I've been entrusted with the life of a new missionary.

Hey Mum and Dad and anyone else reading.

If you don't already know by now I've been entrusted with the life of a new missionary for my last transfer. I'm serving with Elder Asendrych from Leeds, England, at the trainer/trainee meeting in Warsaw as president was assigning us our new companions..he looked at me and said 'Elder Ashworth will be serving with..of course.Elder Asendrych' I got up and cheered and ran over to him and gave him a big hug, thought I'd lost him too he's that small. He's a good lad though, quiet and confident, and knows why he is here, he has his goals and his expectations.

We were asked to think about things our trainers did good, and also things that they did bad, so we could apply the things they did well into our own training and avoid the bad things. I thought a lot about my first transfer with Elder Taylor and honestly couldn't think of anything I needed more than Elder Taylor to be my trainer.

One funny experience from the week. It was our first morning together. Elder Asendrych gets out of bed and asks me 'what do I do first? shower or exercise or what?', I just said 'whatever you want, the morning is yours'. he went about his morning, at about 7:20 I noticed him start to get dressed, then he brushes his teeth, puts his shoes on and sits at his desk, I walked in and said 'where you off to?' he looked at me, I was still in sweats preparing to exercise, he laughed and said 'nowhere, just force of habit I guess'. 

Scripture from the week, something I found that reminds me of how we should be.

'Albowiem nie wstydzę się ewangelii Chrystusowej, jest ona bowiem mocą Bożą ku zbawieniu każdego, kto wierzy'

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

Warsaw Zone Training - Speak only in Polish and study only in Polish!

So on Saturday we had the chance to go to leave Poznań for the day and go to Warsaw for zone training. We're not part of that zone but there was some confusion with the travel and plans so instead of going to Gdańsk for training we went to the Capital. We left early that morning at around 8, I had McDonald's breakfast which is a must before train rides. We got to Warsaw and it was cold and it had rained..there was also a NATO summit going on so the streets were closed and there were Police everywhere and every few minutes a police escort would drive past. It was the first time in the Warsaw chapel.  

We actually have a church building, not just a rented out office space. It's pretty nice too. It was good to see missionaries I've not seen for a while, even some from the mission I've never met before. President and Sister Turek were running late so we had lunch and chatted before the meeting. I got to see my bro and trainer Elder Taylor one last time, which we thought would never happen. Sisters Kamp, Dekker and Barney were there too so it was good to see them. 

Elder Taylor - bro and trainer

The training meeting started, we had some reading and preparation to do on faith for the meeting - and so faith is exactly what we spoke about. The whats, the whos and the whys of faith. It was short but we were taught a lot and it sparked a lot of thoughts in my mind. President and Sister Turek are great people and it's going to be good working with them. We took some things home with us, one of those things being,  speak only in Polish and study only in Polish, this is going to help us all progress a lot.

Warsaw Zone Training - President and Sister Turek front right

We left training with the Lublin Elders and we did it in perfect missionary style by setting off late and then having to get across Warsaw to the station in world record time. We got the first tram and then had to get off and sprint to the metro and catch an underground train and then get off that with a final 300m sprint to the station. It was tense, tiring, funny, and probably a funny sight for the public to see,  7 smartly dressed missionaries carrying boxes and bags running across Warsaw!  So in the end the Lublin Elders missed their train by literally 1 minute, and we made ours with 3 minutes to spare. 

Church was good yesterday.  We had 3 members show up and also we had someone we invited there too which was a miracle from the week. Karol and Sergiusz both spoke on the topic of leadership in the church and then I finished the meeting by talking about how we can remember the Saviour using the talk from Elder Gong from the  last conference. 

Other things that have gone on this week. We had a really nice lunch on Tuesday after district meeting at this Indian place, it was really nice.  I had something similar to tikka massala maybe. I got bit again, twice on my shin and then one down by where my ankle meets my foot, and they've swelled up a lot, quite annoying and they're itchy as flip but I'll get over it.

