Week of March 24th-30th

Dear Family and Friends! 

Well I have officially made it a year on my mission! So crazy! I can't believe that I have been serving the Lord for the last year of my life! It has gone by so fast! I look forward to the new year ahead of me! I know that it will be just awesome! This past week was very good! We were very busy! 

On Tuesday we had District Meeting in the morning which was very good as always! Then we had two lessons at night with members! They were so good! They were both with young return missionaries! We had great lessons with them. They really want to help us and it is just so awesome! 

Wednesday we had a meeting in the afternoon with the Assistants! It was really good! They just wanted to talk to us about our zone and how we can better work with them! It was such a good meeting! The Assistants are sooooo awesome! We then went to lunch at this Brazilian Grill place! The BEST food I have had in Ukraine! It was an all you can eat place with so much meat and salad! haha. It was soooo good and pretty cheap too! haha. We then started an exchange with the Elders serving in our same area! I went with Elder Brough! He is so cool. He is pretty new still. We had a great exchange. We had English at night time which was amazing. We had about 30 people there which is a whole bunch! haha 

Thursday! My year mark! Spent the morning with Elder Brough! He is such a stud! I then got back with Elder Hinkson later in the day. We went to the temple site to meet with the Assistants again to help plan out a big District Leader training meeting we were having the next day! 

So Friday we had a big District Leader/Zone Leader training meeting with the whole mission! It was soooo awesome! Everyone from Odessa even came up so it was very nice to see some familiar faces from down there! The meeting was mostly ran by President Klebingat. He is so amazing! I learned lots of good things from the meeting! He also talked about Zone Leaders so that was nice too! haha. 

Saturday! We had English in the morning then we had a lesson with an investigator! He is so awesome! We basically just taught him why we are here and the reason we are baptized! He accepted the commitment to be baptized!!!!!!! YAY! It is in a couple of weeks! We know that we have been so blessed lately! We have been really trying to focus so much harder because it has been such a trial lately because of the political situation. It is pretty amazing right now! Our entire mission is doing amazing right now! I know the Lord is really helping us and blessing us in these really difficult times! 

Yesterday was a great day at church! Lots of people came. After church we had a meeting with all the missionaries and we talked about some great things that are happening here in our area! I am so grateful to be here on a mission right now! I know that the Lord is watching over the missionaries here and really blessing us. I have seen so many miracles this past week just with me but with all the missionaries in our mission. 

Well I love you all so much! I hope that you all have a great week! Thanks for all the emails! I still cant believe I only have a year left! I am just going to give it my all and see what the Lord has in store for me! I love you all! 

Love 

Elder Grochmal 

 1 YEAR MARK!

 Elder Knight! He is one of the Assistants!

 My phone and the Assistant's phones!

 Baptismal Date

 SPRING IS HERE IN UKRAINE!

 The church building on the Temple site. Our mission office is in there.

 Brazilian Grill! AMAZING! Dont worry that is not my Pepsi! I stopped drinking soda!

 Ran into some friends from Odessa at the temple site.

District Leader/Zone Leader meeting

Week of March 17th-23rd

Dear Family and Friends,

Well another great week here in Kiev, Ukraine! Well as for the political situation everything has calmed down here in Kiev. It has been very nice! But still the people here are very very worried about the future of their country. It has been nice to talk to people about turning to God in these hard times! So our week went like so-

Monday we went to a members house for FHE! It was so awesome! She is the lady who does all the registration legal stuff for the missionaries! She is sooooo nice! We had a great lesson with her. We talked about our favorite stories in the scriptures! 

Tuesday we had district meeting in the morning! It was very good. We then spent lots of the day on the streets contacting! It was pretty fun. Contacting in Center Kiev is pretty crazy. There is just so many people! People are still very hard to talk to right now cause they are so caught up with their country right now which I understand! haha. 

On wednesday I got to go on an exchange with Elder Fisher (my trainer)! It was sooooo awesome! One of the best days in a while! We went to a little village outside of Kiev and we did lots of service! It brought me back so many memories with him serving in Billa! I am so happy that I got to go with him and spend a day with him! I love him so much! He taught me so much when we were together! We then had English class at night! We had lots of new people come! Our English program is really doing good! We have been able to find lots of investigators from English! 

Thursday was transfer day. We still had Elder Peterson with us so we had to take him to the mission office to drop him off to get his new companion. We saw lots of new missionaries there! They were all from Ukraine because all Ukrainian missionaries serving in Russia had to come back to Ukraine to finish their missions because of legal stuff! We have so many natives now! So cool! At night time we had another lesson with our Ward Mission Leader and his family! It was so much fun! He has the cutest little family! We talked with them about having faith in these difficult times and to always turn to the Lord! 

Friday morning we went and did some more service in a little village! It was so much fun! The weather is changing and it is very nice! People are starting to prep their fields so we went out there and helped them with that! We then had another member lesson at night. It was with an awesome family who have been members for a while! We had a great lesson and I feel so much closer to them! 

On saturday we had english in the morning! We then taught a lesson to an investigator right after! We taught him the first lesson about the Restoration of the church! It was such a great lesson. I felt the Holy Ghost so much. He really understood everything and accepted all of our commitments to him! At night we had a big ward party! It was for a famous poet! It was lots of fun and we had about 100 members and lots of non members show up! 

Church yesterday was very good! We had Ward Conference! The stake president was there and gave an amazing talk! After church we went and visited some members! They used to be translators for the church. They used to translate all the magazines and books into Ukrainian from English! It was so cool to talk to them and hear awesome stories.

Well that is all for my week! So this week is my 1 year mark! I cant believ it! I am so grateful that I have been able to serve the Lord for the last year of my life! I look forward to another amazing year where I know I will learn so much! Well I love you all so much and I hope that you all have a great week! Thanks for everything! 

Love 

Elder Grochmal 

ENJOY THE PHOTOS!

 Cool Church

 Huge Soccer Stadium 

 This is for you dad. Saw these the other day!

 This is an advertisement to go to Canada!

 Empty Metro!

 Ward party! 

 Pancakes!

 Spring is coming!

 Look how I decorated my planner covers for this transfer! haha. Love the nephews!

 ELDER FISHER!!!!!!

 Being weird! haha. That scarf is from the Independence Square! They are super cool and super famous! 

 Ward mission leader and his family

The man on the left is 91 and was helping us and doing everything! Crazy!