Let's be those members who follow the Prophet!

Sorry that I haven't written something for the blog in a while, it must seem as though I've not had much to talk about.  I'll start by sharing a few things from 2 weeks ago. 

A funny story is that I hid from Elder Asendrych haha. He went out back to take out the rubbish after we got in from the days work. I took the opportunity to scare him a little, it was really dark outside too which made it better. I hid in my wardrobe, very obvious hiding spot I thought and I even left the door open a bit as a clue. I watched him through the crack of the door as he crept around saying 'Elder, Elder are you here?' he was so confused. I couldn't really fit all the way in the wardrobe so i had to hold this awkward squat, I counted it as leg day. He knew I was hiding and I kept letting out laughs which brought him into the main room. He threw something over the door because he was convinced I was hiding there. Eventually, he slowly approached my hiding spot, I didn't even feel like jumping out at him anymore because I had so much entertainment watching him, so when he opened the door I just stared at him and he started laughing.

We had zone conference in Katowice. I thought it was the last time I was going to see a lot of people so I said all my goodbyes, but then realised we have district conference (stake conference) in a few weeks so I'll see all my pals again. Zone training was a good deal. We spoke a lot about finding and how we should teach when we find and find when we teach. Our attention was turned to the parable of the talents, how we can learn a lesson from that in relation to commandments and the missionary handbook. Sometimes we don't always understand why we must keep commandments and do specific things, especially as missionaries sometimes the smallest rules can seem silly, but we have to be of the mindset that in the end we will be blessed, in other words 'be made ruler over many things'. 

This week as all the students are back the city has been bumping with young people. We've been out and about talking with them all about English, we also bought an American football to throw around as we talk with people, they're always drawn to it as not many people play the sport here. Hopefully, as we put the effort in to make people aware of the class they'll start coming.

We had Elders Reid and Huffman over in Krakow for the past few days on exchanges. As I've said many times before in the past it's always good to have Elder Huffman around. We spent some time together talking with people in the city, we met a nice young man who we hope to share the gospel with. 

During the week for 2 or so days I wasn't feeling too great, I caught a bit of a cold in the night and so woke up not really wanting to get out of bed. I think being in this state led me to have some mental dreams. I had one dream this week in which I had a baby but it wasn't really a baby because it was a phone, and this baby phone had a scorpion tail that kept scratching my thumbnail. In my attempt to get rid of it I put the scorpion phone baby into a chocolate wrapper and put it in my bag. I woke up and even I was confused as to what I had just seen. I'm feeling 100% now though which I'm grateful for.

Church on Sunday was time well spent, we had a few visitors which is always nice and they were all so friendly and added to the numbers. I translated into English for all the visitors and the English speakers which was a nice change. usually, Elder Litster does it but I thought I'd give him a break from doing it. I had a completely different experience at church because I had to listen, really listen to the testimonies and teachers in order to translate. After the priesthood session, i felt significantly uplifted from the message shared about 'overcoming the world'. Elder Anderson gave a talk this year in April at conference entitled 'overcoming the world', it's a good read! 

A brother visiting with his family got up to bear his testimony during the meeting and mentioned how in order to have the true church on earth and for it to function we need to have Priesthood leaders and believing members who are willing to follow those leaders. Let's be those members who follow the Prophet!

Elder Brown

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

Don't stand still, Walk!

Hello people of the World, to all within the sound of my voice. We've had a solid week in the Krak. Kraków is the kind of place where it's easy to get distracted, so many times I just want to stop what I'm doing to go and see something, get some good food, go for ice cream, sometimes I catch myself just staring at things, there's just so much going on. I set a goal to write in my 'journal' every day, I did it 4 days out of the 7 this week which is an improvement.

I'll start with explaining why I chose to title the email this week 'Don't stand still, Walk!' It's come from a few lessons I've learned as we've been out and about on the streets. Finding activities are a daily thing here, and it tends to be the case unless you have a scheduled meeting with someone. The last few finding activities we've done here, we just tend to stand around and let the people walk by and try and stop them, it's good if you want to try and speak to as many as you can but not always the most effective. Each morning when we leave the house we pray that we may be led to those who have been prepared and those willing to listen to us. The question came to mind..how are we supposed to be led if we're just standing around? we won't be unless you have that much faith that people will come to you, but it doesn't work like that unless you're Elder Huffman of course, who has the most faith of anyone I've ever met. We decided this week to walk around as opposed to standing, and lo and behold we've met some quality people, people who are searching or just so open to talking. A man who wants to believe but doesn't know quite how..he is open to inviting us round to his house to visit him and his wife. A Student who claims to be Atheist but then was so open that the message we shared with him softened his heart just enough that he is willing to meet and talk with us further. It's not much, but I've learned a valuable lesson from this that you can apply even to life itself. Standing still and waiting for things to happen, or for people to come will only get you so far. Moving, pressing forward, searching, showing faith in this life on earth is what will bring you the blessings of God. alright, enough of that let's get on to the real stuff that happened this week.

