2 in 300,000

Not a bad week. Well, one thing is bad. I don't like how I'm not allowed to hold babies. That's probably the most annoying rule to me. It hit me hard yesterday when we met a member on the bus on the way to Church yesterday. From the bus stop it's about a kilometre to the Church so we walked next to her while she carried her baby the whole way and couldn't help at all. Well, rules are rules I guess. I will be looking forward to holding me some babies when I get home. Haha.

What else... It was a fairly quiet week. Oh yeah, junk! Transfers were last week. And I... didn't get transferred! Yay! I'm pumped to be here in Chernigov. The members rock. Something crazy and unexpected happened in our city. The other companionship of Elders both got transferred! And they closed their area for now. We just don't have enough misssionaries in our mission right now. I know that's the case in probably most places in the world, we need more missionaries! We went over and cleaned out their apartment. We're going to be holding onto the apartment, so hopefully it won't be too long until the other area opens up again, but for now it's just Elder Drasso and I. There is no other area like this in our mission. We are the only 2 missionaries in this city with over 300,000 people, the only 2 in our district and we're about 2 hours from the closest missionaries. Interesting stuff.

I gotta mention a guy who just came back from his fourth mini-mission. His name is Vova Yarmak and he is one of the coolest guys I have ever met. He has his mission papers in not so he'll be getting his call sometime soon for a 2 year mission and he's already served 6 months! Somehow we hit it off pretty much instantly. We have so much in common. We're just totally on the same wavelength. He's an amazing member/missionary and a powerful teacher. He has already helped us on a couple lessons and wants to know when all of our lessons are so he can help. I love the guy and I know this will be a long lasting friendship. He's trying to sort out a medical issue now so any prayers for him would be greatly appreciated. I think Mom actually may have uploaded a picture of him and I by a Christmas tree a while ago. Check it.

I don't think I have much else to say. The work is moving on. We had 2 investigators at Church and one of them was our Nigerian brother, Emeka. His full first name is Chukwuemeka which is from the Ibu language and apparently means "what God has done for us." I love him. It was the first time he came to church as he just recovered from a surgery and he said he'll be back next week! We had another investigator come too. She is very poor so the branch helps her pay for the bus to come to church. She literally doesn't have the 20 cents to take the bus and I have only ever seen her wear 2 different outfits. It's sad to see people in situations like that. She can't go to university because she doesn't have any money. I know the Church could bless her life so much. That's what the Gospel does for everybody who will let it.

I know Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God. I'm already getting super excited for General Conference. I'm honored to be serving the Lord full-time. I want to be a better missionary. Please pray for us out here. There are miracles waiting on our faith to happen.

Much love from Ukraine,

Elder Jonathan Mahoney

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