"We love him already!"

Just a quick post to relay that Alec has safely arrived in L'viv, Ukraine. The president of the L'viv Mission and his wife sent us a couple of pictures with the encouraging message that they already love him. We are grateful for their kind service and watchful eye over all of the missionaries in that part of the world.

Arriving in L'viv. After 24 hours of airports and flights, these guys still look pretty fresh!

Alec flew with the other missionaries going to Ukraine, who all had spent the past two months togerther in the MTC. They had arrived together at the Salt Lake City airport about 6am Tuesday morning. A very kind lady passed by, saw them, and thinking of her own daughter on a mission, offered to take a picture and send it to all of their parents for them. What a sweet moment it was as she started collecting their parents phone numbers when both she and Alec realized they were from the same stake in North Carolina, where Alec and her son had been friends for years! Thank you, Dawna Sessions, for being in the perfect place and performing the perfect act of kindness, and for this picture that we'd have never had otherwise!

Alec & Dawna Sessions at the SLC airport.

Alec and his authentic Chicago Cubs hat.

Alec was able to call home from the airport, and we spent a good amount of time catching up with him. It was good to hear the voice we hadn't heard for two months!


They departed SLC and flew to Chicago's O'Hare airport, where they had a couple hours of layover time, and where Alec landed himself a Chicago Cubs World Series Champions hat.




They departed Chicago at 5:20pm, and that was the last we heard of him for awhile. It was a 9-hour flight to Vienna, Austria, about a 4-hour layover there, and then a short 1-hour flight to L'Viv, Ukraine. By the time they reached L'viv, the local time there was 3pm in the afternoon (8am our time) on Wednesday. They had crossed 9 time zones in their journey, and the entire commute took about 22 hours.

About 11:30pm Wednesday evening, we recieved an email from the mission home that he had arrived safely.

Alec with the L'viv Mission President and his wife.

We don't yet know when we'll hear from Alec again or when his personal day (the day on which he can write emails home) will be, but we'll know within the next few days. By then, we'll also know exactly where in the L'viv mission he'll be serving and the real work will finally begin!