A Wild Week of Weekly Weeks (Week Тридцять вісім)

Oh man oh man, where to start, another really good week on the mission, stayed busy and had a good time. Let's start with some of the highlights. This past week was Mother's day so I had the chance to Skype home which was pretty grand. My family isn't half bad and it was good to talk to them for an hour, they're for sure my favorite family that I've got. Jumping into the rest of the week, we had game night on Tuesday and it went super duper well, we had a good amount of people show up and we played a very fun game of fear factor. Basically, we bought a bunch of different foods from the grocery store such as candy, ketchup, fish, mayonnaise, fruit, juice, milk, yogurt, olives, and other interesting things that would not sound that good together. Then we had people pick out of a bowl, three of those ingredients, and then we would blend them up and you would have to drink it. It honestly was super stinking gross, I couldn't even get past the first round of Twix, tomato paste, coke, and marshmallows. Some people on the other hand, really enjoyed it, they ate some of the grossest combinations that you could even imagine and didn't even make a sour face. I guess that my body wasn't built for these kind of things haha. But all in all, many people showed up and we had a great time and had some good conversations with people after the activity. 

Fear factor though did continue, on Thursday, we had exchanges with some Elders in Lutsk, in the city of Lutsk, so Elder Lukach and I had to take a bus up there. When Elder Baxter and I were waiting for Elder Lukach and Elder Cook to come, (because we had exchanges with the other elders in Rivne the day before) Elder Baxter and I noticed a girl who was standing a few yards away from us. She was repping the Ukrainian Olympic gear and had a cool Olympic bag. Elder Baxter and I wanted to go up and talk to her and see if she was an Olympic athlete or not, because she was super built and looked like she could have been, but we were a bit afraid haha. After much time deciding whether or not we would, Elder Lukach and Cook showed up and we didn't have time to talk to her now, but, she was on the same bus as us to Lutsk. Soooo, once we got on the bus, Elder Lukach was sitting close to her and ended up asking if she was an Olympic athlete. It turns out that she is an Olympic boxer named Tetyana Kob, CRAZY, we just sat on the same bus as an Olympic athlete. The worst part about this story is that three minutes after we found this info out, Elder Baxter called us and said that we had both sets of keys and they couldn't get into their apartment, soooo, we had to quickly jump off the bus and run back to the bus station. I was a little bit sad, I just missed the chance to talk to an Olympic athlete for a while and maybe even get a pic with here. Anyhow, on to the exchange in Lutsk. Lutsk is a very nice city, it's like Rivne, except a bit more beautiful and it has a super nice center and walking street which are perfect to do some finding activities. I ended up serving with Elder Frehner for a day and it was super grand. Elder Frehner has been out for about a year and a half now and is a super good and super funny missionary. He's always positive and is cracking jokes and what not, super nice to serve with for a day and they exchange was very successful as well. We learned a lot from one another and set some goals on how we can improve as missionaries. 

The rest of the week was busy as well. On Wednesday, Elder Baxter and I on exchanges, went out to a members house and helped in their garden. There were a couple of firsts in this experience. We ended up planting some grapes and that was the first time that I've ever done that and we also used a well to get some water for the plants and that was the first time I had ever used a well in my life. Wells are super fun and we're going out to the member to help some more this week and I hope that I can use a well again. Also, on the same day, we had a branch picnic, where we basically grilled a bunch of meat, talked, and played some sports. In Ukrainian you would call this a Shashlik party, it was super fun and we even had some less-active members show up, so that was good to hear. Finally, the last thing that I want to mention, is that we had transfer calls this past week and I found out that I'm getting a new companion. I'm staying in Rivne as ZL, but my new companion is Elder Shuley. Elder Shuley is a super awesome missionary who has been out for 20 months now. I can't wait to work with him and learn a lot as well. Anyway, that basically wraps up the week, talk to you soon! Also, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all those wonderful mothers that do so much work for us haha. 

Старійшина McGrath

Lamentations 3:22-23 Read and ponder these words. God is always there and we need to love him as he loves us!

Shashik party

Fear Factor 

Selfie with Elder Baxter and the member we helped

Selfie on a bridge 

Super candid picture

Our finding activity board (Why do you pray?) 