We played football on an actual 3g pitch with goals on Friday, kicking a ball about is the best way for me to relieve stress I feel. 

We've decided to focus on the members and less active work as our biggest effort, we've not been having much success with finding and contacting so we feel member and less active work is what we should do. We're still going to find and contact but we're trying to find new ways in which we can make those finding activities successful.

Warsaw Chapel

All I've got time for, have a boss week!

Pozdrawiam,

-Starszy Ashworth

Sooooo good to play football!

So we had a good day today. We went to Świętokrzyskie, a place not far outside of Kielce.  It's the name of the whole mountain range but there's a monastery at the top of the hill.  Mat and his wife drove us there, it’s a huge old Catholic Monastery where they claim to have some of the cross from the Saviour's crucifixion.   Inside the Monastery the chapel was pretty big and I think is still in use. Above the picture there's some writing which translates to 'we worship the holy three'.

Elder Taylor

Apparently the pieces of the cross are inside the box

View from the top of the Monastery

Silhouette

Best bit of the week? Playing Futsal! We got invited to go and play with a lad and his team. They saw me and Elder Taylor kicking the ball about whilst contacting and approached us, we spoke for a good 30 mins. He invited us to play on his team that he runs in a tournament but we can’t do that, so we attended a training session on Thursday night. We played for about 2 hours and then spoke to them about the church and missions afterwards in the changing rooms.   It was soooooo good to play football again. We met a bunch of lads too, hopefully we can go tomorrow night and invite them to our open house. I scored around 20 goals and they all thought I was like Messi haha. We had a chat with them all afterwards in the changing room explaining who we are and things, Probably the best experience I’ve had yet.

Worst bit of the week? Fast Sunday crept up on us!

Favourite shop that I’ve been in? Not a shop but we ate out at a few good restaurants this week.   A good place just off the Sienkiewicza where they make Pierogi.
 

Favourite food of the week? Thursday was Fat Thursday...it’s a tradition for Polish people to eat as many pączki as they can, of course we joined in.

Best word that I’ve learnt? Jaki and Niż, I’m yet to use them in a sentence but they're really useful. They mean 'as'. For example...'as missionaries we,' but there's some rules for when you use them which makes them tricky to use. 

A thing that I’ve learnt? I've learnt that the post office is right by our house. We took a 20-minute bus ride to the post office and it took us about 100 yards away from out flat. I've also learnt that language study in the morning especially from out of the Polish Book of Mormon is incredibly helpful and sets you up for the day.

Another good experience. We let, a friend we teach, use the chapel for a presentation to people about moving to Denmark for studies. A big point he made was that they need English. We sat in on the meeting and then spoke to the class afterwards about our English class. We got 3 new young people coming because of it.

We've also met another guy, he's around 25 and used to study and work in Denmark. We found him whilst English contacting. He's a cool guy, we met with him a couple days ago for lunch and taught him a mint lesson. He's really interested and impressed with us as people. He took a Księga Mormona and we hope to meet with him tomorrow.  

I don’t really know with the language. I would say its improving but not as quickly as I would like. My understanding is still pretty low. But I know it's improving as I was able to order food the other day and understood pretty much everything that was said, which is tough with fast food places because they talk so quickly. I'll just keep working on it. 

First injury!

I didn't end up going to Kraków so I’m still here in Kielce.

What have I been up to this week.?

It’s been an okay week, it was a very crazy Tuesday, other than that it’s been a good couple of days.  So after last Pday, I think we just went tracting, we found some new flats built around the back of where we were originally tracting. Hopefully this week we will focus on the North Tracting area that prezydent wants us to go to. 

Tuesday was an odd day, we had a meeting with a man who’s been ‘investigating’ for years. He's a cool dude though. He runs his own Friends of America group and he just loves everything American and can't seem to grasp that I’m English and not from America. So yeah we were in a meeting with him and then suddenly Elder Wieler calls to tell us he's on the train on his way to Kielce. He's Elder Garrison's new comp. We weren't expecting him for a few more days. So that day we had to change all our plans, we had to leave the appointment early to get him from the train station, take all his bags back to the flat, then me and Elder Taylor had to pack and move to the new flat. Tuesday was a busy day.

