More Foggy than Fog (Week Сімдесят шість)

Well, this week was pretty grand. Not a super different week, a good missionary week, but it was awesome. First of all, to kind of explain the tittle, this past week was super foggy!! I kind of felt like I was back in Saudi, but instead of a massive sand storm, it was cold and it was a bunch of fog haha. I think the sand is better, just because it's warmer. But that didn't stop us from doing missionary work, we still went out and did a bunch of contacting and even did a few finding activities. On one of our finding activities, we asked people what their favorite books were and then we tried to lead that into a conversation about The Book of Mormon. It wasn't the hardest connection to make and people really seemed to enjoy it. One other cool thing that we did this week was spend some quality time with a less-active named Andriy. He really likes this city and actually knows a lot about Chernivtsi, so on Monday night, we took a city tour with him. That was super good, we not only learned a lot about this very pretty city, but we also were able to build relationships with him and become good friends with him. After the city tour, we went to New York Street Pizza and had a good lesson about the importance of commandments. Hopefully, we can continue to build relationships and help him come back to Church.

Another cool thing that happened this past week is exchanges! If you remember, this past summer, Elder Shuley and I took a trip out to a city called Khmelnitskiy (easy to say, right?) and had an exchange there. Well. Khmelnitskiy is actually part of my district, so this past week, we had the good opportunity to head out to Khmelnitskiy and have an exchange. How can I describe this city, soviet. Another Elder calls it the soviet shoebox haha, it's pretty much just full of tall concrete buildings. But it's got a nice walking street and the people there are really friendly, just not the most pretty city. I had the chance to serve with Elder Howard for a day and we did some good missionary work. We had a finding activity in the morning, where we were all able to talk to a bunch of people and we all ended up getting some numbers. We also met with an investigators of theirs who is progressing pretty well. We decided to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and actually invite him to be baptized. In the end though, when we had the lesson and invited him, he said that he didn't feel like he was ready. We tried to help him to understand that he is ready, but we couldn't force him to accept it. Sooo, they'll continue working with him and hopefully he'll keep reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. All in all, it was a great exchange and even though we had a one in the morning train back to Chernivtsi, it was worth it.

Anyhow, the rest of the week was solid as well. We met with a few investigators and has some good lessons. If you remember from last week, we're teaching an eight year old the lessons and she is getting baptized next week during district conference, so that's pretty cool. I actually really enjoyed teaching her, whenever she didn't understand something, she would make sounds effects to help us understand that she doesn't know what we're talking about. That was very helpful, because then we could go back and reexplain it in simpler terms. I kind of wish all of our investigators did that so we could always help them fully understand. Also, Sunday was a good day. We had a good amount of people at church of Sunday and I actually had the chance to share my testimony. Just because it was Super Bowl Sunday, I tried to explain that to everyone and then told them the story about when I prayed about the Cardinals during church and asked God to help them win and sadly it didn't happen. I even told them that I started crying pretty hard after that happened, people thought it was funny. I went on to explain that God answers prayers, just not always in the way we want or need. Anyway, it was a good week!! Talk to you all later!

Старійшина McGrath

2 Nephi 32:9 read and ponder these words. Pray always for guidance. 

Stance stocking, super lit!!

Typical K-Town photo

District Selfie on Walking street

Church in K-town, can you find it?

Foggy lifeee

The movie theater here in Chern

Preach my gospel, 3 by 3, right? (Сімдесят п'ять)

Well, a solid week in the books. Not a ton of different things happened this past week, but enough to write a letter. This past week, transfers officially happened and Elder Taran officially joined our companionship. The last time I really had a trio was in the MTC, so I didn't really know what to expect. To be honest, a trio has many good things and also a few more complicated things to it. Some of the good things include having more conversations because there is one more person in the companionship, planning has actually been a bit easier since we have more brains trying to think about how we can help our investigators and so we've come up with some good plans and ideas for our investigators, and finally, contacting has been a bit easier since we got three people outside trying to stop as many people as we can, so we're getting more conversations through that. On the flip side, teaching has been quite the topic for us. This past week, we were able to teach many lessons to investigators, less-actives, and members and I've come to figure out that teaching is pretty complicated in a trio, especially ours. The goal would be to teach 33% of the lesson each, but most lessons, it hasn't been that way. Since we got a native, a greenie, and me, the level of our Ukrainian is all over the place and we've had to talk about how we can get each of us finding the balance of not talking enough and not talking too much. Hopefully with time and practice, it will get better and we'll start to see miracles from that. All in all, it should be a good transfer with Elder Tuttle and Elder Taran, they're both super fun guys.

