Golden week with Elder Golden (Week п'ятьдесят-три)

Honestly, this week was pretty grand. The second half of the week we spent in L'viv because we had interviews with the Mission President and a zone conference on Saturday. The latest trip out to L'viv was awesome. We couldn't get a bus or a train at a normal time, so we ended up having to take a bus at 1:30 in the morning just so that we could make it to L'viv in time for our interviews. That wasn't the most fun, but the next fews day were pretty successful. Friday was Ukraine's Independence day, so center in L'viv was completely packed as they had parades and concerts going on to celebrate that. Didn't see any fireworks like in America or painted cars with dozens of people on top of them like in Saudi, but they still go all out to celebrate this glorious day. We also did a english practice finding activity on that day. We went out to a big park in L'viv and wrote слава Україна (Glory to Ukraine) with chalk on the ground and then talked to people about english practice. That was pretty successful activity, hopefully they get some new people next week from it. Finally, that night, L'viv had their game night and I was able to see Ihor, the recent convert that I had the opportunity to baptize. He's doing super well and has the Aaronic Priesthood now. Plus, he makes cartoons, and he recently made one about missionary work which was super cool. He told me that he's trying to get it on LDS.org, so we'll see if that happens or not.

Also, on Saturday, we had our combined zone conference. This zone conference, we actually had a 70 attend and teach us a little. Elder Golden, from the great country of South Africa, is doing a mission tour and he stopped by L'viv for a few days to vist with some members and train the missionaries. My favorite zone conferences have been when 70's have come and visited us, and Elder Golden did not disappoint. He had some very wonderful ideas about how we can help our investigators come closer to Christ. We talked a lot about member missionary work. As missionaries, we're only in a city for a few months at a time, but members will most likely be there for a very long time, so it's important that the investigators build friendships with the members to help them stay active after the missionaries leave. Anyway, Elder Golden was great and because he came, he took most of it over, and the only thing that we had to do as part of zone conference as zone leaders, was come up with a zone report and talk about that for about five minutes. Super good weekend and learned a ton.

Finally, something big happened just yesterday during and after Church. If you remember, Mikola was baptized on the 11th of August. Then, this past Sunday, he received the Aaronic Priesthood. And now, he's going to the temple TOMORROW to go and do baptisms for the dead. We did some family history work with him and now he's going to the temple with his wife and they're going to do some family names including his father and his grandmother. He seemed so very excited and I'm super happy that he's already taking the trip out to Kyiv to go and visit the temple. He's amazing and a great example to me of the importance of doing temple work for our family, so that one day we can live eternally with them after this life. Have a great week and talk to you all later!

Старійшина McGrath

Isaiah 54:17 Read and ponder these words. Missionary work is moving forward.

Service digging some holes

At a beautiful park in L'viv

Very interesting pic with Ihor (my face looks kind of constipated)

With the original MTC group!!!

Week of Birthdays (Week П'ятьдесят-два)

Well, another good week as a missionary here in the Ukraine Kiev/Moldova Mission. This week was quite interesting as I hit both of my birthdays. I turned 1 as a missionary and 20 as a normal human being. So to celebrate we did a few things. First of all, let's start with Thursday where I hit my year mark on my mission. Some of you know that in the MTC I served with Elders Wonson and Swasey, and now in the mission field, Elder Wonson is in the same district as me. Somehow, Elder Wonson set up exchanges this transfer so that we would have our exchanges on our year mark. haha I don't know how he did it, but I sure wasn't complaining. The exchange went pretty good, we had a few lessons, one over the phone with an investigator who's living out in the villages and the other one was with a member where we stopped by her house and we taught her a short lesson about doing the small and simple things. Both those lessons went fine. 

On our year mark, I was reading in my journal some of the first entries I made and every day I talked about Ukrainian and how we can't learn it and how hard it is. I read about our first lesson and how we didn't understand anything that our investigator said. Now, a year later, we can understand Ukrainian, teach any lesson that we really wanted to, and we enjoy speaking the language. I guess even though I still feel like a greenie and sometimes don't know what to do, there are things that are developing within you, you just have to realize that. Also, to celebrate our year mark, we went to this really really nice restaurant named Manhattan where I ordered this super good and super juicy chicken. All in all, it was a great day and now the second half of my mission has officially started. I'm ready to get to work.

