Back to Good Old Rivne (Week Дев'яносто шість)

Well, another good week in the books. I swear the weeks are getting faster and faster. I can't believe that I only have five more weeks as a full-time missionary, that's pretty crazy to me. But this past was pretty great if I may say. The biggest thing was probably our trip back to Rivne. Our district actually consists of all four missionaries here in Lutsk and the two elders in Rivne, so since I'm the district leader, I have the wonderful opportunity to have an exchange in Rivne and we went this past week for it. It kind of felt weird to go back to the city that I served in for seven transfers, but it kind of felt like going home haha, I knew everything. It was pretty funny, the apartment is about ten minutes away from the Church, and as we were walking home the day before the exchange, I actually saw two people that I taught in Rivne, so it was nice to talk to them for a few minutes. 

All in all though, it was a solid exchange, I had the chance to serve with Elder Howard for a day, he's a pretty good missionary. During the day, we met with three different members and they were all excited to see me, so we spent a good amount of time catching up with them. Man, I love all the members in Rivne, they're just the best. To finish off the exchange there, we did something pretty fun and something I've never done on my mission yet. We went out with a grandma here in Rivne that's a member to a water source and got some water for her. That was fun, we took a bucket and scooped some water for her, then we took it back to her apartment for her, she was very grateful for the help. In short, another good and successful exchange, I learned a lot and I hope that Elder Howard learned a thing or two from me.

Another cool thing this past week was that we went out to a village on Sunday to teach a new investigator. I  contacted him outside about a month ago and we were finally able to coordinate a time to meet up, and so Sunday after church, we headed out to a village about 30 minutes away from Lutsk and we finally got to his little village name Kivertsi. His name is Serhi and he's a stud, we met and he fed us some super good food and then we were able to talk about religion for about an hour and a half. We ended up teaching pretty much the entire restoration lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon and now we just gotta hope that he ends up reading it. We're planning on going back next week to go and teach him the Plan of Salvation and that always is a super solid lesson. Plus, he's got a family, so we're hoping in the future that we can go and teach the entire family, that would be ideal. Anyhows, I just love teaching new investigators, there's always just so much potential, now they just got to take that next step and read and pray about the Book of Mormon, then they'll for sure gain that solid testimony of the truth of it. 

Well, the rest of the week was successful though, we did a lot of finding, taught some of our other investigators. We finished teaching all the commandments to Bohdan and he keeps on accepting all of it, seems like a pretty golden investigator that really likes reading the Book of Mormon. He still hasn't made it to church though, so that kind of stinks. We're gonna have to push back his baptismal date, but it should be good, he'll get baptized one day. Church this past week was good, I got the chance to lead it again, so that's always an interesting experience. All in all glad to be a missionary and another good week. Can't wait for this next one!

Старійшина McGrath

2 Nephi 25:26 read and ponder these words. Everything is related to JESUS CHRIST!!!

Selfie with Matviy and my D-Backs hattt

With Elder Howard on Exchanges

Using the Water source

Selfie at the water source 

Selfie with Trokhymenko 

 Bus to the Village

Warm Days and Service (Week Дев'яносто п'ять)

Well, today was an interesting day, since we went out to a village today and did a few other things, I might not have the most time to write today, so I'm pretty sure that this is my only email of the day, so, sorry if I don't write to you, I love you all. But this past week was pretty great. We had a few good things go on. First of all, we went out and did some service twice this past week. The first one was for a member here in Lutsk, we helped in her garden and ended up digging a whole lot. That was some good exercise and reminded me of my concrete days some time ago. Our other service was actually for the local Orthodox Church here in Lutsk. Every day we pass by the Church in order to get to our Church (the True One) and right now they're actually remodeling the front of the church. So most of the time when we pass by they'll try to stop us and tell us that we should help them because we're here as Church Volunteers, and most of the time we can't because we don't have enough time. But finally we showed up to the church and we helped them for about an hour. The face they made when we showed up was priceless too, because they were 100% not expecting it. We ended up just cleaning up after them and doing all the little dirty work that they didn't want to do, that also somehow reminded me of my concrete days haha. But it was good to build relations with them, and the local priest actually came out and talked to us for a bit, so it was nice to build that solid relationship with them.