Like I said, this past week we met with a few investigators and were able to find a few new ones. One new investigator that we found is named Emanuell. He's actually from Nigeria, but moved here a year and a half ago because he married a Ukrainian girl. The lesson went pretty well and he's a very religious guy. We taught him the restoration and he has a desire to read the Book of Mormon. Anyway, during the lesson, he shared some information that was pretty interesting to me. I actually think that he could he like a mob boss or something like that back in Nigeria haha. He told me that he's a very good "businessman" and that many people don't like him because of that. He went on to share that he actually left Nigeria because many people were searching for him and wanting to kill him and here in Ukraine he feels a lot safer. So he could be just hiding out or maybe he's not a mob boss, but who knows haha, hopefully, he starts to read the Book of Mormon and gets that witness that it's true by the power of the Holy Ghost. We're also teaching a members daughter that just turned eight years old. The parents want her to take all the missionary lessons before she gets baptized and now we've taught almost all of them. Teaching an eight-year-old has been a bit harder than I expected. If you talk for more than a minute straight she'll start to zone out or think about other things, so we've had to really think about how we can involve her and ask questions and simply the doctrine as simple as possible. But it's been super fun teaching her and I've learned a lot.Plus, Nadiya is really funny. This past Sunday, she ripped out a page of my Preach My Gospel in Ukrainian and started drawing a picture of me, that was nice. All in all, we got some good investigators in the woodworks and hopefully we start seeing some more miracles real soon!

All in all, this was a great week. The weather was absolutely terrible, but we pushed through it. Sooo much snow fell, but that's fine, January is almost over and the coldest month of the year is almost done. This past week, we decided to freeze our bodies off by doing another finding activity that was somewhat successful. We took copies of the Book of Mormon in English, and then read a verse or two with people outside. Kind of combined an English and a Gospel activity and people liked doing that. I was able to have a few good conversations about the gospel with some people. Anyhow, have a great week everyone and stay warm!!

Старійшина McGrath

1 John 3:22 read and ponder these words, we can receive anything that we ask for! 

We went to a jewish cemetery for P-day, super interesting

Selfie there

Another pic of it

Winter is here...

With Elder Taran contacting

A family pic of the trio

Baby #3 (Week Сімдесят чотири)

Wowzers, this was quite the week, a lot of things happened and I'll try to cover everything. First of all, to explain the title, we received transfer calls and it was not what I expected. Sadly, Elder Troxymenko is leaving Chernivtsi and now we're going to be a trio in Chernivtsi. Elder Taran is now part of our companionship with Elder Tuttle and I, and guess what, he's a greenie too. So, this next transfer I'll be training two people, that should be quite interesting. A few things to introduce my next companion. Elder Taran is actually native to Ukraine, so he'll be teaching us Ukrainian instead of me teaching him. He was baptized around three years ago and has a strong desire to serve the Lord. He's also really tall, so it's weird to be the shortest person in the trio, two of my three greenies are taller than me, I don't like that. Finally, one more interesting fact, he's twenty-two and already is engaged. He got engaged before his mission and now his fiance is also serving a mission out in the Baltics. Should be a good transfer with the three of them.

Anyhow, this week was super busy and the biggest thing that probably happened was our branch activity on Saturday. We ended up doing a Mexican night, and it turned out to be super successful. We had around 30 people show up, a mix of members and non-members which was awesome to see. Since I'm the district leader here, and this was my idea to do, I took lead of this entire activity. It started out as a branch activity and then kind of ended up being more of a missionary prepared activity for the wonderful people here in Chernivtsi. Elder Tuttle and I ended up cooking all the food, since no one else here knows what Mexican food is, and the other elders built a few pinatas which was cool, they even made an angry bird one. Miraculously, the food ended up turning out good, (Thanks to taco seasoning) and after showing everyone how to make a burrito, even got some and got the real Mexican food made in Ukrainian experience. So in short the part consisted of eating food, hitting a pinata, and doing some just dance. People really got into just dance and we did a few good Latin and Mexican dances that turned out to be super hard, it didn't help that I can't dance to save my life haha. Finally, I also had the opportunity at the beginning to give a spiritual thought. I showed the video "Because of Him" and then we talked about the role of Jesus Christ in our life. People seemed to enjoy that, and I was able to get the number of a non-member, so hopefully we can meet with him sometime this next week. All in all, a great and tasty Mexican branch party!

