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

This City Makes Sense Now.

Tuesday - Zone Training was a win. I loved being there and teaching and speaking and working with Sister D and Thornton. Sister D was her usual self and was stressing about it haha - but she overcame and did a good job! We have a special zone here in the Warsaw District, I've strengthened and made new friendships through this transfer. To finish off the training I asked Elder Schwanke, Connelley, and Kapela to bear testimony as it would be the last time they could in that kind of setting. The spirit felt as these 3 lads shared what they know to be true and what they've learned through 2 years of service was immense.

Wednesday -  Nothing too much happened this day. We've been trying to go and visit and see what the crack is with all the former investigators we have in the area book. It's been quite an adventure traveling to all these different parts of the city. I know my way around this place pretty well now. It's been a time of uncovering all the dark areas on the map and connecting roads and things. This City makes sense now. We had English club that evening. We had a few people come. Elder Huffman and I were forced into singing our 'creed style' cover of Hallelujah. It was so funny but embarrassing. I played and Huffman sang with his best Creed voice. I joined in to save the awkwardness. I've said this a few times, I've made a fool of myself so many times at English club but I don't really care, it's kind of who I am now. Those at English also loved the performance too.

Thursday was the day that Campora has been waiting for, for around 4 months - I finally sent him his Ryłko  shoes.!  If you're reading this pal, love you man! We had a finding activity that afternoon.  The first guy I spoke just summed up the whole activity. He came up to the 'free table' we had set up and so I approached him and started talking to him.  He says to me 'answer me this..who is Jesus Christ?' I started telling this man who Jesus Christ is for me in my life, he then stopped me and said 'Listen to me, I'm going to give you a name, you are Andrzej Z, now explain to me who you are as Andrzej Z' I was so confused as to what was going on so I just didn't answer him.  He then said 'you trying to explain to me who you are as Andrzej Z is just like you trying to explain who Jesus Christ is, it has no meaning'. He left and I just kind of laughed to myself at what I'd just been a part of.

Friday - We got Flu shots! Hopefully, this means that I'm invincible and will stay healthy through winter. The whole Flu shot episode was so funny and bizarre. We all had to strip down in this room from the belt upwards, and then be checked by a doctor, it was awkward. I couldn't stop laughing though, I've not been shirtless in public for a long time.  For the car lovers out there I saw the most beautiful BMW 330i parked by the deptak. We went tracting that evening and for a bit of fun we had a play in the park we found. Swings, slides, see-saw, the lot! Then next to it was an outside gym - all the equipment is created in a way that when you lift it's always your body weight, but not really. You'd have to do so many reps to break a sweat, but it was hilarious doing exercises on these machines. There was a seated row kind of machine, when you pull back it moves the seat as if you're pulling your body weight, but you can do it really fast and you just bounce up and down, we were in stitches watching each other on these machines, especially when Elder Kapela gave it a go. We have a lot of fun when we do things as a district.

Saturday - I woke and my arm was aching really bad from the flu shot, but I persevered and worked out! Saturday afternoon we were invited round to the house of a friend of the other elders and ours. Present were the 4 of us elders, Michael (Branch Mission Leader), Ela (our friend) and then two of her friends. We had some good food and a good chat around the table. Whilst waiting at the bus stop on our way to the chapel for English we saw some people running from the security guard and a worker of the local Biedronka, they had stolen some alcohol and other things and were being chased, it got my adrenaline going as they managed to catch them! English was a win also, Magdalena, a friend of ours who comes to English taught the class how to juggle. I'm determined to learn how to juggle 4 balls.

Sunday - Church as usual. We spent the evening trying to undo the bad that happened to Elder Huffman. First , he left a folder full of potentials on the bus and then he lost his name tag whilst chasing after the bus. We prayed on the street that we would find his name tag and then the hunt began. We searched all over, retracing their tracks, as we were walking around I saw a 55 bus approaching us (the same number that he left the folder on) I signaled to Elder Huffman, we gave each other the nod and then we absolutely bucked it to the next bus stop, which was about 250m away, we've never run so fast in our lives.  As the slight gradient of the hill started to tire us, the bus passed us and we just about missed it. We never got the folder back, and never found the tag, they'll turn up at some point.

