A Week on a Bus

It was a pretty wild week. So, last Sunday night we went down to Kiev. We had a decent preparation day in Kiev on Monday. I went to a cool Ukrainian restaurant called Puzata Hata that my Russian friend Nastya Tizhanina told me to go to. It didn't disappoint. That evening we did exchanges and I taught a fun lesson with Elder Larimore in the Svyatoshinskiy area. We taught a guy named Vlad who's a professional singer. He's done 6 different contracts singing in Dubai. He showed us a couple clips and he's not bad at all. He also does some modeling, but best of all he's golden. He said he was thinking a lot about what we're doing here and he said he thinks it's so good that we are here. He thanked us for bringing the Gospel to his country. He said this are so bad around him and he's witnessing the degradation of society. He told us that God is number one in his life and he gratefully accepted a Book of Mormon. I'm not in that area, but I look forward to hearing more about what happens with him.

On Tuesday, my companion, Elder Drasso went to Bulgaria for 3 days to renew his visa. I served with Elder Larimore in Svyatoshinskiy for the day and then was surprized to learn that I would be spending a couple days with Elder Jospeh Hirt. The assistants didn't think it was good that nobody would be in our area for so long, so Elder Hirt and I went up to Chernigov again on Wednesday. Then we went to his area, Bila Tserkva, on Thursday. (Bila Tserkva is renowned for what they call surgic. It's a mix between Russian and Ukrainian typically spoken by less educated people and which is, for obvious reasons, usually difficult to understand.) Then back to Kiev on Friday when Elder Drasso had Leadership Training, putting us back in Chernigov late Friday. If my calculations are correct it was about 800 km of travel this week for me, just counting inter-city. It was a little tiring and we didn't really get much study in with all the early morning buses, but I had a great time with Elder Hirt. He's a Moldovan Elder which means he was called to serve in the Romania Bucharest Mission speaking Russian. The only Russian areas there are in Moldova and missionaries can only stay there for 3 months at a time so they serve 3 months there then 3 months in our mission for their whole mission. We also send missionaries from our mission to Moldova as well. I pray I get a chance to serve there. Anyway, Elder Hirt is a great guy. We got along really well. He's from a place called Barrow, Alaska, one of the northernmost cities in the world. I might have to make my way up there and check out the sights with him someday.

It was really nice to finally be back in our area this Saturday. We had a couple great lessons. There is a man named Sergei who has come to Church 4 times but we'd never been able to meet with him to actually go over the basics of what we believe until yesterday. We were able to teach him about the message of the Restored Gospel and he gratefully accepted a Book of Mormon. We were able to set a baptismal date with him for 2 Saturdays from now. We explained to him that there's still a lot of things we need to teach him first but that if he reads and prays he will know that this is what he needs to do. He said if God tells him it is true he will follow this path. I think it may just go down. I certainly pray it will.

This week was just all over the place, so I'm not sure much what more to say. One of the coolest things I recently learned is that we know who our new mission president will be in July! His name is Jorg Klebingat. His is German and his wife in Russian (born in Latvia). The coolest this is that he is 43! He served his mission in Colorado and I think he met his wife at BYU when he was studying Russian. From what I understand he's also lived in Kiev and was an Elder's Quorum President there. I also heard he proposed the temple site that the temple was built on here. He's a bishop in Germany now and works for the Church, he's an Area Distribution Manager. I'm so excited to meet him. I'm really happy we aren't going to have an old guy who doesn't speak Russian. Word is that he and his wife speak fluent English, German, and Russian. I imagine they probably speak some others too. Haha. They have 3 children. July will be an exciting time!

Sorry there isn't anything a lot more interesting this week. I'm happy to be here, serving in Ukraine. I love the Lord and am honored to represent Him and His Church. Thanks to all for your support, love, and prayers.

Love,

Elder Mahoney

P.S. Less than a month to General Conference now! I'm SO excited! My favorite 2 weekends of every year.

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.