Part 2: The Ukraine KIEV Mission (Week сорок п'ять)

Wowzers, this week just absolutely flew by, can't believe that it's already P-day again. This past week was full of traveling, MLC, going around Kiev, and the TEMPLE. Let's talk about the highlight of my week that took up pretty much the entire week. We were outside of our area this past week more than we were inside so that was quite interesting, there were times where I didn't feel like I was serving a mission, but it was great. On Wednesday afternoon, we took a train to L'viv and stayed there the night with the other zone leaders and the AP's. The next morning, super early in morning I might add, (I probably got half of my sleep this week on trains haha) and headed to the to train station to meet the STL's and catch a train to Kiev. The train wasn't too bad, it was one of those fast trains that only made one stop, so we made it there in five hours. 

Now let me tell you, Kiev is pretty dang different than any city in western Ukraine. First of all, it's so much bigger and you can't just walk around the entire city, you need a car or public transportation, and it's so much more modern. It was pretty crazy to see how tall some of the buildings were in Kiev, we even saw some buildings that could be considered as skyscrapers. Honestly, L'viv is a lot prettier of a city, with all the European influence that it has and how it's not super soviet, but Kiev was pretty nice since it was really modern, felt really different. Well, once we got to Kiev, we hopped in a car and drove to the mission office, and can you guess where that is? Right next to the temple!!!! So we were driving down the highway, (they actually have those in the city of Kiev) and at one point, you can just see the temple, in all of its glory, right next to the road, that was a great sight to see. 

The rest of that day, we met some of the Kiev missionaries, heard them speak some Russian, and went to the temple!!! That night, we had the opportunity to go and do an endowment session in the Kiev temple and it was super duper nice experience. The temple is so pretty and I forgot how great it feels to be in the temple and just feel the Holy Ghost just so strong in the temple. Luckily, they had headsets that we could wear so that I didn't have to watch the session in Russian. That for sure, was one of my favorite nights on my mission so far. Anyhow, the next day was super interesting as well. President Kumferman, a wonderful mission president, led a MLC with 22 missionaries representing three different missions, Kiev, L'viv, and Moldova. We discussed many different things, including the new layout of the mission, reporting numbers, and some of the mission culture that we have as the newly formed Ukraine Kiev/Moldova Mission. That was a great experience and we really took ideas from all three missions and came up with ideas and action items that will really help the mission grow and become a better one. 

Some things that I learned from this trip out to Kiev:

1. They have some really, really good food there. We ate at Domino's and it was fantastic, the pizza here is good in Ukraine, but I've missed American pizza, so it was nice to have that.

2. We now have 110 missionaries in our mission, which basically triples our Ukraine L'viv mission where we were always hovering around 35.

3. I'm super proud to be a Ukrainian speaker. We had the chance to speak to many different people throughout our time in Kiev, including with members, and they were blown away that we knew Ukrainian. Missionaries haven't spoken Ukrainian in Kiev for six years and it was just a different experience for them to hear us speak Ukrainian. Pretty much everyone in Ukraine knows both Ukrainian and Russian, but most things are in Ukrainian now and a lot of people (especially younger people) prefer to speak Ukrainian. All street signs, and everything outside is in Ukrainian. In the Kiev stake, they sing in Ukrainian and the last stake conference was 100% in Ukrainian. So, I'm happy that I can speak Ukrainian and I hope to continue studying it even if I serve out east in Kiev. 

Well, that was pretty much the week in a very long weekly email. If you're still reading to this point, great job! Have a great week and talk to you soon. We have a zone conference this week so it should be another fun week full of traveling!! 

Старійшина McGrath

No Scripture this week, just go visit the temple ASAP!! I went this week and it was the best experience I've had in a long time. The veil is so thin at the temple and the spirit is so strong!

A street in L'viv before we went to Kiev

In the train station in Kiev, super big 

Highway in Kiev

Temple from the side

From the front!!

With the sign and temple

Domino's!!!

