Week 62 - Un-a"Peeling" Pizza

Good blessed Monday morning my wondrous family :)

This week was pretty solid. We had a ton of stuff going on throughout the week and stayed pretty busy. A busy week means a fast week, so this week zoomed by pretty quickly.

We only went to the gym one time this week, but we're gonna go again later today. We were super busy and so was Zhenya. He said he hadn't gone to the gym at all either so we didn't feel too left out. haha. But we went with him and Dima small and Dima shred (not to be confused with Dima Yacked (birthday cake-face Dima)).

We also went to Dima, Lesya, and Zhenya's house on Tuesday to make pizza with them. It was so whack to be honest. First things first is that we kinda got super binked on "splitting-up" the cost of everything between all of us. I bought the meat and the cheese and Zhenya bought the oil. The missionaries spotted me a little bit so my MSF for the week didn't disappear, but it still was a sucker punch straight to the wallet. It ended up being the most interesting pizza that I've ever had. It was kinda pizza but more like an open face chicken pot pie with pizza feeling..(?) It was all going great until Zhenya proceeded to pour about 750 ml of mayo straight onto the pizza. No one said anything, but all the missionaries looked at each other and our faces and looks said it all. It was homemade mayo too (the best mayo I've ever tasted in my life) but it ended up being a little much. They piled all of the the food on the pie crust and shoved it in the oven. 

While it cooked we made green borscht that was pretty tasty! Funny story about making that borscht. In the midst of my confident moment in the language, I wanted to ask them if we should "peel the potatoes" in Ukrainian. Not a super common word, that everyone knows, so I was excited to give it a shot. To make a long story short, it took a couple minutes for them to stop dying from laughter and they finally responded that "I don't think that you can circumcise a potato.." and then we all started laughing again. I could've sworn with my life that that's the word I had learned for peeling. It also makes grammatical sense because the way the word spells out means to "cut around". I guess I didn't read between the lines on that one. Always getting humbled, even if it takes talking about circumcision to do so!

For our game night this week we had the idea of doing some type of Fear Factor night but blender edition. Basically it was crazy fun and crazy hilarious. Thankfully, I managed to snag the blender job, leaving me too busy to drink any of the smoothies. We had some crazy and nasty combinations. It all kinda fell apart at the end and turned into people dumping everything down the drain and then we all played ping pong instead. haha.

We did a branch picnic in Dendro Park that turned out to be super good. We planned food for 30 people, but only 13 came. Some of the best Shashlyk that I've had in a while. We spent some super quality time with our small branch and the members that we have here are so awesome and fun. It's always fun to be able to tell them stories from the mission and also before the mission because they get to see that you're not just a "robot" missionary and then you can have a little bit deeper relationship with them. We told them tons of stories about all of our language messups. They were dying for a super long time haha. 

That night, also, we did sports night that turned into one of the biggest rainstorms that I've ever seen in my life. We were tossing the football around (Elder Cluff and I) while we waited for people to come, and the rain started coming down. Within a couple minutes, we were soaked from head to toe, but it didn't stop us. Not too long later, we were in ankle-deep water. We were having a blast. Ball is life!!!

On Sunday we had the opportunity to go to Ternopil. We had our investigator Vadim come, another investigator Luda, and her husband, us missionaries, Naadu, Kaiser, and Samuel (the Ghanan members) and the senior missioanries from L'viv Elder and Sister Andrus with us. We had 10 people in Ternopil!! Church was awesome. For the first time on my mission I had to translate for 4 talks and a Gospel Principles 2nd hour. Man it was so fun!! But hard at the same time hahaha. Vadim drove 110 kilometers just to be able to come to church, which was super awesome. He wanted to see what church was like in a smaller city, and said that he felt the same Spirit and loved it just as much, even though it was led in English! My favorite part of Sunday was when our other investigator Luda was talking to Vadim who has a baptismal date. She said to him, "how did they convince you that this is the true church?" and he thought a little to himself and said "you know, no one really "convinced me" at all. I just did the things that I was supposed to do. I read a lot and prayed a lot and with time I receive the answers and revelation from God." It was so awesome to overhear him so casually testifying about the gospel to someone he had never met or talked to before.

