Albatross (Week СТО)

Well, this is pretty weird to think, this will be my last weekly email ever!! It's been crazy, so many things have happened over these past two years and I can't believe that next week it's all coming to an end. Before I jump into any of the reflections and the last week email stuff that I've planned on doing, let's talk about this past week. It was a super good week, we all went to L'viv and had a zone conference. Sad to say that it was my last zone conference, but it was a super good one if i may say so. President Kumferman had a super good segment on how we can teach repentance better and we got into some deeper doctrine about that for us. Also, at that zone conference, we got smartphones and they're super nice!! I forgot how nice they were for just about everything haha. But that means that I get to use a smartphone for one week on my mission. 

Anyhow, one last thing about zone conference. So, our district had interviews with President after the conference, and like always, they took forever. We didn't finish the last one until 9:50 and we're not even supposed to be outside of our apartment after 9:30. But everything was fine and we start walking home with President and we all get the idea to ask if we can go to McDonalds with President right now. So, someone finally asks him and guess what?! We end up going to McDonalds with President at 10:15 at night haha. He said that that was a great idea and so we spent some quality time with him there. The rest of the week was good too. Finding, learning, teaching, all those good missionary work things. I had my last testimony in the Lutsk branch yesterday, that was quite sad. All in all, I quite enjoyed the day and I'm for sure gonna miss being a missionary! 

Anyways, let's jump into my mission reflection. I actually want to talk about why I chose this title for this email. As many of you know, I really, really like Golf. When I first started playing Golf, and even before I started playing it, I knew that it wouldn't be an easy sport, and in my opinion, it's one of the hardest sports. When you think about Golf, most people think that the hardest thing to do in the sport is to get a hole-in-one, which everyone knows about and have probably seen a video about one. I even saw my dad hit one, which was probably the biggest achievement in his life haha. But, if you know golf, you come to know that the hardest shot in golf is an Albatross, or  a 2 on a hole 5. That for sure is a lot harder than a hole-in-one, but it's possible, I've seen videos of that as well. Now, I want to try and make a comparison to Missionary work. Before my mission, I didn't realize how difficult it would be. But I've come to realize that it's not the easiest thing to do, in fact, I'd say this has been one of the hardest things in my life. BUT, more importantly, just like hitting an Albatross, it's one of the best things in the world. I can't believe that I've finished my mission and everything is about to change for me, but as I reflect back on my mission, it's been amazing. All the miracles that I've seen, all the lives that have changed, including mine, and all the wonderful people that I've met here in Ukraine. I wouldn't trade it for anything. An albatross is most likely a once in a lifetime thing. Full-time missionary work as a young adult is once in a life-time. All I can say and will say about it, is that it's for sure the best thing in the world, literally nothing else could ever beat this.

Well, this is it. My mission has for helped me change, I can't see everything, but I really do feel that I have changed for the better. There are a few things that I really gained a knowledge of/strengthened my knowledge of. First of all, I have no doubt in my mind that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that Joseph Smith translated the Book by the power of God. I sincerely believe that if anybody reads the Book of Mormon with a sincere heart and pure intent to know the truth of it, they will receive that answer by the Holy Ghost. I did that myself, and received that answer. With that knowledge, I know that today we have a living Prophet, and more importantly, that our church today is the same exact Church that Jesus Christ established when he lived on this Earth. Jesus Christ did this because he had a mission to save us and through the atonement we can receive forgiveness of all sin. Through sincere repentance, we call all become clean again. I know that our God is literally our Heavenly Father and he knows each of us personally and loves us more than we can even comprehend. And if we want to speak to him, we have a direct connection through the wonderful power of prayer. My mission has been wonderful and has given me a rock solid testimony of the truthfulness of this Church. I'll say, if someone is worthy and can serve, but decides not to, they're making the biggest mistake in their life. This was the best two years. God has given us so much, and serving a mission is a perfect way to show our gratitude to him. I love you all and I can't wait to see all of you soon, have the greatest week and talk to you all later. See you on the other side...

Старійшина McGrath

Moroni 10:32-34 read and ponder these words. We are perfected IN Christ!!