I SPRAINED MY ANKLE AGAIN! I'm so mad. We were running for the tram on our way to play sports in the park on Saturday, I put my foot in a ditch and it felt as though my foot fell off haha. It hurt so bad and I was jumping around shouting all sorts, people in their cars and on the street were probably finding it quite entertaining. So now I have a fat ankle, I should probably be careful and do stuff to make it heal, do the whole RICE thing, but I'm stupid and went and played footy anyway. so that happened. 

We helped out at the hospice place again, picking up more rocks, they got mad at us because we walked all over the ground where new grass was trying to grow and it was wet too so we kind of made a mess, I feel as though we just make life harder for them when we go there but it's good fun. I've had a lot of funny phone calls with Alvarez this week, most of them end up us just talking about Poznań and Warsaw, can't wait to see him on Wednesday when we have the conference. Had a lady shout 'Ja perfect English' after we invited her to our English class, the typical response here in Poland. 

My farmer tan/missionary tan is doing well. I'll send some pictures to show you how ridiculous I look, especially when I put on a normal t-shirt. Also this week we met a proper cool guy from Austria who we chatted with on a park bench for a good 40 minutes. It felt as though I knew him, the conversation was so easy and spoke about all sorts of things and shared our opinions and beliefs. He's a photographer and we talked a lot about pictures and journals and the importance of keeping a record, so I asked him if he would take some pictures of us so he would have a record and a memory of our meeting. He accepted and so for about 20 minutes we walked around old town in Kraków whilst he looked for spots that would capture a good image, one of the more memorable street contacts I've had. With each person you meet you have to find a common ground, something you can connect on, with the photographer we didn't connect on a spiritual level, our views on God and religion were different, but we connected on the basis that we were both human, people, children of God. Even though he doesn't believe that, at the end of the day, what connects us all together is that we're children of a loving Heavenly Father.

Miracles can happen and will happen as long as we have faith and do everything we can to do good.

So this week has really been a hit and miss week, bit of a blur too, the weeks all seem to be connected as if it's just a long line of days that don't end. We've just been really busy recently and not busy with things that we should be busy with..just other things come up. 

We had a new fridge delivered this week, the first delivery day we missed as we were teaching our English class which meant we had to call and arrange a new day and time, the thing was I messed things up with the delivery time between 11-16, luckily it came pretty early on..but a 5 hour estimated delivery time is pretty pants..how are you supposed to plan the day with things like that? 

We've also had a new senior couple in, so we've had to run around and do things to make sure they had a comfortable first week, we had them down at the legal offices for some meetings on Monday and we've spent a lot of time in the office with them running them through how things go down in the office and what to do and things...the goal is to have them trained and independent by the end of the transfer or as soon as..just so we don't have to spend much time or any time at all in the office, hopefully it will be soon so we can get out and spend most of our time working with members and finding people to teach.

We picked up our new car early last week, we were out with Alvarez and Musgrave doing I'm not sure what..but we got a call saying that it was ready and that we could go and collect it. The place was a decent drive away and so we met the Assistants and a member who takes care of this sort of stuff and we drove over. We have a nice brand new Hyundai i20, it's pretty slow and doesn't have a turbo like the Meriva, it's automatic too which is a bummer. But it's brand new which is nice, i've already put almost 400km on it in the first week. on the way home the others left without me and I had no idea where I was and had no GPS or anything so I was going off my instinct, I missed our turn and so we ended up miles away from where we had to be, heading on the road towards Poznan haha. We turned around and eventually made it home, the road was pretty empty too and it was a motorway so I put the car through its first max speed test on the road. 