I feel like so often we are all fear sharing the gospel with other people, but we forget how simple it all really is. One thing that I realized while restarting the Book of Mormon earlier this week was simply how the love of God is the reason behind everything. The reason the restored gospel exists in our time is because of the love of God. The reason we are blessed with the gift of families is because of the love of God that is perfect and never-ending. It's the reason behind everything! I was so surprised when I was reading in one of the first chapters of the Book of Mormon about Lehi's vision. Despite the things that he heard and saw and felt that overcame his soul, the first thing that he testified about directly after that intense experience was of the love and goodness of God. When we teach the gospel in an atmosphere of this Christlike love, then the Spirit is present there with us. When the Spirit is present, conversion takes place. Love truly is the catalyst of conversion.

I love you guys!!

Have a powerful week.

--

Elder Dillon Stott

Vul. Yabluneva 1

S. Sofiivska Borshahivka

Kyivska oblast 08131

Ukraine

Week 61 - Loving K-Town

Whaaaat's Up Everybody!

This week has gone by pretty quickly, each day really just marching after the other. It's weird how much of a rhythm you get into in missionary work. It happens pretty often that I wake up and wonder how on earth the end of the day is ever going to come, (not dreading the day, just because of having so many things to do). Somehow the time always comes where my head hits the pillow and I'm gonezo within 5 minutes. haha. A couple of times on my mission, especially recently, I have fallen asleep mid-conversation with all the elders - even sometimes in receiving an answer or response to something that I said or asked.. I guess it's just proof of hard work??? haha.

This week was really good though. We've been going to the gym with one of our investigators, who I just love. Zhenya is his name. He brings his brother Dima and sometimes even his mom Lesya. They all know English really well, and love it when we practice with them. The best part of going to the gym is actually when we all swing by the market on the way to their apartment and we buy a bunch of fresh food (meats and vegetables usually) and then Lesya cooks it all for us while we help clean and prep. Their house is literally my Ukrainian home away from home. It doesn't matter where you are or when it is, there's always just something better about a mom's cooking. We then have a lesson with all three of them, who have been investigating the church for 3 years. They always have a ton of questions. Zhenya is the most ready for baptism, and we're really trying to keep him going on the right path. Me and him and his little brother Dima are all like brothers. We poke and bug and make fun of each other and are always laughing. I love them a ton. Fun fact: I've spent more money on the gym this week than food. :)

Sadly, the other elders' baptism fell through. He gave them his Book of Mormon, told them he was never coming back ever again, and then got up and left. It was super sad for us and especially them. I'm super happy to have the knowledge that God simply has something better in store. That knowledge has gone such a long way on my mission and saved me from so much lingering sorrow that I could hold onto. So many ups and downs come from LIFE and especially missions, and it's all just part of a perfect plan that in certain times is simply incomprehensible for us as mortal beings. One verse that gets me through just about everything is in Isaiah 55 verses 8 & 9. They're so simple yet so profound. When it all comes down to the questions of bad things happening, I can always come back to that verse that answers all of my questions. His ways are just higher then ours, and His thoughts are higher than ours as well. His work and His glory IS to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, which is a lot bigger than anything that I will ever have to do. It has become a lot easier for me to trust and ACCEPT His will.

For our game night, we made our own spikeball! Yeah.. sometimes I miss American stores where you can just find everything that you need, but it's just not the same here I guess, haha. We went to 4 different places to get the things that we needed to make our makeshift (slightly depressing) version of spikeball that took 4 hours to make and 30 minutes to break. We miraculously found Hula Hoops at the 3rd biggest market in Ukraine, then bought fishing net at a fishing market, screws in this little shop about the size of a master bathroom, and the balls in a children's toy store. Then we bought water bottles to use as the stands.. Yes, it looked and worked probably exactly like you picture it in your head..

Sports day was DOPE! We had 11 people come, which is a lot, actually. It was also "Dima Yacked"'s birthday, so he (super awesome-ly) brought 2 cakes, some juice and water and stuff for his birthday. 

