So it's been a crazy week.

To start off we found out transfers this week and I found out that I am going to Ukraine! It's really weird for me because I've been living in Moldova for a year and a half so it's almost like leaving home again. It's been bittersweet but I'm also excited to see what the future has in store. I'm going to Nova Darnytsia which is the south-eastern part of the capital Kiev. I'm super excited and I also get to train which is going to be way fun. I'll be in a trio training so it'll be interesting to see how that works out.

We've had some fun stuff this week including:

1) Johnny got baptized this week and it was a huge miracle! I got to teach him a couple times and it's awesome to see the change that he's made. 

2) I think that I probably made the worst language mistake of my life. I was translating a talk for Elder Caron during the baptism and during his talk he talked about a scout group that went to go find firewood in the woods. The first group found wet wood after not looking very long, the second group looked a little longer but burned all of their wood at once and the last group gathered enough and were able to keep their fire going throughout the night. Well I made a very fatal mistake and I accidentally translated firewood into "трава" instead of

"дрова." And трава means "grass" but also happens to be slang for weed so I basically translated the whole talk, talking about how there was a scout group that went into the woods to look for weed and one group was able to make theirs last the longest.... So after hating myself for a little bit I realized that we're all not perfect and that it's actually pretty funny. Plus the baptism went really well so I don't think too many people noticed haha. 

3) I was walking out of the haircut place and I tripped down the stairs and rolled my ankle pretty bad but it wasn't anything serious so I kept walking on it and then I got really light headed and told my companion "hey I think I might pass out" and then the next thing I remember is waking up and thinking "why did I fall asleep outside the apartment building" and then I was like " oh yeah you passed out silly" but yeah everything is good now I'm fine everyone. I just sprained my ankle a bit. 

4) It was my last church meeting in Moldova yesterday and I was feeling pretty good and the feels hadn't really hit me yet and then I went up to share my testimony and just bawled my eyes out. I couldn't even make it through anything I wanted to say but man my love for the people here and for the country hit me so hard. The good thing is that I hopefully got all my crying out but yeah it's been a good year and a half here in Moldova. I'm excited for the new opportunity to go to Ukraine but I've learned a lot here and I think I can say now that I "grew up" in Moldova. I'm so grateful to be a missionary and it's been amazing to have served the people and put my heart and soul into this work, and I'm excited to continue to do that for the next 3.5 months. If any of you are deciding whether or not to go on a mission, don't even think about it and just go. You'll find yourself with a greater capacity to love, to be patient, and to be happy. It's going to be hard and it's going to take a lot out of you but in the end it's the best thing and most important thing that you can be doing in you life and I know it and I have felt it so strongly over the past year and a half. 

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.  

Also read this scripture to show that people actually read pasted scriptures lol. 

I love you all so much! 

-Старейшина Уайтинг