What a wild week. It was a bit of a scramble to get some last minute meetings and errands done in Kiev before my time was up, but I made a little a the beginning of the week and I was able to get everything checked off, including buying a 6-foot wide made of Kiev. Awesome. On Wednesday we had a meeting with the woman I've been talking about, Oksana. We just talked about her feelings from church last week and then about baptism. We set a baptismal date with her for March 31st and she's really happy about that. Elder Peterson and his new companion will need to work really hard to get everything taught before then and work with her 12 year old daughter more. I'm looking forward to hearing how that goes. My time in Kiev was capped off with a great little get-together at a members house. It was somebody's birthday and women's day on Thursday and we had a great barbecue. There were several young couples there. It was so cool to watch all the little children run around and think about the fact that all of them were born in the covenant. The Church was just born here in Ukraine and it's coming up strong. I loved my time in Kiev and the ward. It was a privilege to serve there.
I also just heard that Kirill, who was baptized 3 weeks ago, was finally confirmed yesterday. Yay! Good news.
On Friday we had a trainers meeting first thing in the morning. There were so many missionaries there. 24 trainers! I was the second most senior as far as time on my mission. Time goes so fast. After 90 minutes of instruction we went in and met our new companions who were studying quietly in the chapel. 23 new missionaries came! My companion is Elder Derrick Copling from Herriman, Utah. He's 19 and 6'5". He's a great elder and he came here to work. We took a bunch of picture after which are apparently all available on the mission website, then we got a taxi to grab my bags and head out. It was a bit of a pain to get all the bags in a small bus, then when we got to Chernigov there wasn't anybody to help us, so we had to carry all our bags to the apartment. Luckily it was only about 500 meters from the bus stop. We live in a way ideal location now. I can't complain at all. We're closest to the most members and a mall, grocery stores, a gym, restaurants and about 2.5 km from the new church building.
As soon as we dropped off our bags we headed right over to the chapel for a women's day party. It had already started, so everybody was in the chapel. I felt kinda like a rock star backstage. I went to the washroom and when I came out one of the sisters saw me and it was like she'd seen a ghost. She said, "are you just visiting?" No, I'm back! It was probably the most exciting reunion I've ever had. There was a lot of hugging. I feel like I'm home now. It's so good to be back.
We've been settling in just fine here. Church was great and spiritual on Sunday. I had a chance to bear my testimony and it felt great. I love the members here and I can feel that we will be making some real difference here now and we move forward this transfer.
I know that this is Christ's Church and He leads it. I'm so happy to be here now.
Thanks for everything,
Elder J. Mahoney
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