'm so proud of you. That was your last.

shawn (08:59.655)
Yeah

Matt (09:00.172)
Hahaha.

Matt (09:04.231)
Yeah, on New Year's I would go around and say, I'm sober and I'm gonna be sober all evening and I just wanna share a message with anyone else who's sober.

shawn (09:04.342)
Hehehehe

Sam (09:13.758)
Well, do you remember? So that it's not Christmas now it's New Year's, but I remember both new years just being shocked as you went out and, and walked around, you know, people, the vomit in the snow, the blood in the snow and, and we ran into a couple of people who had deceased overnight having drank too much and on their way home. Yeah. Did you ever run into that? Did you ever see a body? Yeah. We saw two bodies.

Matt (09:27.648)
Yeah.

shawn (09:31.438)
No! Jeez.

Matt (09:31.487)
Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It was the first time in my life where there was a body laying on, like it was at a bus stop and there was a body laying there in the freezing cold and nobody having any reaction to it. It was like when we're driving down the road and we see a dead animal on the side of the road and we just continue on like there's nothing. That's how it was with this individual. And I was just shocked. I was like, what kind of a world is this where there's just a,

Bonnie laying on the frozen sidewalk and nobody does anything.

shawn (10:03.342)
Hey, way to, hey, both of you, way to take the Christmas discussion down to the most depressing thing I've ever heard, geez.

Matt (10:10.823)
Well, so for me, it's the contrast. Yeah, so in the United States, we have huge celebrations on Christmas and then we have New Year's, right? And for me, what I loved about Ukraine was Christmas was a completely religious holiday. There were Christmas traditions, there was like Diede Maroz and there would be presents.

Sam (10:11.942)
Well, it's reality there. Yeah, yeah.

shawn (10:31.458)
They did that like two weeks earlier, on the 17th, I think, of December, they would have a present exchange all about this, Diez Marose, whatever his name was.

Matt (10:39.255)
Well, so I think it was New Year's Day, right? So for some he would come on New Year's Day and on some it was January 6th when they would get the presents. And so, to me, it was the first time in my life where I saw that Christmas was just a strictly religious holiday with no secular connotations to it. It was just all about Christ and his birth and maybe like different traditions related to that, but nothing about like gifts and...

shawn (11:04.702)
Yeah, like around, it was around food and the symbolism of a lot of the food ingredients. It was about the star being, I think it was a certain time they would represent the star coming which represented, you know, Christ's announcement, the birth. But I, Sam brought up how Easter was, to me, I developed this excitement for Easter in Ukraine that kind of became my Christmas because it was such a fun and exciting thing and it made sense to me. Like the resurrection of Christ is a...

really the pinnacle event, right? And his birth is important and all that, but the Easter thing became Christmas for me and it was so special in Ukraine. I kind of adopted that instead of the Christmases because the Christmas was so low key, right?

Sam (11:50.158)
Yeah. So, so to your point, uh, as you're walking around at Christmas, you say, sir, I just vom right with the birth, right. Or, or, which I think is what it literally means. Easter is a fun tradition because you walk around and say, Jesus was Chris. And then the other person would say, vice the new bus Chris, which is Christ is risen. Truly. He is risen. And isn't it interesting like Christmas, a little bit less

Matt (11:50.259)
Yeah, right.

shawn (12:15.223)
All day long.

Sam (12:20.11)
Emphasis on commercialism and buying and giving gifts. And then Easter, a strong Christ-centered message that people traditionally would share with each other. What do you make of that? That's a big departure from the US where we're scared to even say Merry Christmas. We have to say happy holidays a lot, right?

shawn (12:25.972)
I love it.

I loved it.

Matt (12:38.159)
Well, that's because we're a multicultural society. There's Hanukkah.

shawn (12:38.294)
Matt, I dog Matt, but also Matt, but also Matt, I dogged your dog, Matt, I dogged your socialism so I can dog capitalism now. Sam isn't the reason capitalism Christmas is the way it is in America because of money. And Ukraine had no money.

Sam (12:42.758)
Because I'm sorry, that's right, because government has saved us. Sorry, go ahead, Sean.

Sam (12:54.147)
Oh, no question. Yeah, no question.

Matt (12:56.991)
I had an, we had an exchange student from Spain and she stayed with us over Christmas time. And I remember she was getting so excited about Christmas and Christmas songs and Christmas music. And of course she wasn't a member of our church. And so I thought, oh, this will be great. Like we'll be able to sing Christmas hymns. Well, it'll be something that'll kind of like unite our cultures, even though we're so different. But for her, Christmas songs was like, last Christmas I gave you my heart. All I want for Christmas is you.

Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber Christmas music. And like, and there was very little Jesus in her like conceptualization of Christmas. So I don't know that it's a capital, maybe it's a commercial. I just think that the world's different now and Christmas is just not necessarily as Christ centered as it is for Ukrainians.