L'viv MLC group at the temple

An End and a New Beginning (Week Сорок чотири)

Wow, what a week. This Wednesday, President Rizley heads back home to the States and we officially become part of the Ukraine Kiev mission. It's honestly somewhat hard to believe that our mission is coming to a close, but I'm excited to see what the future holds for me in the Ukraine Kiev mission. Anyway, let's talk a little bit about this past week and some of the great highlights of it. Probably the biggest thing that happened, was that Elder Shuley and I traveled to L'viv to do our exchanges with the assistants, which went super well. I had the opportunity to serve with Elder Galmeister, and just like our last exchange together, it was very successful. We had a few lessons, had a great finding activity out in the park near the Church, and held a very good and fun English practice that evening. Probably the highlight of the day was our first lesson. Elder Galmeister and I met with Oleksiy, if you remember back to the days of when I served in L'viv, Oleksiy is the amazing person that Elder Hill and I helped prepare to enter the waters of baptism. He is still doing very, very well and recently has actually received a calling in the Young Men's presidency. Our lesson was super good as we are still teaching him all the lessons again, and we had a great role play with him where he shared his testimony and he taught us about the importance of a few of the commandments that we have. He's amazing and I love him so very much, always a pleasure to go and visit him. Other than that, the exchange went really well, Elder Galmeister is a wonderful Elder and I learned a lot from him, from how to teach better to tips about the Ukrainian language. All in all, a wonderful trip to L'viv, which sadly, did not include very many pictures or videos. 

Other than that, the rest of the week was good. The saddest part of the week was our meeting with our investigator that has a baptismal date. We met and had a good lesson about the word of wisdom and all was well, then at the end he told us that he's going home next week after he finishes his last exam in College. He'll be gone for three months in a small village about five hours away from Rivne. That was super sad, and we'll have to move his baptismal date back a bit, but we'll for sure keep in contact with him, maybe even with Skype. One day he'll get baptized, he's a wonderful young man! 

Other than that, it was a normal, typical missionary week. Had some meetings, lessons with other investigators and members, did some finding activities, and even had a skype call with the rest of the MLC. On Sunday morning, before Church, we skyped one another to talk about the trip up to Kiev and all that will be going on, the MLC that will be happening there, and we just talked a little bit about our game plan going into the MLC. It should be an interesting trip and I'm excited to meet my new mission president, Elder Kumferman. Plus, another great thing about the trip out to Kiev, is that I'm 100% going to the temple which is amazing!! Super pumped, the Temple is amazing and you can really feel the spirit so strongly there. I've missed the temple a lot and I hope that you guys in AZ or Utah take advantage of the fact that you live so close to a temple, it truly is the house of the Lord. 

Anyhow, that was the week. Sad to say goodbye to President Rizley, but excited for the future. Love you all and have a super pooper week. 

Старійшина McGrath

Jeremiah 29:11 Read and ponder these words, the Lord truly does have a plan for each and every one of you!

At the I love Rivne sign 

Selfie with the comppp

Made it on Insta!

Went to a cool lake on P-day here in Rivne

 Picture with Oleksiy!!

Some super good Ukrainian food!

The Lord's Work (Week Сорок три)

Another great week in the mission field out doing the Lord's work. Nothing better than that. Let's get started with some of the highlights of the week. Probably the biggest thing that happened this past week was our exchanges with the Elders in Lutsk. They're super good missionaries and we had a great exchange. I had the opportunity to serve with Elder Martschenko for a day and he's awesome. He's been serving for just over 21 months now and he taught me a lot about how to be a solid missionary. After our finding activity on the exchange, we were basically running from lesson to lesson just contacting on the way and that was super nice. Instead of blocking out hours for contacting because we don't have anybody to meet with, our whole day was filled with meeting investigators, less-actives, and other members of the church that we are working with. 

Also, this past Saturday, The Rivne and Lutsk branches gathered together and took a bus out to temple in Kiev and we ended up having 11 people from Rivne go That was amazing to see! Three people got their endowment out and a recent convert here was able to go to the temple for the first time and do baptisms for the dead! They all showed up to church the next day smiling, (some with celestial smiles as well) and bore their testimony at church about how great the temple is and how big of a blessing that it is to have one in Ukraine. Sacrament meeting this past week was amazing, the spirit was so strong and I'm so very grateful for all the faithful members here in Ukraine.

As many of you know, the Ukraine L'viv mission is quickly coming to an end, (this is pretty much the final week) and we're going to join with the Kiev mission. This past week, the Kiev assistants actually gave us a call and we found out some things that are going to be happening right after the merge. So, first of all, super sad to say, but President Rizley goes back home on the 27th of June. The day after that happens, all the Leaders from the Ukraine L'viv mission is going to head to Kiev for a big MLC with all the leaders in the Ukraine Kiev mission. That is going to be such a cool experience, we're going to be talking about the merge and creating a unified mission culture with all the missionaries from all the different missions. That'll be a really awesome experience and going to Kiev will be really cool as well, I've only heard good things about that city. Also, one of the coolest parts about this trip out to Kiev is that we might be going to the temple as well!!!! That'd be off the charts, I miss the temple so much!!!! The Ukraine Kiev temple looks super pretty and I can't wait for the day when I can enter the house of the Lord again.