One night this week we spent with Alvarez and Musgrave again visiting libraries and leaving copies of the Book of Mormon and some fliers for our open house. Just some chill time in the car driving around the city in search of these libraries, it was so fun. I got to see more of the city that I've not seen before and I'm sure I have this city and the roads figured out now so getting around is not a problem. One of the libraries was located slap bang in the middle of old town, I've only walked around old town and the rynek once, which is a bit of a difference compared to Poznan where we were on it every day and night, we practically lived in Old Town. So yeah we had a chill night walking around old town and the Old Town walls and castle and forts and things. The weather was proper nice too. 

On Saturday we had our classic Saturday sports day. It was a special day as I played in my boots that I asked my dad to send me. It was so nice having a firm footing underneath me, not having to worry about falling over or anything. I managed to sprain my ankle though, which is like the 3rd time on my mission I've done that, kind of a pain but I'll get over it, it'll be good in a few days. I woke up Sunday morning and my ankle was spherical because of the swelling. 

We had a meal out one night this week with all the missionaries and a member and a friend of ours from English class. We went to this place in the centre of town that's more quality than quantity. 25zl for this weird burger and 5 potato wedges. This place also sells this raw meat and egg dish that is considered a delicacy, it was legit a piece of uncooked meat the same shape as a small pork pie, weird if you ask me. The night was good fun though, although we did have some troubles with parking and then finding this place thanks to terrible directions given by the others haha. 

I've not finished all the goodies you sent me yet, the Oreo Mint chocolate is so nice though so I'm making it last, all the Americans go crazy when I show them the oreo peanut butter chocolate. 

I called Elder Huffman on Sunday just because I call him almost every day, and he told me that the tiny branch of Szczecin had 36 people in church. Miracles can happen and will happen as long as we have faith and do everything we can to do good. 

Also it's my birthday in 8 days, the big 21st. Weird to think that I turned 20 almost a year ago with Elder Liechty in Poznan! Time really does fly!

Week 68 - I'm not a good singer

(just a few snippets this week, it's a busy life working in the office!)

I'm doing good, it's been a decent week.  Church was good yesterday, we had about 70 or maybe 80 there and had a few missing which was really noticeable.  President Peterson asked the Missionaries to sing a musical number, for some reason I think people assume that missionaries can sing just because they're missionaries.  I mean I can hold a note and I'm not tone deaf but I'm not a good singer. We sang an arrangement of Be still my soul and Where can I turn for peace. It was pretty confusing, Elders Haskett, Einfeldt and myself sang the tenor part and it was so high - bad choice! Elder Bebel played the piano.

We had an 8 man sleepover this week which was mint! Hansen, Barlow, Dickson and Sister Beem all had legal appointments in Warsaw so we had Einfeldt, Me, Huffman, Hansen, Haskett, Barlow, Michael from Lublin who is serving a mini mission and Dickson all in the same apartment onTuesday night. It was so cramped, even in our mansion apartment, but it was sweet having all the elders round, some good friends too. 

On valentine's day we had a district dinner, plus Elder Dickson and Bart. We went to that Toto place. It was a solid night.  And after legal work this week we all went to Manekin.  We've eaten out so much this transfer and it's 'eaten' my money. So I didn't buy anything this time, but kindly Dickson and Beem gave me some left over peanut m&m pancakes which were so good! 

Today we're going to Adam's ties, the guy that sells ties all across Poland but his warehouse is here in Warsaw and he sells them for dirt cheap to missionaries. Getting some food and I might buy a Legia scarf. 

Friends

MTC Group Reunion in Warsaw (4 out of 6) 

Welcome all to this weeks instalment of 'what I got up to this week in Warszawa'.

I'm doing this from memory this week but we'll see how it goes.

Tuesday was the day of Zone Training. It was good to see Elders Huffman, Alvarez and Hanson again. One of the most valuable things of a mission, at least something that I value greatly is the friendships you make with others, whether it be other missionaries or members. I hope that I'm friends with my mission pals for the rest of my life. The best bit of zone training involved all the missionaries and president going to the centre of Warsaw for a huge finding activity. We had a tent, tables, lots of pamphlets, banners and cards, the presence was enough to have people come up to us instead of us having to approach people which was a nice change. President showed us how it's done though, chatting away to people. 

We combined our dinner and language study hour at the end of the night and played 'Apples to Apples' which they have in Polish too, it was a fun district activity,

At the moment we're just working solidly with a man named Janek. He's a recent convert who was baptised on Christmas Eve and is one of the humblest and accepting people I've met here. He's so kind and is very grateful for any help and service we give to him. We're currently helping him prepare to take his own family names to the temple to perform baptisms, which is a really nice process to be involved in. 