Sam (13:31.867)
Mmm.

Sam (13:39.258)
Well...

Sam (13:45.914)
I would argue though that aspect has been driven by our Western culture. Like our Western culture, our commercialization has taken over the whole world for better or worse. It's probably good in some areas because it brings a message that otherwise wouldn't have been delivered. I mean, who could live without Justin Bieber for Christmas? I mean, that certainly brings the true meaning of Christmas in and whatnot. But it-

Matt (13:51.637)
Uh...

Matt (13:57.538)
Uh...

Matt (14:05.276)
Hahaha

shawn (14:09.451)
Yeah.

Sam (14:12.846)
We've lost the local culture and customs that you see in some places. We were down in Chicago. I always bring up Chicago. We had our company's year-end party and there's this cool little kind of Christmas village near the hotel where we had the party. And it's based on, I forget which culture, I think German or whatnot. And it just celebrates some of the neat traditions around Christmas in that culture. And Ukraine is that way. They love

They love Christmas, not because it's giving and getting, but because it is a Christ birth, although they got the date wrong.

Matt (14:51.139)
So was there, you guys know why the date was different, right? Oh, okay, I'll tell you. So the Russian Orthodox Church, this is like a lot of history that might like bore people to death, but you had the Roman Catholic Church that was the inheritor of the tradition of the apostles and all of that stuff. And then at some point, it moved to the Byzantine Empire and with the capital in Constantinople, and Christianity was sort of based there, which is.

Sam (14:54.318)
No, why? Why is it? Okay.

Sam (15:16.37)
Oh, that's the they might be giant song constant. And what was that? What was constant? Yeah.

Matt (15:20.331)
Yeah, now it's Istanbul. So then as Constantinople fades away and the Ottoman Turks take over Constantinople and change the name to Istanbul, so then there's this question of like, well, where is the center of Christianity? And that was a time of considerable power in the Russian Empire. And so the head of Christianity, or at least the Russian Orthodox would say, they call it the Third Rome, and that Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church became the center of Christianity.

shawn (15:20.528)
Hehehehe

Sam (15:29.842)
Nobody's business but the Turks.

Matt (15:49.523)
and they all followed a certain calendar of events. And then at some point, yeah, and then the Western world switched to the Gregorian calendar, which is why our Christmas is on December 25th. But the Russian Orthodox Church said, no, we're gonna stick with the original calendar and do things the way they originally were. The Western world switched, they didn't switch. And so in Russia, it's still gonna be on January 7th. Yeah, January 15th, maybe, anyhow.

shawn (15:54.038)
Julian, the Julian calendar.

Matt (16:18.635)
It'll be two weeks later, Christmas in Russia. But Ukraine's going to the 25th, because they're saying, we're not gonna follow the Russian traditions of Christmas anymore.

shawn (16:28.862)
symbolic really yeah it's symbolic

Sam (16:32.394)
Does that change divide an older generation with a younger generation of Ukrainians, the older generation that always knew Christmas is on that date? How tough is it to change that type of a tradition? If you believe you're right, because that's the true birth of Christ when that day should be celebrated, can a politician saying, hey, we're going to go with the Americans for a political reason?

Matt (16:45.696)
Yeah.

Sam (16:57.606)
Does that does that leave a wedge in Ukraine for after this war is resolved and people may want to go back?

Matt (17:02.775)
Well, so there's the Russian Orthodox Church, but there's also a Ukrainian Orthodox Church and there's a Ukrainian Catholic Church. And so in Ukraine, prior to the Soviet Union coming in and putting an end to all religious activities, Ukraine was on the Western calendar because the Ukrainian Church was more along with the Roman Catholic tradition. And so this kind of change in Ukraine has been going on for a hundred years. And so...

Sam (17:25.745)
Mmm.

Matt (17:31.275)
So to them saying we're celebrating on the 25th is an acknowledgement of the government saying the Ukrainian Orthodox Church always had it right and the Russian Orthodox Church was always wrong.

shawn (17:41.518)
Isn't that a part of a broader movement when communism established and they started the process of attempting Russification, right? They would send in Russian families, Russian workers, Russian spies into Ukraine, especially the Donbass area where you serve mostly, Matt. They tried to affect the culture and they tried to change things and they got the Russian language in there, right? Then ever since the fall, it's been this slow move back.

Matt (18:04.994)
Right.

shawn (18:10.199)
from Russian culture, Russification, back to Ukraine. It's been this slow process of get our identity back. And they've done a good job, it's gone slowly, but it really is a good example in the world of people trying to take their own culture and identity back from what was taken from them. And this is part of it.