He's so hype - I just love the kid. He turned 19. I found out a week ago after knowing him for 2 months that he's not 25 like I thought and was only 18 until Saturday. It's like a Ukrainian thing for people to look way older than they actually are. (sorry to all Ukrainian moms I just offended). Sometimes out street contacting, we'll talk to who we THINK are college students about our English Practice only to find out 3 minutes into the conversation that we have to frantically find a way out of talking to three 14 year old girls. haha

We only had 13 people at church, but 4 of them were investigators and 2 were less actives! plus 4 missionaries and 3 active members. The good thing was that Artiom came back from his 2 week vacation, and came to church!! I was so happy to see the man. We've been kinda nervous about his baptismal date for the 4th of August, and that he's been on vacation for 2 weeks, and just knowing how fast an unnurtured testimony fades gives us some stress!! He was showing us all the pictures that he took, and then scrolled to one that someone had taken of him laying on his towel at the beach READING THE BOOK OF MORMON!! I'll have to ask him to send me that picture. I had a baby sigh of relief. The kid is still going strong!! So happy for him and proud, too!

One last thing is that the weather here is absolutely bonkers.. All the rain that should happen in a week gets condensed into about four 15-minute periods of pure flooding. It's just absolutely crazy and usually makes for an intense half hour of missionary work if you're on the street.

I'm really enjoying this city and the work here. My testimony of the importance of relationships has just skyrocketed. No matter where you are, if you have special GOOD relationships with the people that surround you, it doesn't really matter where you are.

Have a good week and cherish your relationships!!

--

Elder Dillon Stott

Vul. Yabluneva 1

S. Sofiivska Borshahivka

Kyivska oblast 08131

Ukraine

Week 60 - Finally, I Made Them Laugh

Hello Family friends

First off, a shoutout to A Moesel because he's probably one of the only people that reads these things!

We have another BAPTISM coming up on the 11th of August!! It was honestly a crazy miracle how it all happened. His name is Vadim. I've met with him about 4 times before we had to drop him due to a lack of progress. He had read the entire Book of Mormon, and had a testimony of it, but saw no purpose in the need for coming to church. He DOES live about 90 kilometers away from the church, but there was nowhere else for him to progress to if he wouldn't come to church, because of how important sacrament meeting is. It was essentially the only obstacle between himself and baptism. After a rough day while we were getting ready for bed, we got a text from him. We hadn't heard anything from him for about a month. He just told us that he had been thinking about what we had told him a lot (we told him to keep reading and praying about the Book of Mormon until he gets a testimony of the importance of church attendance) and he had weighed out all the pros and cons in his head about our message and his acceptance of it, and he said that he especially thought a lot about how everything doesn't come at once, and said that he had an experience that he considered personal revelation about the importance of baptism. He asked us what he needed to do on his part and how to prepare correctly to this ordinance. We were absolutely blown away. We responded immediately and set up a lesson that would take place in less than 24 hours. The lesson (over the phone) went great. We invited him to be baptized on a Sunday the second week of August so that he could make one trip to do both baptism and confirmation, but he said that he felt he should do them on separate days, meaning that he's going to come on Saturday the 11th to be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost on the following Sunday! So AWESOME!!!

K-Town has 3 baptismal dates at the moment which is absolutely crazy. One of the other elder's investigators is getting baptized this coming Saturday which is going to be a great experience as well.

We went to the gym 3 times this week with our investigator... man.. it was just.. amazing. I honestly forgot what it was like. It just feels so good! I bet my brother is shedding a tear of joy and a tear or two of protein because he's so proud of me. I did it for you bro! haha.

Had a fun picnic with Dima and his family/friends. Tried to teach them how to throw a rugby ball. Watermelon is in season. Yesss.

This is little Dima, there's a big one too

Ukrainian barbecue...just not the same

Kavunnn Season!!