Center in Lutsk

Really cool military museum 

Another pic of center in Lutsk

The Great McDonald's Analogy (Week тридцять сім)

Well, as expected, another great week on the mission. Let's jump into it. For the third week in a row, Elder Lukach and I traveled to the great city of L'viv. This time, we were in L'viv to do another one of our monthly MLC's where we discuss our mission needs and create action items that are meant to help each and every missionary. This MLC went very well and we created three actions items that each missionary can apply and help them going forward. During this MLC, like every one, President Rizley will lead a segment, usually on how we can better magnify our assignments as leaders. Near the end of his segment, he gave an analogy that is somewhat funny, but is also very very true. He compared missionary life and missionary work, to a McDonald's fry scooper. He said that they were complete opposites and they work against one another. To quote him directly, "The McDonald's fry scooper is the enemy to an LDS mission. Here's why. When a worker at McDonald's uses this wonderfully crafted scooper, he/she has no decision on how much they can put in a container. The device is crafted where no decision making is necessary, just based on the size they put around the same exact amount of fries. This works really well for business, but not as well for missionary life and life in general. In life we have free-agency, we can choose what we want to do, when we want to, and how we can go through life. Just one thing I'd advise, turn to the Lord for help! Anyway, that was a great part of MLC and just a great analogy, hope you enjoyed it!

The rest of the week went really well too. On Friday, before English practice, we did a finding activity to help us get more people at our practice. Some things that we have done to do that is make massive chalk drawings saying free English and what not, just to get people's attention and interest in learning some of the English language. Another activity that we have done is "interviews with Americans" where people can just sit down and talk to us about English and who we are, then we give them a card and invite them to English practice. Really, we're just trying to get creative and find people in many different ways, if you have any ideas, feel free to shoot them over to us!! 

Anyway, to finish off I want to talk about some habit that I've developed on my mission, at least to my own knowledge. This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to bear my testimony and it went really well. I went up and shared how I know this Church is true and we are lead by people who really can receive revelation to help us in these days. But afterwards, one member came up to me and said that I need to stop being so shy. Apparently, whenever I'm speaking or sharing my testimony, I like to shake my shoulders. haha I've never noticed it or anything but everyone else does. So every time I do that, the members and other missionaries make fun of me for it, super duper funny! Anyway, that was my week. Today we went out to the tunnel of love, super pretty and super greeen!!! Have a great week and talk to you later

Старійшина McGrath

1 Nephi 1:1 read and ponder these verses. Look at the footnotes and you can further understand that our trials are only here to help us!

Group pic in the Tunnel of Love 

MLC squaddd

At one of our English activities outside in center  

Selfie in the Tunnel.

On a hammock 

Opera house in L'viv

 Sunflowers on the way to tunnel of love

At the tunnel of love

Mighty Miracles in Rivne (Week тридцять шість)

Oh my goodness, it was a super busy but super good week. Let's get started so I can try to write everything that happened over this past week. Let's start with the basics. This past week, we had two exchanges, one with the Assistants and the other one was with the Elders from Lutsk. Both of the exchanges went very, very well and I learned a lot. 

Now, let's get to the Miracle of the week that starting during my first exchange with Elder Marstchenko from Lutsk. Elder Marstchenko is a great Elder who has served for over a year and a half now so he's a pretty grand elder who helped me a lot with the language and missionary work in general. He's from North Carolina and is going to UNC after the mission to study pharmacy so he's a pretty genius guy as well. Anyway, we had a finding activity out in center and I approached this young 18 year old and I do the normal, (in Ukrainian) "hello, excuse me, how are you doing, can you answer a few questions." But after a few seconds, I realized that he's not from Ukraine. It turns out that he is from Ecuador and is here as a student at the local university, BUT the best part is that he is a member of the Church already and has been searching for the church here in Rivne and hasn't been able to find it. So, I write down his number and we talked about how we wanted to meet on Saturday. On Saturday, we met in center and walked back to the church with him to show him where it is and to have a lesson. The craziest and best part of this story is that he brought his three friends that are also from Ecuador and at the church, we were able to sit down and have a wonderful restoration lesson in which they were interested to learn more! Super crazy!! Plus, they all came to church on Sunday!! Wowzers, what a miracle. A member finally finds the LDS church here in Rivne and is bringing his friends now to church to give them the opportunity and chance to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how that can bless their lives. Hopefully, we can meet again and have another lesson and talk to them more!! Super cool miracle

