'I'm a Missionary!'

Squad pic after English class

Dzień dobry was! We've had a pretty solid week in Poznań..więc zacznijmy od Wtorku.

Wtorek - As you know Pday was on Tuesday last week. The Escape room we did with Sławek was tough but we managed to get out within the hour. It was different to the last one we did, in that we didn't start blindfolded and chained to a wall haha. This one was more about solving puzzles and working things out as opposed to just trying to open locks and things. We had FHE that night which went really well. We had 4 members there which is better than usual. We had a short spiritual thought and taught them about all the prophets from this dispensation, from Joseph Smith all the way through to Thomas S Monson. It was fun because it's not common knowledge here in Poland. The members had never even heard of Gordon B Hinckley. Then we played bean bag toss. we played 4 vs 4, and had these targets made out of a board of wood with a whole in it. I was on form, I think I hit 8 in a row at one point. After that we taught Joanna the plan of salvation. Probably the most in-depth plan of salvation lesson Elder Jeffs and I will ever teach. 

Środa - We had another good District meeting. This time we went through the most important part of any contact, which is bearing testimony and inviting the spirit. We practiced a few times and spoke about key points which need to be included when in 'step 3'. After we put it to work on the street and had a couple hours contacting. The weather was really nice, I had the classical missionary look with just a white shirt and tie...No coat was needed!! We managed to get a few numbers but not set up with them yet. We contact on a corner known as 'Fredra', a busy tram stop, it's close to town and the uni is close so it's a quality contacting area. We taught the Advanced English class this time.  It seems to work well with the advanced class. Afterwards we invited everyone back in to the chapel and the four of us sang a song that Elder Jeffs and I wrote to Sławek as it was his last English class. It was so funny. We ended the night with some classic English contacting. 

Czwartek -  The day with Elder Garrison. His comp had to go into Warsaw for legal work and so joined us in Poznań for the day and night. They're serving in Szczecin which is miles away from Warsaw. We contacted in the morning before having lunch at Bożena's. We then picked Elder Garrison up from the station and went out for more food before going out contacting again. The weather was even better than the previous day. Also I contacted on my own for the very first time, I seemed to understand a little better than I usually would do, maybe I was blessed for acting. I was myself and had fun with it and it worked out alright. Also we managed to hook ourselves up with a list of 3 good service opportunities around Poznań. Elder Vance managed to get in contact with the council and this guy sorted us out big time. The night ended with us English contacting, the highlight being an awkward 5 minutes with drunk people.  

Piątek -  We spent the morning inside with studies and weekly planning before taking Elder Garrison to the train station. We went to a pretty nice Milk bar for lunch, can't complain with a 14Zł lunch. Not much happened through the day, we had someone not show up for a meeting which always ruins plans, so we decided to go and tract in the area a member lives as he had invited us over and he lives way out. No look with the tracting but you speak to an array of people which is always fun. The lesson with Maciej (member) was good, we taught him about teaching in the church and shared our experiences with teaching. 

Sobota - We met with a referral early morning but it turned out he only wanted a book and then he left, so we were like...huh...what shall we do, we did nothing exciting we just went over our plans for the day haha. We had KraszKebab for lunch, this place has changed my opinion on kebabs, and the missionaries are friends with the workers there. We had 4 new English students come to English class, we taught beginner class and sang a song with them which is always a good time. Nobody stayed for religious class so we took dinner at the chapel before heading out to tract Świerczewo for the evening. Again we split and Elder Liechty came with me. 

Niedziela - The day of District Conference in Bydgoszcs..us missionaries got a ride there with Marcus. Which led to the first miracle of the day. We had 9 members from Poznań get there on the bus. We were well represented at conference, even President Edgren commented on it. The day went really well, we had Elder Limer (Area 70) there at the conference. We had a priesthood session in the morning before having the general session at 12. There was around 60-70 people and it was nice to see that Poland has a solid base of members here. Sister Kamp and Dekker were there too which was nice. Marcus got us invited to the Tufts (senior couple) after conference for a fun evening of games and food. There were 10 of us there including a family from Gdańsk and an investigator from Bydgoszcs. As we were sat around the table playing 'Wackey 6' I had a moment where I realised 'flip I’m a Missionary'. I remembered the times we would have the elders round for tea, their white shirts and Spirit they would bring, then I looked down and saw I had a white shirt and name tag on, I felt calm and smiled and continued on with the game but it was a nice moment. The journey home was crazy as we left a bit late and had a two-hour drive. Marcus and his driving, it's something else, but with him being Austrian I put total trust in him. We made it home on time though haha!

