Week 36 - 1/3 Down!

Hey everybody. This week was super dry. It's always good with my man "Big Baby Eller" though. We're working hard, praying for miracles, and going out and hitting the streets super hard!!

This week was what you call ultra-doggage. We got dogged literally every single day this week and we weren't able to have any lessons in Chernivtsi. However, we were able to go to Ivano Frankivsk for a day. We ate at Decyatkas and it was super tasty. Baby Eller says that I say "super tasty" too much. I spent the day with Elder Marchenko in Ivano and got to see our grandma that we talked to every day there. She told me to talk to my boss so that Ican get sent back to Ivano as soon as possible. She told me to kick one of the missionaries out of Ivano and to take their place. haha. She's the best.

Other than that honestly, not a ton happened this week.

Our investigator, I'm pretty sure, has blocked our phone. Not sure why. I hope everything is okay with him.

Here's a story from Elder Eller - about me making him talk to a couple of grandmas on the (terrible) train ride that we took to Ivano Frankivsk. He's a molodetz..

So this week on the way to Ivano- frankisk we took a train. There were these women who were sitting across the way and Elder Stott leans over to me and says, "You won't show them your magic trick to start a conversation." So I give him a smirk and do it. In Ukrainian I said, "Can I show you something?" to this lady and she said, "yesss..." (I didn't know how to say magic trick so I just said something!) So I did this magic trick where I put a cloth in my hand, it disappears, and I pull it out of the other hand. These ladies were freaking out!!!! I did it a few more times and then I realized that almost all of the people around us were watching now! THEY HAD NO IDEA! I did a few more magic tricks and all these people on the train were watching! After a while they started asking us why we were here in Ukraine! That is my favorite question to get asked. We told them we were missionaries for our Church and that we left our country to come talk to and teach them. We were able to invite them all to church and English Practice. Elder Stott wouldn't say it, but him telling me to show those people a magic trick was definitely a spiritual prompting. All those people found out a little bit about the Church and why we're here in Ukraine. I don't know if we'll ever see those people again but I know they will remember us and they all know where the Church building is now.

Everything is going great out here. I'm content, healthy, and staying kinda warm.

Have a good week, love you all!

Elder Stott

Week 35 - Big News, Bigger Boundaries

First things first. We found out on Saturday that in May 2018, the L'viv, Ukraine Mission will be getting absorbed into a new and bigger Kiev Mission. It's not for emergencies or anything like that. It's all from the fact that the huge wave of missionaries coming from the lowering of the age has evened out, and the numbed of full time serving missionaries is lowering slowly, resulting in the cutting down of a number of missions. I heard that Samara, Russia is getting closed down too. Eastern Europe is taking a beating!! haha. 

Skyping with our mission for the big announcment

In May my mission will be the Kiev Mission, meaning I could possibly be serving in more Eastern Ukraine. There will be around 90 missionaries for 2/3 of the country. I could serve in Elder Likhachiov's home town!! I will also be able to go to the Kiev Temple, which would be an awesome experience. 

No, this adjoining of missions wasn't the best news of my mission, but I'm confident enough in the Lord that I really don't have to worry about WHERE I serve. I'm called and set apart to the Lord's work, no matter where I'll be. It's all just a test of faith.

Anyways. No time so I'll make it short.

Funny of the Week: Elder Eller and I accidentally bought what we thought was pasta sauce and spread it all over our pizza. It read "pasta" on the label, but Паста means paste. That was the worst pizza I've ever had in my entire life. We were too hungry to say no though. I also tried to make banana bread. I put it in the oven for an hour like it said, and it started smelling all burny. I kept checking it all the time and was like, "Nah, it looks good!"...super confused. I took it out a little early, because we swore something was burning. I turned the pan upside down to put it on a plate. It was charcoal. The top was fine, bottom was rock hard. We spooned out what was good from the top. Apparently you're not supposed to bake things on the bottom rack.

Teaching Elder Eller how to make borscht

Highlight of the Week: Андрій came to church for his first time! He loved it. I had to give a talk that was assigned to me literally 10 minutes prior to speaking, but I got up and spoke about the power of prayer. It was honestly not that bad. We had a great lesson with him and he expressed his desire to be baptized. We don't know how READY he is quite yet, but the desire is there. Keep him in your prayers!

That's it for this week. Elder Eller and I are loving it out here in Chernivtsi. We're working super hard and searching for those miracles both big and small. He's progressing a TON, despite frustrations with one of the hardest languages out there, despite having to learn Russian AND Ukrainian together in such a Sergic city.

Love you all,

Elder Stott

PS - The Stott boy's favorite teams are taking on each other in the Superbowl?? GO EAGLES.  

