The Ukrainian Bear

Dear Family and Friends!

Well this past week was so crazy busy! We did so much. Also Saturday we found out transfer information. So I am officially down serving as an Assistant to my President. I will be leaving this week and going to serve down in a city called Cherkassy! There I will be training a new missionary that is a native from Lviv, Ukraine! I am so excited. I am pretty sad to leave this area of Center Kiev. I have served here 4 transfers (about 6 months) and I absolutely love it. It is going to be strange leaving. Also It has been such a blessing to get to serve so close with my Mission Presidents these last 4 transfers too. It was so amazing to be an Assistant to President Klebingat first and then to President Packer. I learned so much from them. They are my idols and I look up to them sooooo much! I know the Lord let me serve under then so that I could learn and become the missionary I am today!

This past week we had alot! First Monday night we flew down to Odessa for zone conference! We flew with President and Sister Packer. It was way weird to be on a plane but also way fun! haha

Tuesday we had a zone conference in Odessa which went awesome. Elder Rich and I taught about planning for a while. It was really cool. After the conference we got on another plane and flew back to Kiev!

On Wednesday we had another zone conference here in Kiev. It was with all 3 zones around Kiev so it was awesome. There were so many missionaries there! We taught the same thing there in Kiev about planning! It went really good! After the conference we went on exchanges with some zone leaders. I went with Elder Hale and we went out to a city called Zhytomyr! It was way awesome.

Thursday, I spent all day in Zhytomyr with Elder Hale. We had a couple of awesome lessons. We had one with a lady. We taught her about the Restoration and she loved it. It was such an amazing lesson. She said that she would read the Book of Mormon and that she wanted to know so much more! It was so cool to see how the Lord prepares people for our message!

Friday we traveled back to Kiev. I got back with Elder Rich and did some planning and finding. We then had a lesson with a new investigator from English. It was also another amazing lesson. We taught him the first lesson about the Restoration and he really liked it. But here is something funny. For some reason he would not speak to us in Russian. He would only speak Ukrainian. It was sooooo hard! It was so cool though because my companion and I were able to understand most of it and have a greeat lesson. I know the gift of tongues is real!

On saturday and sunday we watched all of General Conference! It was sooooo amazing! I felt like I learned soooo much! If any of you didnt watch the Saturday Afternoon session when Elder Klebingat speaks, I highly recommend it. I mean not cause he was my mission president but also because it was an amazing talk! I love him so much. It was so strange to see him up there givin a talk at General Conference!

Well I love you all so much! Thanks for the emails. I hope you all have a great week!

Love

Elder Grochmal