The Ukrainian Bear

February 10th-16th

Dear Family and Friends!

WOW!! Where to begin! These past two weeks here in Kiev have been so crazy! Like seriously I have never been so busy in my life! It is soooooo awesome! I love it here so much! Downtown Kiev is so awesome and so crazy also! Our church building is like right in the middle of downtown! It is in this huge building up on the 3rd floor! It is the strangest church but so unique and awesome!

So Last week was so good! Tuesday we had district meeting! It was awesome to have our first district meeting here. I already know some of the missionaries in my district from old areas! We have one sister though who is brand new. She is doing awesome! Also we have a native sister from Russia who is so amazing! Our district has 8 missionaries and we are all here in the same ward in Kiev! Our ward is so big! We have about 150 people come to church! It is a whole lot different than 30 down in Odessa! I love it though! We then had a lesson with a recent convert! He is doing so awesome and then at night we went to visit a member. She is fed us some good food and we had a great time!

Wednesday was a good day. So during the day we got a call from the Assistants to ask us to come and help them on two lessons! So we went out to the temple site to help them. But those lessons both got dogged! haha. It was alright though because it was nice to see the assistants and always nice to see the temple! We then went back into center and went to our English! It was very good!

So on Thursday after studies we went to the hospital to visit an elder that had been really sick! He is doing a lot better! He was serving down in a city about 3 hours from kiev but came here for a nice hospital. He is in our zone. We brought him some candy and some other goodies! haha. He is all good now and actually got out of the hospital today and is with us right now! haha At night we went to a members house for dinner! He is the former bishop of our ward here! He is so awesome! He speaks English perfectly! haha. We had an awesome dinner and lesson with him!

Friday was a good day! After lunch we went to visist Elder Peterson again in the hospital! We did some laundry for him so we took it all back! After that we went to visit another member and then had a lesson with an investigator! He is way cool! He doing good but not progressing at the moment! We will get him going though!!

On Saturday we had English during the day! It was really good actually! We had lots of people come and even found some new investigators from it! After that we made this newsletter for our ward! So we started this thing where every week we are going to make a newsletter for the ward! We are going to have spotlights of members and missionaries in each one! It is going to be so awesome!

Yesterday was so good! I love my ward here so much! There is just so many people here in the ward! The bishop is so amazing! He is very young! There are lots of return missionaries here in our ward which is so great for us! They always want to help us and do work! I just really love Kiev alot and I am so grateful to be serving here! Also my companion is Elder Hinkson. He is from Logan,Utah. Yes, my 3rd companion from that city! haha. He goes home in 3 months! He is a master at Russian so things have been so awesome! He has taught me so much! We are having so much fun together! We get along so good! I love serving here with him!

So this week we are having a big mission conference with the whole mission! Elder Packer (President Packer's son) is coming here to put on the conference! I am so excited for it! Well that is all I got for you this week! I love you all! Thanks so much for the letters and for all that you do for me! Have a great week everyone! I love you!

Love
Elder Grochmal