Officially not a greenie anymore!! (Week двадцять один)

Well, my training has officially ended and I am not a greenie anymore. Now, I've got a new comp and I can just put 100% focus on the mission and helping people come unto Christ. Anyway, this week was quite the adventure. On Wednesday, transfers officially happened and Elder Hill moved into the apartment and became my comp. Elder Hill has been serving for 16 months now and is awesome. He's very good with the language and has been teaching me a lot. He likes to work hard and is a great example to me of a faithful servant of the Lord. I hope to learn a lot from him over these next few weeks. Another thing is that new missionaries came in on Wednesday and since I'm serving in L'viv right now, I was able to meet all three of them. They are awesome people and I know that they will be good missionaries as well. 

Anyway, let's jump into the week. This week we taught a good amount of lessons, contacted for a little bit, and had this finding activity as a district in center. For this finding activity, we had cards, and on each side it had a picture of a prophet, one from the Bible and one from the Book of Mormon. And on the Bible prophet side, it said, Ви знаєте історію цього пророка? Which translates to, do you know the story of this prophet? So then we'd talk about the story of Paul or David and Goliath for a minute. Then, we'd turn the card over and showed a Book of Mormon prophet that had a similar story to one in the Bible, and ask them if they this prophet. Many people gave different answers and this was a great opportunity to introduce the Book of Mormon and talk about what it is and how prophets play a role in the Book of Mormon. It was  a really good finding activity and it was very successful activity. I was able to bear testimony on prophets and the Book of Mormon multiple times, and I just want to say that the Book is true and prophets really do lead us today through modern day revelation. We can learn a lot from both of them and I encourage you to study the Book of Mormon and the teachings of the prophets.

Anyhow, for game night this week, we actually had one of the investigators here come and teach us how to do calligraphy. He's super cool and is such a good artist. We actually did calligraphy on rocks and wrote like one of our favorite scriptures or quotes. I ended up doing Jacob 6:12, my family scripture that is quite short and powerful. I'll attach a picture of it today, but let me tell you beforehand, I am not an artist. So this rock with the scripture in Ukrainian is my best effort haha, other people's calligraphy was a lot more cooler. But hey, effort is the most important part. Also, for English practice this week was super fun. Elder Hill and I taught together for the first time and we taught the intermediate class all about body parts. Then we played a fun game of simon says, they're not the best at it, but it was quite fun to do. All in all, we had a really fun week and had some successful activities.

Finally, I'd like to share a quick story with all of you about something that happened to me this week that was quite funny. So Elder Hill and I are walking to all lessons super far away and we're taking this dark, sketchy path. So we're walking and then all the sudden, Boom!! We fall through into this puddle and struggle to get out. Our shoes are wet and that was not good, so we finally end up getting to this apartment where the less-active family lives, and I look down and my pants are superrr dirty. Like the bottom third of my pants had a ton of dirt on it, so that was kind of awkward for that lesson. Had to explain that to them, but the lesson went well. That was a funny story, I hope at least one of you gets a kick out of it. I guess growing up in Saudi didn't prepare me to avoid puddles that are frozen over. Best part of the story though, the less active family went to church the next day! Anyhow, I hope you all have a great week and keep up the good work!! Always remember the Savior!

Старійшина McGrath

Mosiah 14 Read it and ponder it. Such a powerful chapter about the atonement!!

Everyone working hard on their rocks!

Selfie with the rock 

Selfie with Elder Hill in front of the Opera House

Cool picture of an awesome Church 

We did an escape room today for P-Day, supperrr fun!! 

Merry Christmas, Part II (Week двадцять)

Hey ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, how was your week? My week was great and as you can tell by the title of my email, it was Christmas part two here in L'viv. Some Ukrainians use the Julian calendar, (I think) so that is why they celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January. So, Merry Christmas! Also, it's pretty different going from zero Christmases in Saudi to two in Ukraine, but hey, I'm not complaining. Let's get started on the week, this was a pretty interesting one. First of all, on Friday, it was transfer calls, and I received my first call! I'm getting a new comp, but staying in L'viv for another transfer. My new comp is named Elder Hill and he's been on his mission as long as my current comp, Elder Baxter, has been out. He's a really nice person and I'm excited to get to know him over the next few weeks that I get to serve with him. Anyway, another different thing that happened this week was that the Ternopil Elders moved to L'viv. Right now, the Ternopil area is a little bit different as we haven't gotten permission to preach there, so we just teach English. They used to live in Kmelnitski and take a train three times a week to Ternopil, but they stopped renting one of the apartments there, so they actually moved in with the AP's and they just go to Ternopil from here. It's pretty crazy now, we have ten people in our district, which is basically a third of our mission. Plus, one of the Ternopil elders is Elder Swasey, one of my good old MTC comps, always good to see him.

