Quiet Week

I'm sorry to say, but I don't feel like I have too much new to report
this week. It was a good week. We had a great meeting with Sergei and
Larissa where we went over all of the baptismal interview questions.
They say they will 100% be baptized. We changed their date to December
10th and I'm very confident it's all going to go through. It's been
such a privilege to work with them. Despite searching we didn't really
find any new people this past week, but we were able to meet with
several members. It was also great to see our bishop back from the
states. We had 99 at sacrament meeting on Sunday which is the most
we've seen in quite a while. I love our members so much. I wish I
could describe it better. These people are incredible. I feel so
blessed to serve in this area. I don't know what I did to deserve it,
but God is being good to me. I love serving here and I feel myself
growing a little bit at a time. I am so grateful for all the support.
Thank you all.

Love,
Elder J. Mahoney

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The Work Goes On!

Another pretty satisfactory week. I think we had more meeting than I've had in a long time. We are working with several different investigators. Yesterday we went to the Church at about 9 and didn't get back home until a little after 9. Luckily a member fed us around 7. Haha. Long, but good day. Sergei and Larissa came to Church with their daughter, Anya! It was pretty sweet. Anya is baptist and we pretty hesitant at first, but I could see the spirit working on her and see her warming up. Sergei still hasn't smoked or drank for over 2 weeks now. She said she's been praying for 7 years for this to happen and she wanted to see what it is that's made him change.

We also went to the medical centre that the Church apparently helped build. It's really weird, right behind the reception is the 2nd coming of Christ and Him appearing to the Americas. Haha. There are Church paintings all over and there was even a Liahona on the table. Nice place. I guess the guy that runs the centre helped the Church in getting the land for the temple here.

I have too much in my brain right now. I don't know what to write. I just know that this is the Lord's work. I'm truly called by a living prophet to represent Jesus Christ. I know it's all true. My testimony gets stronger every day as I marvel at what's happening in people's lives here and all around the world. Awesome. Thanks for everything.

Love,
Elder Mahoney

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We Searching for Them

Time's going pretty quickly, but it kinda seems like forever since I wrote the last email. It was a good week. We found 6 new investigators. I've only done that one other week on my mission many months ago. One of the coolest stories was from contacting people near the metro station by our apartment. A man came out who we initially thought might have been drunk. Elder Cross started to talk to him, he accepted a Book of Mormon and we met with him 2 days later. His name is Sergei. He brought his wife Larissa to the first sit down meeting. They are awesome! Said the morning of the day we met him he was thinking that he needs to change his life. He walked out of the metro and was going to turn and go buy some beer, but he felt like he should go straight and then we talked to him. Elder Cross met with them again on exchanges the next day and they set baptismal dates for the end of the month. They came to Church yesterday and both of the members they already met on the lessons gave them hugs. In Elders Quorum when Sergei introduced himself he said that right after our first sit-down meeting he threw out his cigarettes and he hasn't smoked of drank since then. They're glowing. I feel so blessed to know that. They're about 50 years old I'd say and truly good people. It's clear that Larissa is an angel and they both love each other so much. This makes everything worth it.

I've been able to meet many more of our ward members here and went to Church for the first time in our ward and it's awesome! They're all great! My emotions were close to the surface yesterday at Church. The Gospel is Jesus Christ is so powerful. It's amazing to see strong families in the Church and so many great children too. We had 6 investigators at Church. There was a baptism on Saturday of one of the sisters' investigators from another ward. We took one of our investigators too it. There was also a baptism last week of Tuesday in another ward. There should be another on Saturday and then on Sunday an 8 year old will be baptized from our ward. It's so great to see this work bounding forward. It's beautiful. The gospel changes lives. I love it.

My companion is a good guy and we've been having a good times just pressing forward. There are definitely tons of people who aren't ready here, but my testimony is being strengthened that there are people here search for true, that's why we're searching for them.

I know that it's all true. God lives. He loves us and He still speaks to us directly and through living prophets. It's a privilege to serve here. I love this work. Thanks to all for everything. Please lift where you stand.

Love,
Elder J. Mahoney

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Bedroom Districts

Another week has flown by over here. My first full week living in
Kiev. It's weird, like it still hasn't completely set in. I live in
Kiev, Ukraine. I guess it's especially weird because Kiev has always
been the place that I go for meeting and then go back to some small
city. But now I most certainly live here. We have 2 wards in our
district. We are the only companionship in the Svytoshinskiy Ward. We
also have the Assistants, another set of Elders and a set of sisters
in our District. The first time I've served in a district with
sisters. We goto the chapel by the temple where the mission office is
every Tuesday for District Meeting. We're really in the center of the
action. We can even have President Klebingat help us on lessons if we
ask him.

The first thing I note is that there are tons of people here! Kiev is
a maze of high-rise apartment buildings and a lot of place you go look
almost exactly the same. In other cities I've been in it's been a
little bit of a challenge to find people to talk to, but here we can
just stand in front of the metro and see hundreds of people walk by.
In all my other areas I've mostly only ever interacted with poorer
people, but here I meet all kinds. One of our members even has a pool
and sauna apparently. In the other 2 branches I've served in only the
Branch President had a car, here the parking is filled. Life is
definitely different here. There's a big grocery store you can see
from our 10th floor apartment window, but there's another bigger store
that has multiple buses that just take people from the metro to the
store! We have 2 bathrooms in our apartment which costs almost
$1000/month. It's pretty cool. I sleep in a queen-sized bed and it's
weird how much more bed space there is to me. It's sort of a funny
situation to any missionary who expected to come to Ukraine and live
in 3rd world conditions. If you have money in these big cities you can
live very well. You see iPads and iPhones and the like all over the
place.

