jakemcgrathmission: Trains out the Wazoo (Week П'ятдесят)

Well, this week was full of crazy adventures and a whole lot of traveling. I left Rivne on Tuesday morning and didn't get back home until Saturday afternoon, super fun, but also super tiring. Anyway, lets jump into it. First of all, this week, we went off to Kiev for yet another MLC. MLC, like always, ended up being pretty successful. We had originally around 20 things to discuss on MLC, but we only got through about half of them in the end. Most of the topics were actually bigger than we thought, with many different ideas and thoughts about the issue, but in the end, listening to the spirit, we came to a conclusion that will best help our mission be the best mission that it could possibly be. One great thing about Kiev, is that we got to see the temple again. Sadly, we weren't able to go inside and do a session, but our meeting was in the Church that is on the temple grounds, so it was just nice to walk on the temple grounds and just feel the power of the temple. All in all, I can say it was a successful trip to Kiev. Having KFC and Domino's didn't hurt too.

Anyway, after our wonderful trip to Kiev, we headed off to L'viv, spent the night there. There we did some studies, ate at a super good breakfast buffet, and then took another train off to Khmelnitskiy (try pronouncing this haha) where we had exchanges with the district leader and his companion there. I had the opportunity to serve with Elder Stott for a day and he's a super good Elder. He has been serving for just over a year now and is killing it. We ended up having a slow day, we contacted outside for around five hours since we couldn't get any lessons. K-town is an interesting city, my first time there and it's super soviet. Practically every building is concrete and there are concrete jungles everywhere there. But we did contact next to a really cool lake and took a picture or two. Near the end of the day though, we did get transfersss!!! That was crazy. I found out that I'm staying for a fifth transfer in Rivne and this next transfer, I'll be serving with Elder Cook. Elder Shuley will also be with us, but he finishes his mission one week into the transfer, so there was no point in transferring him to another city. Anyways, I'm excited to serve with Elder Cook and we'll have a great transfer or two!

Finally, though, after a ton of trains and buses, we made it back home to Rivne and have had a good past few days. On Sunday, we had a wonderful Church service where we had a good amount of people show up, including a few of our investigators. And then after church, we had another lesson with Mikola, annndddd he still hasn't smoked!!!! He's amazing and 100% on track to get baptized this coming Saturday. I'm praying every day and if all stays to plan, Rivne will have a new member that will help the branch grow!! Anyhow, that was pretty much the week, we ate out so very much this week and I'm ready to have a normal week since we don't have any travels planned. Have a great week all, talk to you later.

Старійшина McGrath

Jacob 4:7 Read and ponder these words, we sent this to Mikola this week and I love this verse!