This was a pretty good week overall. One of the zone leaders came up for exchanges with another greenie. They always do it that way here so that one of the zone leaders stays in their area. In the evening on Tuesday I was with the zone leader, Elder Dorius, and we had a great lesson with our Nigerian investigator Emeka. He says that if he God tells him this is the way he needs to go he'll do whatever he needs too. They're a great family. He also committed to come to Church, but he wasn't able to make it in the end due to illness. Then on Wednesday I was supposed to be with the greenie all day. I was in the MTC with him and he is Ukrainian speaking. I didn't think it would be a good combo, so we confused things a little bit more by going on exchanges with the other companionship here. Before we did that we had a good talk with several people at the market, on the way to their apartment, half in Russian and half in Ukrainian. It was a pretty good day. I talked to a lot of people because the guy I was with is only 2 transfers older than me and his Russian has a ways to go too. On Wednesday I got my first 2 phones numbers on my own in Russian. When we switched back I got the other one by our apartment. I share a lot of our message with a Jehovah's Witness woman who lives in our building while we were waiting for the other Elders to come back with the key. She was very curious and I shared a lot of things with her that she didn't know before. She also works at a gym so we related on that topic a little bit. We should be meeting with her soon. Since I had the phone for our area I spoke on the phone several times and since then I've made quite a few phone calls in Russian. It's coming along. On Thursday I had my first actual conversation that I remember in Russian that I initiated since I got here. It was great. I've had a couple since then on buses. Talking on buses is an art separate to other contacting methods. I've just started having a lot more fun and talking to everybody. I will yell up to people on higher floors of buildings who are sometimes smoking out their windows. It's great that it's the holidays here because it's like the key to people's hearts. If you wish them Happy Holidays they are almost invariably greatly appreciative and wish you the same in return. There are also very common sayings around the New Year that are like wishing one happiness, health, love, and everything good. We can pretty much say Happy Holidays from December 20-something until January 15th or something. I think Jan. 15th is Old New Year, whatever that means and January 7th is Orthodox Christmas.
On New Years Day we weren't allowed out, so we spent the day at the Church and watched Fiddler on the Roof (which messed up half way, but funny movie nonetheless) and the old Miracle on 34th Street. There was also some football game we could watch, but I didn't watch much of it. Those where the movies our mission president gave us. We also played some card games with some members there. It was fun, but started to drag on near the end of the day. 10 hours is a little long.
The members are really great here. Well, really they are great all around the world, but I love to spend time with them here. I visited our oldest member for the first time last week. Here name is Baba (grandma) Zina. She is 94 years old. She's been a member for about 12 years I think. She can't walk anymore so the Sacrament is brought to her every Sunday. She's so awesome. She has such a strong testimony and she studies the Gospel all the time at home. I'm going to try to record her testimony on my voice recorder next time we're there. All the members know her and love her. She goes back near the beginning of this Branch. I think the branch was formed in '97 or '98.
We 2 investigators at Church finally! Lina and Sasha came. We had a good lesson with them afterward too. It was a great testimony meeting. Lina said that she knows the Church is true and she's eager to meet with us again. Sasha has a lot of deep questions that aren't completely relevant, but I think he's starting to get it more and more. Lina is straight-up golden though. I'm pretty excited about them. They have a 2 year old son and they match up in ages well with our Branch President and his family (he has a 3 year old daughter).
I thought it would be cool to share 3 Nephi 5:13. It's an awesome very about who I am: "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." I love this statement of identity. Do we know who we are? What is our purpose? I am so grateful to be serving here. It's a privilege to serve the Lord full-time. I know that this is God's kingdom on the earth and it's our responsibility to do everything we can to build it up and share the good news with others.
One business item: I know that I have written my return address incorrectly a couple times (i.e. w/o the street number) so, to clarify, this is my address here:
Jonathan Mahoney
Vul. Yabluneva 1
S. Sofiivska Borshahivka
Kyevo-Suyatoshinskiy rayon
Kyiv oblast 08131
Ukraine
Thanks for all the love and support. Happy Holidays!
Elder Mahoney
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