Matt (18:28.131)
Yeah, this is why, this is why when Vivek Ramaswamy talks about how, oh, these regions in Ukraine, they're all Russian and they're Russian speaking and they're just a part of Russia. And I'm just like, look, buddy, you need to like look into history more than 20 years back, right? Like Stalin forcibly moved people out of Ukraine into Siberia and forcibly moved people from Siberia into Ukraine. So yeah, there are a lot of Russians in that region.

shawn (18:42.795)
Yeah, idiot.

shawn (18:54.21)
for the purpose, for the purpose of trying to russify the country. Like it was a, yeah.

Matt (18:58.531)
Right, right, right. And it's forced removal, right? And so it's like, yeah, there's Russians there, because that's what Russia is trying to do, is like, steal that country from the Ukrainians.

shawn (19:09.758)
But I always tell people, it was maybe once a month in that area that I would meet someone, I'd contact them on the street and they'd say, hey man, I don't speak your trash Ukrainian language. Because they heard my accent and they thought I was speaking Ukrainian. And they were this puffed up like Russian purist. But it was like once a month I would meet someone who was pure Russian, who believed Ukraine was supposed to be Russian. But that's it, once a month.

Sam (19:19.319)
Ha ha

Matt (19:20.17)
Hahaha

Matt (19:31.495)
But I also met militant Ukrainian nationalists who when they heard me speak Russian, would start saying, like swearing at me in Ukrainian and saying like threatening things in Ukrainian. I'm like, dude, I'm an American. I'm happy that I can say anything that anyone can understand in this country. I'm sorry I don't know Ukrainian. But yeah, so that, I mean, that's a longstanding battle like fight that's happened in that area. So were there any? Yeah, go ahead, Sam.

Sam (19:48.535)
Ha ha.

shawn (19:49.28)
Hehe

Sam (19:57.559)
Can I share another memory I have? And I'd be curious if either of you remember this, cause maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Why do I, so in the mission, there are zones and there are a couple or maybe three zones in a mission. Then the zones are made up of districts. And do you remember how many were in our district? Maybe six, seven, eight missionaries in a district or, yeah. Why do I remember at Christmas time,

Matt (20:19.147)
Yeah, probably no more than eight in a district.

Sam (20:24.986)
going around as a district and singing Christmas carols on American Christmas. And they were American Christmas carols with sister SAR, sister Rasmussen and

shawn (20:28.29)
Do ya?

shawn (20:35.47)
Oh my gosh.

Matt (20:37.067)
Well, that's why, because you were with them in your district. They probably made it happen. You had sisters that wanted to go sing songs. There were, it probably wasn't an elder driven affair where they're like, hey, elders. I mean, I did have some companions that like to sing when we would be teaching people, but I always felt awkward, like we're going to sit here in your house and sing to you to help you feel the spirit.

Sam (20:38.638)
Is that why?

Sam (20:43.851)
Okay, okay.

shawn (20:43.915)
I'm gonna go.

Sam (20:47.639)
I'm sure. Yeah.

shawn (20:57.622)
It was always effective, Matt. It was always effective.

Sam (20:58.138)
Yeah, in English, in English. Now everybody loved English, but you remember the retort. If they didn't truly know English, they would quote, you know, a movie like die hard or something other. And it was shockingly vulgar. And you were like, wait, I don't think you know what you're saying. Right.

Matt (21:09.159)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

shawn (21:13.282)
Sam, I think that was just your district. I think that was just you guys. I think so.

Matt (21:15.941)
Yeah, that was just you.

Sam (21:15.95)
Was it? Okay. All right. All right. Well, anybody out there in the podcast world listening to this, if you remember that I'd be curious for, cause Sean, unlike you, I did not keep copious journal notes. I do not have a, an extensive diary to go back and look at. So I'm having to go back on my memory. I do remember Matt going out and, and tracking on those days or talking to people on the streets. And, uh, and, and I remember that was always, that was always fun, but it was always odd.

shawn (21:26.85)
Hehehehe

Matt (21:27.191)
haha

Sam (21:45.338)
because Christmas is such a big deal in the United States and it didn't exist over there. So it was a phone call home and then it was a work day, right?

shawn (21:54.315)
Yeah, right.

Matt (21:55.031)
So was there anything about your experience with Christmas in Ukraine that changed the way that you thought about Christmas or that you celebrate Christmas now?

shawn (22:00.714)
Yes, yes, absolutely. So to follow up with Sam's comment, what he just said, right? Like we thought it was this big holiday because it was to us in America, but then you'd go out on that day and it was just a regular work day. Well, so I got a story to share. So I was with this, my favorite companion, I was with other Barnes. And I actually called him yesterday to make sure that I don't pull a Paul H Dunn and make up a story. I was like,

Matt (22:25.879)
Oh, and make up a story? You can't, you know, Elder Barm's memories and recollections are not reliable.

