The Beginning Of The End (Week Дев'яносто два)

Another transfer come and gone. Now, on to the final transfer of my mission, crazy how fast the mission has gone by. Luckily though, this is going to be a longer transfer, nine weeks actually instead of just six. We're having a longer transfer because the entire Eastern Europe wants to be on the same schedule, and instead of having a mini-three week transfer, President Kumferman just decided to have a longer nine week transfer. But yeah, since the transfer just finished this past week, it also means that transfer calls have come as well and it was an interesting. Since we're having such a long transfer, President Kumferman decided to have every single companionship in our zone change. So sad to say, Elder Holden is leaving Lutsk and heading to L'viv. My final companion will actually be a Ukrainian. His name is Elder Troxymenko. He's from Kyiv and has been on his mission for a year and a half now, so it should be a pretty good transfer, I'm pretty excited for it. One other interesting thing about transfers, Elder Matua, my first kid (trainee) just made it to be a zone leader, so that's pretty great, I'm a pretty proud dad haha.

Other than that, the week was pretty grand. This week was actually zone conference week too, so that meant that we traveled to L'viv, had interviews with President Kumferman and then zone conference on Friday. Both went pretty good, always learn a ton from both of those. This past conference, President Kumferman decided to focus a lot of the Plan of Salvation and how we can better teach that to our investigators and it was pretty awesome. We went to some deep doctrine at times and that confused the heck out of me, but I did learn some new things. We talked at one point about the difference between Translation, Transfiguration, and Resurrection, that was super interesting, I encourage you guys to think about that and find some examples of each of them. Anyhow, then on Sunday, we had an interesting day as well. It was actually Branch conference, so that was pretty stressful, luckily I didn't have to lead church that week. This was actually the one time of the year that President Kumferman travels us to Lutsk and he had a good time. He really enjoyed the branch and the conference was a big success. President gave a wonderful talk and even though he can only speak Russian, I understood pretty much all of it. I did confirm one thing though, Ukrainian is for sure better than Russian, without a doubt haha. It was weird to hear all the members speak Russian to President instead of Ukrainian, but all in all, the week was a success. 

Finally, one little story to finish off the week. We had a super good lesson with one of our investigators named Bohdan. He's doing super good and he's reading the Book of Mormon and has a good desire to find out if the Book is true or not. This past week, we decided to teach him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was awesome. We invited him to be baptized and he really thought about it for a minute, then just game the best/funniest response ever. He asked, "tonight?" haha we all kind of had a good laugh there, but that kind of shows his desire, and in the end we set a baptismal date for him for July 13, hopefully all goes well with that and he continues to accept the gospel. All in all, we did everything this week, contact, teach, learn, and crack some good jokes. Always wonderful to be a missionary, can't wait for another good week.

Старійшина McGrath

Ether 12:27 read and ponder these words, we all have weaknesses

                     With some great members!!

Arm wrestling with the Branch President during FHE

Branch Partyyy

Best district in the mishhh

Lunch with the Branchhh

Warmer and Warmest (Week Дев'яносто один)

Well, this was a pretty good week, not too much happened this past week, we worked hard and had what you can call an average missionary week of finding, teaching, and hopefully we'll be doing some baptizing soon. This past week we had some good success finding some new investigators and we were able to find three new, good investigators. One of our new investigators we met on Sunday at a Library. He only had like thirty to minutes to meet and talk, but we were able to have a good conversation about why we're here on a mission, how the Gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed my life, and we even talked some about the restoration of the Gospel. Near the end of the conversation, we started to talk about the church in Lutsk, and he expressed a desire to come to Church this next Sunday and he wanted to invite his wife to come as well, and then they'd come as a family. That'd be super cool if he did that!! Anyhow, also we had a lesson with one of our newer investigators named Ivan. This past week, we had a good plan of salvation lesson with him where we used a diagram to show him the plan of salvation and he really accepted it. He's also started to read the Book of Mormon and he said that the Book is interesting, and we talked about Baptism at the end of the lesson and he said that if he found out that the Book of Mormon is true, he'd for sure get baptized. All in all, we're seeing some good potential here in Lutsk, and hopefully it'll keep growing and our area will continue to grow and do well.