Anyhow, one big thing we did this week as a district was go to center and have another big activity. Since Christmas is on the 7th of January, we decided to take advantage of the situation and have another big activity about Light the World and what the true meaning of Christmas is. This activity, like the first one, was SUPER successful. There weren't as many people in center this time, but there were enough. Since there were ten of us at the activity, we were able to talk to more people and we actually ended up getting more numbers than last time. Such a good activity and night, one of the best experiences yet on my mission. One thing that I've learned from both of these big activity's in center is that if we do our part and work diligently to put in our part of the experience, the Lord will do his part. He has prepared people for us to share the gospel with, and I know that that night, we found some of those people that were ready to hear the gospel and learn more about our beliefs. Really just a wonderful experience, and I'm so grateful for all that God did to help us make this one of the best activities this mission has seen!!

Well, other than that, the week was great. On Friday, we went on splits with the Ternopil elders because we had a couple of lessons planned. Elder Swasey and I were actually together and we taught a great lesson about enduring to the end and the importance of Church. Also, it was Elder Baxter's birthday this week so we went out celebrate and eat at this amazing restaurant that was a little bit expensive but also very worth it! Most of our investigators are doing pretty good. One of my favorite investigators, who has a real big desire to follow Christ, is actually on a school break and will be back real soon, can't wait to continue to meet with him and talk more about the greatest message that anyone can hear. I really am enjoying my time here in L'viv and I know that my testimony has grown so much. I'm so grateful that I have this opportunity and I encourage all of you to think about a mission. The mission life is the best life! Anyway, have a great week and thanks for everything!

Старійшина McGrath

Alma 26: 36-37 Read and ponder those verses. They are quite amazing and our Heavenly Father is the very best. Let us all put our trust in him and we will reap the benefits! 

At Center on Christmas day, super busy!

A cool Christmas concert

An interesting church 

Selfie with the Ternopil Elders (Me, Elder Hill, Swasey, and Baxter) 

A nice area in Center on a cold winter day

It is a new year. (Week дев'ятнадцять)

Wow, what a week. Probably the quickest week of my life, stayed super busy and had a holiday to celebrate. Let's get started so I can write everything that I'm thinking of. First of all, Thursday was my very first mission conference, and let me tell you, that was quite the experience. Because I live in L'viv, we had some work to do to help prepare the Church for that, so that took up some of Wednesday, but that was also the day that most missionaries started showing up. By the end of the day, we had all 32 missionaries in L'viv. We ended up having two other companionships stay at our smaller apartment so that was quite the experience, we had to create a shower schedule and everything to ensure that everyone got to conference on time. But eventually, the time had come and mission conference officially started. I learned so very much from this conference, mission conferences are the very best. We had many different segments, including a language one, one about the Book of Mormon, another about faith, and finally one about our goals for 2018. Really grateful for this experience that I had and I can't wait for our next one! Anyhow, after conference, as a mission, we actually went out and sang Christmas carols in front of the opera house for a few hours. That was super interesting, because we got a big crowd, and people would sometimes come and join us in singing, even though they didn't have the best voices, or could read some of the English songs that we sang, they were for sure welcome. After singing Christmas carols for a little bit, we actually went inside the opera house and watched this Christmas Carol Opera thingy. The opera house is so beautiful, so ornate. The concert that we watched was very good as well, at some points, they tried to sing some songs in English and that was pretty cool to hear. Their accents aren't the best, but they do know the words, so that's a plus. So that was the day, Thursday was jam-packed full of fun and lots of learning. Can't wait until next conference!

Anyhow, outside of mission conference, on Saturday, the branch president asked us to deliver some food to something out in the villages. That was a fun trip out, it's about an hour away, so we hopped on a small bus and headed out there. The people we gave it to were grateful for it, and I'm happy for that opportunity I had to serve those people. Another interesting thing that happened was on Saturday night. One of our investigators who is in university right now called us up and said that he wanted to meet because he was going home for a few months during his school break. Luckily, we were close to the church and were able to meet. He ended up buying us some chocolate and a book, such a nice guy, and can't wait to talk to him sometime soon!

The last thing that I want to talk about is New Year's this year. Our mission president has a rule that we have to stay inside all of New Year's because apparently Ukrainians love New Years and go pretty crazy around this time of the year. So for our protection, we've been guided to stay inside and let me tell you, it was a very cool and weird day. Everyday as missionary, you have your day planned full of stuff and you really don't have much free time, so on New Years day, where we couldn't really do too much, it was quite different. We ended up playing a few games on monopoly, cooking some delicious food, and just simply relaxing. Really an interesting day, but now I'm ready to face a whole new year, can't wait for 2018, gonna be my best year yet!! Anyway, I hope you all had a great year and keep up the good work!!

