My friend's daughter just got her mission call there last week and is going into the MTC in August. I didn't realize there were three missions there - sorry, I don't know which one she was called to just that she was called to the Ukraine. I wondered what it was like, how missionaries are looked at by the locals, if there is much church growth etc. The dad of this girl went on a mission to one of the southern states in the mid-70s and got shot at so he and his wife aren't particularly worried about their daughter going so far away - because they know a stateside mission isn't that much safer. But how safe is it there and how much success will she have? If it helps, she's quiet but very pretty and an excellent athlete. How hard is the language - her mom says she's learning Russian in the MTC but might need to learn Ukrainian in the field. She's smart enough to do that but is that true or will she mostly use Russian? Any chance she'll find out the church is a hoax? Like I said, she's a very bright girl but she's been pretty sheltered and lived in Utah county since elementary school age. Any insight would be helpful. Thanks.

She will use Russian in certain parts of the Ukraine because there are large Russian-speaking zones in the country, a legacy of the Soviet Union where Russians were sent to all the component republics and Russian was the language of politics and more modern jobs. Outide of the major cities she will see villages that have not changed much since the 1950s. Her mission will probably be middling; most Ukrainians are deeply religious adherents of either Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. If she is good looking she will be hit on by men listening to annoying techno and driving tricked-out Russian cars. The city people will look at her as some sort of salesperson and the villagers will consider her a freak from another planet. The culture shock and general non-plussedness of the people may either shock her out of Mormonism, drive her further in, or make her hate Ukrainians. I almost forgot to add that there is a general dislike of Russians in the Ukraine due to post WWII repression; this last Victory Day*, nationalist-skinhead types attacked anybody wearing the orange and black Victory ribbon, even geezers with chestfuls of Red Army medals!

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* Commemoration of the Soviet victory over the Germans in WWII; in Moscow a vast parade is conducted on the 6th of May every year.

@Stumbling
I avoided the AIDS/Chernobyl radiation/Post-Soviet misery because I didn't want to scare CA girl, but yes you are right about all of that. I would say that declining populations in the Slavic countries that made up the USSR in endemic, but it has slowed down from the near-catastrophic levels of the 1990s.

Don't expect her to be living in a nice apartment...

'In Ukraine the average monthly wage is $40 and that’s if one is lucky enough to find work. High levels of poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, inability to cope and other problems contribute to the parents being unable to care for their own children leaving thousands to be abandoned. According to official 2003 statistics provided by the Ukrainian government, approximately 50,000 street children live in Ukraine, 12,000 of which are in Kiev.2 Once on the streets many become victims of drug and solvent abuse. Many are also becoming infected by HIV and developing AIDS.

Ukraine now has the fastest growing rate of HIV infection in the world.3As of 1999 an estimated 200,000-240,000 people in Ukraine had been infected with the HIV/AIDS virus, according to the U.N.-sponsored UNAIDS organization that is working on the AIDS epidemic in Ukraine, along with an additional 7,500 children age 15 and younger - a number that is increasing at an alarming rate due to illegal drug use, sexual activity among children as young as 10 years old, as well as insufficient education regarding safe sex and drug use.4

Large numbers of street children turn to prostitution as a means of survival. Kiev together with Moscow is one of the two major centres in the former Soviet Union trafficking in the sale of young women (mainly between the ages of 15 and 20) into prostitution.5

In 1986 a huge explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear power station 100km north of Kyiv blew radioactive fallout over 23% of Belarus and 7% of Ukraine.6 Although the wind was blowing north and west of Kyiv at the time, some 10–20 million people were affected with 28 workers at the station dying within two months from acute radiation sickness.7 135,000 were evacuated from a 30km radius to Kyiv. Because it took two days before the authorities informed the people, many were happily sunbathing and swimming in the Prypyat River and so were exposed to significant amounts of radiation and have developed cancers. The Dnipro basin from which 30 million Ukrainians take their water immediately showed traces of radioactivity.

Since Chornobyl, Thyroid cancer among children has exploded to a level 10 times higher than normal in Ukraine7, and in some areas, more than 80 times higher than normal.8 The accident has caused significant chromosomal damage in foetuses and birth defects have doubled in Ukraine since 1986.

Mortality rates in Ukraine (14.8%) now exceed birth rates (8.8%)9. The population in 1995 was 52 million. In 2000 it was 50.4 million, in 2001 it was 48 million. Chornobyl is a major factor as is industrial pollution; in the former Soviet countries, emissions of toxins from industrial plants tended to be about 10x greater than in Europe.'

My nephew came back from his mission there a couple days ago, but of course he didn't say anything about suckage. If I talk to him further, I'll try to squeeze a little real info out him.