Sam (22:31.831)
Yeah, you could totally make up a story, by the way. You're fine. Half of what we share here is made up. So.

shawn (22:32.478)
Well, that's what I found. That's what I found. I said, hey, Elder Barnes, this is... I said, Elder Barnes, this is how I remember this story. What do you think? Is it accurate? He's like, I don't remember any of that. I'm like, good, then I'll tell it however I want. So I remember in our zone during Christmas, our president, President Merrill said, hey, we're gonna have everyone over to this place. I remember being with one of the Ukrainian missionaries, Elder Pachylko.

Matt (22:38.451)
Hahaha

Matt (22:43.871)
Yeah, that's right.

shawn (23:01.422)
Because we had to go on splits to go and reserve. Yeah, because we had to go for some reason, we had to go reserve a big space that all the missionaries were gonna meet in. I remember pulling up to the, oh yeah, that's right, that's right. Oh, was it really? Yeah, because, oh, that's when you killed the turkey.

Sam (23:01.456)
Mmm, yep.

Matt (23:01.484)
Mmm. At Christmas time?

Matt (23:11.543)
You're thinking of Thanksgiving. This has to be Thanksgiving. When Elder Holland came.

Sam (23:14.438)
Yeah, this is Thanksgiving because we all got together. Yeah. That's when we killed. So we killed the turkey. We killed the turkey, the chickens. Yes. Matt and I were, Matt and I were in the basement of a, uh, an apartment building on a dirt floor killing animals. It was, do you remember this, Matt?

Matt (23:17.783)
But it's okay. Yeah.

shawn (23:29.442)
Oh my gosh.

Matt (23:30.183)
I just looked at a, yeah, I recorded it for my family to listen to. And I actually was, I was looking at pictures of it the other day, but I do remember at one point after we whacked off one of the heads, somebody's like, this is really warm blood.

Sam (23:34.937)
No!

shawn (23:35.022)
Uh oh.

Sam (23:42.702)
Wait, yes, you kill it, you recorded it?

shawn (23:45.116)
Oh gosh!

Matt (23:47.383)
The audio, I thought my family might like to hear. I'll see if I can find the audio.

Sam (23:49.938)
Could I have that? I would, it was, actually, I will tell you, I think that was me who made that comment because I remember that distinctly. Like I had never done anything like, what a horror. Like you're a missionary in a basement and people around us are generally suspicious of what we're doing anyway. And there we are on an American holiday Thanksgiving that the Ukraine knows nothing about killing chickens and turkeys in the basement. It was.

shawn (23:50.155)
Oh my gosh.

shawn (23:58.336)
Hehehehehehe

Matt (24:01.567)
Yeah.

shawn (24:08.398)
So why were you guys doing it? Because...

Matt (24:15.487)
It was, it was really weird, Sean. So Elder Hall, Elder Holland was coming and the whole mission was gathering together and we're in Donnettes where everybody was going and the Merrill said, wouldn't it be neat to have a big Thanksgiving meal for all of us? And for whatever, yeah, sister Merrill and for whatever reason, one of the missionaries in our district was like walking through the bazaar and saw some geese and turkeys just wandering around. And so they purchased them.

shawn (24:17.788)
Why were you doing it?

Sam (24:21.218)
Yeah.

Sam (24:31.318)
Sister Meryl said that. Yeah, fair.

Matt (24:44.415)
some live turkeys and geese, there were like four or five of them, and they put them on their balcony of their apartment and were like, what are you going to do with that? And they're like, I don't know, I just saw these birds and I thought I would buy them and we're like, well, we should slaughter them for this feast. And I, well, we, and by the way, none of us had ever done it before. And so

Sam (24:48.302)
Yep.

shawn (24:58.768)
Oh, that was your idea? You guys had the idea and just did it?

Sam (24:59.366)
Ha ha

Sam (25:04.406)
No. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you in a minute why you know we've never done it before. But go ahead, because we did a horribly wrong. Horribly wrong.

Matt (25:09.395)
Yes, I remember horribly wrong. Yes, I just remember chopping off their heads and trying to like pluck the feathers and trying to gut them.

shawn (25:15.478)
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah, but you did this on your own accord. You didn't have like the Merrell saying, okay, someone bought the goose that let's go. Matt, so Matt and Sam, you guys go take care of it.

Sam (25:17.916)
It was incredibly bloody. It was very bloody.

Matt (25:20.172)
Ha ha!

Sam (25:29.251)
It was implied consent because Sister Meryl said, wouldn't it be great to have a big feast?

shawn (25:34.094)
but you mostly did it on your own accord. This is fascinating. Okay, okay.

