The Ukrainian Bear

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