Warm Week in Lutskkk (Week Вісімдесят сім)

Well, another good week in the books in Lutsk. It was a pretty normal missionary week, but one of the best things is that the weather is really starting to warm up, and on Friday I even went out and street contacted without a coat on which is the best. That means that summer is coming and the best time to do missionary work, in my opinion, is almost here. But this week, we had a few good things happen. First of all, Happy Easter!!! Honestly, we didn't do too much for it, since Easter is technically next week for people here in Ukrainian, so next week we'll for sure do some more things. Anyway, if you remember, this past Christmas season, the Church invited each member to bring a friend to church on the 23rd of December and there would be a special one hour Church service focused on Jesus Christ and his life. Well, that went super well here in Eastern Europe, so the Eastern European territory decided to do that again and yesterday was the special one hour church service focused on the atonement of Jesus Christ. I honestly didn't expect a ton of people to show up, mainly because yesterday was also elections here in Ukraine, and that's all that people talk about nowadays, but we ended up having 47 people show up to church!! FOURTY SEVEN people haha that was a miracle!! Usually we got in the high twenties or low thirties, but yesterday was amazing!!! The talks on the atonement were wonderful and the youth here in Lutsk actually all came together and had a special musical number which was beautiful. We had every active member there, many, many less actives there, and even a few couples that our wonderful members invited. As we talked to the guests after the church service we were able to to get to know them better and they all seemed to enjoy the service. Hopefully we can start to teach some of the families and they have a desire to return to church this next week. Honestly, such a miracle to see the sacrament room that full!! Nothing better than that, the spirit was just so strong!!

Other than that, this past week we had a wonderful lesson with Oleksandr this past week. If you remember, last week we were able to set a baptismal date with him and so this week we decided to start teaching him the commandments. This past week, we focused on the ten commandments and the Sabbath Day in order for him to see the importance of coming to church every week. Unfortunately, he couldn't visit church yesterday because he had to go to the hospital, but he said that next week he would make it for sure. Anyway, the lesson was pretty dang good, mostly because it was a member present and for sure the best member present on my mission. The member that actually helped us out was President Didushok. He's actually the President of the Ukraine L'viv District and luckily, he lives right here in Lutsk. He has such a strong testimony and as the lesson was coming to close, he just started to really connect with Oleksandr, and he shared his conversion story with him. They talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and how Oleksandr can gain that firm testimony of the truthfulness of the book. All in all, Oleksandr is doing great and still on track for his date, we're planning on meeting with him again soon and talking to him more!!

Anyhow, the rest of the week went fine. We had lessons with our other investigators. Most of the rest of them aren't making too big of progress at the moment, but some of them have some solid potential. We did a good amount of contacting this past week too, nothings better than contacting when the sun's out and the weather is fine. Anyhow, a pretty solid week!! Have a great week everyone and I hope that you enjoyed the Easter Season. Remember the true meaning of Easter!! 

Старійшина McGrath

D&C 20:23-25 read and ponder these words. Easter is all about JESUS CHRISTT

With Elder Holden

Haircut here!! 

Supermarket here in Ukraine 

Church in Center 

selfie with a restaurant named Jake 

Exchanges and Datess!! (Week Вісімдесят шість)

Well, this was a pretty great week if I may say so myself. We had a few good things going on and it's always good to be a missionary. One bigger thing that we had this week was exchanges with the zone leaders. We had the great chance to head to L'viv and serve with the zone leaders for a day. They're pretty great missionaries and I had the chance to serve with Elder Cluff for another day. We had a pretty good and normal day full of teaching, finding, and studies. We had two lessons, one with a member and the other with one of their investigators. We actually stopped by the members work and talked to him there. There we had a really good discussion about church. We planned on reading some from Moroni six, and when we opened up to that chapter, he told us that he literally had read that chapter just a few days ago. So instead of us just teaching him about the chapter, we had a great discussion where we discussed the importance of church and why we need to partake of the sacrament every single week. He's got such a strong testimony and it ended up being such a good lesson with him. Other than that, Elder Cluff hit the pavement a lot that day and street contacted for a while, and I was able to have some good conversations with people. It's always super fun serving with Elder Cluff and a I learned a lot from him.

Anyway, we had a really cool experience as well before we headed off to L'viv. We met with one of our investigators named Oleksandr, and we had a super good Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson with him. In this lesson, we talk about the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, you know like faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. Well, up to this point, we hadn't talked a ton about baptism with him, but this lesson Elder Holden and I decided to bring it up and even try to set a date with him. Guess what?! He accepted it, which is pretty awesome, so right now we have a baptismal date with him for May 25th. Now we just got to help him be ready for that date and help him get that firm testimony of the Book of Mormon. But the lesson was super great and I really felt the Holy Ghost during that lesson. I love being a missionary during these times!!

Anyhow, on Friday transfer calls came and nothing changed in our district. I'll still be with Elder Holden for another transfer and the sisters are still gonna be together as well. I'm pretty excited about that, the district is pretty grand and I see some great potential here in Lutsk, things are looking up! This weekend was General Conference week here in Ukraine. So we gathered together on Saturday and Sunday and watched General Conference together in Ukrainian. It was kind of sad because on Saturday we only had one member show up, but on Sunday thankfully we had a lot more people show up. But it was nice to sit there and listen to our prophets and apostles. It was also nice to see how much my Ukrainian has improved, because if I listened I could understand most of what they were talking about which is pretty great. Even last conference it was still super hard for me to understand at times. But I really liked all the talks and grateful for the fact that today we had Prophets and Apostles that can literally receive revelation from our Heavenly Father. All in all, not a bad week at all. Other than what I've talked about, we had some other lessons with other investigators. We found another new investigator named George. His favorite sport is speed-walking, so it was pretty interesting to hear about that haha. We had some good contacting sessions and the weather is getting better. Have a great week all and talk to you guys later!

Старійшина McGrath

Moroni 6:5-6 Read and ponder these words, why do we go to Church?

A good park here in Lutskkk

Nice pic of Lutsk

Exchanges with Elder Cluffchik 

With some super good members here in Lutsk

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