Anyway, that was pretty much the week. Our investigator with a baptismal date was able to make it to church on Sunday which was really good to see. He's progressing nicely towards baptism. I hope you all have a great week and talk to you soon!

Старійшина McGrath

Mosiah 5:15 read and ponder these words. Always be coming unto Christ!!

At the lake for a good FHE

 Sasha, the best kid ever!!!

Selfie on Soborna street during contacting 

 Picture of Center 

Doing a book stand 

Starting up Exchanges Again (Week сорок два)

Well, just like every week in the mission field, life is good and the week went well. Let's jump into it. This past week was full of exchanges and learning. Let's start with the first exchange that I had. On Thursday, I had the opportunity to go on another exchange with Elder Corey as the Elders in Khmelnitsky (pretty dang hard to pronounce the city, right?) traveled down here to Rivne for a few days. All in all, the exchange went really well. Elder Shuley and I have been working pretty hard over these past few weeks to prepare for these exchanges that we'll be having to make sure that our area is strong and it will be an example for everyone that comes in and has exchanges with us. One great thing that came from this exchange is that a baptismal date was set!!!! One of our investigators, Vadim, has accepted a baptismal date in July and I super duper happy for his decision to enter into the waters of baptism and come closer to our Heavenly Father. Hopefully all keeps going well with him and he can start coming to church!! Other than that, the exchange went super duper and I learned a lot from Elder Corey!

The other exchange that I had this week was with Elder Wonson. If you remember, I served with him in the MTC, so it was pretty great to serve with him for a day and see all the growth that has occurred, both within the Language and just in general as missionaries. We were able to eat some super good Ukrainian food, teach some good lessons, and do some good old contacting. It honestly just felt nice to just serve with him and to think that seven months ago, we came into Ukraine, bright-eyed, greener than a spinach smoothie, and now we can teach lessons and easily have conversations with people on the street and have a super good exchange. 

Lastly, I want to share an experience that I had this past week with Elder Wonson. On Wednesday, we had to go on splits because Elder Shuley and Cook had some branch stuff to help with and Elder Wonson and I had the chance to go out to a village and visit one of their investigators. The lesson went good, and we actually ate some pretty good food (minus the mushrooms.) On the way back though, we were waiting for a bus to take us back to the city and at one point I stuck out my hand to a work van and it just passed by. The a minute later, I looked to right and saw that the van was backing up to us and picked us up and took us back to Rivne for free and twice as fast than a normal bus! That was super nice and the guy that did that was pretty dang cool, had a good convo with him and even at the end, got his number. That was a cool experience, pretty funny, never really hitch-hiked on my mission, also don't really know if it's allowed, but we did it and it was so much faster. Anyway, that was pretty much the week. Have a great week and keep up the solid workkk

Старійшина McGrath

Deutoronomy 7:9 Read and ponder these words. God is there!!

Selfie with an investigator and Elder Wonson 

Lunch at a pizza place! (Elder Shuley, me, Wonson)

Super good bubble waffles

In a mirror room

Pic at the castle in Dubno

Russian squat picccc

 District pic at a fortress in Dubno for P-Day, super cool!

Lots of Lasts (Week Сорок один)

Wowzers, what a crazy week. This week was full of travels and saying some goodbyes. Let's get started with the biggest thing. This past week, we had the LAST Ukraine L'viv mission conference. Super sad, but also very insightful. The conference was actually split up into two different parts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon with some good old lunch in the middle to split it up. The morning session was actually very interesting because it also included TWO general authorities. Pretty crazy, right? Elders Martino (Europe East Area President) and Callister (Sunday School General President) both showed up to help and train us as missionaries. They taught us a great deal about how we can be better teachers and help more people come unto Christ. Probably the biggest thing that I took from this part of the conference was that inspired questions are very, very important and we should be using them in all aspects of our lessons and missionary work. They aren't easy to come up with, inspired questions, but whenever we have them, they invite the spirit and will help everyone that is on the lesson feel our savior's love through the Holy Ghost. Also, after they did some training, we had a short Q and A session where all the big cheeses answered some questions and then Elder Callister, since he knows a lot about the Atonement and wrote the book "The Infinite Atonement," gave a short presentation about the atonement and how it's for every single person that lived, will live, and lives today. After some good pizza and a short break, we had our second part of mission conference, this time without all the general authorities. This meeting was filled with emotions with final testimonies of everyone leaving, having some segments that we could learn from, and a fun role-play that we all took part in. It was very sad to hear President and Sister Rizley's final testimony and they have faithfully served here in Ukraine over these last three years, but I'm excited to see what the future holds now moving forward. One cool thing that happened at this conference is that we basically had a second graduation haha. Ever since this mission began, once missionaries have finished their full-time service here, they receive a super cool coin that I'll attach pictures of. So, since the mission is closing and we're not finishing with it, we all received this coin at the conference. So one by one, President Rizley called us up, gave us our coin and took a picture with us while shaking our hand and holding the coin. Felt some serious Deja vu going back to my high school graduation, but it was a super cool experience. Only 114 people have this coin in the world and I'm happy to say that I served in the Ukraine L'viv Mission.