Anyhow, also this past week we had exchanges here in Lutsk. Since the Elders in Rivne are also part of our district now, they came over here to Lutsk for the day and I had the chance to serve with Elder Thornton for a day. He's a pretty cool Elder thats been on his mission for about 5 months now, so he just finished his training. Also, he's from Australia, so that was even a bit cooler haha, but it was nice to serve with him and he taught me a lot and I hope that I was able to teach him a thing or two over the day that we spent together. On exchanges, we had a good finding activity where we put some questions on the soul on a board and then went out and started to talk to people about that. We had some good people stop and we ended up having solid conversations and people became interested in the Book of Mormon and how that can help us find answers to any questions that we may have. 

Well, to finish off a few updates. The crazy guy here in Lutsk that thinks that he's the Messiah, somehow jumped through an open window in the basement and then locked the front door with a rope so that we couldn't get in. Luckily, there is another entrance to the church here, so we opened it and had to kick him out, that was quite the experience. The man is harmless and all, but sometimes he can say or do some very interesting things. Finally, the update on our investigator with a baptismal date, Bohdan, he's still progressing. We had a few more lessons with him and he accepts everything that we say, plus he has already finished the first two books of Nephi, so he's been reading a good amount. Now, just gotta get him to Church this next week, then everything will be fine and dandy. Well, that was it, have a great week all and talk to you later!!

Старійшина McGrath

Jeremiah 1:5 read and ponder these verses, God knew us before this lifeeeeee

Lutsk Castle

Nice viewwww 

Exchangessss (Me, Trokdymenko, Thornton, Howard, McKell, Clark) 

Selfie with a  nice vieww 

The Dubno castle with everyone today

District jump...we tried at least 15 times and we could never get us all in the air

Mexican Party 3.0 (Week Дев'яносто чот

Well, another good week in the books. I know that this week was pretty good because I got home on Sunday night and all that I wanted to do was sleep, I was so tired. But I like that feeling, I know that I worked hard and gave it my all, which in missionary work, is the most important thing. But this past week, we had a few good things go on. First of all, as you call see in the title, we had another branch activity this past weekend, it was actually another Mexican Night. This was actually the third time that I've done a party like this, and every time it turns out a bit different. This party actually turned out pretty successful, we had over 20 people show up and the food that we cooked turned out super good. It really helped that the sisters helped us cook and that one of the sisters here actually loves cooking, so she had a really good time on Saturday just making a bunch of food. But yeah, it almost felt like we were back in America eating at Cafe Rio, so people enjoyed themselves. We also did some just dance, just like most parties now, and that was quite the hit. My favorite part was when our district president went crazy over a Michael Jackson song that we put on. Usually he is pretty serious, but when Thriller came out, he jumped out of his seat and did just about every Michael Jackson move that he could, it was pretty funny and cool to see. My favorite part of the party was the piñata though. Our branch president was in charge of the piñata and it turned out suuuupppper poor haha. When he showed up with the piñata, they were too heavy to actually stay up on the rope. What I mean is that when we stuck the first piñata up on the rope, literally the rope broke the first time someone hit it, that was pretty funny, they tried like 5 different ways to get the piñata to stay on the rope, but literally nothing worked. So that was a big bust, but it was fun to watch. All in all, a really good evening, lots of preparations, but worth it for sure. 

Other than that, the week was pretty normal. We had a few finding activities where we talked a lot about English Practice and then yesterday we had a book stand with The Book of Mormon in a bunch of different languages. Then we had people come up and try to guess which language the book was written in. Then it was pretty easy to go from that to talking about the Book of Mormon and how that has blessed my life. I quite enjoyed that finding activity, mainly because I had never done an activity like that before. This past week we were able to meet with a few of our investigators. Bohdan, who has the baptismal date is doing good. This past week, he read The Book of Mormon every single day and liked it a lot. We met with him twice and covered some commandments. Honestly, he's super golden, we covered the Word of Wisdom this past week and literally accepted everything and said that he would live it and stop drinking coffee and tea. So that was pretty good to see. Now, the next biggest, and maybe the hardest step for him is coming to church on Sunday, really got to get him there if he wants to get baptized. We had a few investigators promise us that they would come to church on Sunday and none of them came, that's always super sad to see and hear. But hey I did my part, I can't force anyone to come to church, all I can do is invite and talk about the blessings that they can receive from coming to church. 