Saturday we played football again in the morning, in the snow, and once again it was a mint 90 mins or so. We played world cup, and I played in goal again, it was incredibly slippy this time though as the snow has turned to ice, which made it hilarious. 

I read something this morning that stood out to me. It gave a little boost of energy that helped me get through the morning and gave me a new way to look at things, It was simply this. You can choose to come on a mission, or you can choose to serve a mission.   It was from something called 'the Riciardi letter' and is a series of experiences and stories from a missionary serving in the England Birmingham mission about 20 years ago. He talks about how his trainer changed his life. It's one of the best things I've ever read. you should read it, maybe you've heard of it and read it already

Have a good week.

Back together again Elder Huffman, Ashworth and Hanson

So this week has been a cold one, so so cold!

So this week has been a cold one, so so cold! No matter how well I dressed myself to face the cold, my fingers and toes after a few minutes were freezing.

It's been a busy week in terms of doing random office jobs and chasing around after everyone making sure everyone is happy. 

On the Wednesday after MLC, which I only had to go to this time to drop off packages, we had a huge family history finding activity in the centre of Warsaw with a bunch of missionaries. We had banners and whiteboards and a tent..it's a shame that it was so cold and windy, we tried our best to make the most of it. English was on Wednesday also. It was a warm welcome from both the students and from the heat of the chapel. The students apparently were excited for my arrival, guess being the only English missionary in the mission has some perks. 

Thursday started early with us driving over to the test centre for Elder Einfeldt to take a theory driving test, which he failed by 1 point. It was so funny as he called it and said he would be ticked if he got 67, he came out with the face of a man who just got 67 haha. After that we headed over to Centrum where we met all the missionaries coming in for legal work. We went and got some food and then headed over to the Urząd to help get them legal. It was another incredibly cold day, the wind was sometimes unbearable, it honestly felt as though someone was nibbling on the end of my fingers and toes. I learnt how to say that 'we smashed someone', in like a game of football or something..'Rozwaliliśmy ich'. 

Saturday morning was my favourite morning of my mission so far. Even though it was -17 degrees, we went and played football with some members and other missionaries, it was epic! We played on a turf pitch behind the chapel which was turned into an ice rink of sorts due to the snow, a few inches of solid ice and snow on top of the turf which made the game even more interesting. I went in shorts, because why not right..? I took pants with me but didn't change into them until I decided my legs were red and cold enough. I played in goal too as I couldn't be bothered running around. I took a 45 min shower when I got home, just so I was sufficiently warm enough. 

From exchanges with Quakenbush and Mulder last transfer, I picked up a new meal idea which is just fried Kielbasa and potatoes, but it's so good and does the job. 

Fast Sunday came quickly and seemed to last forever.  My main goal for the day was to not think about food. It was a decent testimony meeting, kind of nice there being no pressure for the missionaries to fill the time. We went out after church to a finding activity, again in the cold, it was so bad!  We bailed early and went home to break our fast, which wasn't as good as it sounds as I didn't have much food in. 

The traffic in Warsaw is the worst I've experienced. It's so dumb.

We have Zone training tomorrow. so should be good seeing Alvarez and Huffman again. 

Have a good week. Take it easy.

Warsaw Old Town

Pizza from De Grasso's after a long cold day 

Enos 1:26 - Those who are converted share the Gospel of Christ.

Where to begin, it's been the shortest week of my life for some reason, it's just flown by.

On Monday I treated myself to a new pair of jeans and a black woolly hat. We went to the old town and had a district picture that we'll be printing off and sending home as a Christmas card. So look out for that in the post. 

Tuesday we had a District Meeting which President joined us for. We had no clue he was coming, but it was nice to have him there. It's always good when President Turek is in on your meeting because I always learn something new..this time round I learnt the word 'to float' is ryfować. We weren't expecting anyone, so when the someone called the door it freaked Elder Huffman out, haha. We had a rather frustrating lesson with Bartek, it was good to be there with him and teach and all but the understanding of what we teach isn't quite there. 