Also, my real Birthday occurred this past week. To celebrate that, we went to another nice, newer restaurant named Gusto. One of the members here in Rivne, Sister Timochko, can sing really really, really good and she won the "golden voice of Rivne" one year. Now, she goes and sings at different places and one reason that we decided to go to Gusto was that she was going to be there and performing. So we go to see her sing some awesome songs in English and she has a super dang good voice. Plus, the food there was super tasty, for sure would go there again. Also, that morning, we went out to a members house in the village and did some service. Pretty much we just picked weeds for a few hours and even though that may not seem to appetizing to many people, I quite enjoyed it as I haven't done that kind of thing in many moons. The house in the village was very nice and the garden there was well kept up and had some pretty tasty fruit there. All in all, it was just a good way to spend my Birthday and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Finally, a little update on our area and some other things that happened this past week. First of all, Mikola, the recent convert that was baptized last Saturday, received the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday which was a wonderful sight to see. He was ready for it and now he has it and I'm excited to see him next week helping with the sacrament. When I talked to him after church he told me that he didn't have any words to describe how he felt receiving the Priesthood. He only thought big cheese's (his words) got the Priesthood, but now that he has it, he feels closer to God and is very, very grateful. We also talked about baptisms for the dead, and he told me that he has a strong desire to go and do that for his Father and Grandmother who have passed away recently. Mikola is amazing and I love him so very much. 

Right now, we're working with another investigator, Masha, who has a desire to know if God exists or not. It has been so amazing working with her, describing who God is, testifying about how he's our loving Heavenly Father who loves us and knows each of us personally. She can get that testimony too, if she reads and does her part. Anyhow, it was a great week, our activities were good, and I'm excited for next week. Have a great week and talk to you later!

Старійшина McGrath

D&C 122:7-9 Read and ponder these verses. We are never alone!!

Year mark breakfast, not too healthy.. 

At lunch on our year mark

Made pancakes for Breakfast on the B-day

On the way to service 

Out doing service picking weeds

A birthday cake that Sister Timochko made for me

Baptism Week!! (Week П'ятьдесят-один)

Wowzers, this week was pretty grand. Let's jump into it. For sure the biggest thing that happened this past week was our baptism that we had on Saturday. Mikola, who i've been working with for the past six months, has finally stopped smoking and was ready to enter into the waters of baptism this past Saturday. He is amazing and has had a big desire to get baptized for a while now. Elder Shuley had the opportunity to dunk him and I actually had the opportunity the next day to give him the gift of the Holy Ghost. I was very grateful for that experience and I can 100% tell you that there is power in the Priesthood and the gift of tongues in real. I love Mikola so very much and I am very grateful for the opportunity that I had to meet him and help him take this step to be baptized. Now that he's baptized, he can take massive leaps forward. We're hoping that he can receive the Aaronic Priesthood this next week and then go to the temple really soon. Plus, if he receives the Aaronic Priesthood soon, he can baptize his two kids that are 11 years old that we can have another family the wonderful branch of Rivne. Mikola is amazing and is a great example of the fact that with God, anything is possible. He told us that he had smoked for more than 25 years and couldn't stop. Only God could have helped him.

Anyhow, the rest of the week was good. It was full of lessons with other people, preparing for the baptism, finding activies, and our English Practice. Plus, transfers officially happened this past week and I'm in a trio until Elder Shuley goes home this week. Elder Cook is a great Elder that is from California and has been serving for around 20 months now. He's a super solid Elder and has the language down super well. He's even studying some Russian now so my Ukrainian and Russian should improve over this next transfer haha. Anyhow, some other things that happened this past week. Our investigator, Gregory, came to Church again, and we had some good lessons with him. He's progressing and I'm really enjoying teaching him and we're becoming pretty good friends. Plus, we get to go out and play Basketball with him which is always fun.

Well, this week I'll hit my year mark. I can't believe that I've already been on my mission for a year now, I feel like just yesterday I walked into the MTC where my teacher spoke straight Ukrainian and I couldn't understand anything. Now I'm not a greenie, serving in my second city, and I can easily hold converstations outside with people. My first year of my mission was not always easy, there were for sure ups and downs, like every mission. But it was the best year of my life. I've grown so much, I've learned so much about the gospel and life in general. I now know for 100% certain, that this Church is true. This mission is the hardest thing that I've done, but also the best thing that I've done. Seeing my investigators enter the waters of baptism is the best feeling that you could have. There are some many blessings from serving a mission and it is for sure the best life there is. Anyhow, have a great week all and talk to you later!