Matt (25:37.243)
It's the same way that Maruupol got opened, whereas like somebody said, wouldn't it be neat if there was somebody to teach there? And we're like, we'll go find someone for you. Yeah, it was.

Sam (25:39.526)
That's right.

shawn (25:46.422)
Oh my gosh.

Sam (25:47.976)
Matt, I'm so fascinated that you went from such a, I will go and do person to now just let's let the government handle everything. I don't want to bring in our prior discussions, but you were a man of, you were a man, a person of action in the nineties. And now you're just kind of like, Hey, let's wait for someone else to do it. So Matt, do you remember why we know we did it wrong?

shawn (25:50.759)
audio.

Matt (25:56.978)
haha

shawn (26:01.41)
Get it done. Just get it done.

Matt (26:05.307)
I still am a man of action. I just use the government for action.

Sam (26:14.834)
So now we have these dead chickens and turkey. We had one turkey and we had multiple chickens. And do you remember de-feathering them after? So.

Matt (26:22.191)
Yes, there was a, our whole district was in your kitchen trying to pluck feathers out of these birds.

Sam (26:26.042)
Yeah. And it was a nightmare. We did not have tweezers. It was just pulling one by one. And then after we had put the feast on, and it was a horrible experience doing that to these animals, someone came to us and they're like, that's not how you do it. It may have been Elder Kennedy, who grew up making his own soap and killing his own animals. He said, you have to freeze it. And then there was something about scalding it. And he's like, the feathers

shawn (26:27.207)
Oh my gosh.

Matt (26:30.977)
Hahaha

Yeah.

shawn (26:39.278)
Ha ha.

shawn (26:46.808)
farm.

Matt (26:48.183)
Yeah, on a farm.

Matt (26:53.135)
Yeah

Sam (26:54.714)
just automatically come out and we had to fight every single feather. By the time the meal was served, I couldn't even look at the doggone thing. I think I had a little and I couldn't have much beyond that.

shawn (26:56.738)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (26:56.793)
Yeah.

Matt (27:06.023)
So I remember putting one of them in Sam's oven and then I remember opening it up to check and like in your mind when you're cooking a bird like that it's gonna be like this nice golden brown skin or something like that. I open it up and I see feathers on fire, like flaming feathers. And so when it came, we were like, well, we can't put this like charred thing out on a platter for people. So we cut up all the meat into like little things so that.

shawn (27:20.134)
Oh my gosh! Jeez!

Sam (27:20.434)
Yeah.

Sam (27:24.508)
Uhhh

Matt (27:31.751)
And I don't think people got to have very much meat. I don't think there was much. Yeah.

shawn (27:33.987)
Yeah

Sam (27:34.074)
Now, there was not a lot of meat, period. Yeah, there was not a lot of meat. What?

shawn (27:38.062)
This does show that when you serve a mission in Ukraine during the post-communist era in the 90s, it is the Wild West, because you guys have proven that.

Matt (27:46.772)
Yeah.

Sam (27:46.778)
Well, so I was going to ask that because as we're recollecting that, what an adventure for 19, 20, 21 year old kids, right? So you're from another country, you go into a different culture, you learn the language, you learn the customs and traditions, you bring things that mean a lot to you from your own life. Like how cool is that we were afforded that opportunity and experience. And does it still exist today or is, are things so tightly controlled manuscripted that you can't do that? Right.

Matt (27:55.854)
Yeah.

shawn (27:56.27)
I'm sorry.

shawn (28:15.674)
It's what they make of it. My son's on a mission now and every week we talk and it revolves around what are you doing to make this your experience? Like what choices are you making to really make this a magical, spiritual, powerful thing?

Sam (28:24.87)
Yeah.

Sam (28:29.411)
But if he came to you and said, dad, you know, where is he again? He's in Brazil, right? If he came to you and said, hey, you know, I know Thanksgiving's an American holiday, but I think I'm gonna actually go to the market. I think we're gonna get a bunch of chickens and turkeys. We're gonna slaughter them all in the backyard and we're gonna cook them. What would your answer be, Sean?

shawn (28:32.451)
Brazil.

shawn (28:38.507)
Yeah.

Matt (28:41.782)
Hahaha

shawn (28:42.158)
I, it sounds like something I think of you two and go, you know, if, if the two, my two knucklehead companions did it and survived, go for it, man.

Sam (28:50.738)
Oh

Matt (28:54.596)
Honestly, I have I don't know where we slaughtered these animals. It was like inside of a building somewhere

Sam (28:58.986)
I do. It was, it was in the basement. I don't remember who let us down, but I distinctly remember it was in the basement of an apartment building and it had a completely dirt floor. And so this is awful. This is probably detracting from the spirit of Christmas or whatever, but I remember these animals running all over the place and just going, that can't like, what are we going to do? Like I had never, I had never gone hunting.

shawn (29:10.478)
Oh my gosh, guys.

shawn (29:15.56)
Haha, yeah!

