First transfer is finished! Luckily I get the chance to stay here in Ivano Frankivsk. We got 3 new missionaries in
our district so I'll have to get a picture with them! Sister Morris, Sister
Mitchell, and Elder Galafant. It's a good group of missionaries!
I liked the setup of last week's email so I think I'm gonna
keep doing that!
Monday 4th:
I finally became legal in Ukraine! I got my Pocilka or
Ukrainian passport so I won't get kicked out of the country! It's a good feeling. Random: There are more and more American cars here every day and Elder Lukach and I have decided that Ford Fusions (sport version of course) are our new dream car.
It's nice to have a regular car be your dream car. We went bowling right under
a night club (thank goodness it was day time). I swear this was the GREASIEST
place! hahah They literally oiled the ball after every roll. I figured out how to
spin a bowling ball. I might have bowled a 52, but anyways.
Tuesday 5th:
Update on the Special Service of Ukraine. We got a call from
our branch president to go to the church and set up for an interview with a
representitive from the SSU. We didn't talk to him but our branch president
did. Everything is OKAY. We got roasted a little bit because some guy made a news
article online about Mormons in Ivano Frankivsk and it got sent to SSU, but
everything got figured out.
Quick story time: So there is this CRAZY dude who
stands on the street every day - with his cane, and says
"give me your coins" over and over. We found out very soon that if
you walk too close to him, he's a grabber. We call him Mormonchik. He likes to pinch butts. We walk pretty far from him,
but he always calls out to us. He's pretty crazy. This week he
said the funniest thing, but you'd have to HEAR him and his funny voice. Basically "Mormons, mormons, let me touch
you". We both just LOST it. It was literally the funniest thing this week. What a
guy.
Wednesday 6th
I finished the Book of Mormon from cover to cover since the
beginning of my mission! It was such a great experience. It's just all so
simple and true. Was a huge testimony builder for me. I know that any time we
put into reading can bless our lives more than anything else. I'll share more at the end. I also almost got hit by a car. Street lights
are kinda sketch here in Ukraine. One of the crosswalk lights turns green before the car's light turns red. hahah.
Thursday 7th:
Pretty normal day. I had my first scary mission food experience. The personal prayer I was saying in my heart was the most sincere prayer over food I've ever had. Forget about "nourishing and strengthening
my body"-- I'm just trying not to DIE here! We taught a wonderful sister in
our branch and after the lesson she said that she prepared a dish for us! So awesome! She asked us if we like mushrooms. Oh no. "Love them!", I responded. (Mushrooms are hands down THE worst food on the face of this planet.
I can't even think about them). Next thing we knew, we were scooping a mixture
of 25% mushrooms, 25% onions, and 50% slime into a crepe. I was praying non-stop. I couldn't even look at it. SOMEHOW I finished one of them. These things
would literally slip out of your mouth. They were so slimy that when I tried to
bite it, it wouldn't work. Kind of like squeezing a bar of soap. They were
literally impossible to eat. Even as i'm typing this I just got goosebumps thinking about
it. Okay, so anyways I downed one of them. She left the room to get berries.
THANK YOU. Then, she dished up more on my plate. "THANK YOU" I thought I could sneak
some berries in my mouth to help overcome the mushrooms, but that idea backfired and made it even
WORSE, and it just ruined the berries. Anyways...she left the room again, I looked at Elder Lukach and just said "I can't do this". I picked up my
plate, scooped all that goo back into the pot, leaving some on my plate,
scattered it around to make it look like I ate it all. I still had the remnants of
my second crepe in my mouth after 10 minutes of chewing and gagging. I am,
however, alive. I survived and I really am so thankful that she was willing to feed
us. Afterwards, we went straight to the store and just bought the first thing we could find to replace the aftertaste. The Lord
provides a way. Always. hahaha
Friday 8th
This seems to be a common occurrence, but nothing really that
big happened on Friday. We played basketball at sports night. Good
times!
Saturday 9th
We went fishing with Andri! We went to a cool spot and it was super fun! We got to teach him afterwards too. Hopefully my mom posts the video
of the fish I snagged. It's literally crazy.
Another story: So we planned to go and help out at an orphanage and it was
pretty far so we ordered a taxi. The driver shows up in this Soviet car called
a Volga. This car literally put-putted to the orphanage. He just got his license and this was his first drive. He got lost 4 times, and the car
died twice. We had to push it to restart it - which was super fun. it ended up being
slower and 10 times as expensive as the bus would've been. And after that, the orphanage turned us away. Because we were Mormon. The nuns said
they didn't want the children asking about who we were to spark "dangerous
interests". They were so open and happy for our help until we got there
and they found out we were missionaries. It was sad because these kids
deserved so much more than they had. Hopefully we'll get the chance to help out
some way or another.
Sunday 10th
Church was good. I played the musical number I was supposed to last week. Then they asked me to be the piano
player for the primary too. One of the sister missionaries used to play, but she's gone now so I filled the spot! Fun to help
out any way I can here.
So about Book of Mormon!!
At the end of the Book of Mormon the prophet Moroni talks
about praying about the Book of Mormon and receiving a witness of its
truthfulness through the power of the Holy Ghost. Although I had read it a ton before and already felt that it was true, I wanted to pray and
simply find out for myself if every single word on every page is the truth. I said a super sincere prayer and simply asked. But I didn't receive any answers, and I wrote this in my journal: "I didn't get any big or grand answer. I simply just felt peace." I was almost a little bit disappointed. I had
worked super hard to read as much as I could every day. The next day I decided
to start reading the Doctrine and Covenants just the same - cover to cover. I read 5
sections and called it good, but saw that I still had some time left, so I read the next section too. And boy am I glad that I did. In this section,
Oliver Cowdery had prayed to Heavenly Father to receive a witness of the Book of Mormon for himself. I'll just write Heavenly Father's response to him:
D&C 6:22-23: "Verily, verily, I say unto
you, if you desire a further witness, cast your mind upon the night that you
cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these
things. Did I not speak PEACE unto your mind
concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from
God."
Wow. Sometimes we are going to want big grand manifestations
in our lives. Answers to questions, and sometimes all we want is physical
PROOF. A lot of times people want to be proven something or convinced of the
truth of our message. They want missionaries to "prove" it to them.
That is the last thing that we want to (or can) do as missionaries. Where is the faith
in that? If we had a perfect knowledge of it, we wouldn't need faith because we
would just know. That's not what Heavenly Father wants. Faith is the first
principle of the Gospel. Without faith, we simply cannot progress. The PROOF
that people want comes through acting. DOING something. Not having someone else
prove it to you. I know that when we have that faith, taking any step forward in that
faith will bring us blessings 10x bigger than the step we took. The proof is
right there. Simply reading and praying, that can take no longer than 5 minutes,
can bring us incomparable peace and comfort. What greater witness could we
possibly receive? Faith leads to action. Action leads to repentance. Repentance
leads to change. Change leads to becoming better. Becoming better and growing
is the purpose of our life here on the earth. Achieving our purpose allows us
to live with Heavenly Father again. If you are lost, in a mess, or just
struggling, why would you not start at step one? First, we need faith. Hold
onto any amount of faith that we can have, and let it take us through this
life, and THROUGH each of our trials. Simply have faith.
Have a great week.
Elder Stott
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| Biggest catch of the day |
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