We spent all Wednesday cleaning the old but new flat, getting food and all settled in and had the English class.  We did some English contacting the morning of the Class. We taught a decent English class although we didn’t get a great turnout but we're hoping to make plans to change the way it’s run and improve how we teach to make it better.

Thursday was the Warsaw day. We got up at 6 as the train was at 7:05. We set off with plenty of time, but there were no buses from near our flat to the train station. We decided to run but I had my black to shoes on so had no traction whatsoever and it had snowed a tonne that night. I put my foot in a ditch and ended up spraining my ankle pretty bad, it swelled up a lot too. 

To make things worse I missed the train, so that was a good start to the morning. I just bought a new ticket for a later train. My ankle is good now though.  I did what needed to get done in Warsaw so I’m legal now. Pretty good day too with the office elders.

Sunday, we had 15 at church. Including the Robbins'. They're a young couple from the states, Brother Robbins plays pro basketball here, the guy is 6ft 9! Pretty good day all in all. We had a few meetings with Prez. after church and then the other elders cooked lunch/dinner for us.

We spent 130 zlots on food this morning, it sounds a lot but 30 quid on food and we got so much. I also got a haircut. I look the part now. There's no way people will reject me now. 

We also met a pretty cool guy called Jakub.  We spoke to him for a good 30 mins on the street, I think on Wednesday. We're trying to set up a meeting with him sometime this week. 

It's working well with 2 companionships here now, we can split the work and members so more of it gets done and more members get visited. I try and get the ball out most days, but it's hard with all the snow and slush around. I'm enjoying myself and working hard. 

Cześć! - Kielce, Poland

Emailing from the library

Cześć! So another week has passed already, crazy how quick that has gone.

I know I said I’d make it an exciting week but it's been tough.  The zone conference was good, it was a nice time to get out and travel to a new city, a much bigger city too. The Zone training was over in Katowice,. so around a 2 hour train ride. We got there and we had a breakfast made, we met the Katowice missionaries, and then more and more as they arrived from across the zone. I got to see Sister Kamp which was a nice surprise, nice to see a familiar face. The rest of the zone seem pretty decent too, it's a shame that we hardly ever meet, maybe once a transfer I think. Which doesn't help you in getting to know the other missionaries. 

On the train to Katowice

The weather hasn't been too bad, it got a bit warmer but then it snowed. I've not had to wear hat and gloves but I still wear my big coat.   It's put a smile on the faces of many members and missionaries knowing about the new mission president, looking forward to it. It will help a lot with the branch presidents and just basic communication that doesn't get done at the moment because of the language barrier. 

So we taught Mat a good lesson on Faith, but he rang us the other night and asked to meet. So we went and met him and basically he read the scripture that we asked him to (Alma 32) and told us that he has no intention on getting baptised, he apologised and said that he didn't want to waste our time. Kind of a bummer but he still comes to church and we teach him because he still wants to be taught, 

Elder Taylor and I went Football contacting the other day. On the Sinkiewicza there's an open bit of the street that is like a flat bridge over a little river. We put up a white board, we were getting people to come to our English class, it said 'bezpłatny Kurs angielskiego' and then underneath 'show us your skills', no one could do any skills, I megged a couple of people haha, and we just had fun for 2 hours whilst doing some finding. 

Dinner and fun with the Daltons

The Daltons took us out to eat

The Daltons are a senior couple for the Katowice district. They have callings in the Kielce branch so come down every two weeks. They're nice and good company, plus we make use of the car when they're down, saves us from walking.

Bring on this next week. Also I’m going on an exchange possibly in two weeks to Krakow for a few days, should be a good trip.  I'm doing good, high spirits, I still can't understand anything or anybody, but I’m loving it! So I'll speak to you next week, tell everyone I love them!