Really quick funny story that happened after mission conference. Since everyone was in L'viv and had some time, we went out to do a finding activity out in a park for English Practice. There, we drew some chalk, brought a white board out and just had a good time talking to different people both in English and Ukrainian. Near the end of the activity, a couple of people walk up (slightly drunk to add) and started talking to us. Once they find out that we're Americans they go absolutely berserk haha. One of the guys goes and climbs on top of a statue and starts yelling. The other one does the same thing but on the ground. They just kept yelling and saying their national phrases and telling us Americans to go home. At one point, the guy on top of the statue catches a dove and literally holds it. How did he do that? I don't know, but he literally caught a dove. So, as missionaries, trying to avoid making too big of a scene, just start walking away. People are watching, but we didn't want to say anything, just walk away. So that was an interesting end to a finding activity, and to top it off, they hugged each other and even kissed after we left. Super funny and for the sure the first time that has happened to me. Don't take this the wrong way with this story though, Ukrainians are the best people and I love them to death. This was just a interesting experience with a man who apparently doesn't really like Americans haha.

The next day after mission conference, we had the LAST MLC in the Ukraine L'viv mission. The MLC was very successful and we came up with some action items that will help the mission now and as they prepare for the merge coming up in the next month. President Rizley had some very good knowledge that he shared with us about leadership on MLC, super awesome to learn from him. Anyhow, that was pretty much the week, hope the email wasn't too long. We also had a branch camp out where we went and had a good time at a lake and made some good BBQ. Sadly, since we're missionaries, we couldn't sleep over, but the first night it was a party! Have a great week all and talk to you soon!

Старійшина McGrath

Alma 39:17 read and ponder these words. God loves all of us!

Everyone at mission conference

Original MTC Group pic!

With President and Sister Rizley 

Camp out place 

One side of the coin

Other side of the coin

The Hands that Helped (Week сорок)

Well to be honest, this was a very nice week. Unlike most of my weeks over these past two+ transfers, we had no travel, exchanges, or conferences. So that mean't that we could fully focus on our own working area and really building that up to be the best that it truly can be. Overall, this week was really successful, we found new investigators, had some of our investigators come to church, and even had an opportunity to go out and do some service. Let's talk about that first. This week, along with many other branches in this part of the country, had something called helping hands (hence the title of the email.) We went out and helped paint some playgrounds at an orphanage and it was quite fun. We had all the missionaries, plus a few of the members that had time to come out and help us, go out and basically paint for a few hours, see some really cute orphans, and sing some american songs that different members of our branch requested haha. That day I found out that one of our members really likes Bon Jovi and no members, or even missionaries for that matter, like country music, so it was only me when it came time to singing and good old song. Anyway, after going out and painting the orphanage, we head out to the train station because one of the members in our branch invited us to go out to his house in the villages and help in his big garden that he has. So as we're going to to bus station, we're calling the member trying to figure out exactly how to get there, but he's not picking up! I had been there one, so I vaguely remember how to get there, but I didn't remember which bus we needed to take to get out there. Once we got to the train station, and after calling a good amount of times, we had to choose, do we take a bus or do we just not go and reschedule for another day? We chose the first one. After carefully examining each bus based on the times it left, and where it was headed, I chose one that I thought for sure could have been the one that we needed. We get on and start driving. And we keep driving. Finally, we're reaching the end of the bus ride and I realize...yeah this isn't the right bus. In short, our plans got wrecked and we took the same bus all the way back to the bus station and got to the church a short after that. Good lesson to learn haha, maybe think a bit more before making an impulsive decision. All in all, it was quite the experience both on the learning and having fun side. 