It's been a good week. Now on to the last week of this transfer. It's going to be a good one,  I can feel it.

Autumn

Warsaw Zone Training

Just a random part of town we've never been to before

Culture Day - Poland vs Holland - so fun to be there!

I managed to keep up with my Journal and Planner writing this week, so I have things to talk about. Woo! 

So earlier this week I broke my already broken bed, so I've been sleeping on the couch. It's probably comfier than most of the beds I've had throughout my mission.

On Wednesday I spent another day in Warsaw as we had MLC for the upcoming Zone Trainings. Ours is tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it as we have everything planned out and we're teaching and going over 3 really simple and important aspects of missionary work.

1) Receiving revelation 

2) How we can get our investigators in church

3) The Gift of Tongues

President Turek and myself had another chat about things he may have tried in England on his mission. We then tried to explain to everyone what 'egg and soldiers' are.   When I got home I went straight to English which was such a good activity. We had around 20 there again and played games and things. We played a game where we each had a piece of paper that was passed around and every time we had to write any instruction for someone to do. When they had all been passed around there was probably around 10 instructions on each sheet of paper. We then one by one chose a random sheet from the pile and had to complete what was written down. Some of the things were hilarious and we were all in stitches.

On Thursday we spent the morning cleaning our apartment as we had cleaning checks the next day. This place looked and felt clean but when I got down and properly cleaned it, it was so gross! As if it hadn't been cleaned for a few years. I'm glad it's clean now,  though. Elder and Sister Jones came to inspect, we passed which is a relief and then they treated us to lunch. We hopped on a bus and headed to the old town to this burger place. The food there is good and so cheap.

After lunch,  we said goodbye to Elder and sister Jones and then Elder Kapela and I had to go over to President and Sister Belo's home to help him with some Polish Homework he had. This is on Friday by the way...

He's studying to be a doctor and had to do some role plays of him talking with patients and doing check ups, but in Polish.  He had a script written out and we were there to translate and help with his pronunciation. It took a few hours as they fed us too which we were grateful for. Elder Kapela was the patient and I was the camera man. They turned out pretty good. I don't think President Belo will be getting a certificate in Polish anytime soon haha.

Saturday morning after studies we had lunch at a members home. She lives in a beautiful house just outside of Lublin.  We met her husband and her 18-year-old son who are both cool guys. The food was good too. Classic Polish potatoes with Chicken, salad,  and soup.

Then came the culture day activity. The football game was so good, the quality wasn't great.  Elder Huffman compared it with High School football in America. The occasion was good, it was really cold though. It was Poland vs Holland, so international level.  Poland won, by a long shot!   The Dutch QB got sacked so many times.  It was so fun to be there.  After, we went out for food and Michael came with us, he's with us all the time, it's great! 

Elders Kapela, Ashworth, Huffman and Lange

Do good.

Elder Ashworth

Moments from the week...here we go!

We had another 'Dank' district meeting on Tuesday. Talked about focusing on what we're here to do and to forget about the things that aren't in our control. We stress too much over the things we have absolutely no control over, it's dumb really, even as people, we do that, but we've just got to focus on what we have and where we want to go. 

We were contacting afterwards and there was this really loud and funny Ukranian lady handing out Subway fliers, every time we had a good conversation going with someone she would come over, interrupt and hand the person we were talking to a flier - it was so annoying. We saw the funny side though, we laughed about it for a while afterwards and now we consider her our friend, whenever we're on the deptak she's up there with us but we talk to her. We've taught her all sorts about the gospel.

We've had a few good contacting sessions this week. Some more successful than others, that's a given though. On Thursday we managed to hand a few books out and teach some lessons on the street. The first guy Elder Huffman and I stopped, gave us some time to talk and was really open to our message. We had a solid conversation.  We were able to throw so much truth out and share our testimonies with him, but nothing came of it.  It's moments like this that make me think, how could he have possibly passed on this opportunity to take a book and change his life for the better. To find the true path that leads to salvation. .how!? I take comfort in knowing that it just wasn't that persons time, Heavenly Father is preparing that individual, we just found them too early, they will have another opportunity to listen, maybe years down the line, but they will.

