I decided to post about this experience and started typing. I then decided I needed to look at my mission journals to make sure I had some facts straight. It opened up a bunch of memories that had been dormant for awhile. One lesson is that writing in a journal is a very good thing.
August 1999 was a big month for me. I was assigned to be the Zone leader of the Zaporozhye zone. It was a city that had been open for missionary work for 3 years. In the six months before I got there, the branch had 40 baptisms. It was an area that was growing - with 12 missionaries: 10 Elders and 2 Sisters - and which was distant from church leadership.
Our district was in Dnepropetrovsk1. The mission home was in Donetsk. Both involved long bus or train rides to get to. We were on our own. My job was to be in charge of the missionary work, and to support the Branch President and the Elders Quorum President along with the Relief Society President (through the sister missionaries.)
My new companion at the time I received this new assignment was a temporary missionary - Brother Igor - from Dnepropetrovsk. He was 19, had been baptized for about a year, and who was thinking about a full-time mission. Brother Igor was a good kid, but he was quiet and temporary, so I had to think a lot about the day to day stuff and the zone stuff. I was being stretched in my capacity.
Sister Kucherenko (now my wife) was training a new missionary for the first time. She didn’t really speak English yet. Her new companion was from America and she didn’t really speak Russian yet. The new companion was very homesick. That meant that it was my job to call the sisters each night2 and spend 30 minutes speaking Russian to Sister Kucherenko and 30 minutes speaking in English with her companion.
Life was pretty busy.
A Busy Weekend
At the end of August I had a particularly busy weekend3. It began on a Saturday morning. Saturdays we had English club. It was a way to do service and to find investigators (friends in the langauge of today’s missionaries). We took turns teaching the lessons. I noted in my journal that “… we decided to go to the Profsoyusov4 in case anyone showed up for English. It’s a good thing we went, because about 12 or 13 people showed up. I taught an off the hip lesson and it turned out okay.”
Later that night we had a picnic. I summarized that experience in my scrapbook that I put together right after my mission: “August 28, 1999. This was a branch picnic in Zaporozhye that almost ended in failure. Everyone wanted a picnic and so one was announced on Sunday, but no one planned one. On Saturday all the missionaries showed up, along with many investigators and a few branch members. We quickly organized a picnic (I sent a few Elders for food) and we played games. Many of the investigators ended up getting baptized. It was a good day.”
I had noted in my journal that on Friday - the day before this long weekend - I had called the mission doctor, Elder Nelson (NOT PRESIDENT NELSON!) because my left eye was bothering me. He prescribed some antibiotics and I picked those up and started taking them.
On Sunday after church I had my first interview with President McQueen since I had been assigned as Zone leader. We spent the afternon in interviews at the “Intourist” hotel in downtown Zaporozhye. It was just a block or so from our meeting place and was the best hotel in town at the time, so that’s where they stayed when they came. We talked about how things were going with the zone and what we would do at the Zone Conference the next day.
Zone Conference
The morning of my first zone conference was busy. I was rushing around town to find a place to make copies of my lesson that I was giving. I remember that it was a lesson on obedience and I had put together some quotes, some goals, and some questions to use during my lesson. My eye was really bothering me and felt like it was nearly swollen shut.
When I showed up for Zone Conference, President McQueen was not happy with how my eye looked. Zone Conference still went well. I don’t remember a lot of details from it, but I remember that it was uplifting and I didn’t fall flat on my face. Those were my two criteria and so it was a rousing success.
At the end of the conference, President McQueen told me that they would meet us at our apartment in an hour. He told me to pack a bag for a few days. We took the bus home and I got together some clothes and my missionary bag with my journal. President McQueen had some other Elders with him and he sent my companion, Brother Igor, with them. I climbed into the back of the Volkswagon station wagon that was the mission car between the two Assistants to the President and we rode the long drive back to Donetsk - about a 5 hour drive at the time.
We drove straight to the Nelson’s apartment.
An Operation
Dr. Nelson looked at my eye and shook his head. It doesn’t look good. He told President McQueen that he’d do a “little operation” to take care of it. Both APs, President and Sister McQueen, and Sister Nelson were all gathered around. Sister Nelson was helping with the operation. Everyone else were spectators.
After numbing my eye with a shot, Elder Nelson made an incision. Then, using some a hemostat, he reached in and pulled out a big hard ball of infection. After cleaning the wound, I was free.
It was a boil on my lower eyelid. I had had a small boil on my neck earlier in that month. I continued to get boils throughout the rest of my mission - with one more operation done at a Zone Leader Meeting in front of all 8 Zone leaders, the office Elders, and the APs. I had a few when I came home from my mission as well.
Stress can sometimes be a precipitating factor, as can age - late teens and early twenties are a pretty common time.
The Aftermath
The legend of my operation grew. President McQueen loved to tell stories, so he told the story of my operation at every zone conference. It grew even more after my second operation a month later at the zone leader meeting in Donetsk. I was famous for all the wrong reasons!
I was able to spend the next few days resting and recovering at the Nelson’s apartment. It was rough duty. Sister Nelson took me for a McDonald’s shake every day, I had time to study and to “study.” On Wednesday night I took the bus back to Zaporozhye with Sister Kucherenko and her companion - who by this time was not homesick.
Principle
Those busy, crazy, painful days were some of the best of my mission. I was being stretched to my utmost. My body started breaking down! But what was important was that I was busy doing good things, thinking of others, and being taken care of by people who were thinking of me. Having some time to recover and think helped me put things into perspective and to realize that I wasn’t alone in doing the work - we were all in it together. Those principles still hold with all the things that are most important in my life. It doesn’t matter if things are hard as long as you are pulling together with people who love you and share your goals.
I learned that lesson a bit late - and with the help of a boil on my eye - but I am so glad that I did.
I use the Russian spelling for cities throughout, since our Mission language was Russian and nearly everyone in the area spoke only Russian when I was there in 1998-99.
This was an official assignment from President McQueen, our new mission president at the time.
This whole section is new information from my trip to my journal.
Дом Профсюзов or the house of unions. This was the Soviet union hall we rented to have our meetings in.
That's both really gross and really cute.
Oh, those days of suffering make such great stories! Life really just "boil down" to hard experiences where we learn humility, empathy, and gratitude that "this too shall pass". You endured it well.