jakemcgrathmission: Hello and хороший день (Week Один)

Hey hey hey guys, first things first, I'm glad to tell you that I'm alive. Loving the mission life. Today, we got our comps, I've actually got the opportunity to have two, in a triple threat haha. Elder Wonson from the country of Texas and Elder Swasey from who knows where. Both really great guys and they're both serving in L'viv! Can't wait to get to know them during the next 9 weeks. We first had an orientation where there were a few talks given and we sang some songs that filled the room with the spirit. After that, we went to class where our teacher only spoke Ukrainian, I understand nothing. I"m so so confused, but I know I'll learn it. After class I met with our zone and met our zone leaders, we have a massive zone about like 85 people or so. Proud to be a part of the one and only Eastern European zone. Anyways, I had an awesome first day, mission life is the best life. Love you all!!!

Thursday: Day two!! Today, we had our first day of real classes where I still haven't heard a single word of English, only Ukrainian. But lemme tell you, I've learned a few words and can introduce myself. Besides class the highlight of my day was meeting my branch presidency and meeting all the new people. There are 47 new missionaries that came in on Wednesday in our zone, that's insane. That's more people than in my whole mission. We have five of us heading off to L'viv, It's a fun group of people, my comps and two sisters.

Friday: It's my birthday, first of three on my mission, what a lucky guy haha But it was a great day, full of learning the language and teaching our first lesson. You read that right, three days into the mtc and we're teaching lessons in Ukrainian, absolutely insane haha!!!! But I thought we did pretty well considering how much we actually know of Ukrainian. We taught about the love of Christ and prayer. The volunteer investigator, Yura, accepted our challenge to pray!!! haha The spirit was there and I'm glad there's a thing called the gift of tongues, very necessary tonight. The rest of the day was very nice too, we had a district meeting which at one point they sang happy birthday to me, that was quite an experience. I'm also the senior comp in my trio of missionaries so that's fun, getting to lead the companionship. The church is true fellas and remember to pray!! Always a good thing. Also, thanks for birthday gifts, my roommates sure enjoy the food. haha

Saturday: Another solid day at the good old mtc. Loving every minute of it, but can't wait out to head out to Ukraine and teach real investigators. The highlight of today was being able to teach Yura again. We totally killed it guys, so much better than yesterday, so proud of my comps, really could feel the spirit in the room. Other than that, we had two lessons with sister grey, which in we learned a lot of Ukrainian. Can't believe how far I've come in only four days, it's actually crazy, gift of tongues is sure realski. Mission life is the best life, and since elder Wonson is from texas, I'll say this. Love Y'all.

Sunday: Everyone says wait until Sundays, they're the best day. They were right, it did not disappoint. First of all, funny story. So we were on our way to sacrament meeting and me and elders Swasey and Wonson decided to walk ahead because everyone else in our zone was doing the mall crawl. So we headed to the classroom that it said on the paper but when we got there, we realized it wasn't the right classroom. So me and my comps went searching for like 20 minutes until we see some of our ZL's running towards us and they eventually took us to sacrament meeting. Sacrament meetings at the MTC are crazy. If you've ever wondered what the tower of Babel sounded like, come visit my branch. We had ten different languages singing at the same time, it was pretty wild haha. Anyway the rest of the day was pretty great too. We had this time where we could watch films, and we watched a talk by Elder Bednar named Characters of Christ. If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend it, so amazing. Best talk I've ever heard. Instead of just having a testimony, we need to also be fully converted to the Lord. We need to be able to turn outward instead of inward, developing Christlike attributes and helping everyone in need. The MTC is getting more and more amazing, can't wait for tomorrow.

Monday: Oh, the MTC, now that a new week has started, we're more on our normal schedule that we'll be on for the next 8 weeks. It usually consists of two three hour classes with Sister Grey, our teacher that from Utah that went to L'viv, and a four hour block where we do personal, comp, and language study. Other than that, we have food times and exercise time where I go and play some basketball with some tall elders haha. Today we also had our third lesson with Yura, it went quite well. We talked about the apostasy and the restoration. At the end of our lesson, I asked Yura to say a prayer during our discussion about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and he did it! I was so happy, our "volunteer" investigator prayed for the first time in front of us. Anyway, I can't believe how much Ukrainian I know after five days, I can say a prayer and bear my testimony, crazy!! Love the gift of tongues.

Tuesday: Another day another dollar at the MTC, today in class we learned how to do the baptismal invitation, it was quite difficult, haha not even close to memorizing it. Anyway, every Tuesday night we have a devotional instead of another class and today we Elder Weatherford Clayton of the 70 come and teach us about el libro de mormon. It was great, and during the devotional we sang armies of Helaman and instead of saying we will be missionaries we said ARE NOW missionaries, so cool. Anyways, first week in the books, one for the ages, first of many great weeks. Поговорю з тобою пізніше

Love,

Старійшина McGrath

Deuteronomy 31: 6. Read it and feast upon the words. I testify that the Lord will always be with us and if we're obedient and heed his teachings, we will be blessed forever and ever. Heavenly Father loves us very much and will do anything to help and bless us, we just need to do our part!! Love you guys.