Kreshatik

Kreshatik: before and after

After my freshman year in college, I traveled to Kiev, Ukraine for an internship working in orphanages and children's hospitals. Between the long hours of commuting through the city and working, I would spend my evenings with my friends on Kreschatik street. Kreschatik is the center of Keiv and is home to one of the best places in the whole world: Roshen Chocolate. It is so good that I gained 30 pounds while I lived in Ukraine (mainly because of the chocolate, but also because of the soft-serve ice cream stand right outside.

During my evenings on the street I would notice a few tents set up here and there, but it took me a long time to understand why they were there. Apparently these were people protesting the government. Specifically, they didn't want the President to stop trying to enter the EU.

Luckily (especially from my parents' point of view) I was back in the United States before riots broke out, but a part of my life was still over there, and I became very worried for so many of my dear friends. During the initial fighting, I was in constant communication with my previous translators, the orphanage workers, and the kids. I heard stories of police men beating people to death and hiding their bodies in the forests. I heard my friend Zhenya explain how he didn't want to be called to fight because he didn't want to leave his three little girls. I heard that the missionaries and temple workers were all safe, not one of them had got caught in the commotion. I heard so many sad and horrible things from my friends who were right in the middle of the struggle.

The whole time this was going on, I felt so blessed to know that the temple, the temple workers, and all the members in Kiev were safe. Not a single person was harmed. Despite the chaos around, all of my loved ones were protected. What a blessing it was for all of the members to have a local authority that they could trust when the national authorities were thinking of other things.