You can call me Gramps.

You're probably all wondering why I chose that as the heading of this weeks post. Well, with the group ahead of me leaving this morning, it means that I am the longest serving missionary in the Poland Warsaw Mission. Kind of a mental thought, it doesn't mean anything, just makes me more aware that my time is slowly but surely coming to an end. Especially with the turn of events that have gone down this week. 

The main one of these being that I'm writing from a computer in Kielce, not Krakow, but the city in which my adventure in Poland started. With Elder Haskett leaving and my Comp Elder McMaster also flying home, that left 2 Elders without companions, so President used his brain and sent me down here for the week until transfers next week. 

Honestly it's been a strange and daunting past day or so. As I was sat eating breakfast this morning in my favourite milk bar, the first place I tried proper Polish food in the country, all these memories were whizzing about my mind, reminiscing on the long 7 weeks I spent here with Elder Taylor and Garrison, and later Elder Weiler. The streets are the same, the apartment is the same, the air is the same, the long walk up and down the Sienkiewicza is the same..2 things that aren't the same though, the mission and myself. The mission has changed both in Leadership and in Focus, we're now at 28 baptisms for the year, a mighty effort put forward from both member and missionary. I hope also that I have changed in some way for the better. 

The best thing from the week was all the preparation involved in helping our mate reach his goal of baptism on the 26th. As I am, you'll all be glad to know that the baptism went ahead, our friend is now a confirmed member of the church with a future of trials and joy ahead of him. We had a total of 4 meetings with him through the week and everything turned out well. Funny story, he came out of the changing rooms in his whites, with his clothes on underneath him, and said 'ok I'm ready!', Elder McMaster had to advise him to take his clothes off so they didn't get soaked haha, he's funny. 

I'm looking forward to a week of work and walking here in Kielce. On and upward! 

have a solid week 

Wroclaw

Wroclaw

Wroclaw

Wroclaw

Elder Groseclose and I

So long mate

Kielce

If we are obedient WE CANNOT FAIL.

Hey how's it going? Hope you've all a solid week. 

I've been thinking about what I can write about this week. Obviously, there's the day to day activities but sometimes I feel as though they can be a bit boring. 

This week we've had a few finding activities, we called them our interactive finding activities. we took a whiteboard down into town, stood in the busiest area and invited people to come up and write on the board. Now you see, we wrote a question on the board, something to lead them into deep thought and reflection, something to open them up a little. It's interesting to see how much a simple question like 'what are you grateful for?' helps us understand what sort of person that individual is, enabling us to know how to go about the contact. Some of the answers we got were the classic and most important ones like God, family, water, oxygen, and others were a little more outside the box. 

On Wednesday we had our conference with Elder and Sister Sabin. Elder Sabin is a member of the Quorum of the Seventy and also served on the Europe Area Presidency. He visited us a while back when Elder Anderson was here, but this time he came along with his wife to instruct us. The journey itself was looooooonnnngggg. The night before we had a 90-minute bus ride to a neighboring city and spent the night there with Elders Huffman and Sommerfeldt. We got into Katowice around 5pm and we did a little splits which meant I got to work with Elder Huffman for a few hours, something I've been missing since our days in Lublin. We had a lesson fall through and so we took that as a sign that we were meant to be on the streets finding people. Before we left we prayed at the door and set a goal of getting two numbers. We hugged it out and then began talking to everyone! We achieved our goal of two phone numbers and met some really solid people, it's all about your mindset and drive, if you have a positive mindset it will lead to an 'anything is possible' way of working, which is never a bad thing. 

To get to the conference which was being held in Wrocław, we had to get up at 2 AM!! our train was at 5 am and we had to walk about an hour across town to get to the train station on time, public transport doesn't run that early. I remember waking up from my 3-hour nap on a yoga mat thinking, it's not worth it! I was shattered haha, and I wasn't the only one.

After the 4 or so hours of teaching, testimony and counsel I can say that the early morning get up was 100% worth it. If he wasn't telling a story from his life then he was quoting from the scriptures, a very capable and learned servant of God.