Other than that, we ended up having two exchanges this past week as well. My first exchange was with Elder Swasey. If you remember, I served with Elder Swasey in the MTC, so it was kind of cool to serve with him for another day and see all the growth within all aspects of our lives. We can actually speak Ukrainian now and so many other parts of our lives have improved. On our exchange, we also had a super interesting lesson with one of the members here. One member here wants to go to the temple for the first time and receive her endowment, so we went along and taught the first temple prep lesson to her. The lesson went really well and she has a good knowledge of the gospel, but she also LOVES music. So at least a few times during the lesson, she started talking about hymns and how much she loves them, and I think that this was the first lesson that someone sung a few hymns for us. haha But she's awesome and I'm glad to have her in the branch. My other exchange was with Elder Troxymenko again. We had  a good exchange and worked hard. On both of our exchanges we did a finding activity where we wrote a question on a board and then went out to center and stopped people and honestly, we had super good finding those days. Many people came up to the board and answered the questions, "what brings you happiness?" and "What is wisdom?" From those questions, we connected it to the gospel and people were interested. Hopefully we can start meeting with some of those people this next week. All in all, some really good exchanges this past week.

This past week, even though I've been serving for over 17 months, I still had a few firsts. This past week was the first week that I've ever played scrabble in Ukrainian, and that was HARDD haha. Also, this was the first week that I've held a baseball bat on my mission. When we were hitting the pinatas, we used a baseball bat and that felt super good. Finally, this was the first week that I had a conversation with someone that openly told me that he had cancer and told me that he is angry at God and wants him to cure him. Honestly, I was kind of caught off guard at that, I didn't know what to tell him or how I could help him. I ended up going in the direction of why we have trials. To help us grow. Many verses in the Book of Mormon help us understand this. I thought of three verses, and most of you probably know them. Ether 12:27, God shows us our weakness so we humble ourselves and then through God, weak things become strong. 2 Nephi 2:24, Everything that we do is in the wisdom of God. 1 Nephi 3:7, the Lord doesn't give us a trial that we can't overcome. We have trials so we can fulfill our purpose here on earth and become more like our Heavenly Father. Trials may seem hard, but with God, we can do all things. I tried to explain this to this man outside, but the conversation didn't go in the direction that I wanted. But it really hit me and I learned a lot from that experience. Remember God in all your trials!! Have a great day everyone and talk to you next week!!

Старійшина McGrath

Read and ponder those three verses I just talked about!! Think about your trials in your life and what you can learn from them...

Finding activity with Elder Troxymenko

Cool street here in Chern

Food at the Mexican night

Church building here in Chern

The pinata hitting

Holding a baseball bat for the first time

Mexican Party crowd

L'viv and Castles!! (Week Сімдесят три)

Wowzers, what a week!! So many different things happened, I'll try to cover it all, and keep it interesting. The biggest thing is that we went to L'viv this past week for conference and mid-transfer training. Since I'm training again I was able to take part in mid-transfer training, where they pretty much talk about how to be a missionary and what it's like. That was pretty good, President Kumferman had some really good points. Then the next day, we had zone conference, so this past week I spent a ton of time in the L'viv chapel learning and improving as a missionary. This zone conference, we had a big focus on the gathering of Israel and what exactly that means. It's super cool to think that is exactly what I'm doing on my misison here in Ukraine, gathering the lost tribes of Israel. Anyway, it was nice to see all the missionaries and especially see my first son, Elder Matua, he's doing well. All in all, a super good week in terms of conferences. 

The rest of the week was pretty good. When we were actually back here in Chernivtsi, we spent a lot of time finding and teaching. We ended up finding a few new investigators this week and met with a few of our current ones. After Church on Sunday, we went out with the other Elders here in Chernivtsi and went out to the walking street and had a finding activity. The finding activity went alright, there was a good amount of people on the street, but it was kind of hard to get a good amount of conversations. We wrote the question, "Why do you pray?" up on a whiteboard and then invited people to come up and write their answer and we had a decent amount of people come up. It's always nice to go out as a district and just contact for a few hours. Luckily, it wasn't toooo cold, so that was a plus.

Finally, to finish off the day, we had a super cool P-Day today. We went out to city named Khamanets-Podilskiyy (isn't that a mouthful) haha and there we visited a super cool castle!! Probably the coolest castle I've seen on my mission. It's about two hours away from Chernivtsi, but we just went for a few hours just to visit and actually to meet with a referral. We don't have missionaries in this little city, so Elder Tuttle and I were assigned to go out and visit her. Today, we met with here and she's super cool, she knows English really good and we had a wonderful restoration lesson. Sadly though she lives two hours away from the closest branch and we can't always visit her. But who knows, maybe she'll jump into the Book of Mormon and get that testimony. All in all guys, a super good week and always glad to be a missionary, talk to you all next week!!

