Called to Serve

Called to Serve

Monday, July 31, 2017

Week 10 - White Borscht

Hey Everyone!

I made it here alive! I'm serving in an area called Ivano Frankivs'k. My companion, Elder Lukach, is a native from Kiev, Ukraine. He's so awesome and I'm learning so fast. There are 6 missionaries here and we are all new to this area - white borscht.

My companion, Elder Lukach

This week has been super busy already! I had a couple of days of training in Lviv and now I'm here.

For starts, Lviv was awesome. It looks like Venice or Italy or something!! It's honestly amazing. Leaving Lviv, my comp and I took a train ride that was 3 hours. It was sooo miserable to be honest hahah. It was a tiny room we had, with 4 bunkbeds and it reminded me of Harry Potter. It was super hot and muggy, and everyone smokes. But, i'm alive. We made it here and went to our apartment that's temporary till tomorrow. It's like half of a little old house in the ghetto. It's super sick though.

L'viv

The Harry Potter train to Ivano Frankivs'k

That's where we're staying - the tiny brown part to the left

The people here are awesome. So many people smoke here which kinda stinks (haha get it) but it's okay. The church building is a rented building in a business complex and its really different. There's about 50 people in the branch. Our goal is to get 60, because if we get 60 people then the church will start the process of building a place so we don't have to rent anymore!! We can do it by next week if we work super hard. We have an investigator with a baptismal date! He laughs when I talk. haha

About Lviv! It's so different but awesome. It looks nothing like you or me would think. Its so sick. You trip a lot because literally nothing here is level or even. Stairs are just kinda random so its a little sketch hahaha. 




EVERYTHING IS SO CHEAP! 26 Grievens to a dollar. Here are some examples: bus ticket to anywhere is 4 grieven. Loaf of bread is 8 grieven. Watermelon was 30 grieven (like $1.50). We ordered a moving truck and moved all the stuff from our old apartmen, it was 200 grieven. That's 8 dollars!! It's honestly crazy. We buy all our food from markets and stuff so it's way awesome. Everything is in packages too. Ketchup, milk, all in bags. Nothing has preservatives either so it all tastes good. The food is my favorite thing so far. Juices have no added sugar or concentrate and it's all 100 percent nectar or juice. Smachnoho!! (bon apetit) 


A couple of funny stories:
1. First person we contacted was from Nevada. I tried to speak Ukrainian and he responded: "What? I'm from Nevada. Aren't you guys Americans?" what a blessing that was for me.
2. We had a last minute lessons and taught this family in a park. He was asking ME a ton of hard questions and then asked me if I'm ready to baptize 6 people (his family). I Said ABSOLUTELY!! And then he showed me a picture of his family. They're in the branch. It was a fake lesson to scare me and pull a prank! I didn't think it was funny until like an hour afterwards. The Bontsov's are awesome.
3. No air conditioning exists in L'viv. Post mission I will start a business. It'll take off. Anyways we opened our windows at night with our fans too, then I woke up with 45 mosquito bites from head to toe. The bugs didn't have the decency to leave my face alone either.
4. During church a wasp bit/stung my neck. Random, but it hurt really bad.
5. Pigeons have no fear. I was joking about kicking one with my comp and he grabbed me and said NEVER DO THAT. Apparently you can get a ticket and even go to jail for kicking or killing pigeons. Thank goodness I didn't.
6. During Sacrament meeting, I shared my testimony. Classic language mess up. I wanted to say "My Ukrainian isn't very good, but..." but the way I conjugated the words made it so that I said (more or less) "My country of Ukraine that I own isn't that good". I got some weird looks and laughs from the other elders. I learned how to apologize and explain myself in Ukrainian!
7. My language abilities are pretty sad. I can understand most of the time, but speaking...Sometimes when we're teaching and I say something, they respond in broken English and say something exactly like this in Ukrainian accents, "is okay, you can speak in English if you need". Kind of depressing. hahaha
8. I don't know how inappropriate this is... Mom you be the judge and maybe take this out haha. So we have a dog at our house who lives in the other half. He's super cute but doesn't move. He sits there and barks at his crotch. He has a (**edit - medical condition) it's kinda funny. Poor guy.
9. Our bathroom is...interesting.

The scenic toilet and astronaut shower

Well, this week has been super humbling. It's so tough and so hard, and really easy to get discouraged. BUT, for me it's impossible. There are no bad days. I am able to laugh things off and just be happy. It's easy to be happy when you're doing the Lord's work and trying your hardest. I couldn't be happier. I know I'm here for a reason and everything is for my benefit!

Love,

Elder Stott


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