He taught us of 8 Celestial steps which not only will help lead us to the Celestial Kingdom of God, but 8 steps that will help us live and have a Celestial Life. Here are the first 3 of those steps...

1) TRUE DOCTRINE

2) TRUE IDENTITY

3) PLAN OF SALVATION

True doctrine understood helps us come to an understanding that we are Children of a loving Heavenly, which is our true identity. The Plan of Salvation is true doctrine that shows us our path and enables us to see our potential. Our potential is Celestial glory!

2 more things that Elder Sabin mentioned..

It doesn't matter how deep the water gets! as long as the boat doesn't get a hole in it, it won't sink. which leads perfectly on to the next quote

If we are obedient WE CANNOT FAIL

What are you grateful for?

Hello Mum and Dad..and everyone else reading this. We've had a week worth sharing with everyone, and we're looking forward to an even better week with our upcoming conference with Elder Sabin. Also it will be held in Wroclaw, another city that can be added to the list of places I've been.

Monday I said my farewells to Elder Alvarez. We spent the day in Orgodzieniec, visiting the castle and hanging out in the surrounding village. One of the best pdays I've had, the weather was nice and it was so relaxing. As nice as Krakow is, the air is terrible, so sometimes it's nice to get out of the city and walk around the Polish countryside. The bus ride home was fun..10 missionaries plus Alex and our friend Ola, singing to whatever came on the radio. 

On Wednesday we took some inspiration from my good friend Elder Barlow and the Bydgoszcz district for our finding activity in town. We had a strength competition with the stick pulling game from back in the day. The picture will explain a little better for those who don't know what it looks like. Elder McMaster was down for it, but his pants ripped early on in the day so he was out. That just left me to be our strong man as i beat Elders Groseclose and Litster. It took a while for people to come over and accept the challenge, but the domino effect soon came into play and people were flooding in. People even wanted to take on their friends which was funny to see, we had some solid rivalries going. Over the course of the 2 hours I was unbeaten, everyone who challenged had fallen by the strength of Ashworth in his shirt and tie. 💪 

That night on the way home, we caught a bus just one stop up the road because we're lazy and don't want to walk, just so happened that on our bus..completely lost and going the wrong way was a couple from Sweden who rushed up to us and said hello, introducing themselves and telling us they're members of the church. We couldn't believe how random it was. Anyway they offered to take us out for lunch the next day. We met them at the mall at 12 and we had some food with them. The mental thing about meeting this couple was finding out where the Brother and their son served missions. One served in Manchester, England..the other in Arizona! what are the chances of that! 

On Friday the Browns took us out for food. We ate at this cool restaurant in the Kazimerza district (old Jewish quarter). We had fish and chips, not proper stuff though, but it was decent, also our friend and investigator came with us and he had a solid time with us! Also that day we visited a mental hospital and made friends with a lady on the tram with a guinee pig. I won't give the specific details, if you want to hear the stories, email me 😁.

Sunday we had a rather quiet day at church, I gave a talk on Testimonies, why we share them and the power contained within. Then we had a 'brobiad' at the other elder's place after church before heading out on to the streets for a night of asking people 'what are you grateful for?'. We had it written on a whiteboard and then invited people to come up and write on it. We had all sorts of answers, from your basic ones like family and health, to unicorns under my bed, someone drew a whale. Then we met a fella who is a prophet for his church 'The church of the flying spaghetti monster'. This is a legit thing, I'm not joking!

We have a day of ice cream and bike riding planned so I'll leave you all. 

Have a solid week

SMILE

So we went out to Ogrodzieniec again today. There was a big group of us and I got to see Alvarez before he leaves this Friday. We literally just got back to Kraków.

Elders Einfeldt and Alvarez leave this Friday. The others from his group not till the 28th, so I have Elder  McMaster for a few more weeks. They're all good. 

Sorry there's no long post but there was no time.  Have a good week, read the scriptures, and most important of all SMILE and enjoy yourselves.