Старійшина McGrath

2 Nephi 2:24 read and ponder these words, everything happens for a reason...

Original MTC squad

My kid Matua

Finding activity on a Sunday

Bridge in Khamants

a Cool church

The super cool castle 

the Castle close up

Christmas #4 (Week Сімдесят два)

Well, Happy New Year and Merry Christmas again!! Most missionaries only get two Christmases on their mission, but all Ukrainian missionaries get that wonderful opportunity to have four. If you remember, last year I mentioned that Ukraine, because of the Orthodox Church, celebrates Christmas on the 7th of January, soo today is second Christmas. Now all we got to do is convince our mission President that we should be able to skype home on both Christmases, that would be the best haha. Anyway, since today has been Christmas and yesterday was Christmas Eve, not many people have wanted to meet, because this is "family time" and everyone wants to eat a bunch of food and be with their close ones, which makes sense. Yesterday when we went out contacting, there was almost no one on the street, for one thing, it was supppper cold, and second of all, everyone was enjoying their time with their family inside. So yesterday wasn't the most successful day for contacting, but that's missionary work. All in all, this past week wasn't bad, not a ton happened, but we stayed diligent and worked hard. First of all, this past week was new years and we had to stay inside for pretty much all of it, unless a member invited us over. Sooo, on the 31st, we had to be inside at six and then the first, we also couldn't leave. The other elders came over and we had a good time playing card games, relaxing, and eating some good food. We didn't make it to midnight, I know that sounds kind of lame, but we all crashed around 11 and woke up in the morning and it was super crazy to think that it was 2019. The night of the first, a family invited us all over so we went over there, had a spiritual thought, talked to them for a bit, and played some super ghetto monopoly that was super fun! The Megega family have two daughters and they're super funny and it was nice to get to know them better and help them. 

Anyway, during this week, we had exchanges with the other Elders here in Chernivtsi. I had the chance to serve with Elder Troxymenko for a day and he's super cool. He's a missionary from Kyiv and has been serving for a little over a year now. He was actually called to serve in the Romania/Moldova mission, but when the missions merged, he came back into Ukraine and now he's serving in Chern. The day went pretty good, we had a few lesson during the day, the first one was with a JW named Valeria. Unlike most JW, she's actually open to hearing and reading the Book of Mormon, so we had a good lesson about the plan of salvation and we even talked about the temple a little bit. We actually also ended up having the lesson at the Branch President and his wife's house, which was super awesome. They were a really good member present and they testified super strong. All in all, the lesson and the day was super good and Elder Troxymenko was super fun to serve with and we had a good day SYLing the entire day and he really helped me with my Ukrainian. 

When we first came into this area, we didn't have any investigators, so throughout the transfer, we've been contacting for a few hours every single day talking to people outside, seeing if they would be interested in meeting and finding out more about what we believe. The first few weeks were a little bit more rough, since we didn't have many lessons and we were outside contacting a lot more. But over the past few weeks, we've found a lot more investigators and now we have around six or seven investigators. This past week, we ended up getting three new investigators and some of them seem to be promising. With pretty much all of them, we've taught the restoration lesson and gave them promised blessings if they read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. Its been nice teaching so many lessons about the restoration because it helps me realize the importance and how great the restoration was and how grateful I am for Joseph Smith. Now, even though it is getting colder and we've had a tooooon of snow this past week, we're still outside talking to people, but also teaching lessons to investigators and even some less-active members that we've been trying to work with. Anyway, one other cool thing that I wanted to mention is that we have a member here in Chernivtsi, that makes ties for missionaries. She takes the patterns from Wishy-wankas, which are like national Ukrainian shirts, and then turns them into ties and they're super cool. Every Zone Conference, she makes a ton and missionaries will buy them and since I'm serving here in Chernivtsi, we get first dibs haha. On Suday, when she gave us the ties, I ended up buying six, and it was totally worth it. Well, I hope you didn't fall asleep reading this letter, it was a good week and I hope you all have a wonderful week!!!

Старійшина McGrath

Isaiah 53:3-5 read and ponder these words, the Atonement could only have been done by our Savior, Jesus Christ.