Petro, one of my investigators, brought me a Christmas gift

Старійшина McGrath

3 Nephi 27 Read and ponder it!! For mission conference we were asked to study it in advance and then we talked about it during a segment. This chapter is amazing and you can get so much out of it!

A cool nativity scene in center

Set up for mission conference

The inside of the opera house!!

Elder Aslanyan and I!! He's such a good missionary

A cool view of me and the opera house 

Picture of our MTC group back together again!

 A good game of monopoly!!

ЩАСЛИВОГО РІЗДВА (Merry Christmas (Week вісімнадцять))

Wowzers, what a day and what a week. Full of Christmas and full of fun. I hope that all of you guys have a wonderful Christmas and receive all that you asked for. Christmas time is for one of the best times and I'm so grateful that I get to experience a couple of them on my mission even though I am away from my family. This week was quite the week so let's get started on it. First of all, the L'viv district had their other exchange this week so that means that I served with Elder Abraham for a day. He's a great Elder and is a great example of what I want to be like one day. He knows the language very well and really helped me out. One thing that I like to do with Elder Baxter and on all my exchanges is ask them about how the lesson or contact went. I'll ask them usually what I can do better next time and any grammar mistakes that I made during the activity. Every time, they answer and correct my grammar and I'm super grateful for that because all they're doing is helping me. The only way I can learn this crazy language is getting correction on my mistakes so that's why I try to ask all the time for help and correction. Anyway, Elder Abraham and I stayed pretty busy during the exchange, we had a few lessons, did some street contacting, and had some wonderful studies. Really, the best days on the mission are when you have a balance like I did on the exchange, that's when the day just flies by because you're always busy doing something. Quite the day if I may say so myself.

Now, I want to talk about other ways that we celebrated Christmas throughout the week. On Friday night, for our game night, we actually watched a movie!! Crazy right?! We watched the movie 'It's a Wonderful Life' and honestly it was a pretty good movie. Not as good as Elf in my humble opinion but it was pretty good. We got quite the amount of people to show up as well, the whole room was filled and most people quite enjoyed the movie. We put on some Russian subtitles so people that couldn't speak English could enjoy the movie as well. That was all in all a really successful activity and we were able to have some good conversations afterwards. Anyhow, another fun thing we did was for our finding activity in Center. We decided to go out near the opera house right next to the massive Christmas tree and sing some Christmas Carols. That was pretty successful too if I may say, usually we'd have five or six of us singing and then the rest of us talking to people that stopped to listen to us. Most people were super happy to hear us sing, especially when we started to sing songs in English, that's when most people stopped. All in all, it was a pretty grand week, stayed quite busy and can't believe that Christmas is already upon us. 

Now onto what I did today for Christmas. So last night we slept over at the AP's house so all the Elder's were together for Christmas morning. Then Christmas morning, everyone opened their packages and had a jolly old time. We then ate some good cinnamon rolls before heading out to the Church to meet the sisters. At the Church, we had a fun white elephant. I bought a pig pillow pet as the white elephant present and ended up with a cool L'viv mug plus some candy.  I thought that it was a decent exchange and I was for sure happy. After we had finished our white elephant, we went out for a great Christmas lunch. We ended up going to VAPIANOS!! One of my favorite restaurants in the world and had a really good pizza. Not the traditional Christmas lunch but hey, pretty dang good in my opinion haha. So yeah, that has pretty much been my Christmas so far, and I hope you all had a fantastic one as well!! До наступного тижня

Старійшина McGrath 

Luke 2 Read the chapter!! It's the Nativity scene and I'm sure that it will brighten up your Christmas day!!

Massive snowstorm!! Crazy!! haha

On exchanges with Elder Abraham 

The Christmas markets on Christmas Eve!!

Our amazing Christmas tree!!