Wednesday morning I got a phone call from an unknown number, it was Paweł calling to see if he could meet with us during the day. We met up after studies by Old town, with the snow pouring, and went to a place by the Rynek called 'Szewc' which is the word for 'Cobbler'. They had solid hot chocolate, which was needed as it's pretty cold out now. English class was hilarious, we had a bit of an English language segment and we had a chat, and then came the game..inspired by the video I received from my family of what happened at a family get together. We had to spin around 22 times, focusing on the ceiling, and then try and draw a specific thing on the whiteboard, it was so funny. We were all in stitches, it hurt to laugh and breathe for a short while after. 

Thursday was the day that Elder Sommerfeldt and White came to Lublin for exchanges. It was a bit of an adventure as their train didn't arrive till after 10pm. I guess not very unusual for others, but for missionaries it's so late! We had fun though and a moment where I thought I would have to put my 2 weeks of boxing training from when I was 14 to use, as a man ran up from behind us demanding money. I just talked to him and he soon left as he knew he wasn't going to get his 2zł for beer. 

Friday night we had a movie night at the chapel, a time for people to come and find out more about us as missionaries and as a church. Through the week we handed out over 1000 fliers, and we had 4 people show up. Those 4 people were people we personally invited..sounds about right for Poland. It was a decent night though. 

On Sunday we had a good testimony meeting, we had a lot at church too, there wasn't an empty seat. Myself and Ela took turns with the translating. After Church we went to visit someone in the hospital with Paweł. On the way, something happened that I'm always afraid will happen. A bird took a poop on my head, it was the only bird in the tree and it decided at that moment as I walked under to drop it on me. I was so mad, it embedded itself deep into my hair too. We were far from home, and I had nothing but snow and some tissues to get it out, so I had bird poo in my hair for a good 2 hours. 

That's my week. Here's a scripture for you. 

Enos 1:26 - Those who are converted share the Gospel of Christ.  We have zone training tomorrow.  This is the big one about family history and the area plan that we had the Seventy come down and speak to us about.  The zone is doing really well.  We have so many baptismal dates as a mission though, more than I've ever seen.  


Keep praying for me and I'll keep praying for you.

This is Boris, the Siberian Huskey - he belongs to Pawel.

the boys! Elder Summerfeldt and Elder White - they make me look like a kid

making pizza with Pawel and Elder Dooley

I'm the new designated translator - English to Polish, Polish to English...

Here's the week for you. Some things that happened.

Wednesday was my first proper day with Elder Dooley and we had a full but fun day. It started off with a tense trip to the dworzec, we barely gave ourselves enough time to get to the station and Huffman was stressing out haha. He has a train to catch to Warsaw to collect his new companion. We got to the train in time but it wasn't without a final sprint from the bus to the station...classic. 

We went to visit a less active member, it was a struggle finding his apartment but we got there eventually. The guy wasn't in, but we found a good Autumn setting and had a photo shoot instead. We had to return home quickly as a guy was coming to 'fix' the heating at our place. I say 'fix' because all he did was change the batteries in the Thermostat thing, if I knew how it worked I could have done that..he spoke to us as if we were stupid too. But we have heating now,I don't have to sleep in that bear onesie anymore. For English we had 3 people come, the numbers have dropped but he we still had a great time. We did a scavenger hunt, we hid around 50 letters all over the chapel and had them search for them, we even forgot where we hid some of the letters.

We had a mint lesson with a young lad named Bartek on Thursday. We taught him English by teaching a first lesson in Polish and then having him translate it into English. It worked so good, also it helped him understand the doctrine and what we were teaching as he had to translate and make sure he understood.

Friday I was in Warsaw all day with Dooley for MLC. We have Zone Trainings this week and so we met to talk about what we will be teaching.  President and Sister Turek introduced us to EDPER.  Explain, Demonstrate, Practice, Evaluate and Repractice.   I guess it's a new way of teaching that can be applied to any situation. For the train ride home I bought some Irn Bru! 

Saturday we took an early culture night and headed over to the cultural centre in town for a show/circus event that we were invited to by one of our friends. It was so cool and had a load of cool acts and performances. Probably the best thing I've done for culture night so far on my mission.

Sunday we had church. I think I'm the new designated translator now that Kapela had gone. From English to Polish or from Polish to English, I did the lot. It's a lot of speaking and listening but it's good practice.  I had to translate Sacrament meeting.  Now that Elder Kapela isn't there someone has to do it.  President Belo only speaks Portuguese and English, so when he conducts he does it in English, so I had to stand at the front and translate for the Polish members.  Then Elder Dooley and Elder Hanson gave talks so I translated that into English for the English speakers and then President Belo filled the time with a talk which I had to translate into Polish.  It all worked out.  