Downtown Chernivtsi

Black ice on cobblestone is the worst

Such a tiny cart deserves a pose

COLD, Cold, cold

Lost in translation

Week 34 - 1st Week as a Trainer

January 15, 2018

First things right off the bat…My new trainee, Elder Eller is a beast. I went to L'viv on Wednesday night to do a couple days of training there. Elder Eller stayed awake the whole time despite some of the worst jetlag of all time, us being 10 hours ahead of home. He's from Sacramento California, but a small town right outside of Sac called Live Oak. He's exactly my height, so we're the tallest companionship on the mission. He is a 4 sport athlete. All-Conference Point Guard, All-Conference Wide Receiver, and a beast in Tennis and Track & Field. And wouldn't you guess it we did 3 of the same events. Long jump, triple jump, and high jump. So sick. He was ward organist back home so we're gonna be spending a lot of time at the piano on P-days. He self-taught guitar too. We are so similar that it's almost tough to find things that we don't have in common.

But above all of that, the coolest thing about him is his work ethic and humility. He has SUCH a strong desire to just get right to work in the morning, and is nonstop talking to everyone on the streets despite the fact that it's his first week with one of the hardest languages in the world. Such a big inspiration and a role model from day one. And despite all of these amazing traits he has, at the end of the day he is so humble and willing to learn. The only thing that is holding him back right now is that he's so stressed out about the language. I'm doing my best to teach him everything that I know, and that over-stress is the first thing on my "get-rid-of list". It's gonna be a great transfer. Despite the fact that I’m a "young" trainer and he's the youngest on the mission, every morning we wake up ready to get to work and hit the streets to find and baptize people.

Speaking of which, things with our investigator Andri are going well. On a phone call he explained how much he loves our church and how pleasing everything is to him. He said he will come to church every single week because he loves how delightful it all is. The only problem is that he's never been to church yet.. haha. He struggles at waking up in the morning. He always calls back after church and apologizes forever but we're really gonna try and get him to come. I'm thinking next week we'll go look for his apartment (somehow) and pick him up!! Pray for us!!!

We couldn't find train tickets back to Chernivtsi because of the holiday season. We woke up at 3:30 AM to catch our 4:50 AM train that lasted 6 hours to Chernivtsi. We had a ton of complications and ended up almost missing our train. We SPRINTED from the wrong end of the train to the right end. For some reason cart number 00 doesn't come before 01. It comes AFTER 15.. so that was fun. Then we got to the cart and the tickets were blank tickets so I had to SPRINT to the front desk and cut people in line to print these tickets on what seemed slower than an 1800 typewriter. BUT, after getting screamed at and accused for not being able to read letters on a piece of paper by the train lady, we made it!! What a great first day of being in field experience for Elder Eller. I don't even know if that story makes a lot of sense, but all that you need to know is that I’ve never bought and printed train tickets before so it was a great first timer in the biggest train station in our mission, in a city that I’ve never been in!! Woohoo! But now, we're safe and sound home in Chernivtsi.

It is FREEZING cold all of a sudden. I left Chernivtsi at about 5 degrees Celsius without snow or ice, and came back to -6 degrees Celsius with streets covered in black ice! Neither of us have fallen yet, but sometimes we slip like crazy, arms flailing and try to smoothly transition into some sort of new dance move we just barely invented. No one is buying it though. :/

As you can tell, things are going just great. I'm happier than ever and working harder than I ever have in my life. The blessings and miracles are literally all around us at every angle if we will just look a little deeper, think a little more, and pray a little harder. It really does not take that much effort to find the biggest blessings in life, no matter how what your life situation is at the moment. I know that the smartest way to go about life is definitely not the easiest way, but it's the best way. That way of life is choosing and being willing to give up your own desires and "life plans" and putting everything, EVERYTHING in the Lord's hands. Do the right things, and be worthy of the trust that Heavenly Father has given us. Agency is such a big blessing. Every morning when you wake up, you either lay, or take bricks from the "foundation" of your testimony of the Savior and His Plan of Salvation.

We all know that there is really no such thing as "staying the same" or "maintenance". We either are going down or we are going up. Positively, but also negatively, that growth goes spirally in both directions. There are skyrockets, plummets, and will always be the ups and downs of life. I know 100% that it truly becomes smarter, safer, and eventually even easier to do things the Lord's way. It all starts with small changes, each and every day. None of us have a reason to start tomorrow, and it's never ever too late.

Have a great week. Love you all!

Старійшина Стотт

Week 33 - Eggnog? Love some...

Hello everybody!

Transfer calls came this week and I found out I will be a TRAINER!! I'll be training my new comp Elder Eller here in Chernivtsi. I'll still be district leader too. Elder Sanders will be transferring here from Ivano, my first area, to be in the district as well. It will be so fun to have 6 missionaries in Chernivtsi again. I'm super scared and have no idea how the training is gonna go, but I'm so stoked to go to Lviv on Wednesday to pick him up, do the synthesis training there for 2 days, then come back to home sweet home in Chernivtsi. Literally, all I know about him is that he played basketball in high school. We're gonna have to break some ankles at the Спортзал. I'll make sure to take as many pictures as possible. It's going to be an awesome transfer.