Repping a D-Backs shirt on Christmas

My White Elephant gift haha

Good view in the city

We Lit the World (Week сімнадцять)

Wowzers, what a great week!! Stayed super busy and had our most successful activity yet! First off, our mission is going very big for light the world this year. We've gotten the video on tv as commercials, we've put it on big screens throughout the cities, and every city has done multiple activities to find people and talk about light the world and our church in general. Our mission president has stressed the importance of this and the mission has not disappointed! This week, it was our turn, the L'viv district, to go big and have a massive activity. We decided that we wanted to project the video in a busy area so lots of people will see it and we ended up choosing the opera house because that is where the Christmas Markets are and a lot of people like to walk around there and shop. We found a bunch of service opportunities such as a clothes drive or visiting an orphanage, and then made sign up sheets for people that wanted to help us with this service. We made a bunch of hot chocolate, and some cookies to give out to people to make them happier and maybe stay and have some conversations with us. Now, the only thing was that the activity was planned for the 16th, a saturday. The 16th ended up being a terrible day where it snowed the entire day and we had to push our activity back to the 17th. Luckily, the weather let up and we were able to have our activity then. I'm going to say this though, the snow was a massive, gigantic miracle. The 16th would have been a great day to have the activity, but it turned out that the 17th was one of the biggest days of the year because that was when they were lighting the big Christmas tree near the opera house. Literally thousands of people were there, thousands of people saw the light the world video, and many people talked to us. The activity was amazing and people signed up for service. Many people talked to us. Many people were interested and gave us their number. Such a good night, and such a good activity.

Anyway, that was probably the biggest part of week as we spent days trying to prepare for it, making sure everything worked fine and we had everything. But one thing that the elders did on Friday was go on exchanges. I for sure love exchanges because it's always nice to spend time with other missionaries and see how they work. I went on an exchange with Elder Christensen, an assistant to the President and as you'd expect, he's an awesome missionary. One thing that really stood out to me about him is his work ethic. He's an extremely hard worker and its no wonder he's AP. Anyhow, there was one cool experience that happened with him though. For every exchange, we make goals as to what we want to do and learn from this experience, and one of my goals was to have a five minute lesson. It's pretty self-explanatory, but basically while you're contacting, you teach one of the lessons in five minutes, and exchange contact information. I had never really done one before because most of the time, I just ask questions while I'm contacting and bear testimony and see if they're interested. But I wanted to do one really bad and I felt like an exchange was a good place to try and do it. We had game night that night where we made gingerbread houses, that was pretty fun, but right before that, Elder Christensen and I were contacting and literally the last person I talked to before we reached the church I had a five minute lesson about the Plan of Salvation. Such a good feeling, he listened, I taught quickly, and he was interested to find out more about the church. Hopefully we meet again soon. Such a good night and exchange. 

All in all, it was a very good week and I learned a lot. Cut some more logs for service, taught some English, and made a really average gingerbread house haha. Can't wait for a new week and I can't believe that it's only a week until Christmas. I hope you all have a great week and stay warm, it's getting kind of cold here! 

Старійшина McGrath

Alma 32:21 Have faith that it will happen and it will. Faith can sometimes be hard, but through our hope and our works, we can and will have faith!!

Elder Christensen and I on exchanges

Our activity night!!

My totally average gingerbread house

A cool picture of snow falling 

Elder Baxter and I on a balcony during our stop bys

The super big Christmas tree right after it got lit up!

The opera house at night

Our district right after our successful activity!

Lovin' the L'viv Life (week шістнадцять)

Oh, wow, what a great week. It actually flew by if I say so myself, got a lot done and stayed quite busy. This week was also a lot different than most other weeks as well, we had a young man who lives in Uzhorod (a city in southwestern Ukraine) come and serve with us for a few days on a very short "mini-mission." That was such a good experience for all of us, and I know I learned a lot. He also doesn't know english at all, so it was straight SYL (Speak Your Language) the entire time. Actually understood more than I thought and learned lots of words haha. Anyway, because Vanya was serving with us, Elder Baxter and I wanted to show him all the aspects of the missionary life; so we did some contacting, door approaches, stop-bys to less actives, taught some lessons, and did some area book work. Honestly one of my favorite weeks so far, being able to balance your activities and not doing the same exact thing every day makes the missionary life a lot more fun, exciting, and spiritual. Banya was super awesome as well, we pushed him to do things that aren't the easiest to do and he stood up to all the tasks. He's going to make a great missionary one day, I hope he gets to serve pretty soon. 

Another fun part of the week was all the service activities we got to do this week. I can honestly say that serving others and becoming more like Christ has made this Christmas season one of my favorites for sure. Light the World is amazing and I encourage all of you guys to look for opportunities to serve others because as you do, you will feel closer to God and receive more blessings than you can even imagine. Anyhow, one service opportunity we had was to go and chop some wood for this old lady. That was quite an experience for me, mostly because I had never chopped wood before, but it was super fun and I quite enjoyed the activity. The other big activity that our district did this week was go to the local orphanage and help them make christmas ornaments for their tree. That was amazinnggggg, we were with all the little kids and they were super happy, cute, and so grateful that we were there. That was honestly one of my favorite moments on my mission, we just sat down, talked to them, and had some good fun making ornaments out of paper. I mainly focused on making snowflakes because that's about all I can do, but some people were making snowmen and whatnot. Such a great activity.

