Hey everyone
First I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes I love you all so much and I'm so grateful that you are a part of my life! 
This has been the CRAZIEST week of my mission I'm pretty sure. We had mission conference this week so we got to go up to Kiev and meet Elder Quentin L. Cook and it was INCREDIBLE. We ended up spending about 30+ hours on a marshrutka (small van) this past week so needless to say I felt like absolute garbage getting back home haha. 

We headed out monday night to Chisinau and we left to Kiev the next morning. It was a 12 hour ride there with 18 missionaries packed in. I thought it was going to be awful but it was actually a blast. We ended up just talking about riddles and I did a whole lot of sudoku.haha I'm such a dork but it was actually fun? weird. 
We got to the temple and THE KIEV TEMPLE IS SO COOL. We got to do a session in Russian but I got some english headphones so I got to listen a lil here and a lil there and it was the greatest thing ever. It had been over a year since I had been to the temple so it was so amazing. The spirit is so strong there. 
It was also really weird to see the church so big in Kiev. It was like I took a part of home and a part of Moldova and put it to together and it felt weird but I loved it. I'm so used to the church being so small in Moldova that it was weird to see it so big in Ukraine. 
We stayed at the AP's apartment for the night and it was sweet because the METRO in Kiev is tight. Also everything is in Ukrainian and English so I felt a big off not being able to read anything in Russian. But Ukrainian and Russian are super similar so I'm able to get the jist of everything. But yeah the metro is just a huge subway system and apparently it is the deepest one in the world. They had escalators that went on for days. We didn't have proselyting visas in Ukraine so we basically just walked around Kiev on Wednesday and it was so cool because Kiev is HUGE. And it's super rad I took tons of pics. 
Thursday we got to meet Elder Cook and shake his hand! His testimony and his talk that he gave us was amazing and the spirit was so strong. He felt a powerful, powerful blessing and then left and it was the greatest. Idk if I've mentioned this before but I love being a missionary.
We got back Friday morning after another 12 hour ride and this time we were destroyed because it was super hard to sleep. Imagine going on a long trip with your family. Do you remember that feeling when you get out and you feel like complete white trash? Times that by 2 and put on some missionary clothes and you'll know how we felt haha. It was great. 
We found out transfers while we were in Chisinau it was crazy. So it turns out that I won't be in Balti anymore. I'm getting sent to Chisinau to be a zone leader with Elder Walch! (we actually served twice before at the beginning of the year). I'm super excited about it all. We actually had 3/4 missionaries leave Balti so it was really sad because I LOVE BALTI. I'm definitely going to miss serving there and I'll miss the people. But I'm also excited for the new opportunities coming up. We had a couple missionaries get sent to Ukraine so that's fun. (Elder Dumbrell and Elder Lindsey). 
We said goodbye and we gave our last testimonies on sunday and it was sad. But I'm currently in Chisinau and we have no idea what's going on so we're going to figure everything out soon but I'm super excited and it's going to be a blast. We're going to have 15 missionaries in Chisinau this next transfer so it'll be a blast and we're going to see some good things happen.
Sorry to overload you all but this has been a rad week. 
Also we couldn't find a way to translate "We out here" in Russian so the closest we could get is "Myi toot" which just means "we are here" haha so we say it all the time and everyone is so confused. 
OKAY so READ THIS SCRIPTURE BECAUSE ITS ONE OF MY NEW FAVS
MICAH 7:8 
Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.  
My favorite part is "when I fall, I shall arise." how cool is it to have an attitude like that? Just to never give up, to never quit, and to keep going through the trials. That's true faith to me. You fall down and you get back up. I love the quote from Batman Begins (haha dorky) where Bruce's dad says to him "why do we fall?"  And why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.
I LOVE YOU GUYS

-Старейшина Уайтинг

































































































































































































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