jakemcgrathmission: Merry Merry Christmas (Week Сімдесят)

Well, first of all, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas tomorrow, I'm super excited. This past week was pretty grand as well. It started off super duper cold, where it was super hard to contact for more than an hour because your fingers and hands would get too cold, but the last few days have actually been pretty nice and it's getting warm enough that all the snow is starting to melt. I know a lot of people love snow and think of Christmas when they see snow, but I'm not the biggest fan of it, so I'm kind of happy to see it go.

Anywho, some of the bigger things that happened this past week. We actually ended up having two exchanges this week. The first one was with the other Elders here in Chernivtsi. I had the opportunity to serve with Elder Taran for a day, a newer missionary from Eastern Ukraine. He's super cool and knows English super well. This past week we set a goal on our district council to go and stop by less-actives here and then tract their building afterwards, so we had a few hours to the evening, so we decided to go out and do just that. Honestly, I haven't tracted much on my mission, most of our finding comes through referrals or contacting, so it's kind of a scary situation for me. We literally knock on the door, say that we're missionaries and try to have a conversation. By the end of the tracting session, I learned that I really like tracting, it's super nice!! For one thing, you're inside, so it's warmer, and it's always interesting what could happen, who's on the other side of the door. Of course, we had a lot of people turn us down, but we did have some good conversations. We talked to a few people about the Book of Mormon and the Plan of Salvation and people were interested. There was one guy who opened the door just in his underwear, so that was kind of interesting, he was a nice guy though haha. All in all, it was a great day full of finding.

Our other exchange was actually in the good old city of L'viv!! Since I'm the district leader here in Chern, every transfer, I get the opportunity to have an exchange with the Zone Leaders in L'viv and we had a wonderful day. I spent the day with Elder Cluff and we had a few lessons, did some finding, and ate some super good Georgian food. Finally, to finish off the day, we had game night there in L'viv and it was a super good one. We watched The Polar Express and drank some hot chocolate. Pretty much everyone there, except for the missionaries, have never seen that movie, so they all enjoyed it and it was a great way to celebrate Christmas. All in all, the exchanges were awesome this week and I learned a lot from them.

As most of you know, to celebrate Christmas on the 23rd, each branch or ward was asked to hold a special 1 hour Church service focused on our Savior and here in Chernivtsi, it went great! The best part was that so many less-active and investigators were able to show up. Usually we have in the low 20's at church and this past week we had in the mid 30's, so that was awesome to see. There, we had some stronger members in the branch share their testimony of Jesus Christ and we sang some extra Christmas hymns and it was a great service. One cool thing that we did here was a lunch afterwards. The whole branch worked together and cooked food and we had a wonderful lunch together that was delicious. Potatoes, meat, vegetables, pretty much typical Ukrainian food, but it was really tasty. After Church on Sunday, we were also able to stop by a less-active that wasn't able to make it to church. Brother Kucher is super nice and he told us so really interesting things. He likes to watch movies so he has some interesting ideas. But we had a lesson about doing the big three: Read, Pray, and come to Church. He actually is a really strong member, has a testimony, but just won't come to church, but we'll keep working with him and getting to know him better. In short, Sunday was a very successful day even though we burned our dinner and it turned out super poor.

The rest of the week was pretty normal. Since we were whitewashed into this area, we're still trying to get used to the area and all the wonderful members that are here. Also, when we first came here, we didn't have any investigators, so Elder Tuttle and I have been doing a lot of finding in search for a few new investigators. This past week, we found one and have a good amount of potential investigators, so hopefully this next week we'll find new ones and help them learn more about the gospel. Chernivtsi is an awesome city that is so pretty. Right now, in center they have a super tall Christmas tree that lights up at night and is super pretty. Also, if you ever look up Chernivtsi, there is the national university that kind of looks like Hogwarts and is a big attraction here. This morning, Elder Tuttle and I were able to go look at it and take a few pictures. Plus, one more thing, Chern is known for its croissants, so Elder Tuttle have eaten way too many croissants because they're sooo good!! Anyway, can't wait to continue my service here and I hope you all just have the best Christmas ever, talk to you next week!

Старійшина McGrath

Luke 2:7 Read and ponder these words. Remember the birth of Christ during this Christmas season