Honestly, other than that not a ton happened. This week we had 20 people at church. It may not seem like a lot, but 10 of those people were investigators. I got to give a talk about sin, repentance, and returning to sin. I accomplished one of my mission goals and I made the whole congregation laugh!! If you think making people laugh during a talk in English is hard, try coming here and doing it in Ukrainian. A LOT easier said than done.. the sense of humor that is common in America is just a lot harder to find here. It's just a culture thing I guess. But I think I did the trick in talking about spiritually throwing up. (Reference 2 Peter 2:20-22) :)

It's been a good week. We're just out here grinding!!

Have a good week!

--

Elder Dillon Stott

Vul. Yabluneva 1

S. Sofiivska Borshahivka

Kyivska oblast 08131

Ukraine

Making varenyky

Week 59 - Conference and the CURSE

Hey Everybody!!

This week flew by super quick. We were in L'viv for almost half of our week, so maybe that's why.

Passed out on the train

Always good to be back in L'viv

Honestly, I don't have a ton of things to add other than the conference that we had in L'viv. Our new mission president President Kumferman is just awesome. We went up to L'viv on Wednesday afternoon, and left on Friday evening. On Wednesday, we had our interviews that were about an hour a piece-ish. Mine was the longest interview that I've ever had on my mission. It was a really good one! I got to know him and he got to know me a little bit. It feels really weird telling my "life story" including the year of my mission in it. It surprised me to see how much my mission has changed me so far. On Thursday, we had a regular day of missionary work, but had to find something to do all day out of our city.. The funny thing was that there were 12 elders in the one room at the AP's apartment. It was a decent sized room and we all had our own beds, don't worry. No one set an alarm so we all woke up a little late.. haha. By the time everyone was done getting ready and showering and eating a TON of food for breakfast, it was around 10 oclock. We did our normal studies and went to the church there and prepped to do a finding activity in center. Contacting and talking to people in L'viv is literally so easy hahah. So many people know us, and for the first time in a super long time, someone came up to US and said "hey, Mormons!" We had tons of good conversations from our question that we wrote on a huge whiteboard we had set up. It said, "What is a Prophet?" The funny thing about the week in L'viv was that there was a HUGE Jehovah's Witness convention going on and people were there from all around the world. There were 3000 of them just from North America. On the way to our activity and basically the whole time we were there, they surrounded us. I also should've taken a video of the army of nuns that we saw on the way to center too. Probably 150 nuns were walking past us and it was just so interesting to see so many religions gathered together in one place, each for their own things. I successfully avoided any bashing sessions though!! Thank goodness I spoke only Ukrainian to all the Americans :-)

After the conference, we realized our train was leaving in 15 minutes. It takes 30 minutes to get to the train station from the church. When we finally got a taxi, we handed him 100 grieven (huge tip) and said that we had a train in 15 minutes. For the first time in my entire life, a Ukrainian taxi driver told us to put on our seat belts. Don't let his minivan fool you. This man FLEW to the Vokzal. Tires screeching and bouncing from sidewalk to sidewalk. We got to the Vokzal (train station) with 2 minutes to spare. We BOOKED it to our platform, and saw that our train wasn't there. We still had 1 minute before it left, but it was gone. Turns out they had printed our tickets wrong. We were actually early and had 20 minutes to wait (and stop sweating). It was funny because I remember leaving the conference and laughing, telling everyone that we'd see them in 45 minutes when we'd have to come back, promising everyone that there was NO way that we would make our train due to traffic, weather, and the fact that we only had 15 minutes to make the 30 minute trip. Heavenly Father always finds SOME way to keep me humble. :)

We got dogged on a ton of lessons this week, which was tough. We spend about a minimum of 9 hours every week street contacting, and it’s hard to keep going with little success, but we're still grinding!!