Great news back home, my old district has been dissolved so now my
branch is part of the Darthmouth Nova Scotia Stake and may soon become
a ward. Pretty awesome stuff. This weekend we had Stake Conference
here too. It was broadcast from Salt Lake City for the Europe East
Area. L. Whitney Clayton, Barbara Thompson, Dallin H. Oaks, and Dieter
F. Uchtdorf all spoke. It was pretty cool to hear them address this
area specifically and the problems that are faced here. It was the
most members I've ever seen in one place here. People met in all
different building since it was just a broadcast, but I'd say there
were about 200 where I went. Awesome. There are so many awesome
members here.

The work is going on here. We don't have too many active investigators
right now, but it seems like some good potential ones are on the way.
One of the saddest things I've seen here is 3 families so far who have
one spouse in the Church and the other one not. It is so hard for the
member spouse. They have all tried so hard to help bring their spouse
into the gospel, but for whatever reason they haven't yet. I won't be
married outside the temple.

I don't have tons of time, but I know this the Christ's Church. I'm so
happy to serve the Lord here. God lives and knows me. He knows you too
and He loves you. Be strong.

Much love,
Elder J. Mahoney

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No Time - In Kiev

Wow, it was definitely an interesting week. I'm really running out of time on the computer right now, but I'm not serving in Kiev with Elder Westin Cross! It's pretty wild to be here. It was a surprise that it happened so fast, but it's awesome. The Church is true.

- Elder Mahoney

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Sofia via Vienna

Most of my week was spent in or travelling to and from Sofia, Bulgaria to renew my visa. I travelled to Kiev on Monday and flew through Vienna to Sofia on Thursday. I went with 5 other Ukrainian-speaking missionaries who came to the country with me. It was a pretty cool trip overall. The Church rents an apartment in Sofia just for the Ukrainian missionaries who travel to renew their visas. While we're in Bulgaria we don't really have anything to do, so we just walk around and look at the city. There are also many American restaurants which we don't have here, so we eat a lot too. While I was there we went to Dunkin' Donuts, KFC, Burger King, a Chinese restaurant, and some other Bulgarian one. It was pretty cool. We don't have any of those restaurants in Ukraine.

Sofia is a really nice city. Really make Ukraine look like a 3rd world country. It's very clean there and almost everybody I talked to knew either English or Russian. Our visas are a little weird and say that we can only stay in the country for 90 days and apparently we were lucky to get back into the country because all the other missionaries in the MTC are not getting visas to Ukraine right now and they don't know when they'll be able to. Our Mission President isn't even leaving the country in case they don't let him back in. I guess they just changed some laws in September. I just heard that the new missionaries should come on December 5th. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I flew back in on Thursday and slept in Kiev, then took a train back to Khmelnitskiy on Friday. It is nice to be back "home." We're just settling back in and looking forward to another good week. I don't know too much more what to say.

I know that God lives. I feel His love in my life everyday and it's awesome to be a part of this work. Somehow it seems like I have less than half my mission left. I wanna make the best of it. Please pray that we can find some new people to teach. We need miracles.

Love,

Elder J. Mahoney

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"I don't understand Russian."

So, a few switch ups recently. There was an early transfer and Elder Alex Larsen went and switched places in Vinnitsya with Elder Jeremy Carnes who came here. It's kinda neat to have a new member in our district. I also found out last week that I'm going to Bulgaria tomorrow to renew my visa, so that'll be a neat trip. Times flying. It's pretty weird really.

This week was interesting. We talked to a lot of people. President Klebingat encouraged us, at the beginning of the week, to pray with people on the street. Then when we'd make a return appointment they'd already become new investigators. We were able to do that with 2 men on Tuesday which was great. The unfortunate thing is that neither of them came to the appointments and we can't get ahold of them. We've been able to teach quite a few people on the street though, amid dozens of rejections. We get some pretty funny rejections sometimes. I'll share a couple.

Yesterday morning I said "good morning" to a man in Russian and asked how he was doing. He responded in Russian, saying, "I don't understand Russian." I asked, "What do you mean?" He said something else back in Russian and I said, "You're speaking Russian right now," as he walked away. Haha. The other one that I got a kick out of a few days ago was a guy I approached, started to talk to and he just started shaking his head. I asked him, "What does that mean?" He started pretending to sign language. I laughed in his face and he smirked a little. What a goof. He could clearly hear me. Haha.

Yesterday evening we talked to a man for about 3 hours who said he was interested, but would not take anything. He said in the end that he was sure that his Church is the true church. I testified so boldly to him repeatedly about multiples points of doctrine and I could feel the Spirit bear witness of it. It's incredible sometimes how even when people understand our message they refuse to read and ask God. It didn't matter what I said at all, when it comes down to it we just invite others to find out for themselves. I hope that something I said to him will ring in his head and he'll come around sometime. He was a pleasant, big man, who used a lot of words I wasn't familiar with. Haha.

Things are going alright though there are still few people that will even listen to us. As I read the scriptures and wicked peoples are described I'm often amazed at how, unfortunately, it is describing exactly what I see around me. I know that there are people here who are ready for the message, I just pray that I can find some. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know it's the Truth. I was able to testify yesterday that I would die for it. I really would because it is true. It's a lot harder to live for it though, so that's what I'm working on. God lives. He knows and loves each one of us. I know these things to be true because the Holy Ghost has born witness to me.

Thanks for the prayers and the love,

Elder Jonathan Mahoney

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