This is it....the final post!

I'll start by sharing two experiences we had this week. The first taking place on Wednesday as we were in an area of Krakow called Chełm. We had a few hours to knock on doors and so we got a bus not really knowing exactly where were we going but knew the general direction. I felt as though we should keep going and so we went almost to the end of the of the line. We got off in the middle of nowhere and walked up the hill, I tried talking to a man walking towards us but he said he had no time, that's the classic response here, I don't know what he didn't have time for as we weren't close to anything haha. We kept going and found this sweet little road with a few houses on it and at the bottom of the road was a load of farmers fields, quite the scene it was. It was about the 6th or 7th house we knocked on and this lady opened the door, so I introduced myself and told her that my companion is learning Polish and would like to share a message with her and her family. To my surprise, there was no hesitation at all and she invited us right in. We met her 3 children and proceeded to share a message about family, what made it even better is that the father of his family was from Wales so his wife and all his kids spoke wonderful English which made it nice for Elder Asendrych as he could share a message with them in English. We were asked to stay a little longer as she was making some food and so we stayed and ate with them before leaving a copy of the Book of Mormon, saying thank you and heading back out on to the streets. I was happy that Elder Asendrych was able to have such an experience.

Another cool thing that happened this week took place in Costa Coffee not far from the rynek. We planned to do weekly planning there whilst enjoying some hot chocolate, it's getting colder now! Anyway, we sat down at the table and I walked over to hang my coat up when this lad asked me what the name tag was all about, so I told him we were Mormon missionaries, we were speaking English because he was from England. He looked at our hot chocolates and said 'Mormons drinking coffee?' we laughed and told him it was hot chocolate which he thought was funny. we ended up having a good chat and got talking about how he used to live in Manchester and was given a tour of the new YSA building there when it was first opened. The missionary gave him the tour was only Sam Bytheway who I know very well from his time in Oldham. It's a small world, I bet whilst Sam was on his mission he never thought he'd give a guy a tour of a building who would then meet me on my mission in Kraków.

We had our district conference in Katowice this weekend and it was a time of learning, listening and reflecting. We were able to listen to two talks given by our mission president and a number of other talks from leaders. members and recent converts. It was also a time of goodbyes, this trip to Katowice was the last time I saw a lot of my friends and people that I've grown close to over the past two years. I was able to see President Najberg, the first Polish man I met in Poland, and my first Branch President. I approached him after the meeting asking him if he remembered me, his response was one that put a huge smile on my face, he said 'of course I remember you, I remember like it was yesterday! are you still kicking a football around these days?' It was nice to be able to speak with him and understand him, as I couldn't do either in my first transfer. 

Now for some concluding words. I've learnt a lot during my time of service, a lot of things about myself and a lot of things about other people. Happiness is one of the greatest feelings in life and we experience it when we serve others and live close to our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ. This church is the true church of Jesus Christ, restored through a living day prophet. My favourite scripture as of recently is found in D&C 19:23. Peace is a word I've given much thought to because peace can come in many forms. The true peace that we find in Christ is through having a sure knowledge and clear conscience that our sins have been forgiven and forgotten. Conversion is a lifelong process that continues even after this life, let's not forget that only through daily repentance can we reach our true potential. 

I love this work, this church, my family and friends, and I love this country!

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

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

Cool Connections.

So where do I start with this week...

Another week down and not much to talk about, but we've had some good experiences.

We've been having a lot of fun this week with English contacting. We went to a stationery store to buy some clipboards, made this little sign-up sheet and have been going around town having people sign up on the street for our English class. It's worked pretty well and people always are willing to chat. It's a much easier approach too. A lot of people speak English here. A cool little miracle that happened, well not a miracle, but just a quick answer to a prayer we had one day this week. Before we left the house we had our usual companionship prayer and in the prayer Elder McMaster asked that through the day someone would approach us who is prepared. As we came out of the shop a guy came up to us and asked if we were Mormons, to our surprise we answered 'yeah we're actually missionaries', he said cool can I have a Book of Mormon? Luckily Elder McMaster had one spare, so we gave it him, unfortunately, he lives in Gdansk and didn't want to meet straight away with Missionaries, so we settled for giving him our number and are waiting for a call. This happened just 1 hour after we left the apartment. 

On Wednesday we had a trip out to Katowice for Zone Conference. It was a long day, a long conference in the heat. At the start of conference, President told us that we could take off our suit coats if we wanted, I was the only Elder to keep mine on, President looked at me as if to say 'what are you doing?', I looked at him and said 'I'll keep mine on because I look good in it', he started laughing and then got my attention again and said 'it still doesn't help you', so yeah I got wrecked by President haha. Overall the conference was good. It was nice listening to all the leaders who had prepared messages for us. A lot of it was based on Faith and how we can better present ourselves as representatives of the Chuch. 

Saturday we had our standard sports activity down at the park. We're becoming regulars down at the Boisko now, we turn up and everyone says hello to us. It's a good few hours kicking a ball about and chatting with the lads down there. Elder McMaster and Groseclose were laughing at me because I always get proper serious. My hamstring was hurting, and it could have snapped I'm pretty sure if I stretched it too much, I sprinted after the ball and it went out of play, then I kind of leaned over and said out loud 'I can't do this, my leg hurts so bad', after I said that I tackled this guy and smashed the ball as hard as I could at the goal, it made them both laugh anyway haha.

Sunday was a good day. Alex cooked some food for us after church and we spent a few hours round there, talking and playing some games with a few other members too. 

Good company, good food, solid day.

Alex 

Here we all are with Alex and Spencer Kimball who is visiting for 3 months.

The girls in the photo are from Utah - they're here as part of a study/teach abroad programme.  They teach English here for 3 months - they go home in about a month and then we get another group of 5 girls in Krakow.  The lad at the front is Spencer Kimball - he taught me in the MTC.

Note from mum - cool connections:-

In 2004 we went on a family holiday to New York and spent a week visiting church history sites around Palmyra.  We visited the Whitmer home where the church was organised and where there is a beautiful visitors centre with original artwork and an amazing bronze statue of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.  We were the only people there apart from a missionary couple - an Elder and Sister Kimball.  When we said we were from England Elder Kimball mentioned that we may have heard of his great grandfather who was one of the first missionaries to England - Heber C. Kimball (of course we had!!)  Elder Kimball proceeded to show us around the visitors centre and shared his testimony with us.  He was particularly interested in talking to Josef (aged 8) and Ben (aged 6) as we stood in front of the bronze of Hyrum and Joseph Smith and he shared his love for them and was grateful to us for taking our family there to visit.  It was a really special moment.  Now fast forward 11 years and who should teach Josef in the MTC but a recently returned missionary from the Poland Warsaw Mission - Elder Spencer Kimball, the grandson of the Elder Kimball we had met all those years earlier!!  We have only just realised the connection but think it's pretty amazing.