Good Old Helping Hands (Week Вісімдесят п'ять)

Well, this was not a bad week on the mission. Stayed pretty busy and had a good time. I've gotten a few emails asking about General Conference and if I've watched it. And sadly, no I haven't, but I'll be watching it  throughout the week which should be good. I've only heard good things about this past conference, super excited for it. One bigger thing that we had this past week was for sure helping hands. We had all four missionaries, and then like 10 other members that came out to help us. We went to the big park here in Lutsk and started to just pick up all the trash. There's a river in the park, and we spent most of our time over there since there were a crap-ton of trash there. Literally everyone just goes out and drinks and smokes by the river and then just leaves all their stuff there, it was super bad and gross. Just another reason why the Word of Wisdom is the best, right? haha Anyway we were out picking up trash for a few hours and by the end of the day, we had picked up enough trash to fill around 20-25 big black trash bags. That was a pretty fun activity, really good chance to bond with the members and just serve with them.

Other than that, we had the chance to meet with most of our investigators this past week. We've put a focus on Prophets this past week and have been inviting everyone to come to General Conference next week and watch it with the branch. Hopefully some of our investigators make it out next week. Also, this past week, we found a new investigator named Serhiy. He's 22 years old and pretty cool. At first, he just wanted to meet just to talk in English and speak English with us. But after 30 minutes or so of just getting to know him and helping him learn English, we decided to switch it into a gospel conversation. At the start, he basically just told us that he was Atheist and doesn't go to Church, but when we asked him why he was atheist, he told us that he doesn't like the Orthodox church here. Soooo, what I figured is that he's probably not atheist, but just hasn't searched too much for truth. We then started telling him about our church and really about what we believe and it turned out that he was pretty interested it our church. When we told him about how we pray with our own words and that our local church leaders don't make money for their callings, he thought that was super cool. In fact, at the end of the conversation, he told us that next time that we meet, we don't really have to talk about English, we can just tell him more about our church and what we believe in. Super good experience and hopefully he'll start reading the Book of Mormon soon and have a desire to continue meeting with us.

Finally, church this past week was good. We had an investigator show up, which is always awesome. Also, I found out last minute that I had the wonderful opportunity to lead church. Luckily, I had lead church in Rivne before, so it wasn't too stressful, but I can tell you that I was sweating buckets and I stood at the pulpit haha. Other than that, the week went well. We had a member teach us how to make borsch on Saturday, that was super fun and tasty. The longer I've been in Ukraine, the more I've grown to like the food here. All in all, a super good week, until next week week!

Старійшина McGrath

Mosiah 15:11 read and ponder these words. Listen to a prophets voice, it's revelation...

FHE with a family that had chicks 

Helping hands...

Bad pic of the youth activity this past week

Helping hands with everyone

Making Borsch and watching a part of General Conference

Finished product of the Borsch, super gooddd!!

Conference Week in L'viv (Week Вісімдесят чотири)

Well, another great week in the books. This past week we were in L'viv for a good chunk of it, but the times that we were in Lutsk we worked hard and were able to have a good amount of lessons. Zone conference this transfer turned out super good. He put a big focus on how we can study better, what we should be studying, and how studying the gospel every day will help us become the best teachers we can actually be. In the morning, he spent over an hour talking about the great apostasy and how important that might actually be. He went over a big timeline of the apostasy and we were able to read a ton of verses from the bible giving evidences of the Great Apostasy. 

One of my favorite quotes from conference and something I had never thought about before was from a man named Kent Jackson. He said, "The apostasy did not happen because the Apostles were gone; the Apostles were taken because the apostasy had occurred."Wowzers, ponder on that one for a bit, pretty dang deep and super true if you think about it. Anyhow, it was also nice to see all the missionaries again and see all the new missionaries in our zone. Honestly, it was kind of weird to sit at zone conference and think that I'm one of the old farts now, I gotta be the example haha. There is literally only one group of missionaries going home before me now, which is crazy to think. In short, I learned a lot and had a great time in L'viv this past week.

Other than the trip there, we just hit the grind and did some good old missionary work. We went out and contacted every day, had a few lessons, called a bunch of people to repentance. Can't get better than that, right? This was also my first week as the Second Counselor here in the Lutsk branch. On Wednesday, I met with the Branch President here, President Danko, and we had planned on just meeting for an hour and talking about callings and what not here in Lutsk, but we ended up meeting for two hours haha, we just talked about soooooo much. We weren't able to finish the night off tracting, but we used our time effectively, and President Danko needs all the support he can get. He's been branch president for a total of 11 years now, super crazyyy. He was made branch president here in Lutsk less than three months after he was baptized. He's literally held this branch together through the thick and the thin, amazing guy!!

