The Ukrainian Bear

August 19th-25th

Hello Family and Friends!!

Well my second transfer has officially ended! Today is the start of my third transfer already! I am officially not a trainee anymore!! I cant believe how fast time is flying out here in the mission field. It has been a good week this past week. We had some ups and downs as always!

So on Monday night we met with our Branch Mission Leader at his house for FHE! HE invited like 3 nonmembers and they all came. One of which was Chinese. He made us all Chinese food for dinner! It was so good! We then watch a short film with everyone about Jesus and his last few days and his Crusification. It was really good and they all enjoyed it alot. We actually got a Chinese Book of Mormon to give to the guy. He speaks Russian but he doesnt like to read in Russian!

Tuesday was good. We had our normal District Meeting in the morning. It was way fun as always. We then had a lesson with a new investigator. He is from English class. His name is Sasha! HE speaks amazing English so we teach him in English. It is very nice:). Our lesson went very good with him. He really likes our church and has read almost all of the Book of Mormon. He just has a few questions about some stuff that we are going to answer. We think we are going to have a lesson this week with him and our Mission President is going to come down and be on the lesson with us! We are way excited.

So Wednesday was awesome. So we went over to Brother Tovmash's house to do a little service and then have a spiritual thought. So when we went inside the house we realized that they had invited a friend over. He name is Looda and she is about 40. She has 3 kids. So we gave the spiritual thought and she was really interested. She was asking alot about our church and especially the Book of Mormon. So we told her and then she asked so when is your church. We told her at 11 on Sunday. She was like ok I will see you there. haha. She is way nice and is from Russian so she speaks a nice clean Russian which is nice cause we dont really get that around here. Way too much Ukrainian influence!

So on Thursday we went out to help our fellow American Stan finish up the service project. We almost finished building the roof of the house. It was way fun as always. Stan is a great man. When we got home went to meet with a member. Brother Ofechook. He is doing good. He is the one waiting to go to the temple. He has been having some struggles lately but we are helping him alot! Also on Thursday night the newest sister arrived here in Bila. She is fresh from the MTC. She is way cool and speaks Russian like a champ. So we officially have 2 Elders and 4 Sisters here! Crazy!

Friday was slow. We had weekly planning then a lesson with Natasha. She is a recent convert of like 5 months. She has been having some struggles. She called us during the week and was like I am not going to church anymore. Kinda scared us. But we met with her and everything is fine now! She is doing good!

Saturday was so busy. So we taught our recent convert Sergey in the morning. We then had English! It was so cool cause the old senior couple that used to serve came and they brought us our mail from the mission office. I got 2 packages! one from my mom and on from Auntie Shirley!!!! It was so nice to get them! I loved it! After English we ran to a member to give a blessing then ran to a recent convert Deema to teach him a lesson. It was awesome! We then came back to the church for Youth Night. It was so awesome! We had an awesome turnout as always!

Yesterday, Sunday was so awesome. So I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting at Church. I was so nervous! I thought for sure I was going to just mess it all up. I think it went good. My companion said it was all understandable so thats good. Also during it I kept look at Brother Tovmash and he kept giving me a thumbs up so that made me happy. A couple times I would say like they or he in English but then correct myself. haha. It was pretty funny. I got the Congregation to laugh a couple of times. oh and also Looda from the Tovmash house came to church! YAY!! She is so awesome! She really like it. During Sunday school she was participating a bunch in the lesson! So Sunday night we has another lesson with Looda at the Tovmash's house! It was so awesome! We taught her about the Restoration and Joseph Smith. She is very strong in her believes but she kept saying she is just searching for the right church. Bingo! Sister Tovmash was awesome and helped so much on the lesson. We asked her to start reading the Book of Mormon and she said of course! She also prayed at the end of the lesson. It was so aweosme and so powerful. The spirit was so strong the whole time during the lesson.

Well thats basically all for this week! Things are looking good for this upcoming week! I am excited to see what happens! Thanks everyone for emailing me! I love reading them! I love you all and I hope you have an awesome week!

Love

Elder Grochmal

Also go to this link to see some videos I have posted (more to come) :

there is about 11 videos. two different albums.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/101377638789528143308/albums