Another time this week we had a bizarre contacting session, this time involving a drunk man..his first words to us were 'jestem po piwie, ale słucham'..we spoke to him for a while..then alone I spoke to him for longer..and a little longer, until finally I managed to end the conversation. He wasn't super drunk, he asked me some good questions and we managed to teach him things he understood. He took a book and I challenged him to read it and pray. We'll see what happens. Next came a guy, very passionate about his faith in Christ, but convinced that he is already perfected in Christ and saved through his grace alone. I told him many times that he's wrong and that there are still things we have to do in order to receive salvation - and to tell me he's already perfect was something I've never heard before. He also tried to heal a man we were talking to that had a throat problem. Like I said it was a bizarre bit of contacting. I also got targeted by a bird - if you know what I mean - left a nice mark on my shoulder. Haha.

On Saturday we picked up a load of supplies from President Belo's house and took them to the chapel.  The supplies included 3 huge packs of toilet roll.  I don't know why, but carrying toilet roll around has always made me feel uncomfortable. We all have our trials right? It was embarrassing 

English class was good this week. Both times we had people come, not as many but enough to have fun. We had some members there too. 

On Sunday 1000's of bikers drove down the main road that the chapel is on.  It was during conference but the noise was incredible and I had to check it out. It was a nice sight.  We spent a total of 12 hours at the chapel watching conference. 

Time well spent! 

Saturday night we had cake at the chapel for Elder Huffman's 20th. We sang happy birthday in 4 languages. Chinese, English, German and Polish. 

We spent 12 hours at the chapel yesterday watching conference. I'm happy to have spent it in Lublin with these people.

6.30am view from our balcony

Michael is back in town. He's our Branch Mission Leader. He's from Taiwan. Love the guy already. We have such a laugh together.

making pancakes at the chapel. 

I can feel Winter coming!

So just a few things that happened this week - 

On Tuesday we had a bomb district meeting as always, and then we hit the town for some contacting. It was going well until the rain started to fall. We had to pack the table and books away but we carried on going and talking with people. After a countless number of rejections I turned and shouted something, can't remember what exactly.  Elder Huffman said, 'chill..the next person you speak to will take a book, I promise you.'  Him saying that kind of got me hyped, the next person came by. It was a young guy wearing all camo, pretty hard to notice him at first, but we chatted and he was a chill guy interested in religion, especially other faiths different to his own. He willingly took a Book of Mormon and said he can't wait to read it.  The miracle of the day I guess. 

Tuesday was also the arrival of Elders Schwanke and Baldwin.  We picked them up from the dworzec that evening. Elder Schwanke served in Lublin for 8 months so he was buzzing to be back! We had a good day planned with them.

I had Elders Schwanke and Baldwin round for exchanges, had to get a pic before they got on the train back to Warsaw

Wednesday we had service at Beata's house again. Just carrying more trees from the woods to her back garden, building things and knocking things down, nice just to have a bit of physical labour other than walking and talking you know. We get fed some good grub too.  Good classical Polish food. Home-grown and cooked cauliflower soup for starters and then some Pyzy z mięsem for main. We all stayed over at the other Elders place Wednesday night. Which meant a night on the floor for me, I made sure I brought my huge pillow with me this time. 

We've been doing district tracting on nights recently.  Thursday night we tracted, also Sunday night. Sometimes you need that extra push to get out and work.  It always helps when you have the district members out with you to give you that extra energy. 

English class was on Saturday.  We didn't have as many there this time, but still a good 10 or so came.  We still managed to have fun. We went and played sport afterwards.  Elder Huffman and I played head tennis over a volleyball net for about 30 mins before heading out,  as nobody was there. It was good fun though, it took us a while to find our touch, but once it came there was no stopping us. 