Well, another good week in the books. Another fun thing that we did this past week was service. The funny part was when the car of our Branch President started to die. Literally three times on the way to service the starter stopped working. So Elder T and I had to jump out the car and push it to get it to work again. The hardest part was when we were in the middle of an intersection and we had to do that haha, that was interesting, first time I've done that on my mission. The weather is warm and I'm on my last few weeks. Excited to work hard this next week and invite everyone to come unto Christ. I know that this work is the most important thing that I could be doing and God has a plan for me here in Lutsk. Have a great everyone, and talk to you later!

Старійшина McGrath

3 Nephi 4:33 read and ponder these words. Be humble and recognize that everything that you have is from GOD!!

Service selfie 

Food at the Mexican Party

Selfie at the Mexican Night

Piñata at mexican party

Selfe because I don't have enough pictures this week haha

Hugs and Kisses (Week Дев'яносто три)

Well, transfer weeks are always good and interesting. It's always weird waking up with a new person, it's even weirder to think that Elder Trokhymenko will be my last companion. I think that it'll be a pretty fun transfer too. Elder T (probably will just refer to him as that now since him name is so long to write,) is pretty cool, the past few days haven't been bad with him. I don't really remember if I talked about him in my last email, but I'll mention it again, he's from Kyiv and he's been on his mission for about a year and a half now. He was actually called to the Romania/Moldova Mission, but when the missions combined, he was thrown back into the Ukraine mission and has been bouncing around cities in Ukraine for the last half-year. Since he's from Kyiv, he can speak both Ukrainian and Russian, but he's been trying to keep some clean Ukrainian here in Lutsk. Plus I'm looking out for him, every time that he says a Russian word, I'll call him out for it haha, I don't know whether or not he likes that, but someone has got to keep him from speaking Russian, right? 

Anyway, the week was pretty interesting. Since it was transfers, I went to L'viv to drop my man Elder Holden off, and then wait for Elder Trokhymenko to show up. That's where all the hugs come in, saying goodbye and hello to missionaries. It was nice to go back to L'viv and all, but the hardest thing is to just avoid spending a ton of money, and I didn't succeed in that at all. Going to two restaurants in one day doesn't help with that either haha. Finally though, Elder T showed up and we were able to head back to the wonderful city of Lutsk.

We had a few good things go on in Lutsk this past week. We met with Bohdan again. If you remember him, last week, Elder Holden and I actually taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson to him and he accepted a baptismal date for July 13. So this past week we had another super good lesson with him, talking about the importance of reading and praying every day and how that can and will bless his life. He told us a few good things that I want to mention. First of all, for only like the third time on my mission or something like that, after we asked Bohdan if he had read the Book of Mormon or not, he told us that he had read and prayed about it, and then he told us that he knows that the Book is TRUEE!!! WOOoow, that's just the greatest feeling in the world, when somebody actually follows through on their commitments and they receive an answer!! I just wanted to go up to him and hug and kiss him, but thankfully I didn't do that, that'd be pretty weird and I'm pretty sure that if I did that he'd run away and we wouldn't see him again. So I forced myself to sit down and just express my excitement with words. Also, he told us at the end how he was feeling the Holy Ghost during the lesson. Man, Bohdan is super awesome and prepared to receive the gospel. I'm super grateful for the opportunity that I've had to teach him and help him find more joy through the gospel. Pray that he keeps progressing!!

The rest of the week was fine. We did some contacting, taught some other lessons, ate some good food, and starting adjusting to this new companionship. We also had a cool finding activity about what question you would ask God. Answers to that were all over the place, always a new experience, right? Church was good as always. I got stuck leading again, so that always interesting, always a stressful experience to lead Church in a language that you don't know perfectly. But it went well and I'm glad to be a missionary. The weather is hot and sunny and I wore shorts today for P-day, what could be better? Have a great week everyone and talk to you all later!! 

Старійшина McGrath

1 Nephi 10:20-22 read and ponder these words. Bohdan loved these verses when he read them. 

               The bus ride to Lutsk, super green

With Elder T, the new comp

 View from our Apartment in the summer!

Selfie on Walking Street

P-day selfie with everyone!!