Other than that, the weather here is getting a lot better. We've had a ton of rain recently, but it's gotten better over the past few days. I'm starting to pull out the short sleeve white shirts and we even had some fresh strawberries on Friday. I guess that you could say that Summer is pretty much in full swing now, which is amazing!! One way that we went and celebrated that was with a summer finding activity. We decided on Saturday to go out to the big park here in Lutsk and we did a chalk drawing. We drew the Plan of Salvation super big on the ground in the park and then invited people to talk about it and we were able to have some good conversations. We basically had like some 10 minute lessons with people on the street about the Plan of Salvation and how that can bless our lives. That was a pretty fun activity and it's pretty fun to draw with some chalk.

Well, nothing too much more than that this past week. For Game night this past week we watch meet the mormons with everyone, and some people really enjoyed that. We also went out today with the sisters and visited the Tunnel of Love since none of them had ever been out there before. All in all, a great week, can't wait for the next one, conference week!

Старійшина McGrath

Heleman 3:35 read and ponder these words. Humility is key!!!

 Last week's P-dayyy 

Finding Activity selfie

With comp at Tunnel of Love

Lunch with everyone 

Selfie after Finding activity 

Tunnel of Love with sisters 

Pano of the finding activity

Solid Week on the Mission (Week дев'яносто)

Wowzers, if you didn't translate the title of this email or you can't read the Celestial Language of Ukrainian, it says that I just finished week 90 on my mission. You know, time really does fly by on the mission, you don't realize how true that it until you serve one. But anyhow, this past week was pretty good. The weather was kind of all over the place, on Tuesday, it was cold and rainy, and then the very next day was super sunny and hot. That continued for a few days until Saturday when we were doing a finding activity in Center on the Plan of Salvation, when it started raining on and off for most of the day. There were even times when it started raining when there wasn't clouds in the sky, I don't understand that at all. Apparently, they call that "Blind Rain" here in Ukraine, so that's pretty interesting. 

Anyway, some good things are going on here in Lutsk. Sadly, first of all, we were unable to meet with Oleksandr this past week due to the fact that he's working a lot right now and he doesn't have a ton of time. But he tells us that he still wants to meet and find out more about our church and the Book of Mormon, so we'll keep trying with him. This past week, we were actually able to find a few new investigators this past week, so that's good. The first one is a college student here in Lutsk. We started out talking a little more about English and he seemed more interested in that, but we were able to transition well into the Gospel and it sparked a good interest in him and he really liked the idea of the Book of Mormon. He said that he's super interested and that he'll "definitely" read the Book of Mormon, so far so good with my man. Also, this past week we were able to have a first lesson with someone from English Practice. He's been coming for a few weeks and he's a nice grandpa. He really likes radios and talked to us for about 20 minutes about that and how they work, but after that we turned it into the gospel and he too had a desire to find out more about the restoration of the Gospel. So things are looking good here in Lutsk, we just gotta get some investigators to sacrament meeting now.

Ok, now onto a funny story, at least I thought that this was funny. So sometimes, as missionaries, we'll do something called area book finding. That means that we'll sit down with our area book, and call a bunch of former investigators that stopped investigating for various reasons. Sometimes people need more time or weren't ready at that specific time, so it's good to go back sometimes and call formers. So, me and my companion were doing that and for Elder Holden, it can sometimes be hard to talk on the phone, mostly because he's only in his 4th transfer and the phone conversations can sometimes be hard to understand. But he grabbed a former and started to call a man named Oleksandr. But, when he called, a women answered and he started to freak out and didn't know what exactly to say. So he introduces himself and asks if Oleksandr is there. The women says yes. Now this next question is important because he could ask many different things, but he's still kind of freaking out and he decided to ask this question to the women, "Are you him?" ahhaa I started laughing pretty hard, that was pretty funny, really made my night. Needless to say, she didn't seem that interested afterwards haha. 