Sunday was a solid day. It was fast Sunday as General Conference is next week.  For General Conference we'll watch it at our chapel through broadcast like you do back home.  It'll be translated into Polish though which will be fun as I'll be able to understand what's going on this time, back in April I had no idea. 

The darkness comes earlier now, it's much much colder and I can feel winter coming. It's bringing back memories of Kielce. I don't mind though, it just means I can wrap up and wear the new coat I bought. 

Took me 5 weeks to notice this hanging up in the wardrobe, it may come in handy during Winter!

sunset view from the chapel

We went tracting last night to finish off the week. We missed the bus we wanted to take, so we took another bus and went to the end of the line. We found this really nice neighbourhood with huge houses and all..it wasn't street lit though and was kind of out there, it was so dark! 

there are houses and a road behind me somewhere! 

John 16:33 is what I'll leave you with.

Do widzenia! Życzę miłego tygodnia! 

A Focus on Faith

Some cool things that happened this week:-

1)  Tuesday we had the Warsaw Zone, Zone Conference in Warsaw, which meant another day of travelling there and back. I've travelled way over 1000km this transfer, just to Warsaw and back. It was good though,  a good day spent with the missionaries in this zone. A good occasion to teach and learn from each other. I really like the way President Turek leads his conferences and meetings - very simple principles are taught, in a very simple way, most of it through reading passages from the scriptures - one of the best tools we have been given to increase our knowledge.

There's been a theme of the last two conferences, that being a focus on Faith. How we can have more faith, why faith is important, how faith draws us closer to our purpose, having power through faith. Something we also spoke about was how before we can teach, before we can bear testimony, before we can have power, before we can have the companionship of the Holy Ghost; we must have a solid testimony in three fundamentals of this church:

  1)Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, The Holy Ghost

  2)The Atonement of Jesus Christ

  3)The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ

When we build our faith upon these three things, we will have the power to teach and bear testimony to our friends and those around us. Power comes through belief.

After Zone Conference, Elders McPherson and White came back to Lublin with us as it was their turn for exchanges with me. We had to rush for the train though, we just made it in time.  I ran ahead so that I could hold the train up, they call that the missionary style of catching a train. That evening we sat out by the Rynek in Old Town and had Kebabs, it was a perfect evening. We took a language study outside too and walked around the city talking with people and each other in Polish, it meant we had the opportunity so show McPherson and White the beauty of Lublin at night. 

2) We had a district meeting on Wednesday morning after studies, lead by Elder Huffman in Polish, it was cool to see him just go for it, we spoke a lot about things we learned from Zone Conference.

3) I think I broke my own record on laughing, I broke down so many times during the day and then especially at night, we played games and were just chatting - Elder White is a character haha!

4) We've been working our butts off this week trying to get people to come to our English Club that started on Saturday. On Wednesday night we met a group of students from Morocco, they're all studying at the Politechnika here in Lublin. There were about 15 of them, and they all said they would come to English on Saturday, we kept seeing them throughout the week and each time they were happy to see us and assured us they would all be there. So the time came, 6pm on Saturday, time for English, they all came in waves, but they were true to their word - all and more came. We had about 18 students from Morocco there, it was mint, such a miracle!  They're the nicest people too.

5) Another day in Warsaw for District Conference. We had a 3am get up, 1 hour to get ready and then we had to be at the bus station for 5am. It was so strange walking around the streets that early in the morning, people were still out partying. District Conference was good.  Good to see all the members and missionaries again. We had a decent turnout too. We spent the day in Warsaw, with other missionaries during lunch and dinner.  I had a walk around with one of Elder Huffman's old friends from his Warsaw days. It was nice to see, I hope to be able to see some friends I've made in other cities during the rest of my mission.

So there's a few things for you.

If I've learnt something in the 10 or so months I've been out here, it's that the hardships and trials are always outweighed by the good experiences and happy times - so don't give up!

Drugi List do Tymoteusza 4:7 - W dobrych zawodach wystąpiłem, bieg ukończyłem, wiary ustrzegłem.

English Club - will be one of my greatest memories!

Warsaw Old Town - it's huge!

Each Old Town has its own look, feel and atmosphere.  