Matt (29:23.375)
How do we kill it?

shawn (29:23.838)
Okay, so.

Sam (29:26.978)
With like I would not shoot a deer, let alone in the life of one of these cute little chickens or turkeys.

shawn (29:27.299)
Hehehe

Okay, so to...

Matt (29:33.699)
And I remember Sean, I remember there were like two kids that were like nine or ten years old and we were asking them Like how do we do this? And so they would like tell us what to do because we had no idea what to do. They're like, oh, yeah It's easy to kill a goose. Oh, okay. What do we do?

Sam (29:42.032)
Hahaha!

shawn (29:46.21)
I'm admitted now. Okay, so.

Sam (29:48.1)
That's terrible.

shawn (29:51.258)
So while you guys were, I wanna say sinning, but when you guys were murdering animals, oh, oh sorry. Okay, when you guys were serving, sorry, serving. Okay, sorry, serving, serving. While you guys were doing the bloody service that was in the basement, some dark, dank basement of a horror story. No, no, no. What? No, no, the rest of us were like, okay, we were all tasked to do stuff to get ready for this big.

Sam (29:55.846)
Wait, what? What? Sister Meryl asked us to do it!

Matt (29:56.845)
We were preparing a feast for the mission.

Sam (30:07.406)
You're working! That's fair. Yeah.

Matt (30:10.612)
while we were plucking feathers so that you could have good meat.

shawn (30:17.99)
meeting and conference and feast. So Elder Pahilco and I had to rearrange, had to arrange for the space we're going to do it in. So I remember walking into the hotel and he pulls out a huge bottle of vodka and sits on the table of the desk and says, we need to rent. Yeah. He says, we need to rent your space. And the guy took it and says, the space is yours. So the bribery that existed.

Sam (30:32.022)
Oh, did he really? Oh, yeah.

Matt (30:37.869)
Wow.

Sam (30:38.79)
It was a nice library. It was a library. It was a very nice library there. Yeah. Beautiful building.

Matt (30:41.419)
Yeah.

shawn (30:42.018)
Yeah, it was really nice. Yeah. OK, my original intent in bringing that story up, which I'm mixing memories a little bit, was when Christmas, when we had our Zone Christmas party, do you remember what we did for our Zone Christmas party?

Matt (30:54.903)
We did like a talent show, right? And then we watched, Sister Meryl wanted us to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. No, that was not my idea. And I was like, Sister Meryl, that's kind of a naughty show. She's like, could you cover up the bad parts? I'm like, I think we should just maybe not watch it.

shawn (31:01.29)
No, that was your...

Sam (31:01.474)
haha

Sam (31:10.478)
Matt, that story is great because every year to my family, I'm like, we need to watch this, National Amphitheater Christmas Vacation. And then I'm always reminded that's a terrible so maybe that's where it came from. To my family, that's where it started, was on my mission. Sister Meryl, we'll blame her. Okay. All right, Sean, what was your question?

shawn (31:10.727)
So what did we watch instead?

Matt (31:21.252)
Hahaha

shawn (31:21.354)
You hear Matt's voice in your head?

Matt (31:25.419)
That's right, it's the mission. Sister Meryl. Probably like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

shawn (31:28.994)
So what did we end up watching instead?

shawn (31:33.342)
No, it was like a Disney cartoon. It was like Aladdin or something like that, I thought. Okay, so.

Matt (31:38.053)
Oh, okay.

Sam (31:39.362)
But I feel like that was in Dome Kino, wasn't it? I feel like that part was, yeah, that was in Dome Kino. What, which to people who don't know what that was, that was an old movie theater that we rented that ended up being a meeting space for, yeah, one of the wards in the.

Matt (31:41.919)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a different thing. It was like a month later.

shawn (31:52.398)
The central part of Donetsk's meeting space.

Matt (31:56.991)
In the foyer of the movie theater, somebody built a baptismal font, and that's where most of the baptisms will happen.

Sam (32:01.242)
Yeah.

shawn (32:03.358)
Awesome. Dome keynote. That's awesome. So you asked the question, Matt, how did Christmas in Ukraine affect Christmases today? So here's mine. So when my memory of gathering for that Christmas party, I was with Elder Barnes at the time in Dunyetsk, North Branch. And we went to this party and it was great and all the missionaries there is exciting. We weren't used to doing parties, right? At that time, we all kind of scoffed at parties. Like I didn't come to Ukraine for two years on my mission to go to parties with other knucklehead missionaries, right? Or play risk or play risk.

Matt (32:30.068)
Yeah.