The rest of the week went very well. We had a good amount of people at each of our activities, and had a really good church service. One member, who was giving a talk and teaching third hour, read the President Nelson talk about ministry during sacrament meeting and then we ended up watching the same talk during priesthood. I know that talk pretty well now haha pretty interesting. He does make a very good point though that serving others is very important as we can help not only others but ourselves as well. As we serve others, I know that we can receive so many blessings and we can for sure come closer to Christ. We also had a good zone skype call where Elder Shuley and I announced our zone goals for this upcoming transfer. We talked about how we can better improve as a zone and what we did well this past transfer. It went really well, now I just hope that everyone puts a focus on these goals over these next weeks. Finally, P-day this past week was very good. We ended up going to the Rivne zoo which was very fun, there are lots of interesting animals and just got to explore and cool park. All in all it was a great week and excited for the next one. Have a great week everyone and talk to you soon!

Старійшина McGrath

Mosiah 2:17 Read and ponder these words. Basically, the topic of this email is service, always be serving others!

Selfie with Elder Wonson

Zoomed in Selfie

With my Camels, reminded me of Saudi! 

At the zoo

Some comphy antlers

Just me and a lion

Track that we run at

Selfie after a good run

1 in a million

Helping hands

Selfie at zoopark

Oh how the transfers have turned...(Week Тридцять дев'ять)

First of all, if you don't really understand the title of this email, it's a quote from the Office, I encourage all of you to watch and enjoy that show. But what you can also tell from this average title is that transfers have come and gone. It was pretty sad to say goodbye to Elder Lukach, I know that he'll do great things down in Chernivtsi, but now I'm officially with Elder Shuley. Elder Shuley is an awesome elder from all the way out in Kentucky. He's been out on his mission for 20 months now, so he's pretty experienced, and I'm pumped to work with him over these next few months. Another interesting fact about Elder Shuley is that he likes to run and is planning on joining the BYU cross country team after his mission, so that means that he needs to train. The worst part about this is that we don't really have a track next to our apartment, so I get the wonderful opportunity of following him around running until I feel like dying four to five times a week. Hopefully I get in pretty good shape by the time that I finish serving with him and I don't feel like dying every time I try to run with him. It should be some good transfers though, super pumped!

The first highlight of the week that I want to talk about is both of the holidays that Ukraine had this week. Ukraine has holidays pretty much every week so it was no surprise that they had a couple this week. The first one was wishiwanka day. Basically, it was a day to celebrate wishiwankas and everyone was wearing one which was super cool to see. A wishiwanka is basically a shirt that has been hand-stitched, and usually had a pattern down the middle and consists of a few colors. They look super cool and I really want to buy one, or maybe even more on my mission. Today, not a ton of people wear wishiwankas, but some time ago, it was a super common thing to wear. I bet if you look them up, you can find some good pictures of them. Anyway, the second holiday was for sure the bigger one of the two. On Saturday, our district went out to center to do a finding activity where we wrote questions on a chalk board and then talked to people about the Book of Mormon and about our basic beliefs in hopes of finding people that are interested in finding out more about what we believe. When we went out we noticed that all the streets were closed and there were a ton of people in Center. It turns out that today was European day in Ukraine where they celebrate the fact that they want to be part of the European Union and that Ukraine is a European country. So what ended up happening was that there was a concert in Ukraine where they sang many different songs, including the national anthem, and other common Ukrainian songs. There was also a huge parade, with a marching band, and they all brought different European flags including the European Union one, and at one point, they let off a bunch of balloons, which held a Ukraine and European Union flag as well. It was a super cool thing to watch, the only problem is that people wanted to watch the concert and all the festivities, instead of talking to us about religion. So our finding activity really got wrecked, we ended up changing it to a English finding activity where we wrote happy European day on the chalkboard and gave out a bunch of English cards. That was pretty successful. All in all, it was just cool to be there, there were some dirt bikes doing some doughnuts as well, so that was quite the experience. 

So that was pretty much the week. We had some lessons, with different investigators and members. We actually have a traveling patriarch in town and he'll be giving patriarchal blessings to different members over the next few days. So we've been working with the members, helping them prepare for the day. With all this happening, it just makes me glad for modern day revelation and the priesthood power that we had to receive that revelation for the church, and even each of us individually. All in all, a great week! We went and played some billiards for P-day, that was pretty fun. Have a great week everyone and talk to you later! 

Старійшина McGrath

2 Nephi 32: 3 Read and ponder these words. We need to feast upon the words of Christ. They're literally the word of God!

At the Train station 

Selfie with Elder Cook (left) and Elder Shuley (right) 

Dirt-bike riders at the parade

Another picture of the parade 

Playing some pool on P-day