She wanted to take a selfie at FHE

With Elder Tuttle on FHE

Walking street here, sooo pretty 

Christmas Concert in center (The santa there is a less-active)

The "ship" building

Figel Ties, some of my favorite ones she's made

Selfie on the street we live on

The End of the Best Year of My Life...So Far (Week сімдесят один)

Wow, I can't believe that today is the 31st of December, I was a missionary this entire year, striving to serve The Lord with all my Heart, Might, Mind, and Strength. I vividly remember thinking this time last year, "Can I do this for an entire year?" But this past year came and went and I now know that I can and that this work is the best work in the world. Last year, I was a greenie, more green than Boston in the Summer, but now I've grown into one of the older missionaries in the L'viv zone, and I owe everything that I've done and seen to God. I know for a fact that this is the Lord's work and I'm just his servant trying to go out and listen to his directions on how I can keep the work moving forward. Anyway, before I reflect too much on this past year, I want to talk about this past week and how wonderful it was. 

First of all, we had Christmas this past week, which was absolutely a blast. Our Mission President actually gave us the day "off" meaning that it was basically another P-day, we just couldn't write home. So, since I'm the district leader and I gotta have exchanges with all the elders in my district, I decided to kind of pull a few strings. I decided to put our exchange with the Elders in Khmelnitskiy on Wednesday, the day after Christmas, so what they actually did, was travel down to Chern on Monday night and were here with us for Christmas and then exchanges. So we had the entire district together for Christmas which was super sick. We ended up opening presents in the morning and that was great. My parents sent me a couple packages, love them lots, and then a member in Rivne actually sent me a Christmas package, so that was supppperrr nice of her, Sister Timochko is the best! 

Another fun thing that we did on Christmas was do an escape room. We ended up doing this super scary escape room where we basically had to escape this prison under a monastery. As some of you know, I don't like scary things very much, so I may have screamed a few times and almost peed my pants a few times. Sadly though, we didn't escape the room though, it was super hard and we had to read in Russian, and none of the elders that did it could really do that, so it made it pretty hard haha. They did say that 70% of people that try that escape room fail the first time, I don't know if they just said that to make us feel better or if that's actually true, but yeah. Finally, to finish off the day, we watched The Polar Express again, which was suppper good! All in all, it was an amazing Christmas on the mission!

The rest of the week was super grand as well. I had an exchange with Elder Howard, another newer missionary, this past week which went pretty great. We had a finding activity where we went out in front of the opera theater here in Chernivtsi and put a question up on a white board. We asked "If you could ask God one question, what would it be?" Then we had people come up and write their answers and then we could have a good conversation with them. It turned out to be super successful, most people that were around there were college students, so it was nice to stop and talk to them and most of them had questions pertaining to the Plan of Salvation. In the end, we ended up getting a few numbers and hopefully we'll meet with some of them over these next few weeks. Other than that, this past week was full of contacting and trying to find new investigators. We ended up finding two new ones this past week, so hopefully they start to progress and read the Book of Mormon, that's how they'll get that answer that this Church is true. 

Also, we experienced another joy to missionary work: doggings. haha when people don't show up to scheduled meetings, and that happens a decent amount here. This past week, we scheduled nine meetings with members, less-actives, and investigators, and we ended up only having four lessons. We got dogged five times...but it's all good, that's why you always have a back up plan so that you're always working hard and trying to find new people. Well, the weather is better, the snow is melting, and I'm still loving Chernivtsi. We had FHE with President and Sister Seraphim this past week and it was super good, we talked all about them and the branch, and we came up the idea to do a Mexican Night here in Chernivtsi in a few weeks, should be great! Another solid week on the mission.

Anyhow, to finish off I wanted to talk about this last year that I had on the mission. I've learned so much and I'm for sure a changed person. The mission has been the hardest thing that I've done, but also the greatest and the most rewarding. This past year, I had the opportunity to help four people enter the waters of baptism, I've seen people change their lives all the way around. To helping people find answers to life's questions, to helping someone find more joy in their life, and even helping some overcome a smoking addiction of over 25 years. You really do see everything in a mission and it gives you the best and most spiritual experiences. The gospel really does change lives, if we do our part and show God our desire, he will take us and help us BECOME the best person that we can become. I loved this past year, and it for sure has been a roller-coaster and now I'm ready for another year. Have a great new year everyone and talk to you next year! 

Старійшина McGrath

3 Nephi 5:13 read and ponder these words. I'm proud to be a servant of the Lord and wear his name on my chest every single day

Christmas Packages 

My favorite present haha

A cool Catholic Church here 

My favorite graffiti here  

Street in Chern

At the Chern Opera Theater 

Primary Christmas Party, super cool!

