Elder Dillon Stott - Ukraine, Kiev Mission: Week 35

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.