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.  

Miracle in Kiekrz.

So the week.

I'll talk about the main points from the week as we had a long one.

There was a day this week when we sat down one evening to plan, we had no idea what to do with our time, so we prayed about whether we should go tracting in a place called Kiekrz.  After the prayer we both felt good and so the following day we tracted up in Kiekrz. The miracle that happened is that the first house we knocked on, we met a guy called Dominik who let us in and we've built a good relationship with him. He was in church on Sunday, we've had a few meetings with him.  He came to English class, and he came to sports on Saturday too.  My testimony of prayer certainly was made stronger after this experience. 

Wednesday we had President and Sister Turek in Poznań as they were visiting all the branches and holding a small fireside, also they wanted to meet members and investigators. We had it as soon as English class finished so a few of the students stayed, also we had a few members there and Dominik was there too. It was a good night, President had me conduct the meeting which was fun, just the introduction and prayers and things, so nothing much. 

Thursday was the day of zone conference, we left early at 9 so that we could be there for the 11am start. We touched down in Bydgoszcz but then realised that we didn't know the way to the chapel - we set off anyway on a hunt for the chapel.  I eventually called someone to help direct us.  It turns out that we didn't end up too far just by wandering around. The zone conference was good. Very different to the way President Edgren would go about it - not saying that either one is better. There was more on our part to search and find and learn for ourselves. President Turek is a very good teacher. Most of it was in Polish.  When the conference finished we realised that we only had 10 mins to get to the train station for our train, so we all grabbed our things and then had Sister Turek drive us to the dworzec, we made it in time. We also had Elder Garrison and Fetzer with us as they had an exchange with Bebel and Somerfeldt. 10 mins into the ride home the train stopped, and we were informed that there had been an accident involving a person and the train and that we would be delayed 3 hours - so that put an end to the nights activities. Most of the time we were delayed we hopped off the train and chilled on tracks chatting and things. We got home just before 9pm, just enough time to order pizza and settle down for the evening. We bought 4 pizzas. 

Friday we didn't really get up to much. There were still 6 of us in Poznań and we attempted to do some finding but it rained all day. It was dry when we left the house and started contacting but after a few minutes it threw it down.  Things leaked through my bag onto my shirt so now I have a multi-coloured shirt. At first, it was fun being out in the rain, I enjoyed it as it had been so hot, after a while we got really cold, short sleeved shirts too. 

Saturday we had a cool sports day activity.  We had a few people come down and we played some American Football, a sport I'm not too familiar with but I still managed to be better than the Americans. The end result came down to my incredible pace and speed - it was fun though. Saturday evening came and I was shattered.  I fell asleep after planning on the couch still in my sports gear!  I woke up at 4am and then got into bed, the shower I had that morning was one of the best I've had. 

The long awaited fast sunday came - we had a more meaningful fast as we fasted together with one of our investigators which was nice. The testimony meeting was another good one. Having to prepare the schedule and make sure the day runs well is probably the biggest pain for me, so when it all goes well I can relax.

We hit Kiekrz another few times this week, nothing more as of yet but we're not giving up, we know seeds have been planted up there. 

Hope you all have a good week.

Bydgoszcz to Poznań, the Squad!

The day when it lobbed it down with rain! Elder Fetzer and I were brave, the others hid under shelter. Probably the smarter idea