jakemcgrathmission: Starting up Exchanges Again (Week сорок два)

Well, just like every week in the mission field, life is good and the week went well. Let's jump into it. This past week was full of exchanges and learning. Let's start with the first exchange that I had. On Thursday, I had the opportunity to go on another exchange with Elder Corey as the Elders in Khmelnitsky (pretty dang hard to pronounce the city, right?) traveled down here to Rivne for a few days. All in all, the exchange went really well. Elder Shuley and I have been working pretty hard over these past few weeks to prepare for these exchanges that we'll be having to make sure that our area is strong and it will be an example for everyone that comes in and has exchanges with us. One great thing that came from this exchange is that a baptismal date was set!!!! One of our investigators, Vadim, has accepted a baptismal date in July and I super duper happy for his decision to enter into the waters of baptism and come closer to our Heavenly Father. Hopefully all keeps going well with him and he can start coming to church!! Other than that, the exchange went super duper and I learned a lot from Elder Corey!

The other exchange that I had this week was with Elder Wonson. If you remember, I served with him in the MTC, so it was pretty great to serve with him for a day and see all the growth that has occurred, both within the Language and just in general as missionaries. We were able to eat some super good Ukrainian food, teach some good lessons, and do some good old contacting. It honestly just felt nice to just serve with him and to think that seven months ago, we came into Ukraine, bright-eyed, greener than a spinach smoothie, and now we can teach lessons and easily have conversations with people on the street and have a super good exchange.

Lastly, I want to share an experience that I had this past week with Elder Wonson. On Wednesday, we had to go on splits because Elder Shuley and Cook had some branch stuff to help with and Elder Wonson and I had the chance to go out to a village and visit one of their investigators. The lesson went good, and we actually ate some pretty good food (minus the mushrooms.) On the way back though, we were waiting for a bus to take us back to the city and at one point I stuck out my hand to a work van and it just passed by. The a minute later, I looked to right and saw that the van was backing up to us and picked us up and took us back to Rivne for free and twice as fast than a normal bus! That was super nice and the guy that did that was pretty dang cool, had a good convo with him and even at the end, got his number. That was a cool experience, pretty funny, never really hitch-hiked on my mission, also don't really know if it's allowed, but we did it and it was so much faster. Anyway, that was pretty much the week. Have a great week and keep up the solid workkk

Старійшина McGrath

Deutoronomy 7:9 Read and ponder these words. God is there!!