The Ukrainian Bear: June 17th-24th

Hello Family and Friends!!!

What an awesome week. We were very busy this past week.So I heard a little about the big broadcast yesterday. I just got the highlights of it. We are going to watch it soon. They already translated it so we will watch it this week with the whole branch! I am really excited about everything that is happening with missionary work. It is so awesome that they are pushing so hard to get the members involved. I have seen first hand here in Bila Tserkva how important the members are. They members here are amazing. Our branch president has brought like 30 people into this branch. Almost every lesson we have had so far we have had a member present. They are so willing to help and they are just so awesome. Every Thursday we do splits with the members. We set up two lessons and then always like 8 members show up and we go on splits with them and go teach lessons. It is so amazing and I know that with the members help the church is going to continue to grow like crazy!

Well this week was so crazy. Monday was P-day so we just did the normal stuff. We then had a lesson set up for monday night and of course we had a member there to help and then we got dogged. The man didnt show up and his phone was off. We were sad but then the member got a call and a family asked him to come over and give the mom a blessing. He asked us to go so we did. It was such a cool experience. Even though our lesson fell through we were still able to go and serve others.

Tuesday was the best! My companion and I had to go to Kiev for so registration stuff for Ukraine. It is about an hour and half van ride throught the farms of Ukraine. It was so much fun. I finally got to see what Kiev really looks like. We took some time out of P-day so that we could go look at some cool sights in Kiev. We went to all the famous spots and then went to this massive mall. I seriously felt like I was back in America. We did the registration stuff which took like 4 hours. It was so crazy. We then ate in the mall at Texas Chicken. It was so good and so funny to eat fried chicken. My companion also bought a new suit while we were in the mall. Kiev is seriously so cool. I hope I get to serve there. We rode the Metro a bunch. I felt like I was in New York in the Subways. The escalators down to the Metro are ridiculously huge. There is this one that is like the biggest in Europe. It was so wild. We then went to the Mission home to get mail for our district. We took some photos by the temple which is always fun. The temple is so beautiful. Kiev is so cool!!

Wednesday we had district meeting then had exchanges with the other Elders. I went with Elder Droubay for the day. He is so cool. He is from Utah and is only in his second transfer. The other Elders called us the green team. It was so funny cause both of us are so new so we cant really speak to people. The other Elders bet that we could make it a day with out calling them and we didnt! It was so funny. We were just happy that our phone never rang cause we would of been in trouble there. haha. We had english at night. It was fun. We taught the beginner class which was so funny. I know how they all feel trying to learn a new language.

So I think I already told you about the American man in our Branch named Stan. Well he lives out on a farm and asked us to come do some service for him on Thursday.We went out with the other Elders. It was like an hour bus ride on this super sketchy bus. We got there and we went to work with him. We were putting bails of hay in his trailer. We worked for a couple of hours. It was so much fun. He has so much land and a bunch of animals. We then ate some amazing food. We had some meat straight from his animals! haha. It was so delicious! Stan is so amazing. I dont have enough time to tell about him. When I get home remind me to tell you about this man. You all will be blown away. Lets just say he is the real life Jason Bourne. Thursday night we had split night. I was paired with our 2nd couselor of our Branch. We taught a man named Rooslan. We taught him the first lesson about Joseph Smith. He understood it all and said he would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. We are so excited about him. He is 19 years old and goes to school here in Bila. We are meeting with him again tomorrow. I hope things go well!!!

Well remember how I said that the Branch here is amazing. Well Friday they put on a big branch soccer and volleyball tournament. They invited us so we invited some investigators and we went. It was on this beach by a river. It was so cool and so amazing. Some of the members brought other non members so we obviously jumped all over them and talked to them! We obviously got destroyed in soccer but we won the volleyball tournament. It was the four missionaries on the team. We then ate some lunch and it was some good reall Ukrainian food. Lots of Kubasa!!! Friday night we went to visit an active member. She was so nice and told us her conversion story. It was so so crazy. She is so amazing. We then asked her to try and share the Gospel with her friends. We did a role play with her and she did awesome! She told us she would do her best!!

Saturday was pretty basic. We did lots of walking around and talking to people. WE found some nice people and got their information. We had English club and after English I gave the spiritual thought in Russian. It was so scary but it was pretty cool. We had youth night and we played a bunch of water games with the branch. It was way fun and we had a good turnout of nonmembers!!

Sunday was amazing as always. I just love going to church here. THe branch is so nice and they just love the missionaries. ForSunday dinner we went to the 1st counselor of the branch presidencies house for dinner. He is so cool. We taught them a short lesson then talked about them sharing the Gospel. THey are already very good at it. Oh and I forgot to mention that while at church in Elder Quorum. The Elders Quorum president challeged everyone by next Sunday to come to church with at least one name or family that they could give to us Elders to go and contact. I am so happy about this. It makes such a big difference when you can teach a lesson to a members friend and have that member present.

Well overall it was a pretty busy and fun week. They work is amazing as always here in Ukraine. The church is growning. Remember Sergey the man I told you about that I taught with Elder Quinn about not smoking. Well he is getting baptized on Saturday! I cant wait. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Help the missionaries. It is the greatest way to help people to come into the church. I love you all. THanks for the support and emails.

Love

Elder Grochmal.