We have All Saints Day coming up this week and they have 'dzień zmarłych'  too.   It's a time for the Polish people to remember their loved ones who have passed. It's a beautiful holiday to have and a beautiful time of year. The Cemeteries here are being decorated, flowers and lights and candles of all colours are being placed on graves by family members. At night time it's a wonderful sight. It's a sign that there's hope of life after death, and we as members of the church are blessed to have this truth and knowledge restored. That we can be sealed together as families and live with them forever. Tuesday night is the night to go as it's the day of the holiday - I'll take pictures.

Have a great week!

last week you asked what Autumn is like here

Elder Dooley

we burnt things for my year mark, not a shirt though because I like all my shirts.  We burnt a few socks and a dictionary that we found.  I'm surpised that somebody in our complex didn't phone the fire service, there was so much smoke.  We had it under control though, Elder Dooley is an Eagle scout (whatever that means).

at the cemetery which has been decorated with flowers and candles by the families - it looks so nice

quality time at the show/circus

I like this place, a lot!

This week was transfers - I'm staying in Lublin and that makes me happy. I like this place, a lot! My new companion is the slightly crazy and loving Elder Dooley. He's joined me in the reign of ZL of the Warsaw Zone so it'll be a good time.

On Tuesday President Turek joined us in Lublin for our District Meeting and he also spoke with us all individually. The main reason was to let Elder Lange know of his new assignment. Elder Lange along with Elder Cowley will be serving in a new area in a city that sits on the border of Poland and Germany. Elder Lange is happy as this means he gets to speak his native language, which will only be an asset to the work in this mission. We were all so happy for him when he told us on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we went to Świdnik and did some service again at Beata's house. More of the same stuff, heading down the woods and collecting trees. there was a new adventure this time in that we broke their drain pipe dragging these trees and branches past their house, so we had to fix it. We went to the shop round the corner to buy the parts needed, borrowed some ladders from the neighbour and then went to work. Huffman and I took on the job but had no idea what we were doing, we managed to get it fixed though. We were tightening the bolts and screws to hold the pipe in place and the pliers slipped and lost grip and I nearly lost my finger, just 2 small holes in my finger was the result. I kind of yelped like a little dog. 

On Thursday we said goodbye to Elder Lange. 

Friday we had a day in the wind, rain and cold finding less active members and former investigators. We also spent 1 hour on a bus getting from one side of the city to the other. The traffic here is terrible at the moment. Friday evening we were invited round to our friend Marek's house. He is a priest at a big local church in Lublin. He's one of the nicest guys I've met. He fed us cake and gave us hot water to drink, we chatted and shared some Mormon messages and conference talks with him and we watched some of the videos he showed us. It was a nice evening. 

Sunday we had church and Elder Huffman, Myself and Elder Kapela had to give talks, although we didn't find out till 7pm Saturday night. In the morning at 10am President Belo phoned me and asked me if I could speak on something else instead of what I had prepared for. I said yes and had to talk about the restoration, he asked me to 'teach' a restoration for my talk as I would on a daily basis, we don't teach a full restoration much to people here, so it was the first time for a while I ran through a full restoration. It was in Polish, I had no notes, I just went for it and it worked out just fine.  I didn't struggle with getting my words out or sharing testimony, the words just came out, they made sense. A real moment I was able to see the Gift of Tongues working.

Yesterday, after studies, we contacted for a while and then I arranged  for us to go out for lunch with a friend of ours called Magdalena. She's cool and took us to this fancy restaurant where I bought some over-priced soup. She gave us an invitation to a huge circus show, so we'll be going there this saturday. After that we had another appointment with a girl named Małgorzata, she brought her friend with her and we chilled in KUL (look 'KUL' up on the internet) and had a laugh and chatted about religion. They're interested in coming to our sunday service in exchange for us going with them to theirs. Her friend Michał was a nice guy. So that was the day - then we picked Elder Dooley up.

Saying good-bye to Elder Lange

Day of former investigator finding, terrible weather but we had Dominos for dinner though

I got a bit 'atsy' with some glow up balloons and glow sticks

Thursday evening at the Dworzec. Sending Elder Lange off to his new area 

Michael invited us round for lunch

Bus ride home from Świdnik to Lublin