This past week we were also able to find two new investigators. We actually met with them yesterday and had a first lesson. They basically just asked a tonnnn of questions and we just answered them all. At the beginning they were not really interested, they just wanted to talk to some good looking americans, but by the end, they were a lot more interested and even wanted to read some from the Book of Mormon and a Plan of Salvation pamphlet that we gave them. Anyways, those were some of the highlights from my week, not the biggest or best email, but if you're still reading to this point, that's awesome! You haven't gotten too bored yet haha. Well, the weather is getting warmer and it's officially April!! Have a great day and a solid week, don't forget to feast upon the words of Christ this week!

Старійшина McGrath

Amos 8:11-12 read and ponder these words. The Great Apostasy was necessary and happened!

Our Minute to Win it Game night

Zone Conference Pic

With Mautasss 

All three of my kiddies

All the remaning L'viv Mission missionaries

Averagely Great Week (Week Вісімдесят три)

Well, honestly, this week was pretty average, nothing too big or grand really happened, but nonetheless, it was good, as a missionary, you really can't have a bad week. Sometimes days can be long or difficult, but at the end of the week, you can look back and realize that you gave it your all, but people have their agency. This week, we met with most of our investigators and we ended up tracting a lot, which I haven't done a ton on my mission. We set a district goal to track three buildings every week, just to get a bit more creative with our finding so we're not just street contacting always, and we saw a bit of success. Basically, sometimes if we have time, we'll find and stop by a less-active, and sadly since most of the time they don't answer, we'll tract their apartment building, which consists of around 35 more apartments that we can knock on and hopefully have some good conversations. Anyhow, the first two buildings that we tracted this week were not very successful, we had a few conversations, but everyone wasn't interested at that moment. Then, we go to the third building, and the same thing, we go through every door, most people won't even open the door for us and we weren't seeing really any success. Finally, we get to the bottom floor and we have four more doors, we knock on the first three, nothing, no one answers. Finally, right before we knock on the last door, I told Elder Holden that he's gonna be interested. Lo and behold, (however you really say that) the man opens the door and we're able to talk and have a good conversation for a few minutes. He's actually an Orthodox Priest, but he looked and read a bit from the Book of Mormon, and we were able to exchange numbers to meet later!! Wowzers, really big testimony builder to me. Super good experience and helped me further understand the important principle of enduring to the end and then you'll receive a ton of blessings. All in all, tracting was successful this week!

Anyway, the rest of the week was good. In the Lutsk branch, I'm pretty sure we have one of the best members in Western Ukraine. She literally helps the sisters just about everyday and she's super willing to do just about anything. Right now, she's actually preparing to serve a mission herself, so she wants all the experience that she can get. This past week, the sisters had an exchange with the STL's so that meant that they were out of town. So on Wednesday, Larisa called us up after she finished her classes that day and asked us where we were. She met us and we contacted with her for a bit, she's already a really good contacter. Then she was able to help us out on a lesson that evening. We actually met with a new investigator that evening that I had contacted earlier that week. We taught a full restoration lesson to him and he seemed to take it very well. He told us in the lesson that he feels that our contact outside wasn't a coincidence and he wants to investigate the church more. Super good potential and this week, we should meet and teach him the plan of salvation which should help him a lot, especially since he's got a family himself. 

All in all, the rest of the week was good. Sunday we had a good amout of people at church and after church, we went out and did a finding activity in center. We asked people what Charity meant to them and we were able to have some good conversations from that and got a few numbers. Things are looking good here in Lutsk and excited to keep working here. Especially since the weather is warming up too! Have a great week everyone and talk to you all later!

Старійшина McGrath

Psalm 24:4 read and ponder these words. The Lord hears all of our cries!!

Roller skating on P-day!!

