The Ukrainian Bear

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