 L'viv chocolate factoryyyyy

The Beginning Of The End (Week Дев'яносто два)

Another transfer come and gone. Now, on to the final transfer of my mission, crazy how fast the mission has gone by. Luckily though, this is going to be a longer transfer, nine weeks actually instead of just six. We're having a longer transfer because the entire Eastern Europe wants to be on the same schedule, and instead of having a mini-three week transfer, President Kumferman just decided to have a longer nine week transfer. But yeah, since the transfer just finished this past week, it also means that transfer calls have come as well and it was an interesting. Since we're having such a long transfer, President Kumferman decided to have every single companionship in our zone change. So sad to say, Elder Holden is leaving Lutsk and heading to L'viv. My final companion will actually be a Ukrainian. His name is Elder Troxymenko. He's from Kyiv and has been on his mission for a year and a half now, so it should be a pretty good transfer, I'm pretty excited for it. One other interesting thing about transfers, Elder Matua, my first kid (trainee) just made it to be a zone leader, so that's pretty great, I'm a pretty proud dad haha.

Other than that, the week was pretty grand. This week was actually zone conference week too, so that meant that we traveled to L'viv, had interviews with President Kumferman and then zone conference on Friday. Both went pretty good, always learn a ton from both of those. This past conference, President Kumferman decided to focus a lot of the Plan of Salvation and how we can better teach that to our investigators and it was pretty awesome. We went to some deep doctrine at times and that confused the heck out of me, but I did learn some new things. We talked at one point about the difference between Translation, Transfiguration, and Resurrection, that was super interesting, I encourage you guys to think about that and find some examples of each of them. Anyhow, then on Sunday, we had an interesting day as well. It was actually Branch conference, so that was pretty stressful, luckily I didn't have to lead church that week. This was actually the one time of the year that President Kumferman travels us to Lutsk and he had a good time. He really enjoyed the branch and the conference was a big success. President gave a wonderful talk and even though he can only speak Russian, I understood pretty much all of it. I did confirm one thing though, Ukrainian is for sure better than Russian, without a doubt haha. It was weird to hear all the members speak Russian to President instead of Ukrainian, but all in all, the week was a success. 

Finally, one little story to finish off the week. We had a super good lesson with one of our investigators named Bohdan. He's doing super good and he's reading the Book of Mormon and has a good desire to find out if the Book is true or not. This past week, we decided to teach him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was awesome. We invited him to be baptized and he really thought about it for a minute, then just game the best/funniest response ever. He asked, "tonight?" haha we all kind of had a good laugh there, but that kind of shows his desire, and in the end we set a baptismal date for him for July 13, hopefully all goes well with that and he continues to accept the gospel. All in all, we did everything this week, contact, teach, learn, and crack some good jokes. Always wonderful to be a missionary, can't wait for another good week.

Старійшина McGrath

Ether 12:27 read and ponder these words, we all have weaknesses

                     With some great members!!

Arm wrestling with the Branch President during FHE

Branch Partyyy

Best district in the mishhh

Lunch with the Branchhh

Warmer and Warmest (Week Дев'яносто один)

Well, this was a pretty good week, not too much happened this past week, we worked hard and had what you can call an average missionary week of finding, teaching, and hopefully we'll be doing some baptizing soon. This past week we had some good success finding some new investigators and we were able to find three new, good investigators. One of our new investigators we met on Sunday at a Library. He only had like thirty to minutes to meet and talk, but we were able to have a good conversation about why we're here on a mission, how the Gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed my life, and we even talked some about the restoration of the Gospel. Near the end of the conversation, we started to talk about the church in Lutsk, and he expressed a desire to come to Church this next Sunday and he wanted to invite his wife to come as well, and then they'd come as a family. That'd be super cool if he did that!! Anyhow, also we had a lesson with one of our newer investigators named Ivan. This past week, we had a good plan of salvation lesson with him where we used a diagram to show him the plan of salvation and he really accepted it. He's also started to read the Book of Mormon and he said that the Book is interesting, and we talked about Baptism at the end of the lesson and he said that if he found out that the Book of Mormon is true, he'd for sure get baptized. All in all, we're seeing some good potential here in Lutsk, and hopefully it'll keep growing and our area will continue to grow and do well.