Where we have Church meetings

Trainee tie

The Rynek in Kielce, it looked really pretty that day.  Each city has its own town square.

Szczęśliwego nowego roków

Szczęśliwego nowego roków is how you wish someone a happy new year. You can practise saying that.   So it has been an incredibly crazy past few days!

Our flight in Munich was delayed so we arrived in Poland a couple hours later than expected. Sister Edgren and the Assistants (one of the assistants Elder Jones is from Wales) went home so it was just President that greeted us at the terminal. As soon as I hopped in the car he told me where I would be serving and who with. I was a bit taken aback, but he could tell me because I was the only elder coming in so his decision was pretty easy. The sisters had to wait till the next day to find out with who and where they would be. 

I stayed over at the Office elders apartment that night which apparently is a first. They usually have the missionaries stay over at the mission home, but it was just the sisters that did. I went out to work with office elders until 9.00pm.

The next day we all went into Warsaw to apply for a citizen card of some sort. Whilst we were waiting, I went out contacting with Elder Campora (one of the office elders), it was really enjoyable. First taste of rejection haha.  I got on a train, I met my trainers in Warsaw and we got the 3-hour train ride together. My trainers are Elder Garrison and Elder Taylor.  Elder Garrison has been here in Kielce 14 months.   Elder Taylor was the Zone Leader and Branch President up in Poznan before this.  Elder Taylor has been out around the same time as Jake, he seems so old yet I’m 2 months older than him, it's crazy.  He goes home in July I think and then this transfer is Elder Garrison's last transfer. We live in a tiny flat in a tower block not far from the city centre and Sienkiewicza. It's cosy but it's fun. They're both super cool guys. 

We've done a lot of walking. My feet are feeling the effects but it's good. The Sienkiewicza is a long street that runs through the middle, you should check it out, it's impressive. We walk up and down there daily to get to and from contacting areas and to church. 

The language is nothing like I’ve ever heard. They speak so quickly and so I'm struggling even to pick out words. I make the initial contact but then hand over to my companions to do the talking haha. 

At church on Sunday we had a grand total of 9 people there. It was a strange experience but I got to meet a few of the members which was nice. I played the opening hymn and then also introduced myself and shared a testimony. It went okay from where I was standing.  Prezydent Najburg is the president. He's such a good man! we have English classes on Wednesday night, so looking forward to that. It's a good finding tool.

President and sister Edgren are both really nice. They just welcomed us in and got us all ready and then just shipped us off to our areas. I just found out that we're getting a new Polish mission president when the Edgren's time is up in summer.  I’m in the South zone with Krakow, Katowice, and a few other cities, We don't have a district because the 3 of us are the only missionaries in the city. We have the whole city to ourselves. Sister Kamp is in my Zone, I’m not sure who else of the sisters are. We have a zone training meeting on Thursday in Katowice so we get a nice day out and i get to meet the zone. From the missionaries that I’ve met up to now, which is a good bunch of them, they're all mint. Everyone says it's like a family here and it definitely feels that way.

So a usual day is up at 6;15, Pres likes us to be up early. We're out by 12 usually after studies and lunch break. Then it's contacting or tracting till dinner, and then after dinner we sometimes have lessons, we head back to flat to do member book work or we head out to do more tracting. We currently have 2 investigators that we're teaching. I've only met one of them, we're teaching him tonight actually after emailing. 

We try and do all the contacting and tracting through the day because it is so cold, it was -14 the other night. This big coat that I have does the trick though, just my toes and face and hands that get cold. We went food shopping today at TESCO, they have a tesco about a 5 min walk away from the flat. We spent 175 zlots and got so much food.

Look forward to letting you know about my week on Monday.  I’ll make it a good week!

Do widzenia

You have to be prepared for the -15 degree weather.  Photo taken at the chapel.

Elder Coxx and Buckhoff

In the little town square.  Each city has one., it has another name , like a rynek or something.

Out contacting in the city. Elder Taylor, me and Elder Garrison.

I don't know much about this place or  what the buildings are but its a nice park.