Well, the rest of the week was great as well. English practice on Thursday went real well, we taught about greetings and had some very good role-plays with that haha. On friday, during our game night we played a super fun game of life size battleship. That was pretty wild, we set up some chairs and then put some blankets up so that you can't see the other side and then threw a ball over and tried to hit the other team. Really fun and with both activities we had a really good turn out. Many people showed up and had a good time. Anyway, I hope you all have a fantastic week and enjoy the good old Christmas season!!​​

Старійшина McGrath

Moroni 7:37 Read it and ponder it. Miracles have not ceased and they are everywhere. Be grateful for them and you will see MORE! 

Selfie at the Train Station

At the orphanage! 

Cool picture of a street with some snow

The Christmas Markets here in L'viv!!

More snow than I've ever seen in my life (Week п'ятнадцять) Inbox x

Wow, it really has been such a great week. A lot went on and I hope to share some of it with you. First of all, as you can see in the title, yes we've had a fair amount of snow fall over the past few days. A lot of snow at least for me. Over the past few days, we've gotten about four inches of snow, and even though it is super cold, it's also super pretty. I think I more fully understand what the term white Christmas means, because the whole city has snow and it's super gorgeous. Anyway, let's get started. First of all, on Friday we had a branch activity to kick off Light the World this year. It was a very successful activity and we actually watched the video, talked about it, and then members and missionaries hit the streets to hand out cards to people and talk about this wonderful program of serving others. If you guys haven't watched the video yet, I highly recommend it. It's probably one of my favorite videos ever, plus I get to watch it in Ukrainian which is super cool. Anyway, the activity was a huge success and I know that service is super important and when we serve others we will come closer to Christ. Plus, service doesn't have to be big, the video had many great examples but we can even do something as small as holding the door open for someone or taking out there trash. All is super helpful and someone will be grateful. So serve and you will be blessed!

Another very cool thing that we did this week was go to a soccer game. I know, I'm a missionary, but a member invited us and our mission president gave us permission, so we went out one night to go watch a quarterfinal soccer game. It was FC L'viv verses FC Nepro (a city in easter Ukraine.) It was a division two game so it wasn't like the FC L'viv team but it was still a super good game. We were able to spend some quality time with one the members and strengthen relationships through sports. It was super fun though, we actually had to leave early from the game because at the end of regulation, it was tied and going into overtime, but we didn't have time for that because we had to be back to our apartments before 9:30. Sadly, I found out the next day that FC L'viv lost, maybe next year. All in all, one of the coolest nights yet and probably a once in a mission lifetime opportunity so glad to have the opportunity to go and do that. 

Anyhow, the rest of the week was sensational, we taught some really good lessons and had some really cool experiences. One of them I'd like to share with you now. So Saturday night we went and did some stop-bys because our lesson with one of our investigators fell through. We ended up knocking on this young man's door and he doesn't answer. Super sad but that's life as a missionary, sometimes it doesn't work out. So we're walking down the stairs to go to our next stop-by and we meet a man who's walking up the stairs. We starting talking to him and at first he wasn't interested at all, but as we talked more, he became more and more interested, eventually, we exchanged numbers and hopefully we can meet with him this week and share the message of the restoration with him. Another cool thing that happened that night was as we were walking home, we decided to contact a little bit more. We ended up getting another number and had some very great conversations. Eventually, we reached a fork in the road, and one direction had a lot more people than the other. Elder Baxter thought we should in the direction with less people, I agreed even though it didn't seem to smart but literally the first person we talked to, we had a great conversation. He seems promising and we exchanged numbers, hopefully he becomes an investigator as well. Anyway, all in all finding is super important and I learned some great lessons about that this week. First of all, the Lord has prepared people for us to teach and help them along the path towards salvation. Second, the Spirit knows what is best for us and will lead us to make the right decisions if we listen to it. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve here! Can't wait for another awesome, busy week! Have a great week and a good start to the Christmas season! до наступного тижня

Старійшина McGrath

Moroni 9:26-27 Read and ponder those words. Came across them this week and they're such powerful words. I know that Christ is our redeemer!

Last week we went to a beautiful church on P-day and went up to the balcony that had an insane view

Another pic from on the balcony 

Last picture as a district before transfers

At the soccer game!

The church in the snow, super pretty

Tried to get a pic of the snow falling, looks super cool! 

Elder Baxter and me!

First snowman of the winter haha

Elder and Sister Cihak leave tomorrow and I had to get a goodbye picture. They were an amazing senior couple!