Several Updates in One

25 February

It was a busy week this week full of exchanges. We actually only had two exchanges but we were hosting both here in Rivne and it was back to back days, but they were both awesome!

Visiting the sites and sounds of Rivne

Our first exchange on Wednesday was with the Zone Leaders. I got to spend the day with Elder Eller. We spent both exchanges outside doing A LOT of contacting but on Wednesday we decided to put a little punishment to whichever companionship got less IP's. Elder Eller and I won and we got to dump buckets of water on our companions. We also got to go to one of the members houses on Wednesday and have a short lesson with her and it went very well and got to help her with a couple of things she was struggling with. The Zone Leaders left Thursday and the Lutsk elders got here on Thursday. I got to spend the day with Elder Holden who is in training right now and he did awesome. Spent that day outside a lot as well and they ended up leaving right before we had English practice. 

We met with Katya on Sunday and had a super good lesson on Tithing and Fasting and she loved it. We were trying very hard to stress the point that she needs to get baptized sooner than later and that right now at such a hard time in her life it will help so much but she just can't until her divorce is final because her husband said no to her getting baptized. But she did say, "I don't care if the world disagrees with me getting baptized, I will get baptized." 

Transfer calls will be here on Friday and we can't wait to see what will be going down. Super excited!

18 February

Man, a super super crazy week especially with the new announcement. None of us know what to

Our Branch Valentine's party

think, whether or not we are super happy about it or we are kind of ehh. But doesn't matter what we think because it happened!

This week was a little rough because I got sick traveling home from L'viv but all is well now. We had some really fun activities this week including a branch Valentines party on Saturday. It ended up being pretty fun even though it was planned in such short notice. It was my first time helping make real authentic Ukrainian food too.

We had a good training from a member in Kyiv about finances and stuff as a branch because Elder Stott is in the Presidency. Super cool learning about finances and stuff but I am not excited for having to do it all myself after the mission...it's a little scary.

We received a couple referrals and we were able to contact them. One of them named Ihor ended up coming to church yesterday. He is a super neat guy and he liked church! He even asked us after sacrament how he can become a member of the church. Super cool! We are excited to work with him, the only small obstacle is he lives 45 min away so we will be working that out.

These are just some of the trays of eggs since serving together

I started reading Jesus the Christ and man is it a lot of info but I am already learning so much about our Savior on a whole new level. Super excited to continue reading that and actually understanding the New Testament.


Have a good week
Elder Kenyon Matua

Squad