Sam (32:30.151)
Or risk play risk. We don't play risk. Yeah.

shawn (32:33.014)
So I remember Elder Barnes and I were sitting there after the meal and they started the cartoon and within two minutes we looked at each other and said, is this really what we want to do on Christmas in Ukraine on our missions? And we both snuck out. I think a lot of us snuck out.

Sam (32:40.507)
You're gone.

Sam (32:46.126)
We didn't stay either. Yeah. I didn't stay. I didn't stay.

Matt (32:48.335)
I stayed. I stayed to the very- someone has to clean up at the end. Somebody has to- somebody has to help the Merrill's feel like they did a good job as mission president and why-

shawn (32:57.202)
Once again, you served, you served. That's good, man. That's good.

Sam (33:00.527)
Matt was trying to, was vying for a promotion. That's why he killed the turkeys. He wanted sister Meryl to, yeah.

Matt (33:03.436)
Hahaha

shawn (33:04.67)
Yeah, that's right. He wanted to be AP.

Matt (33:07.199)
Right, you leave the party early to proselytes, you're never gonna be in Sandus Gang. You're never gonna be like high up, high ranking missionary. You gotta play the political game.

Sam (33:12.256)
Hahaha

Sam (33:16.32)
Uhhhhhh

shawn (33:16.606)
Well, here's what happened when Elder Barnes and I left. This was the story that I resurrected in my journal. So we went out and I just remember thinking, all right, this is exciting. We get to go talk of Christ on Christmas in Ukraine. And we walked outside and it just started to snow. And it was, right? It was evening and I just remember the lights all through the cities in Ukraine, in Donetsk. And...

Sam (33:33.794)
I remember the snow that night. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

shawn (33:42.466)
the snow hitting that light, and it just became this like super magical, amazing feeling. And I remember two things. One, we started talking to everybody we could. And then it was so cold that Elder Barnes showed up and he had no gloves on. I'm like, dude, what are you doing, man? Now we can't work, we gotta go get gloves. He's like, nah, just give me one of yours, it's fine. I'm like, where'd your gloves go? Oh, I don't know, I put them somewhere. Oh, absent-minded Elder Barnes, I was so upset. And then like five minutes later, we walked by this poor, sweet guy sitting on the ground, drunk.

Sam (33:46.968)
Yeah.

Sam (34:11.234)
Mmm.

shawn (34:11.786)
and asleep and he had Elder Barnes gloves on. And I thought, and I thought, this is the most sweet, awesome Christmas thing ever. Anyway, so here's what happened. So we were working our butts off and we were just feeling the spirit and it was awesome. And we get on the trolley bus to go someplace. And the way that I recorded this, it says, we met Alexei, he's a sniper from the Afghan war. Yeah. And I said, this man is in so much pain. You could just see that from war and killing,

Sam (34:14.21)
Way to go Levi, way to go.

Matt (34:14.784)
Mmm, good man.

Sam (34:33.454)
Mm.

Matt (34:34.839)
Wow.

shawn (34:40.842)
He is miserable in life. And he said that he's only had to, he says basically he's turned to the Bible and just consumes the Bible nonstop. And as we introduced to him on this bus, the Book of Mormon, we talked for a long time and then we went to his house afterwards. And when we taught him about the promise of the Book of Mormon, about how you can pray and know that things are true, he says this, and I wrote it down verbatim. He says, but it says right here, all I have to do is ask.

Matt (34:42.466)
Yeah.

shawn (35:10.23)
He says, why doesn't it say that in the Bible? All I have to do is ask to know what is true? He says, why doesn't it teach me that in the Bible? So we went into this really fast, it does, but we went into this really fascinating discussion about him praying and asking and praying and asking. And at the end, he had this really powerful prayer where he basically said, he said, Lord, I'm gonna ask you, what is truth and how do I find it? And help me to believe in the thing that I should have believed long ago.

I thought that was a super beautiful and poetic thing that he said. So we taught and taught and taught this guy and it ended up being a really, he was so in pain because, and this was a meta, to me it was an example of Ukrainians, right? There was so much pain that they experienced. Like I remember I took two notes from the next Christmas about the only two memories I have from the next Christmas where I wrote about I saw this poor sister in the snow passed out from alcohol and how my heart was broken. And then like.

the next journal entry was I saw a good brother in the snow passed out and it just broke my heart. So to me, the memories of Christmas that have changed my how I spend Christmas today are going out and working on that day to serve other people and just seeing the sadness that comes from sin and the sadness that comes from brokenheartedness and doing our best to bring the message of Christ. And so I try to think of that now during Christmas is how do you go out and serve and help other people because that's what it's about, isn't it?

Matt (36:33.911)
That's nice, Sean. So what can Americans learn about Christmas from the manner in which Ukrainians recognize the holiday? Is there anything that we could learn as a nation from them about Christmas and how to celebrate it?