One of the best, funniest yet most exhausting English contacting sessions yet!

This is Sławek. He's coming to Manchester on the 17th to live and work. He comes to the English class but has never investigated the church, but wants to be in contact with the church and the missionaries in England. I've given him info about where to go and things, hopefully he goes to Oldham, I told him to anyway.

Monday 7th - After Pday ended we had a meeting with a young college lad.   We met him at his place, He's been investigating for a while but hadn't had a meeting with the missionaries for about a month. We just spoke with him about the importance of reading and praying daily, also church attendance and why we go to church, Moroni 6 explains that pretty well. We committed him to continue to read and pray and invited him to church but he didn't show up to church. 

Tuesday 8th - We had a really good district meeting in the morning after studies, led by our DL Elder Vance. We've been focusing on contacting and how we can make every contact a good one. Last week we focused on the initial first impressions. This time we focused on getting them interested whether it be through a question or being funny. After that I gave a Christ like attribute section, I prepared something about diligence and the importance of being physically and more importantly spiritually diligent in our missionary efforts. Later on that day we had a meeting with a lad called Marcin. He's the brother of Carolina, a girl that was baptised in Canada. We taught him in the mall in the food court, and it went as well as you could imagine haha. Tuesday evening is Branch FHE. Iza, our investigator Marcin and Carolina showed up. We don't get the best turn out but we're working on improving it. We gave a short spiritual thought on the sacrament, and then had a paper plane contest for the activity, although the 'contest' part didn't happen and it turned into kind of dodgeball but with paper planes. 

Wednesday 9th - We had a bomb contacting session, Elder Liechty and I teamed up. We had 3 good contacts, using the points that we'd learnt from District Meeting the previous day to get people hooked. English class was fun as always. We sang with them, there were some mixed reactions when they found out we were singing haha. Most of them got involved though and asked if they could do it next time. Maybe we will. 

Thursday 10th - Thursdays are the Wednesdays in the week for missionaries I think. Bożena had us round for lunch as usual, we went contacting for an hour before leaving for institute. We had a pretty stressful evening as we had to organise how we were going to get the branch to district conference in Bydgoszcz. We spent the night calling members and trying to buy bus tickets and then we managed to get it all sorted. Get in! We saw that we had tracting planned but it was late and we couldn't be bothered trekking to our area, so we decided to English contact between the two busiest tram stops in Poznań. It turned out to be one of the best, funniest yet most exhausting English contacting sessions yet, but a great way to relieve stress. 

Friday 11th - Planned for the week. All the usual stuff. Went tracting in the evening again and swapped comps, so Elder Liechty came with me. We had a mint night. Some strange situations though. We had an old woman come out of her house having just woken up, she was so confused as to what was going on. She went back in and then came out again, this must have happened 2 or 3 times. Her neighbour then came out and she started waffling on to him saying how she's called the police and that. I was thinking 'what is happening', it was a funny yet weird 15 mins. Then from half 7 till the bus home at 8:15 we spoke with an old guy out walking his dog. One of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

Saturday 12th - English class. We taught them fruit and vegetables and just went through every single item you could imagine. With the fruits it was funny because they would be like 'oh raspberry, we have whiskey that flavour', I swear they said that with every fruit haha. 

Sunday 13th - The day of my talk. It went okay apart from me saying 'Dobry Wieczór' (good evening) instead of 'Dzień Dobry'. We had Marcin in church, it's always good to have an investigator in church. After church Bozena had the Elders and Karol (Elder Jeffs 1st councillor) round for one of her famous Bożena feasts.

Some of my favourites of the past week:-

Favourite word of the week -  Czołem, it's an older word that can be used to mean cheers, or thanks. We heard an old man say it that we contacted and Elder Jeffs got excited so we use it now.