Other than that, the weather here is getting a lot better. We've had a ton of rain recently, but it's gotten better over the past few days. I'm starting to pull out the short sleeve white shirts and we even had some fresh strawberries on Friday. I guess that you could say that Summer is pretty much in full swing now, which is amazing!! One way that we went and celebrated that was with a summer finding activity. We decided on Saturday to go out to the big park here in Lutsk and we did a chalk drawing. We drew the Plan of Salvation super big on the ground in the park and then invited people to talk about it and we were able to have some good conversations. We basically had like some 10 minute lessons with people on the street about the Plan of Salvation and how that can bless our lives. That was a pretty fun activity and it's pretty fun to draw with some chalk.

Well, nothing too much more than that this past week. For Game night this past week we watch meet the mormons with everyone, and some people really enjoyed that. We also went out today with the sisters and visited the Tunnel of Love since none of them had ever been out there before. All in all, a great week, can't wait for the next one, conference week!

Старійшина McGrath

Heleman 3:35 read and ponder these words. Humility is key!!!

 Last week's P-dayyy 

Finding Activity selfie

With comp at Tunnel of Love

Lunch with everyone 

Selfie after Finding activity 

Tunnel of Love with sisters 

Pano of the finding activity

Solid Week on the Mission (Week дев'яносто)

Wowzers, if you didn't translate the title of this email or you can't read the Celestial Language of Ukrainian, it says that I just finished week 90 on my mission. You know, time really does fly by on the mission, you don't realize how true that it until you serve one. But anyhow, this past week was pretty good. The weather was kind of all over the place, on Tuesday, it was cold and rainy, and then the very next day was super sunny and hot. That continued for a few days until Saturday when we were doing a finding activity in Center on the Plan of Salvation, when it started raining on and off for most of the day. There were even times when it started raining when there wasn't clouds in the sky, I don't understand that at all. Apparently, they call that "Blind Rain" here in Ukraine, so that's pretty interesting. 

Anyway, some good things are going on here in Lutsk. Sadly, first of all, we were unable to meet with Oleksandr this past week due to the fact that he's working a lot right now and he doesn't have a ton of time. But he tells us that he still wants to meet and find out more about our church and the Book of Mormon, so we'll keep trying with him. This past week, we were actually able to find a few new investigators this past week, so that's good. The first one is a college student here in Lutsk. We started out talking a little more about English and he seemed more interested in that, but we were able to transition well into the Gospel and it sparked a good interest in him and he really liked the idea of the Book of Mormon. He said that he's super interested and that he'll "definitely" read the Book of Mormon, so far so good with my man. Also, this past week we were able to have a first lesson with someone from English Practice. He's been coming for a few weeks and he's a nice grandpa. He really likes radios and talked to us for about 20 minutes about that and how they work, but after that we turned it into the gospel and he too had a desire to find out more about the restoration of the Gospel. So things are looking good here in Lutsk, we just gotta get some investigators to sacrament meeting now.

Ok, now onto a funny story, at least I thought that this was funny. So sometimes, as missionaries, we'll do something called area book finding. That means that we'll sit down with our area book, and call a bunch of former investigators that stopped investigating for various reasons. Sometimes people need more time or weren't ready at that specific time, so it's good to go back sometimes and call formers. So, me and my companion were doing that and for Elder Holden, it can sometimes be hard to talk on the phone, mostly because he's only in his 4th transfer and the phone conversations can sometimes be hard to understand. But he grabbed a former and started to call a man named Oleksandr. But, when he called, a women answered and he started to freak out and didn't know what exactly to say. So he introduces himself and asks if Oleksandr is there. The women says yes. Now this next question is important because he could ask many different things, but he's still kind of freaking out and he decided to ask this question to the women, "Are you him?" ahhaa I started laughing pretty hard, that was pretty funny, really made my night. Needless to say, she didn't seem that interested afterwards haha. 

Other than that, the week was pretty normal. We actually also went out and did some service for a less active member on Wednesday. We basically fertilized the ground for her, dug a ton for her. That was pretty fun, I always like doing some service for people and now that the weather is warming up too, we should be doing some more service soon, that's awesome. Anyway, the rest of the week was good, had some other lessons, did some contacting, and I got to lead church again, always good and stressful haha. All in all, not a bad week at all. Have a great one, talk to you all later. 

Старійшина McGrath

Alma 36: 20-21 Read and ponder these verses, look at the power of repentance!!

Serviceeee

Our Branch President doing pushups after he lost a table tennis tournament

Greeneesss 

Selfie in the park

Mall here in Lutsk

Train station here