The rest of my week was good, as I said, we had exchanges with the Assistants, so that meant that we left Rivne and headed to L'viv for a day and a half. I had the chance to serve with Elder Hill!! If you remember, I served with Elder Hill in my last transfer in L'viv and now he's AP, so it was super fun to get back together for another and hit the grind. There, we had another finding activity, had a couple of lessons, and even had their weekly game night where we went out and played some volleyball and floor ball, both of which were super fun. All in all, it was a very successful exchange, in which I learned a lot more about leadership and how to better serve the people in my zone. 

Finally, this past weekend, President Rizley, his wife, the Hawkins, and other leaders of the local area came to Rivne because we had our Branch conference this weekend, and let me tell you, it was quite the hectic one. On Saturday, we just had lessons and it was a normal day. But Sunday, it was super busy with church, and meetings, and different investigators coming and going. Probably the best part about this weekend is the fact that we had 64 people at church, which is probably double the average that we usually have. Now, there were a lot of leaders there, but we had a good amount of investigators, and less active members. All in all, it was a great weekend, and President Rizley taught us a lot and everything went smoothly. Really, really good week! Talk to you lateerrrr

Старійшина McGrath

Read and ponder the latest talk by Elder Uchtdorf about Jesus Christ and beholding the man! It was super good and we can learn a lot from it.

With a statue in a cello named Dubna

Tunnel at at castle in Dubna  

Torture chamber in the castle - super cool haha 

Selfie with a cannon

National Ukrainian symbol in candy 

Pic of the castle  

Pic of a fort in Dubna as well

Selfie with Elder Martschenko

Park in L'viv 

Selfie with Elder Hill

I'm almost Native Now (week Тридцять п'ять)

Wowzers, another great week in the wonder country of Ukraine has come to a close, super quick if I may add. This week was like none other, super busy and ended up doing some more service. Let's get started with mission conference.  On Thursday, all the missionaries in the Ukraine, L'viv Mission gathered together in L'viv for another great mission conference led by President Rizley. President Rizley is amazing and taught me so much about the gospel and how I can become not only a better missionary, but a better person in general. One of the main focuses of this past mission conference was the temple and the ceremonies performed inside of it. One thing that many people will say to bag on the church is that the endowment ceremony has changed over time, and what I learned is that they're right. Honestly, over time the ceremony has, but you have to realize the difference between the endowment ceremony and the endowment. We still make the same covenants and do the same ordinances that Moses and everyone else has when they received their endowment, but the way that we do that for sure has changed over time, due to factors like advancements in technology. When the endowment was revealed to Joseph Smith, they acted out this ceremony, now we watch a video. Honestly, I'll leave it at that, but I invite you to study that a little bit more because there are some great verses that back this up and I don't want to blab on about this and put you all to sleep, so we'll talk about other things. All in all though, the conference was a blessing and it was really nice to see all the other missionaries as well.

Now let's get to the reason of the title of this email. This past week, we had the chance to go out and do some service for two members of the branch here in Rivne. The first member, we traveled out by bus for around an hour to this little farming village and we helped them plant some potatoes. Now we didn't plant around 30 potatoes like last time in just a small garden, we went out to their field for potatoes and we ended up planting around 700 pounds of potatoes. They had their horses coming back and forth creating the divots for us to plant the cut potatoes and it was such a party. My back hurt pretty bad afterwards, but it was some super fun service. Now, to even add to my argument that I'm almost Ukrainian, is the fact that we ate some delicious food there afterwards, and I had the chance to try one of their native cultural dishes that they prepared for us. This dish is called holadetz. It's basically salted, unflavored jello, with meat fat in the inside. haha to be quite honest, not my favorite, but I ate it without making a sour face which is very very good, had such a weird texture. Well, that was a fun saturday full of service and planted a toooon of potatoes!