Favourite scripture of the week -  John 14:15. Simple scripture, you show God you love him by doing what he says and keeping his commandments. 

Favourite journey of the week -  We took a trip up to a college campus just north of the city. We contacted up there for a couple hours. It was freezing but we want to teach young people. 

Favourite shop of the week -  Żabka...just a little newsagent’s kind of shop. They're everywhere and this past week mars bars were on sale.

Favourite moment of the week -  singing Hallelujah with the English class.

Best testimony builder of the week - my testimony of obedience has increased this week as my sacrament talk was about the commandments. Agency and the choice to be obedient plays a vital role in whether or not we receive the promised blessings of heaven. In every situation in the Book of Mormon, those that are obedient and keep the commandments are blessed. Those that are not are usually punished, or destroyed as it was back then. It's hard to be exactly obedient, but I know that we will see so much added to our lives if we do everything we can and 'strive' to be obedient and keep the commandments.

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Locked In Church! - First Week in Poznan.

the Rynek

Another Pday is here! . Jak się masz? mam nadzielę wszystko w domu jest dobrym.

This week has been a complete change to life and work in Kielce. I apologise that I’ve not taken more pictures as I said I would but that will change this week, obiecuje! 

We've had around 8 or 9 sit down lessons this week which is more than I had the whole 7 weeks in Kielce which is mental. We had a few meetings to help people with their English and then about half way through we swap topics and talk about the church with them which they're more than happy to do. There is some huge potential in a few of the people we meet. We had maybe 3 meetings which took that format. 

We went tracting one evening in a really nice bit of the city called Strzeszyn, it's kind of a newly built estate. We returned to a few houses that had told us to come back another time but they didn't want any of it. It was pitch black as this place had no proper streets or street lights, so we found a street that hadn't been touched yet and the first house we knocked on we got invited in. A youngish mother, she listened to us as we spoke with her about the restoration and the book of Mormon. I invited her to read it and her face lit up when she found out we were giving her this book for free. 

We taught two English classes this week. Whatever city you're in, English is always so much fun because you can make a fool of yourself and have a laugh. After the class we hold a religious class where people can stay afterwards to talk about the church, at the moment we're talking about 'Meet the Mormons' as they watched it last week. A couple that have been staying afterwards for a couple of weeks are meeting with us this week, and Elder Jeffs and I are buzzing. We're having lunch at their house and they can't wait for the meeting.

What else have we been up to...We've been at the chapel a lot at night as Elder Jeffs has been preparing things for the branch (as he’s the branch president) and sorting things out. Most of it is done now so hopefully we can get out tracting now up till 9.

We had probably the funniest experience I’ve had yet on my mission which happened yesterday during church. Sacrament meeting was over and done with and an older lady in the ward wanted to leave. Elder Vance told her that she can't leave as we won't be able to do Sunday school. So she says '10 minutes, I’ll stay for 10 mins'. Elder Jeffs then locks the door from the inside with the little bolt safety lock thing. We then realise that we can't open it...we both looked at each other and laughed, rushed everyone in to class and then went at the door trying to open it...but it wouldn't budge. I then jump out of the bathroom window, we're one floor up too, so it was a pretty big drop, to see if I could open it from the outside. We don't even have a key for this lock. We have the tools out and we're taking all the parts of the lock off trying to see what’s wrong with it. We couldn't open the door. The class then finishes...out come the two ladies wanting to leave, they start panicking because they can't get out. hahah I’m laughing writing this. Me and Elder Vance go to both police stations across the road to ask for a ladder but they look at us as though we're stupid and couldn't get their heads around the situation. Finally, we decided that the only way to get them out was through the window. We had a tiny step ladder that didn't quite fit the distance. It was hilarious lifting them out and then getting them down the ladder, I wish I had my camera on me.  We had to get a locksmith to come and break the lock and put a new one on.

Plans for the rest of the day, haircut, lunch with the other elders and then we have meetings tonight. So should be good.  We have zone training tomorrow and a few of the sisters from the mtc will be there which will be good.  We have a fun and busy week which I’m looking forward to.

I'm loving every bit of my mission!

the beautiful Rynek