Elder Dillon Stott - Ukraine, Kiev Mission: Week 59

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