Finally, we had exchanges with K-town this past week and it went pretty great. I had the chance to serve with Elder Shuley who is from Kentucky, and has been serving for a year and a half. He's a really great Elder and we set some pretty steep goals, but luckily, we were able to reach them!! Really good day and week! have a great week and talk to you soon

Старійшина McGrath

2 Nephi 32:3 Read and ponder these words. Always FEAST on the words on christ. What does that mean?

View from high castle in L'viv 

Another pic from there 

Classic mission pic 

Fab five from the MTC 

Selfie with Elder Shuley

Out in the fields planting 

Good pic of the horses

District picture in the village

                               View of the village

Service in the Villages (Week Тридцять чотири)

Well it's only been five days since my last emailing session and big email but a few things have happened over the past few days, so it should be at least somewhat interesting of an email. Anyway, to start off, we had exchanges with the other Elders in Rivne and the exchanges went very good. I had the opportunity to serve with the newest member of the Rivne District, Elder Cook. He's a super cool guy from California that has been serving for almost a year and a half. He also has lost over 100 pounds over the last two years which is super cool and now he's super fit. He also has a super strong desire to follow Christ, so he's a great missionary and he really showed me that during our exchange. Throughout the day, we had many lessons planned, and they all actually fell through except for one, so it was a really good day for us to use all of our back-up plans that we had set the night before which included contacting, calling, and some studies. All in all, the day was good, we ate some great food, and had a very interesting English practice to finish off the day.

Like every week, we have the opportunity to teach English to people that want to learn and converse with natives of the language. This week was super interesting, I taught beginners this week with Elder Lukach and I swear, I heard more Russian that I had heard in the past two months. haha There were multiple people that only spoke Russian and didn't really know Ukrainian so it was very good that I had my native Russian speaker companion with me to help translate for me. To be fair, I do know some Russian and can understand somewhat fine, but not good enough for entire conversations and I can't really speak it, so I was very grateful for comp that night. Helping people understand and calm situations down. All in all, it was a very interesting night with a lot of Russian spoken.

Finally, to finish off the week we went out to the villages and did service for a member of the branch. Since the weather in Rivne is finally starting to warm up, people are going to start planting crops in their gardens and since we're four strong and able men, we have the chance to go out and help and serve the people of Ukrainian as they start their gardens. This was my first taste of the potato and other plant planting and it was super fun. The weather was perfect and we spent a couple of hours just out there flattening out the earth for planting and helping plant some potatoes. All in all it was a super fun experience and I hope that we can do it again soon! Really it was a great and busy week! Nothing better than that. I hope you all have a great week and always remember that Jesus Christ is our loving savior and redeemer! 

Старійшина McGrath

Alma 7: 11-13 Read and ponder these verses. Jesus Christ suffered for ALL, as we use the atonement, we can find true happiness and feel God's love in our life even stronger!

Good old pic of center 

Selfie with my trainer, Elder Baxter

Pic of the garden we were working on

Pic of a train passing by

Actually eating healthy haha

Flowers are blooming in Ukraine!

Is 40 beacoup? (Week тридцять три)

Wow, what a great week and a half! We moved our P-day back to Wednesday because we did our big Easter activity twice this past week, once on Friday and then again on Monday because of how successful it was the first time. Since I'm already on the topic of the big Easter finding activity, I talk about that first in today's big email. Easter is a pretty big holiday here in Ukraine, so just like for Christmas, our mission went big and each city came up with a unique idea for a fun finding activity that would help us find the elect. The ideas ranged from building a giant egg and having people put their painted hands on them, to using white boards and playing some music with the violin and piano.