Старійшина McGrath

2 Nephi 25:26 Read and ponder these words, Christ is CENTER!!!

At the apartment 

Near a cool river here (Me, Shuley, Cook) 

With Elder Wonson before the baptism

With Mikola and his wonderful Wife 

With the Branch at the Baptism 

Eating some super good Borsch

Trains out the Wazoo (Week П'ятдесят)

Well, this week was full of crazy adventures and a whole lot of traveling. I left Rivne on Tuesday morning and didn't get back home until Saturday afternoon, super fun, but also super tiring. Anyway, lets jump into it. First of all, this week, we went off to Kiev for yet another MLC. MLC, like always, ended up being pretty successful. We had originally around 20 things to discuss on MLC, but we only got through about half of them in the end. Most of the topics were actually bigger than we thought, with many different ideas and thoughts about the issue, but in the end, listening to the spirit, we came to a conclusion that will best help our mission be the best mission that it could possibly be. One great thing about Kiev, is that we got to see the temple again. Sadly, we weren't able to go inside and do a session, but our meeting was in the Church that is on the temple grounds, so it was just nice to walk on the temple grounds and just feel the power of the temple. All in all, I can say it was a successful trip to Kiev. Having KFC and Domino's didn't hurt too. 

Anyway, after our wonderful trip to Kiev, we headed off to L'viv, spent the night there. There we did some studies, ate at a super good breakfast buffet, and then took another train off to Khmelnitskiy (try pronouncing this haha) where we had exchanges with the district leader and his companion there. I had the opportunity to serve with Elder Stott for a day and he's a super good Elder. He has been serving for just over a year now and is killing it. We ended up having a slow day, we contacted outside for around five hours since we couldn't get any lessons. K-town is an interesting city, my first time there and it's super soviet. Practically every building is concrete and there are concrete jungles everywhere there. But we did contact next to a really cool lake and took a picture or two. Near the end of the day though, we did get transfersss!!! That was crazy. I found out that I'm staying for a fifth transfer in Rivne and this next transfer, I'll be serving with Elder Cook. Elder Shuley will also be with us, but he finishes his mission one week into the transfer, so there was no point in transferring him to another city. Anyways, I'm excited to serve with Elder Cook and we'll have a great transfer or two!

Finally, though, after a ton of trains and buses, we made it back home to Rivne and have had a good past few days. On Sunday, we had a wonderful Church service where we had a good amount of people show up, including a few of our investigators. And then after church, we had another lesson with Mikola, annndddd he still hasn't smoked!!!! He's amazing and 100% on track to get baptized this coming Saturday. I'm praying every day and if all stays to plan, Rivne will have a new member that will help the branch grow!! Anyhow, that was pretty much the week, we ate out so very much this week and I'm ready to have a normal week since we don't have any travels planned. Have a great week all, talk to you later.

Старійшина McGrath

Jacob 4:7 Read and ponder these words, we sent this to Mikola this week and I love this verse!

Basketball with an Investigator, Gregory 

Khmelnitskiy 

The Kiev Temple

Sunset on a train

The Breakfast buffet in L'viv

Khmelnitskiy

With Elder Stott on Exchanges

A Few Firsts (Week Сорок дев'ять)

Well, this week was somewhat normal, not a ton of crazy stuff happened, but let's jump into it. First of all, we had quite the interesting game night this past week. As you know, in our mission, we have English Practice and game night each, once a week. Our goal of these practices is to serve other people and teach them some English, and more importantly, find some new investigators. Game night, usually, we like to do different things each week to make it more interesting and have people keep coming to our activities. This week, we did an activity that other cities have done and had a lot of success, so we wanted to try it out and have a "surprise talent show." Basically, as people show up, we had them pick their talent that they were going to show off out of a hat that we had prepared. We had talents like singing, dancing, playing the piano, beat boxing, drawing, miming, rapping, and even an air guitar one. Then, one by one, they'd present their wonderful talents to us, and we even had the missionaries be the judges, so we were able to pick different characters and judge them based on how they did. It turned out to be a really fun activity, most people really got into it and went above and beyond with their activity, making sure that they were in contention to win. Sadly though, I had to participate as well and I ended up getting the worst ones that I could have ended up with. If any of you know me, I do not have a singing voice, when I start singing, I swear babies want to start crying haha, and it hasn't gotten any better on my mission. For game night, I ended up having to sing. So, I stood up and "sang" a wonderful country song for a few minutes and I can easily say to you guys, I didn't win the talent show. I didn't even get a participation ribbon. But all in all, it turned out really good and hopefully we have even more people next week!