Original three for the last time before we all go home

District pictureee 

 Old district pic in remembrance  

City hall in L'viv

 L'viv pictureee 

With a cool family here in Lutsk 

                  I'm a dead man now

Last time with the Kid (Week Дев'яносто дев'ять)

Well, this was a super grand week if I may say. Also, I only have one more P-day after today, so that's pretty crazy to think about, so expect one final letter after this one. But yeah, let's jump into this past week. Probably the biggest thing that happened was our trip to L'viv. This past week, we traveled to L'viv to have exchanges with the zone leaders, and guess who I served with? I had the chance to serve with Elder Matua for another day!!! That was super awesome, if you remember, pretty much last year, I had the chance to train him in Rivne and we had a wonderful time together. But it was nice to serve with him and catch up a bit with him, and we had a super good day and had a few lessons. I called up Ihor, (the man that I baptized in L'viv last year) and told him that I was in L'viv and then he asked when we could meet. 

So in the afternoon, we headed up to him and spent some good time with him for a bit, we made some chicken dish and then had a good spiritual thought with his entire family. Ihor is doing pretty good, he's just got a few trials and life is hard for him right now, but it was nice to catch up and crack a few jokes with him haha. Probably one of my favorite people here in Ukraine. Anyhow, the rest of the day was good, we ate some lunch at Dominos, and then we decided to try and go and do a finding activity. So we get everything ready, we got stands, books, a table, and then headed out to the a bus to take to center. Once we were in the bus, clouds started to form and it starting POURING, absolutely POURING, so we basically got to center, and then turned right back around and headed back to the church since you can't really contact people outside if it's raining haha, nobody wants to stop. But that was quite the adventure, and we still found things to do to be effective. All in all, life was good with Elder Matua for a day and it was super fun to serve with him. Plus, it's never bad to go to L'viv.

Other than the trip out to L'viv, honestly the week was pretty average. We had some lessons with a few of our investigators and we did studies, contacted, the basic missionary things. This past week, we met with the two brothers again, and the lesson was just as interesting as the first one. We even invited President Danko, the branch president here, and with him, there was just soooo much talking. I don't know if I mentioned it last week but the two brothers just love to talk and so does our Branch President, so we were in the lesson for about an hour and a half, and all we taught was the first two points of the restoration, they just talked for days and days and it was pretty hard to stop. Soooo, that was interesting, plus they said that they don't believe in prophets, so that was the interesting lesson of the week. President Danko talked to them for days too and testified pretty strongly, so that was pretty good. All in all, with our investigators, they're making some progress, some are reading the Book of Mormon, and hopefully as they continue to read the Book, they'll gain that solid testimony of the truth of it. 

Anyhow, the week was good, the weather was pretty interesting. Sometimes it was warmer, but most of the time, it was colder and there was a good amount of rain. Pretty much everyday we had a bit of rain, so that was cool. Today for P-day, we ate at a super good restaurant and then went and played some billiards, so that was great. All in all, it was a great week. Have a great week everyone, talk to you all next week!

Старійшина McGrath

Mosiah 4:27 read and ponder these words. Everything has their own orderrrr

Eating some dominos pizza with Elder Matua 

 Making food with Ihor

Ihor and his family 

Lutsk sign here 

One more photo to keep you happy

July the Fourth be With You (Week Дев'яносто вісім)

Well, another good week. A lot of different things happened and we actually saw a lot of success this week. Fist of all, as you can tell from the wonderful title, it was Independence Day this past week. As some of the only Americans here in Lutsk, we decided to go out and celebrate good. So we invited some members and went out to center and did a super solid English Finding activity, where we talked to people about America, gave out a bunch of English Cards, and I even brought out a football and I threw the ball around with some people, so that was quite fun. At one point, one person got super into playing catch with me, that he threw the football way over my head and almost killed a woman, that was super sketch, I think my heart stopped beating there for a few seconds haha. Then, after the activity, we all went out to eat some lunch at a restaurant and I got a BBQ pizza for the holiday that was suppper tasty. Finally, to finish off the holiday, we ended up having English Practice that evening, and so I spent a good 15 minutes or so talking about what we do for the holiday and I even just starting talking about football and we even got on the topic of the Super Bowl. All in all, a super good holiday, hope you all had a good fourth.

