June 10th-17th

Hello Family and Friends!! 

Well It has been a good week. It definitely has had its ups and downs. I am getting used to living over her for sure. The first two weeks were defiantly culture shock but I feel alot more adjusted to my new life over here! I am falling in love with this country and the people. Ukraine is so awesome and just so different than anything I have ever experienced. The way people live here is crazy but so interesting and I am starting to love it and understand it. The church here is amazing. I know I have mentioned this before but the branch here in Bila Tserkva is absolutely amazing! It is full of super active families which is not common here in Ukraine. It is so much fun. Yesterday at church we were singing and I was just looking around and I just felt so good and felt like I was at home. The members here just love the missionaries and are so nice to us. They feed us all the time and will do anything to help us. It is so amazing because basically every single one of them is a convert because the church is so new here. They all have the most amazing stories of how they joined the church. I seriously love it here so much. Also it is so beautiful here. We have this massive park right next to our apartment. It is super famous. It is called Park Alexandria. We got running in it all the time. It is like Yorba Regional park but way way better. It has a massive river running through it and all these super old statues and monuments!! So my week went a little like this: 

 Last monday was Elder Quinns birthday. He is one of the other elders here in Bila. We went out to lunch with him cause it was P-day. We then just went to the church and played some ping-pong. P-day ended and we went to a family's house for dinner. They are so amazing. They have 4 kids and the mom is pregnant. They fed us Perogies! Well here in Ukraine they are Verenikey! They had strawberries in them and but some amazing cream sauce on top! We then shared a lesson with them and were on our way. 

Tuesday we had district meeting in the morning which is always amazing! After that we start another exchange because my companion need to go with the other elders in a city hours away. I got paired with Elder Quinn again for a day! It was so awesome! He is so amazing and knows so much. It is pretty funny cause he is 21 and I am only 18!! haha. We had a lesson to teach one of his investigators. We taught him the Word of Wisdom. He has no issues except that he smokes about 20 cigaretts a day! He told us that he would stop because he knows he needs to. We had a member with us who is a recent convert that had to quit smoking. He told Sergey that it is possible to quit and you just have to do it. Sergey hasnt smoked since and was at church on Sunday and was just so happy. They committed to baptism June 29!! I am so happy for him and for the other Elders here. Tuesday night we went to a recent converts house. We shared a lesson and we were about to leave and they were like wait lets eat some food. They fed us sooooo much food. It was so amazing but the best part was the Verenikey (perogies). 

Not much happened on Wednesday. We had English club. It was so cool. We had 26 people show up! I taught the beginners class with Elder Quinn. It was so fun. We got a few people numbers so we hope to meet with a couple this week. We already set up a lesson on Wednesday with a guy from english. English club is so awesome and so effective. We get so many people coming and usually they all stay for the spiritual thaught after. We always mingle with them after to ask how it was and they always say they loved it. It is such a good experience! 

On Thursday we went to a recent converts house to teach her a lesson and then she fed us. It was my first time have real Ukrainian Borsch! It was so amazing! She is such a good cook. It was so hot outside and then she fed us this burning hot Borsch! I was full sweat! It was so hot in the house also! So we were walking home on thursday night and some man yelled to us do you speak russian? My companion was like of course then he came over and started talking and we started talking about the church. His friend then came over who was part of the Army. They were totally drunk and just wanted to bash us. My companion told them about our church and they were going crazy. They were talking so much smack on us and on America. We then just tried to leave and they kept going off. We finally got away from them. It was a pretty scary and crazy moment. 

On Friday something really funny happened. So we had a mans number in our phone under potential investigator. We called him and set up with him at the church at 4. We got to the church at about 3:45 and we found the other Elders there. Elder Quinn said to us you didnt happen to see a Meesha out there did you. I looked at my companion and we were so confused cause the man we set up with was also named Meesha. We looked at them and were what we are meeting with a Meesha at 4. Then they were like we are meeting a Meesha and 3:30. We pulled out our phones to compare numbers to see if it was the same guy. It totally was the same guy. He was confused and just said yes to both of us not realizing there is 4 of us here. So we actually just left and let the other Elders teach him. 

We didnt do much saturday. We just did a whole lot of contacting and tracting. We werent that succesful. We also had English which was good. We then had youth night for the branch. So we showed up and went out back where the basketball hoop is and there were some guys playing. We asked them to play a little pick up game. They accepted and we played. It was so awesome. I never thought I would get to play some pick up basketball with a bunch of Ukrainians! It was so awesome and felt so cool. Definently a once in a life time opportunity to play with them. 

Sunday was very good as always. We showed up and the branch president pulled me and my companion aside. He asked us to give him a blessing! It was so amazing. The spirit was so strong and it was so cool to participate in my first Russian blessing!! We had an awesome sacrament meeting. We had about 85 people there. Our branch once again is just so amazing!!! 

Well overall it was a good week. We definitely had some struggles. We were only able to teach one lesson but we already have 3 scheduled for this week. Not many people talked to us on the streets but when they did it was so awesome. I love being a missionary here in Ukraine. I know that I am called to serve here for a reason. The people here are so amazing and so unique. I know that through these tough weeks that the Lord will help and stregthen me. I learned so much this week. I love being a missionary so bad. Well I love you all so much. Thank you for all the support and love. Hope you all have a great week! 

Love 

Elder Grochmal 

English Club!

Ryan obviously carries this pic around with him :)

Pictures of Bila!

Sunday lunch...homeade bun! So good 

SKATEPARK! 

A Ukrainian basketball hoop haha