My city, Rivne, came up with the idea a few weeks ago to create two white boards and put one the whiteboards the questions, "what has Jesus Christ done for You?" and "What will you do for Jesus Christ?" The point of these white boards was to get attention and then we had people come up and write there answer in any language that they want. Also, we set up a TV in between the whiteboards and played the prince of peace video on repeat also to get attention and have people feel the spirit through this wonderful video about Jesus Christ and his Resurrection. Finally, we had copies of the Book of Mormon, pamphlets, cards, and cookies to give to people. We did this activity on Friday and it worked out super well, but we wanted to do it again on Monday, because we found out that there would be a big concert in center. So, we asked President Rizley, and he said yes and we should get beacoup IP's. Honestly, we didn't know what beacoup meant, so we had to look it up, but if you do, props to you haha. Anyhow, we ended up doing this activity again and we ended up getting 40 IP's combined!! Simply amazing, so grateful that I had the chance to participate in this and there were so many people that were interested and we had some great conversations about the gospel. So to finish off the story and day, we sent the text, "is 40 beacoup?" to President Rizley and he got a good kick out of that one. Really good day and activity!

Other greats parts of the week include our monthly trip out to L'viv to participate in MLC. This time it was very successful and we ended having such great unity and created some action items that will help the mission today, and help the mission prepare for the future. Always a super fun meeting to be a part of and I for sure learn a lot! Another great part of the week was the chance we had to watch General Conference, and let me tell you, it was AMAZING. I 100% sustain our prophet and his apostles and know that they receive revelation for us today to help us come closer to Christ and know what we need to do to find more happiness within the gospel. It's super hard to pick a favorite talk at the moment, so all I'll say is that if you haven't watch general conference yet, go do it! You won't regret it! 

Anyway, it was such a great week and there is nothing better than being a missionary. I hope you all have a great rest of the week and enjoy the warmer weather because I know I am!! 

Старійшина McGrath

Isaiah 40:31 Read and ponder these words. Always have hope in the Lord and he will lift you up!

The three of us waiting for Elder Baxter's new comp, elder Cook, at the train station 

Again in front of a cool Rivne sign 

Selfie at the train station

The Train Station

The Easter activity set up

Another pic of center during our activity!

Found the Jordan Speith of Ukraine (Week Тридцять два)

Well honestly it was a great week. It was a pretty normal week but a few cool things happened so I hope you enjoy this great letter. First of all, if you don't know who Jordan Speith is, I'll tell you right now. Jordan Speith is a professional golfer who is one of the best in the world and is probably my favorite one. But that's not too important, the reason I mentioned him in my title is because of what we did for our game night this week. This past week, I reached deep into my roots and we played some mini-golf in the church, super fun and super successful. We basically bought some 2 liter pepsi bottles and cut them in half for the holes, used hockey sticks as clubs, and bought some foam balls to use. After that, I set up a wonderful 6-hole mini-golf course. It was a little bit ghetto, but it worked out really well and people quite enjoyed it. We had the biggest game night yet and many people stayed for the spiritual thought afterwards. All in all, it was a very fun night and many people had a great time, which is the most important part. 

Another great part of the week was the opportunity that I had to serve with Elder Baxter on exchanges. If you remember, and read my emails when I was still serving in L'viv, Elder Baxter was actually my trainer. It was super fun to go back and serve with him for another day, remember the good old days of being a greenie. But all in all, we had a very successful day, hitting the streets for most of it and talking to hundreds of people. I learned so much from him, as we talked about things from transfers to Peter, one of the Apostles of Jesus Christ, and I hope he learned a thing or two from me. Elder Baxter is an amazing missionary, and I'm grateful for the chance I had to serve with him again.

All in all, it was a very great week and I learned a lot. We had some wonderful lessons, contacting sessions, and studies. Also, a member ended up inviting us over to their house for some borscht and it was suppperrr good. If you haven't had borscht yet, please try some , it's super good! haha Anyhow, I hope you all had the opportunity to watch general conference this past weekend. Unfortunately, just like in Saudi, they watch it the week later in Ukraine, so I'll get to listen to our prophets real sooon, super excited and can't wait to learn a lot. I know that we have modern prophets today and they truly do receive revelation for us today. Anyway, have a great week and talk to you soon!

Старійшина McGrath

Jacob 4:13 Read and ponder these words. The Holy Ghost is there and WILL answer us and our prayers!

Statue in Shevchenko Park 

Always gotta be posing with a statue

One of our investigators enjoying some golf! 

Another pic of the course

Slava Ukrainyina

Pic with Elder Baxter!