Buildings here in Lutsk

Tracting with Holden

 Personal study haha

Study room selfie

Bowling on Pday

Stories in Lutsk (Week Вісімдесят дві)

Well, this was a pretty good week here in Lutsk, got a few stories to share from this past week. But nothing too big happened, we didn't have any exchanges, it was just a normal week in the mission field, some of my favorite weeks. This past week, we were able to meet with all of our investigators, and they seem to be progressing well. One of them is named Serhi, and yesterday we were able to have a great lesson with him. He's been an investigator for a few months now and has been taught all the missionary lessons, so we've just been reading with him and helping him the importance of the Book of Mormon. This past week, I had the idea to reteach prophets and the great apostasy to help him understand that a restoration would not have been necessary if there had not been an apostasy. The lesson went really really good!! We shared stories, used analogies, and he asked some good understanding questions. I felt the spirit so much during that lesson and I know that he did too, hopefully that'll help him to read the Book of Mormon more in his life. All in all, that was a super good lesson, and hopefully all of our investigators continue to progress over this next week.

Now, I want to share two stories from this past week, one funny one and one experience that really taught me a lot and hit me hard. Let's start with the funny one. So, when I first got to Lutsk, I found out about a crazy guy that comes to all of our English Practices and our Game Nights, so I was excited to meet him. This past week, after English Practice, he came up to me and said that he wanted to have a serious convestation with me. He went on to tell me that he doesn't think that he's the Messiah, in fact, he 100% sure that he's the Messiah. He wanted to sit down with me for 30 minutes and tell me three reasons, three experiences that he's had to prove to me that he's truly the Messiah. Honestly, I didn't really know what to say to that, I wanted to laugh, but this was a serious moment and laughing wouldn't help the situation. So what I ended up doing, I grabbed the restoration pamphlet that I had right next to me, and pointed to the picture of Jesus Christ, and I said, "This is my Messiah, Jesus Christ." He looked at the picture of Jesus Christ, then glanced back up at me, and turned around and said, "Ok, I understand, good night." So that was the interesting conversation of the week, just made me glad to know that we do have a savior and that I know him personally. Through him, I can pray and speak directly to my Heavenly Father and through him, I can receive forgiveness of all sins thanks to him atonement.

Ok, now on to the really cool story from this past week. Most mornings, Elder Holden and I head out after personal study to go and street contact. I've contacted for around 18 months now, so most of the time it's nothing new and not the most exciting thing, but this past Thursday, I had a super good experience with it. After contacting for around half of an hour, I go up to this guy and start to talk to him and the first thing he asked me if I was a JW. Luckily, I said now and told him that I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. So he started talking to me more and he began to tell me his life story. He's had a drinking and drug addiction for most of his life and he's tried just about everything to quit. He has a great desire to change his life, he just really doesn't know how. He told me that that morning, he woke up and decided to just leave his apartment and planned on visiting a few churches because maybe they could help him, and guess what, right after he left, I stopped and talked to him. The Lord puts people in our path and has a plan for us and there is a reason to why we do everything as a missionary. Later that day, we were able to have a lesson and introduce the 12 steps program with him and also introduced the Book of Mormon and how it can help him overcome his addictions. He has really strong desire, he just needs help from a higher power. Sadly, since that point, we haven't met and he dogged our next meeting, but I can for sure say that we helped him in that moment and that experience really helped me understand that God really has a plan for each and every one of us. All in all, a super good experience and a really good week. Until next week, enjoy reading your scriptures this week!! 

Старійшина McGrath

Alma 32:16 read and ponder these words. Be humble and you'll be blessed beyond measure!! :)

Cool view here in Lutsk

Human fooseball for game night

Lutsk National University 

Walking Street in Lutsk

Sacrament room here in Lutsk

 Selfie in the Computer Room

Welcome to Lutsk (Week Вісімдесят одна)

Wowzers, another good week in the books. This week was pretty crazy and we stayed super busy the entire time. First of all, transfers officially happened and I'm now writing this email in Lutsk with my new companion Elder Holden. Elder Holden is from St. George, Utah, really likes music, did marching band in High School, and has been on his mission for 4 months now. Basically he just finished his training and now I get to serve with him here. He really likes to work hard and speak Ukrainian, so I think I've spoken more Ukrainian than English with him which is pretty cool, for a missionary in his third transfer, he already knows pretty good Ukrainian. But anyway, I already really like Lutsk. As many of you know, I served in Rivne for a suuppper long time, 10 months, and I consider that city to be my favorite and my "home". Lutsk is actually only 65 kilometers or so away from Rivne, so the two cities are very similar, so coming to Lutsk kind of felt like I was coming home. The city is actually prettier than Rivne, and it has a really nice center. Also, one other cool fact. There are only two church buildings in Western Ukraine, here and in L'viv. The rest of them we just rent and are parts of other buildings. So it's a really nice chapel here and it's nice to have lessons with investigators. Apparently, it used to be a old bread factory, but the church bought it and now it's a chapel. All in all, super excited and ready to serve here in Lutsk. It should be a great transfer with Elder Holden. 

