The Ukrainian Bear

October 28th- November 3rd

Hello Family and Friends!

Another amazing week in the Odessa! I just love it here so much! The work is progressing slowly but all is well. I love serving here so much! Transfer information comes out this week so I will see what happens. I am pretty positive I am staying here! I will probably get a new companion though! We will just have to see! Well my week was good!

So last monday was a good P day. We went to some thrift shops to look for some winter clothing! I got some new pants and scarfs! Yes I still shop at thrift shops even over here in Ukraine! We found this one and it is a gold mine!

Tuesday was a good day. We had district meeting in the morning which is always good. I really like our district alot. It is weird cause my fist three transfers my districts were so small but here it is so big. We have 10 missionaries! It is so fun! The rest of the day we just were on the streets talking to people and advertising for English. We then started an exchange. I got to go with our district leader Elder Steinegal. He is one transfer ahead of me. He is so awesome. His parents were the mission presidents here in our mission before President Klebingat got here. So he lived here for 3 years already!

So Wednesday I was with him all day. He is so amazing. He already knew lots of Russian before coming to the mission! So we did alot of stuff on the streets. We actually contacted all the way to the Black Sea. It isnt in my area but we were in his so we went there. We talked to a man fishing for quite a while! It was so awesome! We then had English class at night which was awesome as always!

Thursday was Halloween! It isnt really that big here. We didnt do much during the day cause I was sick all day. I got some kind of flu! Not fun. I felt better later in the day and we went to our Halloween party that we put on! It was way fun! We had lots of people come! Lots of investigators came which was awesome!

On Friday we also did alot of English advertising. We have found 4 investigators from English so We keep trying to make it a big success! It is doing good! We had english at night and it was awesome as always. We had about 35 people come. It just keeps getting bigger so it is so awesome!

So on Saturday our Branch did Mormon Helping Hands. It was at this hospital place and we went and swept up leaves. It was way fun. It was fun to get to be with the branch members for a while and get to know them better! They are so awesome! It was a fun project. After that we had to go and clean the outside of the church. It was so dirty with leaves also. So we went and did some more service. It was a very service filled day!

Yesterday was an awesome day at church. So a senior couple came and they needed someone to translate for them in Sacrament Meeting! None of the other missionaries wanted to do it so I had to do it! It was so hard! I know that the Lord was helping me so much. I could of not translated for them alone! It was such a cool experience! So after church we had some lesson with some less actives. They are so cool and doing awesome!

Well that is all for my week. It was the most lesson filled week but we are doing our best. I know the Lord has a plan for us here! I love serving here so much! Well this week I am going on an exchange out in this village about 5 hours away by train! I am way exchange! There is a branch there and missionaries live there! They cant wear missionary clothes or our tags so it should be fun. We just are going to do lots of service! I am way excited! Well I love you all! THanks for the emails! Have a good week! Love you!

Love

Elder Grochmal