Other than that, the week was pretty normal. We actually also went out and did some service for a less active member on Wednesday. We basically fertilized the ground for her, dug a ton for her. That was pretty fun, I always like doing some service for people and now that the weather is warming up too, we should be doing some more service soon, that's awesome. Anyway, the rest of the week was good, had some other lessons, did some contacting, and I got to lead church again, always good and stressful haha. All in all, not a bad week at all. Have a great one, talk to you all later. 

Старійшина McGrath

Alma 36: 20-21 Read and ponder these verses, look at the power of repentance!!

Serviceeee

Our Branch President doing pushups after he lost a table tennis tournament

Greeneesss 

Selfie in the park

Mall here in Lutsk

Train station here

Exchanges and Rain on Rain (Week Вісімдесят дев'ять)

Well, this week was pretty interesting, we had some super busy days, and then other days where it was hard to find some lessons. But nevertheless, it was a solid week and I learned a lot. Also, I don't think there was a day this past week that didn't rain, I think I saw more clouds than sun this past week, but it's all good, when the rain was going, that didn't stop us from doing missionary work. Anyhow, let's go in order. Last Monday was pretty good, we went and visited the catacombs here in Lutsk, that was pretty sick, I don't think that I've been to a catacombs before so that was quite the adventure. 

Then, that night, a family, the Yerkos who have three daughters, invited us and the sisters over for an FHE which was actually super lit. They actually just finished building their house this past year, so when we went out and visited, it was super nice, probably the nicest house or apartment that I've been in on my mission. Well, after eating some good food and showing some pictures, we all head into the living room. There they turn on the TV and tell us that we're going to do some Just Dance, so we literally all just start busting out some moves for about an hour to many different songs that I listened to before my mission, that was pretty fun. I just got super stinking sweaty in my church clothes. Finally, to finish off the FHE, I decided to do a spiritual thought, where I pulled out my playing cards and did a magic trick. The only problem is that they apparently knew that trick before I did it, so I completely failed, that was a bit embarrassing. But whatever, it was fun and they enjoyed the trick. I was still able to compare this magic trick to the importance of always gaining knowledge in this life through the scriptures. Not a bad day at all.

Anyhow, other than that, this past, there were two exchanges here in Lutsk. The Zone Leaders wanted to come up here to Lutsk since they've never been here before, and then the Sister Training Leaders came up and had an exchange with the sisters. Both of them turned out pretty good. I had the chance to serve with Elder Blake for a day. He's pretty cool, he was actually the last missionary to get called to the Ukraine L'viv mission before we combined. But we had a good day, we met with a less-active and one of our investigators, and both lessons turned out fine. Then, in the afternoon, we had a finding activity, where we wrote on a board, "What brings you happiness?" and then many people came up and wrote their answer. That turned out super dang good and I actually was able to get five numbers from that activity, which is not bad at all. Also, we had a few members help us out on the activity, so we were able to contact with them for a bit, and that was super cool to see members testifying about the Book of Mormon to someone that they don't even know. They're gonna be some good missionaries one day. When the Sisters had their exchange, we did a bit or a different finding activity, we put some pictures of temples up on the board and asked if people had ever seen these buildings. That was pretty cool too, because people had seen the Kyiv Temple but didn't know what it was. So it was nice to explain that to them and I had some really good convos on that activity too. All in all, some super solid exchanges!!

Well, a little update on our investigators. First of all, Oleksandr, the super cool guy with the baptismal date. He's doing pretty good, we met two times this week and taught him some more of the commandments. He pretty much is accepting all of it, his biggest problem is that he hasn't made it to church yet. There has been so much holidays lately and he's always had an excuse, hopefully he comes next week. But we're probably gonna push his date back because he hasn't made it to church yet, but in short, he's doing super fine. Other than that, we have some other investigators that we're working with and always searching for new ones. All in all, it was a great week, never a bad week really on the missionary. Have a great week everyone and don't forget to read your scriptures!

Старійшина McGrath

3 Nephi 11:3 read and ponder these words. How do you feel the Holy Ghost?

our apartment building 

Selfie at the catacombs 

catacombs againnnn haha 

With comp in the catacombs

Finding Activity on Exchanges