Anyway, one cool thing that happened this past week was actually a world-wide holiday that Ukrainians really like to celebrate. In Ukrainian, they just call the holiday the 8th of March, but in English every says Women's day. Everyone gets work off here and they go out and celebrate women and how awesome they are. Soooo, as missionaries we decided to take advantage of this wonderful holiday. What we did is we took a white board and went out to walking street, where there a ton of people walking and visiting different shops. There we put the question "Why are women important to you?" Then, we stopped people, had a conversation with them and we tried to bring up the family proclamation with them and talk about the role of women and how amazing they are. We ended up getting some really good conversations and ended up handing out many different copies of the proclamation. Another cool thing we did for women's day was on Sunday after church. A few members bought some cake and soda and we just sat around eating cake together and had a good time. A few of the male adults had actually written poems and read them out loud for the women and it was just a super good chance for the branch to come together and build some unity.

Anyway, the rest of this week was good. Spent some good time getting used to the city, Elder Holden introduced me to all the people that we're working with and all the wonderful investigators and members that we have. Finally, Sunday came rolling around and it was a great day. I had heard all about this branch and how there are a lot of youth and how it's just a fun branch and they did not lie. There were like 9 youth there and it was just super nice to see so many and all of them were so happy and awesome. I also had the chance to go up and share my testimony and that went well, they all laughed at the dumb story I shared at the start, so that was good. Also, our district here is great. There's two sisters and two elders. One of the sisters actually just started her mission and guess where she's from??! Mesa, Arizona, the exact city that I'm from. She even knows some of the people that I know and it was just crazy to get to know her. All in all a super good week, and looking forward to another one. 

Старійшина McGrath

Mosiah 24:14 read and ponder these words, the Lord knows our trials, turn to him.

We tried to eat a 4.4 pound burger, didn't really work out 

With Elder Holden contacting

Cool building in Lutsk

Women's day activity 

Church building here in Lutsk

The castle here in Lutsk

The district + a member here in Lutsk

Kyiv and Transfer Calls (Week Вісімдесят)

Wow, this past week was pretty grand. So many different things happened, and I hope I can cover all of it. First of all, let's jump into the biggest thing from this past week. I had the opportunity to go to Kyiv for one day and it was such a great experience. First of all, I had the chance to go to the temple and do an endowment session, which is awesome as always. I came into the session with some questions, and I left having better ideas and receiving some answers, which is why I love the temple so much. Anyway, the main reason we went to the temple was to see my ward! I know, most of you might think that this is crazy, but my ward from Saudi Arabia came to Kyiv for their yearly temple trip, and with the permission of my wonderful mission president, I had the opportunity to go there and give them a short fireside and catch up with them for a few minutes. I ended up giving a fireside on how we can build our foundation on Jesus Christ and it seemed like people enjoyed it, at least people didn't fall asleep during the fireside. It was nice to share some mission experiences and then answer some questions that they had about missionary work. Honestly, it was kind of weird to see so many people that I know and love, also people didn't call me Elder McGrath, they just said Jake, or Elder Jake and that was really weird. I haven't heard my first name in sooooo long and everyone just called me that haha. But it was 100% worth the two 12 hour train rides to and from Chernivtsi. All in all, such a great trip out to Kyiv. 

Ok, now on to the other big news. We received transfer calls and it looks like I'll be leaving Chernivtsi next week. I found out that I'm going to Lutsk and I'll be the District Leader there and serve with Elder Holden. If you remember, when I served in Rivne, I had the chance to visit Lutsk a few times because Lutsk is only an hour and a half away from Rivne. So I'm going back up to the northern part of Ukraine and I'm super pumed!! Lutsk is such a nice city and the branch there is just awesome. It's known for having the most youth in Western Ukraine and I'm excited to get to know all of them. I don't know much about Elder Holden, he started his mission when Elder Tuttle did, so he just finished his training and it should be good service with him, I get to be his greenie-buster. Elder Taran and Tuttle will be staying here and guess who will take my spot, Elder Matua. So all three of my sons (trainees) are going to be serving together right here in Chernivtsi. Oh how interesting that will be. 

