The Ukrainian Bear

Dear Family and Friends!

Wow! What a crazy week! Well like some already know last monday I became the new assistant to my mission president! My new companion is Elder Knight! I am so happy about this. Elder Knight and I are great friends and already knew each other a little before the mission. I am so excited for this upcoming transfer with him. So like I said I was transferred out of center Kiev. My new area is where the mission office and temple are located. It is pretty cool cause we get to see the temple almost everyday we come to the church building. Also we have a way nice church building that has a legit basketball court!

So last Monday, I was with Elder Knight already and he got a call from President telling him that they had a meeting at the church to do transfers and for him to bring me along. I wasn't exactly sure why but I obviously had some thoughts because the old assistant went home. So we got into the meeting with President and he opens up the transfer board. He then looks at me and says Elder Grochmal welcome to the club. Your my new Assistant! haha. It was pretty cool. It is pretty cool to get to work with a member of the first quorum of the seventy! He is so amazing. I am sad though because he is leaving in about 6 weeks!

Tuesday I skyped with my family in the morning! That was amazing obviously! We then had district meeting and then some more meetings with President to get some stuff planned. We then went home and had to move all of my stuff! Luckily it wasn't that far of a move! We then had a lesson at night with a man. The temple president let us go into the waiting room and teach him in there! It was such an amazing experience! The spirit was so strong in the temple when teaching him this lesson!

So Wednesday was transfer day. It was pretty crazy. We had to go to the train station in the morning to get some missionaries. We then had to help everyone in the office get places and get organized! It was a long day. Also we had to take people to the train station at night to leave to Odessa!

Thursday was so amazing! So in the afternoon we went out to a little village outside of Kiev. So there is this member girl who is the only member in her family. She invited us over to teach her whole family! It was such an amazing day. We went and did some service first for them. We then cooked some amazing food with the family. It was such a good lesson. We talked a lot about families with them. They really enjoyed it. There is a whole lot of potential in this family. I am very excited to continue to work with them.

Friday we had some stuff to do in the office. We then went to a members house at night for a lesson. It was way fun. We had some great food.

On Saturday we went to another little village outside of Kiev to do some service for some members! It was way fun. We helped put some concrete on the side of someones house. We then ate some delicous food! After that we returned to Kiev and went to a baptism here at our church. It was way awesome. It was a family that actually was a walk in with me and my old companion back in the center building. We passed them to the other Elders. It was so awesome to see them get baptized though. It was a whole family with 2 kids and a mom and dad!

Yesterday was my first Sunday here in my new ward! It was way cool. So we go to two wards here in our area. We first go to the International ward which is so cool. It is all in English! It was so strange to go there. After that we go to our actual assigned ward for our area. It is the biggest ward in Eastern Europe. It is just like an American ward. It is so cool. There was so many people there yesterday.

Well that is basically all for my week. It was pretty exciting getting transfered and especially founding out that I am serving with Elder Knight! I love him so much and I am so happy to be serving with him. Well I love you all so much! Thanks for the letters! Have a great safe week!

Love

Elder Grochmal