Another big thing that happened this past week was our exchanges with the other Elders here in Rivne. I had the opportunity to serve with Elder Cook, who's been out on his mission for about a year and a half now. He's a great Elder that knows how to teach and helped me out a lot with the language and teaching in general. We ended up having a few lessons on our exchange and a finding activity that we had never done before. We attached a bunch of different pictures of temples to a board, (including the Mesa, Salt Lake City, and Kiev) and asked if people had ever seen these buildings before. Sadly though, not a ton of people stopped to talk to us, and most people that did actually haven't ever seen those buildings. So we did have a few good conversations, but most people said that they didn't have a ton of time to stop and talk to us outside. It was an interesting activity, we might do it again, but it would probably be at a different time of the day, when more people have time to talk to us and find out about our temples and how through our amazing temples, they can actually live with their families forever. Such a great blessing.

Finally, the last thing that I want to talk about it is one of our investigators. His name is Mikola and is AMAZING! Mikola started investigating the church around eight months ago when he met his future wife, who was a less-active member of the church. They decided to come to church together and they've been coming to Church ever since. His less active wife, Olena, is now active and recently received her endowment, and Mikola has a strong testimony. Now you must be thinking, why hasn't he been baptized yet? Sadly, he has a pretty big smoking addiction. Like so many people here in Ukraine, he started smoking as a teenager and has been for the last 25+ years. We've been working with him for a while now trying to help him stop. We've been doing the 12 steps program, teaching him all the gospel principles and he's been making some serious strides lately. He's gone just about three weeks now without lighting up, (the longest he's ever gone before) and we set a date for baptism not to long ago with him. If he doesn't smoke until the 11th of August, he'll enter into the waters of baptism. Mikola is a wonderful man who has already overcome a drinking addiction and now is beating smoking, I know that only with God could he have done that. He has told us many times that this church is true and that without God, he 100% could not have overcome his addictions. I pray every day he continues to stay strong and can get baptized real soon. Love him lots. Well, that's pretty much the week, hope you all have a solid day and week!

Старійшина McGrath

Moroni 7:47 read and ponder these words, charity is the pure love of Christ

A street in Rivne 

English finding activity here, we did Jeopardy, pretty fun!

Another cool street here 

Why not graffiti

Store here in Rivne

Cats and Zebras (Week Сорок вісім)

Well, this was a pretty grand week. A lot of interesting stuff happened and I've got a great story to tell. So let's jump into some of the highlights. First of all, probably the biggest thing, was that we had the opportunity to have a shortened exchange with the AP's this past week. Unlike most times, when you travel to the AP's area, they actually came down to our area here in Rivne to check out the city and get to know more missionaries throughout the mission. We ended up having a wonderful exchange where we taught a new investigator, ate some delicious food, had a solid finding activity in center about the Book of Mormon, and then finished the day off with a great English practice, where we had over 40 people show up, a new record!! If you're wondering why my email title is just a couple of animals, I'll tell you the reason for one of them now. In our mission, there is a chance to have something called a "zebra" companionship, where you have 2 different languages spoken in just one companionship and I had the chance to kind of test it out this past week. I served with Elder Roberts, who is a great Elder, but he only knows Russian so it was quite the experience. SYL'ing is quite difficult when you don't fully understand one another. Teaching lessons might even be the most confusing for the person that we're teaching to since the two missionaries are speaking two different languages and they don't know what language to respond to us in, Russian or Ukrainian. But, all in all, I didn't mind zebra companionships and I wouldn't mind serving with a Russian companion and my Russian would improve a ton! haha

Anyways, now I've got a great story about cats that'll tie the whole email title together. So, one day this week during the start of a personal study, the doorbell at our church goes off and we head to the door. An older lady is standing there and begins to tell us that her cat had fallen off our balcony and landed on top of our church building. So, since we're good missionaries, we grabbed a ladder and went out to help her.  We set up the ladder and climbed on top of our church building, which was a ways up. If I had looked down, I don't know if I would have kept going since I'm pretty afraid of heights. But the top of our Church building here in Rivne is actually pretty nice, super quiet, and gives a nice view of the street. Eventually, we did find the cat, and after 20 minutes of trying to get it from inside of like a vent that we couldn't reach into, the cat came out and it made it safely down from our building. Not the most typical missionary activity, but hey, the person we served had the biggest smile on her face and it was totally worth the experience haha. Sometimes service appears out of nowhere, and we should always be trying to take advantage of it, and serve as much as we can. That's what our loving Savior did. 