Anyhow, the rest of my week was good too. We had some really good lessons, did some finding, and had a good church service on Sunday. I had the chance to bear my testimony for my last week in Chernivtsi, and it was pretty sad. Even though I was only here for two transfers, I have really grown to love the members and people here in general. But that's how missionary work is, I'm excited for the future and it should be good. One other cool experience really quick. We have an investigator named Andriy and this week, we taught him the third lesson, The Gospel of Jesus Christ and it went awesome! At the end, I actually invited him to be baptized on April 6th and he said yes!! Super good, we set a baptismal date with him and now we just gotta keep working and helping him come closer to Christ and keep all the commandments. Such a good week and so much happened. Anyway, next week will be from a new city. Have a great week all and talk to you later.

Старійшина McGrath

Helaman 5:12 read and ponder these words, how can you build your foundation on Jesus Christ

Cool view in Chern

Cool church in Chernivtsi

Ukrainian treats after my fireside

Youth group at the temple!!!

 President and Sister Serafim

Super good family here in Chernivtsi 

Ice skating today for P-day

With the youth groupppp

Teaching the Firesideee

Knocking on the Window (Week Сімдесят дев'ять)

Well, another solid week in the books, pretty crazy how fast time flies when you're a missionary. It was a pretty normal missionary week if I may say as well. The biggest thing that happened was exchanges with the elders from K-town. I had the chance to serve with Elder Swasey for a day and it was very, very interesting. It didn't really turn out how we had planned it, we had set up a few lessons, but every single lesson that we had set up, dogged us so that was a bit hard. So that meant that Elder Swasey and I were out hitting the streets contacting in the cold weather. At one point, some guy was staring at our name-tags and usually people don't like to talk when they see our name tags, but I went up to him and we actually had a super good conversation and I wrote down his number and he was interested in meeting later, so that was a nice tender mercy. 

One other interesting, funny story happened that night. Elder Swasey and I stopped by a members house and they didn't open up, so we thought, ok, why are we here? Why did God lead us here? So we said a quick prayer and we both felt like we needed to tract a building not from from the stop-by. So we went up to a building and we see through a window a younger guy sitting there doing some homework, and in his apartment were a few pictures of Jesus, so we thought, ok, this is a perfect apartment building to tract. So we started from the top and worked our way down to the last apartment where the young guy was at. We knocked, and guess what, he didn't answer. So we started to leave and we passed by his window again and Elder Swasey said, "hey, we should just knock on his window." After a quick prayer to see whether or not that was a good idea, we knocked, and he quickly left and turned off the lights in the room. We turned around to leave, but as we did, he came outside and apparently he was open to talking for a bit. So we had a good conversation and even though he wasn't interested, it was still a good contact. As for now though, Elder Swasey and I planted a very big seed for future missionaries by knocking on his window to talk about our message and Jesus Christ. All in all, a great exchange and learned a lot from Elder Swasey.

Our pool of investigators is growing week by week, and now we had double digit investigators which is awesome! This past week we found three new people to work with and one of them is really cool. A couple of weeks ago, I was going through our area book calling some former investigators up, and I come across a guy named Ivan. He was originally taught by missionaries eleven years ago, and so I decided, why not give him a call to see if he'd still be interested in meeting. Guess what, after trying to set up a lesson a few times, we finally met this past week. He's really nice, we met in his apartment, and he even gave us some sweets. He talked about the missionaries that he met with the first time and all I could say was that I was 10 years old when that happened haha. But we ended up teaching him a restoration lesson to help refresh his memory and he has a desire to read the Book of Mormon, so that's a really good sign. 

Another investigator we're teaching now is named Andriy lifts, because he's a body builder and his biceps are bigger than my head. This past week, we had a really good Plan of Salvation lesson with him and he really enjoyed it. He said that he might bring his wife onto the next lesson, which would be great because we know that the gospel is centered on families! In short, got some good investigators and I love having the opportunity to teach and meet with them weekly.

The rest of the week was good. The weather was all over the place and it was hard to choose what coat I wanted to wear for that day. We did a lot of contacting, teaching, and all the other normal missionary things that people do. Such a great week and today for P-day, we took a tour of the Chernivtsi National University, which looks like Hogwarts. Super cool and I'll attach some pics! What a great week and I'm excited for the next one!

Старійшина McGrath

Alma 20:4 read and ponder these words, anything is possible with the Lord

View from our church building

With Swasey on exchanges 

English Practice speed dating haha

 Finding activity picture (What is Charity?) 

University picc

Lighting a candle, for the experience

University Pic