The Ukrainian Bear

Week of April 7th-14th

Dear Family and Friends!

Another crazy week here in our mission! We acquired 85 missionaries all from the Donetsk mission which was shut down and evacuated on Friday! It has been just craziness here in our mission! Almost every single campionship in our mission got 2 new missionaries from Donetsk that are staying with them! Some missionaries got 4 from Donetsk! Every apartment in the mission is completely FULL!!! Well I will tell you about my week and how this all happened!

So tuesday morning we went down to Billa Tserkva do to exchanges! It was way good! I went with the District Leader down there, Elder Davis! He is so awesome! It was so good to be back in the area where I was trained and to see all the members! I love it down there! We had a great day!

So wednesday morning we were walking to the other Elders apartment in Billa to start exchanges with them when we got a text saying we are having a conference call in 20 minutes and it is urgent! So we got there and started the conference call. So Elder Talley (office couple) told us that the whole Donetsk mission is gettting evacuated here on Friday! He told us that every companionship will be getting missionaries and some will get 4. So after this information we decided to leave back to Kiev because we had a lot to do to get ready! We had english at night which was really good!

Thursday we spent a good amount of the day getting ready for the new missionaries. Our district which has 8 missionaries was doubleing to 16! We had to split all the areas up and split up people for them to teach! It was so crazy! So thursday night Elder Fisher(my trainer) and Elder Roggow came and slept over cause we had work to do in the morning!

FRIDAY! CRAZY DAY! So we woke up at 5 am and had to be at the train station at 6:20! So we get there and meet up with some guys from the service center who were going to drive busses of missionaries to the temple! So the first train arrived at 7! It was just me, my companion, Elder Fisher, Elder Roggow and the assistants there helping! So the first trained pulled up and had about 35 missionaries! We unloaded ALL their luggage and then loaded them into vans and busses and sent them away to the temple! The next train rolled in at about 8. It had a little less but we did the same thing. Unloaded them and sent them away! Then the last train rolled in at about 9 with a big group! We got all of them unloaded then rode the bus with them to the temple! It was pretty funny cause when we were pullling up to the temple all the missionaries from Donetsk were freaking out! They were so happy to see the temple! haha. It was pretty crazy though! The missionaries were so sad to leave Donetsk! You could just see it in them! So once we got them to the temple site. We had a big meeting in the church there! It was good. We then had all the district leaders come and pick up their new missionaries and take them to their new areas! Oh and by the way our mission president was not here for all of this! He was still in Utah! Crazy! So we took our missionaries coming to our place home and dropped off their stuff then headed to the church to have a meeting with the district. We kinda split everything up! Oh also so in the MTC my district had 7 sisters! They were all in the Donetsk mission! So I got to see them all which was so cool! 3 of them are actually here in my district! It is so awesome!

Saturday! We had a big Mormon Helping Hands project in the morning! It was so cool! We cleaned up a big park! We then went to the church and watched conference for the rest of the night!

Sunday we just watched conference all day!

Well that is all for my week! I probably left out a few things! Like some lessons but wow what a crazy week! Our zone doubled in size so watching after all of them is kinda crazy! Our mission is so big right now. We dont know how long they are gonna stay here! They are hoping just a few weeks then they will decide wether to sent them back to Donetsk or to America! It is not looking to good out east so we will just have to see what happens! Well I love you all! I hope you all have a good week!

Love

Elder Grochmal