This week, not a whole lot of crazy stuff happened. We had a drawing night, and a member's wife and daughter (who aren't members yet) were able to come and have a great time. You can also see our investigator, Andri, in the back too. It was super fun and pretty successful. Especially for being just 2 days before Christmas. 

Our Ukrainian Christmas on Sunday was awesome too. We had only 1 hour of church, which none of us knew about, but that was okay because it gave us more time for our awesome finding activity on Center Street. We were out there on the street for 3 hours talking to as many people as possible. It was super, super good and super successful! I actually met a lady from Portland, Oregon! She is Romanian and here to get married. Small world.

That's literally all that happened this week. Not the biggest week but it was a solid one! Hope everyone had a safe New Year's Eve and goes to the gym more than 3 consecutive times. :)

Make one of your goals getting more involved in missionary work! 

Elder Stott

We tried to make eggnog from scratch...

EPIC fail - haha

Some urban street decor - hanging bricks

Week 32 - New Year's Lockdown

A short Pre-Pday letter:

heads up. drunkards are covering the streets in like 3 hours so we had to lock down in the safety of our haunted apartment to avoid any crazies we might possibly run into on monday. we're allowed outside of our apartments tuesday morning. don't worry we have enough breakfast burritos to last us till then. talk to you on tuesday. if i don't write on tuesday it's because i'm at the hospital visiting the drunk man i had to knock out. :)

loveya 

elder scott (as everyone here seems to call me)

This week was the craziest most un normal week on the mish.

Last Monday was Christmas. Super good to Skype the fam and see all of them back home.

Tuesday got absolutely wrecked doing unimportant things due to the fact that it was the day before Mission Conference and no one had tickets to get there! We spent a good chunk of time searching for tickets to L'viv and at the train station trying to squeeze 4 american missionaries onto a 6 AM train. Good news was that we were able to make it in time to L'viv. Bad news was that we couldn't find tickets to get BACK!

That's our #Light The World video playing in the train station!

Mission Conference in L'viv was great. Our musical number was super good. I'll have to find a copy from someone on the mission. I ate at McDonalds for the first time in Ukraine! I don't know if it's good or bad that it literally tastes exactly the same, but it was good. I also know that I cannot throw down McDonalds and fast food like I used to. My stomach was NOT happy with that Big Mac meal. It was pretty expensive too! One of the more expensive meals that I've had in Ukraine.

After Mission Conference ended, we went to the big tree in the center of Lviv and caroled. It was super fun. Got to talk to some drunk people who sang along with us, and we actually witnessed a couple of miracles that night. Elder Lukach and I reunited our original companionship and talked with people around the center while others sang. We ran into a inactive member who is about 21 and was baptized 2 years ago by a missionary that served in Elder Lukach's home ward. So cool to talk to him and make that connection.

Right after caroling, we went to the L'viv Operahouse and got FRONT ROW tickets to the Christmas show. Despite the naked women statues and paintings covering the inside, it was actually super enjoyable. I was peeking down on the orchestra almost the whole time. They also sang a bunch of English songs and it was kind of hard to not laugh at some of the pronunciations. 

The next day, We got tickets for the way home... but only halfway. We were stuck in Ivano for the whole day! We did more caroling there also. I sang a little bit by myself on the center street in the city. I'm slowly getting over doing scary things and especially singing in public. I was super nervous at first but it was so fun. After that, we ate at the legendary Desyatkas. Oh how I miss that restaurant. I spent the most money on the biggest amount of food I've ever eaten on my mission. No one thought that I'd be able to finish everything I ordered, but I did :) We had a fun English Christmas Jeopardy activity that night too. It was so weird to be back in my first city for a day. It felt like I was serving there all over again. We finally caught a train home and got back to Chernivtsi at midnight.

Then, it was back into the swing of things. But, due to many past experiences of missionaries on New Years Eve and New Years Day, we had to stay home and not leave from sundown on Sunday, (4:00) to Tuesday morning. Which is why I'm writing today. The drunkards flooded the streets while we deep-cleaned our apartment. That was fortunately my sickest day on the mission, like sick-sick. I totally slept in. I'm just glad I didn't have to miss out on real missionary work. I'm already feeling better.

I'm super excited to start the one-year stretch of pure missionary work. 2018 from January 1 to December 31 will be filled with missionary work. I have so many goals and expectations. I am almost 100% sure that it will be the best, most difficult, most awesome year of my life. The blessings and joys that come from difficult and hard missionary work are out of this world. We receive the most when we forget ourselves and "get lost" in the Lord's work.

It was announced at Mission Conference that I'll be training one of the 2 new, incoming missionaries starting January 10th. It's going to be the most responsibility that I've ever had, but I'm so ready and excited for it.

I hope you all had a safe and fun holiday season. Everyone have fun at the gym for these next 2 weeks!! ;) But in all honesty, the start of a new year is a great time to make new goals for ourselves. It's my hope that we can all rely on the Lord for whatever help we need! He will help us become better people, and is so ready for us to make those changes. He will be right by our side.

Have a great week!

Elder Stott