How can we 'cast our nets on the right side of the boat'?

Hello, welcome one and all to this weeks update. It's been a solid week, much better and more productive than other weeks here. We've been really focused as a district this past week, as to finding how we can 'cast our nets on the right side of the boat'.  We've been praying and acting and showing faith, so hopefully it will be given us soon!

Tuesday we had a solid district meeting lead by Elder Huffman, we spoke about prayer and also figured things out as a district as to how we can better work together. After that we went and printed off some new English fliers, 2500 to be exact!  We then found a new burger place for lunch, pretty decent, not the best, but it was tasty. We went for an hour or so handing out English fliers, it's something I really enjoy doing, you can just chat to people about English, in English.  If they don't understand then you just speak Polish, but the young people love it here. We had to go to tesco to pick up a few things for the apartment to make it more comfortable for those that come here on exchange. 

Being a Zone Leader I have the opportunity of working with each district leader and his comp for a few days, so they can learn from me and also so I can learn from them. Honestly,  it's more of the second I feel. We work our hardest through the week and sometimes see no results, it's hard to stay focused and driven.  Exchanges also allow us as missionaries to see that the work is the same in each city across Poland.  It's not just you that is going through these trials, we can be leaders and show them hard work and fun.

On Wednesday I had another trip to Warsaw, been doing a lot of travelling recently. We had another MLC that was based on helping President and Sister Turek plan for zone conference. It was a good opportunity to be with the leaders of the mission and council together, there was a good solid presence. I had the giggles through the opening hymn though, I don't know why, but I was struggling to keep a straight face, haha. We had Pizza Hut for lunch before shipping out to Lublin. I went with Elders Garrison and Fetzer back to the Dworzec, I introduced Elder Garrison to Irn Bru, he said he wasn't that impressed. 

So yeah back to the exchange stuff, after zone conference and when I got home, we had Elders Reid and Dooley from Łódź come down for a few days. 2nd exchange of 4 to get through. Elder Dooley is a group below me, we met in the MTC as our groups overlapped.  Elder Reid is in his 3rd transfer and is a boss at Polish! 

Wednesday we spent the afternoon at Beata's house - a lady who the missionaries have had contact with for a while.  She lives on a big plot of land and so we go regularly to do yard work or whatever. This week we had to turn mounds of rocks and clay and mud into a nice flat bit of land she could start growing things on.  So we went to work, tools and shovels, 2 hours later we had what she wanted. The Americans loved the yard work, I wasn't a huge fan but I got a sweat on. We also went into the woods to get some wood for her, czyli she had us bring a whole tree from the woods into her garden. just picture 6 Elders carrying a huge tree, it was so heavy.  They fed us, traditional Polish food, potatoes and salad with a big old Kiełbasa. Between Elder Huffman, Reid and Myself we drank like 6 litres of sparkling water too, they just kept bringing it out.

After service we spent the night doing some English contacting.  The Deptak and old town was so packed as there was this 'Taste festival' going on, so just loads of wooden market stalls selling all kinds of foods, it smelt so good, such a good feel to the place. We slept over at the other Elders place, just to have a bit of fun, so 6 elders in one place, with no sleeping arrangements!  I slept on the bare floor with my jacket as a pillow but it was all worth it! We had a good night just chatting together - we were still in bed on time though.

Saturday evening was cool.  We had a lesson with a guy named Marek.  We opened his eyes to a new way of planning. He came to the English class but was the only one there, so we decided to teach him, asking inspired questions and seeing where it lead us.  It was a cool experience and Marek is a nice guy. We taught him how to pray, the way the Saviour taught, he prayed to finish off the meeting and it was a really sincere prayer.

Sunday was the big one, the turning point in the work here. President Belo and his wife are back in town, as school has now started.  They're both young.   President Belo is at medical school here, and they're such cool people. They had us round for dinner last night and we had a good time just getting to know each other and all. Look forward to the next few weeks. 

Peace,

Elder Ashworth

Elder Dooley

Elder Lange.

Me and my twin!

Elder Huffman and his twin.