Funny moment before the end: recently, to be better at speaking Ukrainian, we started something called "The Curse". Basically, every time you say an English word, you get the "curse" until the other person says it. It's kinda like the thunder thing from Mario Kart/Cart/idk how to spell it. If you end the day with the PROKLATTYA then you get 1 point. Whoever has the most points at the end of the week gets this:  

"My name is ...and I did not speak enough Ukrainian this week"

I changed up my studies a little bit after doing a month long study on pride, and I'm studying the book called Jesus the Christ, by James E Talmage. I've never had to reread so many sentences and paragraphs, but man, that book is amazing. When I try to clear out my mind and bear my testimony purely based off of what comes to mind first, without preparing any stories or experiences or any of that, the first thing that comes to mind is always the Savior. I love Him with all my heart and I'm so grateful for the fact that He gave His own life on behalf of me, and all of us. His Atonement is what gives everything about this life purpose and meaning. Without it, there would truly be no reason to be here. He is my best friend and I love Him with everything that I am. I have truly come to find the significance in the fact that He was resurrected. He has literally conquered death, enabling us to be able to return to Heavenly Father. And He was only able to do that from living perfectly. If we would all spend only 5 minutes thinking about how mind-blowing it is that someone who faced the temptations of the adversary didn't EVER break, not once.. I feel like the role that the Savior played and still plays in our lives would be a lot less taken for granted.

Have a good week!!

--

Elder Dillon Stott

Vul. Yabluneva 1

S. Sofiivska Borshahivka

Kyivska oblast 08131

Ukraine

My buddy, Dima - he is awesome

Rib night for the missionaries. I ate 2 1/2 racks. The BEST.

Delicious

Saw some cool cars...this Maserati

...and this.

Week 58 - вареники and Baby Soccer

Sadly, this was my last week as a L'viv Ukraine missionary. But I'm excited to be a part of the Kiev Mission now. It's going to be a big change, but it really doesn't matter to me which mission I serve in, or where I am. No matter what, it's the Lord's work! 

Not a ton of new stuff this week.

It rained almost all week this week, so a lot of time was spent indoors. Rain and thunder here is super intense, and all the roads turned into little rivers. It was pretty fun haha.

We did our first sports day, and I kinda had to push the district into doing it, because half of us don't really enjoy sports that much. BUT the good news is that I no longer hate soccer!!! It rained super hard, and only Dima and Zhenya showed up, so we played baby soccer in the church. I was awful at the beginning, but it got so fun at the end. We played for three hours. A chair was the goal, and we played 3 on 3 with a ball the size of a grapefruit. I learned some new moves and already can't wait for the next time.

We only had 13 people at church this week, and I actually had to lead sacrament meeting! It was super scary up until I stood at the pulpit and started the meeting and then it was no big deal. Doesn't mean I enjoyed it though.

Something funny from this week, 2 things actually haha. They both happened on our game night. #1 is the fact that Ukrainians can't say "M&Ms" hahaha. They always just say "em em dems". We all laughed so hard. #2 is that everyone here for some reason, every guy at least, is in love with my brother Josh, and his fitness account on Instagram. Every English practice night they all gather around someone's phone and go to his Instagram and look at all his pictures and just lose their minds. They ask me why I'm so small and why he is so huge. They watch him bench press and just go crazy like they're watching the world cup or something and someone scored. This week out of nowhere, Dima (the youngest one in the picture of all the food) just looked up and yelled: "JOSSHH CEENAAA!!" and did the little tune to it. Everyone DIED. He said it in his little thick Ukrainian accent and it was just something you had to be there for I guess hahaha.

This week at Lesya and her sons' house, (Dima=younger, Zhenya=older) we all came over and ate a TON of traditional Ukrainian food and it was literally the tastiest thing EVER. They taught us also how to make вареники which are now my favorite Ukrainian food. It's a sin for saying this and comparing them to it but they're kinda like raviolis that you can stuff with anything. We even made my favorite ones with cherries on the inside. You eat them with sugar and sour cream. They're just so good - I could eat them every day.

Things are going good here in K-town. We're going to L'viv next week for 3 days for a conference there with our new mission president, President Kumferman. He's super different from President Rizley, but I know it's going to be great. We have 9 original L'viv missionaries (from our 32) that are going home. SUPER sad. I'm gonna miss them like crazy.

Have a good week!!

--

Elder Dillon Stott

Vul. Yabluneva 1

S. Sofiivska Borshahivka

Kyivska oblast 08131

Ukraine

Pound it

Market across the tracks