Anyways, the rest of the week went real good as well. We had some good finding activities, we did some service at a members house picking a bunch of delicious fruit, found some new investigators, and taught some great lessons. Also, yesterday we traveled to our neighboring city of Lutsk. Right now, Lutsk and Rivne are actually one district and with the permission of President, we traveled to Lutsk after church to do a finding activity with them in the park, which was super cool, and then spend P-day with them as one of the Elders there is leaving this next week. Our finding activity was a different one than we had ever done before. We took some wood, made some boards, and then made like an ocean looking scene on the three boards. After we had done that, we had kids use "fishing poles" and fish over the boards, where we would give them candy, a fish to draw on, and then a card from our church. Even to add to that, while the kids were doing that, we'd try to talk to the parents about the gospel and see if they were interested in that. Super fun activity and really helped build our district unity! Anyway, that was pretty much the week, talk to you all later! Have a super good week!

Старійшина McGrath

Mormon 5:23 Read and ponder these words, the Lord is always looking out for us!

The district here in Rivne!

At the iconic RIVNE sign after a morning run 

Service helping someone move, super interesting haha 

Service picking berries

With Elder Roberts on exchanges 

The finding activity in Lutsk

Super nice mall in Lutsk

Unusual Usual Week (Week Сорок сім)

Well, this was a greatly, normal week. The last three weeks, we have traveled out to L'viv and Kiev, which have made for some decent emails, but it means that we weren't in Rivne for a good chunk of the past few weeks. So, it felt pretty good to just be in Rivne and work 100% in our own area. So, my goal of this email is to make it at least a little bit interesting. So I got a few good stories for you. The first of which happened this past Wednesday. We were asked by a member to help them do some service, and it was quite the experience. Most people in Ukraine live in Apartments, and we were asked to go and meet someone at an apartment and as we were heading there we found out that we were going to be moving a few things from his apartment in the city, to his house out in the village about 20 minutes away by a car that we took there. The hardest part was for sure a couch that we had to take from his apartment. It literally fit through the door by less than an inch, and it was pretty dang heavy. Plus, this member lives on the NINTH floor of an apartment building, so there was no way that we were going to carry it down all those flights of the stairs. So we brought it to the elevator and pushed, pulled, carried, did everything you can do with your hands to put in the elevator and by the skin of my teeth it fit into the elevator. For sure one of the bigger tender mercies of the week, I don't think we could have carried it all the way. Anyhow, the rest of the service was good, we ate some apricots, took a car out to his house in the village, and set the couch up there. One cool thing that we did at the end, was go through his garden and look at all the plants that he has, super nice garden if I may say so. 

Anyway, the other story that I have happened on Sunday. Usually, every week a missionary will speak during Sacrament meeting because there aren't enough members for us to not speak so often, and this was my week to give a usual 20 minute talk. So, we're going though sacrament meeting and all is well. The other two speakers showed up and were prepared to give a talk. The first speaker goes up, after we all have the wonderful opportunity to take the sacrament, and gives a good, normal length talk and we were still on track. Sadly, the second speaker goes up and gives a five minute talk, which left extra time for me. As I walked up, both the branch president and the first councilor told me I had the rest of the time and to walk the clock. I ended up speaking for a solid 30 minutes, all in Ukrainian and it went decent. I probably testified about everything I knew at the end to make sure we finished at the right time, but I made it, sweat everywhere, and I basically said every Ukrainian word that I knew. All is well though, I love speaking and the opportunity that I have to share my testimony will all the members here in Rivne. 

The rest of my week was great as well. We did a lot of finding, stop-bys at less actives, and had some great lessons with investigators and members. We also had exchanges this past week with the other Elders here in Rivne and I had the chance to serve with Elder Wonson for a day, which was super good. We had some wonderful lessons and found a really solid new investigator. All in all, a super good week full of normal, awesome missionary work. There is nothing better than serving a full-time mission and helping others find more joy through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Have a great week all and talk to you later!

Старійшина McGrath

2 Nephi 2: 1-2 Read and ponder these words. The Lord will always be with us in our afflictions. 

The view from the apartment where we did service 

An apartment building in Ukraine 

Playing pool on P-day

The district on P-day

Picture with Sasha, the greatest kid ever