Other than that, this past week we actually had a good amount of success finding new investigators. After weeks of not really finding a ton, and contacting a lot, we ended up finding five new investigators this past week, and that was super awesome to see. Also, to kind of top that off, two of the five new investigators that we got actually made it to Church as well. So that was great to see, people are actually taking that next step to come to church and enjoy that, hopefully they start to read the Book of Mormon over this next and start to gain that solid testimony of that awesome Book. Two of the two new five new investigators are actually brothers, Svyatoslav and Vasil. They're super cool people, we found them through English Practice, and we met with them this past Saturday and we taught them about our Church and what we believe and we tried to teach them the restoration, but they really like to talk. But they know a TON about religion and they've studied religions and they want to know more about our faith and what we believe. Hopefully we can meet this next week and teach them the full restoration, they already expressed a desire to read the Book of Mormon, so hopefully they'll start reading that soon. All in all, a good week with investigators, pray for them!!!

The rest of the week was great as well. The weather was super solid this past week, it did not feel like summer, it really felt like Spring, so that was kind of nice when we were outside contacting and doing everything that we needed to do. Our activities this past week were super solid, we had a bunch of people show up to both of them. For our game night, we ended up playing human battleship, so that was super fun, everyone really enjoyed that, I don't think that anyone had ever played that before. All in all, I love the mission life and I can't believe that I only have three weeks left, time to finish strong!! Have a great week everyone!!
Старійшина McGrath

D&C 130:18-19 read and ponder these words. This is why we need to gain as much knowledge as possible!!

Selfie on the street 

Finding Activity for the 4th of July

Selfie at a Trampoline park!! 

Trampoline parkkk 

Cake at a members...there goes six months to sexy

Solid Week of Service (Week Дев'яносто сім)

Well, another week down, this week was pretty normal, nothing too big went on. One of the biggest things that we did this past week was a youth activity. We had a few good people show up, including an investigator of the sisters, and we were able to have some good time together and build relationships. One of the sisters here actually knows how to make Krispy Kreme doughnuts, at least they were super similar, so we ended up doing that as well. And, they turned out suuuuppperr dang good!! Man, I've missed doughnuts a lot, and it was nice to spend some time with the youth and make and eat a ton of doughnuts haha. Another fun activity that we did this past week was a finding activity after church on Sunday. We ended up going out to the park on a nice afternoon and we took some chalk and drew the plan of salvation and then started to talk to people about it and explain what it was and why that's important to us. The activity actually went pretty dang good and we were able to talk to a ton of people, especially families, and help them understand how the plan of salvation is true and how we came to that knowledge. Through that finding activity, I ended up talking to a few people that seemed pretty interested in finding out more and we were able to exchange numbers and hopefully coming up over these next few weeks we'll be able to set up some meetings with them.

Other than that, the week was pretty normal. On English Practice, we handed out these sheets for 30/30 lessons. Basically what we do is teach English for the first thirty minutes, and then for the next thirty minutes we talk to people about why we're here as missionaries. A lot of people actually took the sheet and filled it out, so we actually had a few 30/30 lessons this past week. One of them was with a man named Maksim, he's a cool 18 year old guy. Honestly, one reason that I like meeting with people is to find out about them and what they like to do. We already had an investigator here in Lutsk that liked to race-walk, and now this new investigator, Maksim is actually really into break dancing. That was pretty cool, I'd love to see some moves from him haha, but he talks about how he wants to go professional and become the best break dancer, so we'll see what happens with that haha. 

But we ended up having two lessons with him this past week and we taught him the restoration and the plan of salvation and he seemed to accept everything and he's already started reading the Book of Mormon, so he's got some good potential, hopefully he keeps doing that. This past week we also met with out super solid investigator, Bohdan. He just finished all his exams this past week and we had a good lesson about the temple and the importance of that. He loves that and the temple in Kyiv, already talked about how he wanted to visit it. But now that he's finished school for the semester, he's going back to the village that he's from, so we'll be meeting over skype with him, that should be good. Plus, he said that he would come to Church this Sunday, so we'll see what happens with that. 

The rest of the week was solid. We did some more service in a garden, doing some good old digging. We also did some studying, contacting, and all the good things that missionaries do. Glad to be a missionary and can't believe that this is my final month as a missionary! Ready to finish strong! Have a great week all, talk to you next week!

Старійшина McGrath

D&C 130:20-21 read and ponder these words. There are blessings for all commandments!!!!!

On top of the castle here in Lutsk!

Youth activity this past week

Lunch with some investigators that are super cool!

Contacting off in old city

Soviet buildings here in Lutskkkk