 Center todayyy

Merry Merry Christmas (Week Сімдесят)

Well, first of all, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas tomorrow, I'm super excited. This past week was pretty grand as well. It started off super duper cold, where it was super hard to contact for more than an hour because your fingers and hands would get too cold, but the last few days have actually been pretty nice and it's getting warm enough that all the snow is starting to melt. I know a lot of people love snow and think of Christmas when they see snow, but I'm not the biggest fan of it, so I'm kind of happy to see it go. 

Anywho, some of the bigger things that happened this past week. We actually ended up having two exchanges this week. The first one was with the other Elders here in Chernivtsi. I had the opportunity to serve with Elder Taran for a day, a newer missionary from Eastern Ukraine. He's super cool and knows English super well. This past week we set a goal on our district council to go and stop by less-actives here and then tract their building afterwards, so we had a few hours to the evening, so we decided to go out and do just that. Honestly, I haven't tracted much on my mission, most of our finding comes through referrals or contacting, so it's kind of a scary situation for me. We literally knock on the door, say that we're missionaries and try to have a conversation. By the end of the tracting session, I learned that I really like tracting, it's super nice!! For one thing, you're inside, so it's warmer, and it's always interesting what could happen, who's on the other side of the door. Of course, we had a lot of people turn us down, but we did have some good conversations. We talked to a few people about the Book of Mormon and the Plan of Salvation and people were interested. There was one guy who opened the door just in his underwear, so that was kind of interesting, he was a nice guy though haha. All in all, it was a great day full of finding. 

Our other exchange was actually in the good old city of L'viv!! Since I'm the district leader here in Chern, every transfer, I get the opportunity to have an exchange with the Zone Leaders in L'viv and we had a wonderful day. I spent the day with Elder Cluff and we had a few lessons, did some finding, and ate some super good Georgian food. Finally, to finish off the day, we had game night there in L'viv and it was a super good one. We watched The Polar Express and drank some hot chocolate.  Pretty much everyone there, except for the missionaries, have never seen that movie, so they all enjoyed it and it was a great way to celebrate Christmas. All in all, the exchanges were awesome this week and I learned a lot from them.

As most of you know, to celebrate Christmas on the 23rd, each branch or ward was asked to hold a special 1 hour Church service focused on our Savior and here in Chernivtsi, it went great! The best part was that so many less-active and investigators were able to show up. Usually we have in the low 20's at church and this past week we had in the mid 30's, so that was awesome to see. There, we had some stronger members in the branch share their testimony of Jesus Christ and we sang some extra Christmas hymns and it was a great service. One cool thing that we did here was a lunch afterwards. The whole branch worked together and cooked food and we had a wonderful lunch together that was delicious. Potatoes, meat, vegetables, pretty much typical Ukrainian food, but it was really tasty. After Church on Sunday, we were also able to stop by a less-active that wasn't able to make it to church. Brother Kucher is super nice and he told us so really interesting things. He likes to watch movies so he has some interesting ideas. But we had a lesson about doing the big three: Read, Pray, and come to Church. He actually is a really strong member, has a testimony, but just won't come to church, but we'll keep working with him and getting to know him better. In short, Sunday was a very successful day even though we burned our dinner and it turned out super poor.

The rest of the week was pretty normal. Since we were whitewashed into this area, we're still trying to get used to the area and all the wonderful members that are here. Also, when we first came here, we didn't have any investigators, so Elder Tuttle and I have been doing a lot of finding in search for a few new investigators. This past week, we found one and have a good amount of potential investigators, so hopefully this next week we'll find new ones and help them learn more about the gospel. Chernivtsi is an awesome city that is so pretty. Right now, in center they have a super tall Christmas tree that lights up at night and is super pretty. Also, if you ever look up Chernivtsi, there is the national university that kind of looks like Hogwarts and is a big attraction here. This morning, Elder Tuttle and I were able to go look at it and take a few pictures. Plus, one more thing, Chern is known for its croissants, so Elder Tuttle have eaten way too many croissants because they're sooo good!! Anyway, can't wait to continue my service here and I hope you all just have the best Christmas ever, talk to you next week!

Старійшина McGrath

Luke 2:7 Read and ponder these words. Remember the birth of Christ during this Christmas season

Me with the Christmas tree here  

The super nice walking street here

A nice tank here in Chern

Someone doesn't like Capitalism  

Nice road here in Chern! 

Branch Lunch!!

The University

A selfie at the University here