I hope you guys are having a fun filled season so far and are swimming faster than ever. I wish that I could be there with you to share in your successes, but life has taken me another direction. Right now I am living in an amazing country called Ukraine! Don't be ashamed if you have no idea where that is, because I didn't really know until I came here. It is part of the former Soviet Union and is located between Poland and Russia. So it is just about 10,000 miles away from Virginia! I have been living here for the last year and am loving it. Here they do not speak English so I have had the chance to learn Russian! It is a fun language that does not sound at all like English and the first time I heard it I thought it was Chinese. I have been studying Russian for about 2 years now so it has become very natural to speak and gotten much easier with time. While I am here I have been serving as a Missionary for my church. It has been a very rewarding experience for me and it has been a great opportunity to serve the people of Ukraine. They keep me busy everyday doing different things from teaching English lessons to working out in the country on farms. I am currently living in a city called Gorlivka. It is a smaller city of only a few hundred thousand so you might not find it on a map. But I have already lived in Donetsk and Kharkov (You will be able to find those on a map).

I would love to hear from you guys and hear how the season is going and how your school year was. You can email me at: jacob.goodfellow@myldsmail.net and my mailing address is:

I miss you guys and wish you the best of luck this season! Swim hard!