Sam (36:35.302)
That's awesome.

Sam (36:48.114)
So I love the quote from English literature somewhere in getting and giving, we lay waste to our powers by and by the world is too much with us. I forget who says that, but the commercial aspect, you know, we could, we could, uh, we could somehow decelerate the commercialism and that coming from, uh, the biggest capitalist in the group of us three, I think, um, you, you know, that the holiday could definitely.

Matt (37:09.834)
haha

shawn (37:09.869)
Hahaha

Sam (37:14.842)
benefit from that. I remember the tradition of Died Maroz, right? Father Frost and Snigurjka. And I forget what the relationship between the two are. And in the US, the Santa tradition is very commercial, right? It's about what you're getting for gifts and presents. And it seems to me that there, that equivalent, Died Maroz, Father Frost, was much less about commercialism and more about good acts, good deeds. I don't know if you, either of you know the full story.

Matt (37:20.315)
Yeah.

Sam (37:44.834)
recall it, but I brought home a series of dolls with Díaz Moróz, which is fun to look back on. Yeah.

Matt (37:53.795)
So there's this tradition in Ukraine and I put it in the show notes, but in Ukraine, they'll actually put spider webs in the Christmas trees as like a decoration because there's a story about a family, like it's just a legend, right? But there was a family that didn't have anything for Christmas, they didn't have any way to decorate their trees. And then that night the spiders came and put webs in their trees. And so when the sun came up in the morning, the webs were all kind of glistening and.

Sam (38:04.239)
Mmm.

Sam (38:19.675)
Mmm.

Matt (38:22.019)
It was like, oh, the spiders have decorated our trees for us. And like that sort of story and tradition to me is like quintessential Ukraine. The idea that celebrating Christmas doesn't require money and celebrating Christmas doesn't require things. It's about doing things for others and it's about appreciating the things that are around you. And to me, the most profound memory I have of all of the holidays in Ukraine, but Christmas especially.

Cause you remember at Christmas time, that's when they would eat hollajets, the like boiled water of like pig's head jello sort of. And I remember we would, we're from America with tons of money and we would go to somebody's house and they would have a feast, just a spread of everything you could think of to eat. And some of the meat was like dog meat or cat meat. Like some of it was not great meat, but that's cause that's what they could afford. And I remember that these Ukrainians would give their last

shawn (38:54.52)
Yeah.

Sam (38:54.582)
Yeah.

shawn (38:59.12)
Ugh.

Sam (39:03.461)
Yeah.

Sam (39:13.282)
Yeah.

Matt (39:20.847)
penny making sure that their guests had plenty of food to eat, even if they were starving themselves and they would make sure that their guests like felt warm and welcome, even if everything else in the house was cold. And right. And so for, to me I think the thing we could learn from Ukrainians is more gratitude for what we have more appreciation for the things we have, and then more of a recognition that you don't have to have a lot in order to give a lot.

To me, I think like those are the aspects of Christmas in Ukraine that stick with me for a long time.

shawn (39:53.494)
Very nice. That's awesome.

Sam (39:55.242)
And that memory is quintessential Ukraine because they've struggled so much for so long, including now, right? And so I imagine thinking about this holiday season there this year, a terrible place, a ton of adversity. And yet I think it was you, Matt, who sent the, and maybe it was an NPR story, a podcast where they had a recording and you heard

Matt (40:02.219)
Yeah.

shawn (40:10.807)
Yeah.

Sam (40:23.834)
the joy and kind of the excitement light from the person speaking about the holiday season. Like you heard kids and it sounded great in the background until the NPR reporter started asking questions about what's it like. And then you heard the, well, it's tough here and it's tough on us. And, and they kind of break under the questions, but are very, uh, you know, they find a way to be grateful in the moment, which, you know, they, they've had to do a lot of.

shawn (40:37.095)
Yeah.

Sam (40:51.886)
I mean, you think about our time in the nineties, that was a challenging time under corruption and, and poverty. And, uh, it, it continues through to today.

Matt (41:02.987)
Yeah. Hey, good job you guys. This is a good episode. Listener, if you have memories from Ukraine you want to share, that's fine. Please send them to us. If you have memories from other places you want to share, let us know. I think that it's really good at Christmas time to just take time to reflect and think about all the things we have and all the things that we could be grateful for and then maybe ways that we could share them. I think that one advantage Ukraine has because Christianity has been there.

probably a thousand years longer than it's been in the United States. They have the tradition and you know, sometimes tradition is looked down upon the traditions of our fathers leading us astray. But oftentimes tradition is what allows a people to endure difficulties and challenges that they face in life. And so if you have traditions that you develop in your life that you want to share with us, let us know. We'll be happy to read them in an upcoming episode. Thanks everybody. Talk to you next week.