'TRUST PROPHETS'

The week!!

So Monday night was made good as at 'most teatralny' we saw an SLS Mercedes, it was loud and then he set off and bombed it and I love cars so....

I got a message from Marcin saying that he's back in town which is good news. He's the recently baptised member from a few months back. Good to have him back. We did some English contacting on Monday night as our English class has been low these past few weeks..maybe because it's summer break. We checked out the park but there weren't very many people there, it was a perfect day to be in the park too. There was a lad on the deptak playing his cello with a loop machine and he sounded mint - not every day you see someone with a cello on the street. Poznań has a bunch of good street performers.

We helped out Kasia on Wednesday morning at her new place. I love going round to hers to serve and also because she has 'Krowa' her huge dog that we're bros with. We had classic Polish milk bar food for lunch before doing some contacting. We had a sweet English class that we had to teach alone as Elders Bebel and Somerfeldt were in Warsaw. We had both the advanced and beginner classes together and just had some fun by playing games and making fools of ourselves haha, something I enjoy doing when it comes to English, being funny and loud and energetic helps them be more comfortable in class. We taught the plan of salvation in a lesson that day too which was good. When people tell us it makes sense, of course it makes sense, it's Heavenly Father's Plan of happiness. We had an intense religious class after English and we were so tired and were being asked all sorts of questions.  Our Polish was tested but we both got through it. It helped that we had a member there with us in the discussion. That day was so tiring so as soon as I got in, planned, I hit the sack. 

Thursday was your usual service day, we headed over to the hospice nice and early.   We cut some apples for the patients there which they were grateful for, we do the most random stuff there and then we headed to the supermarket to do some shopping for the patients and buy things they put on their shopping list, which is surprisingly harder when it's in Polish. We then had a few hours before we met Marcin at the chapel and had a chat with him for a while, had a catch up and saw how he was doing. We hit the streets afterwards and he joined which was good. 

Friday we had a good service opportunity given to us by the hospice. We went to a house where there lives a lady who within the last year has become very ill, so we hung out with her for a bit before carrying her downstairs in her wheelchair and took her on a walk to the park. Her carer was there with her daughter and the dog came too. We had ice cream and spent an hour chatting and sitting in the sun.  She was thankful for us being there and spending time with her. Hopefully,  it won't be the last time we get to do that. Also that night we had a sports night at the park where we played football and basketball. I popped the football whilst kicking it at a fence but then the miracle of the day for me was that I found a euro football in the bushes that had been left there.  GET IN...it's now sitting in the chapel waiting to be kicked around. 

Saturday we had another sports activity at park Cytadela this time. There was a huge cultural event of the park where we played sport. Spanish, American and Canadians were all there and it was a pretty cool looking event. We started playing frisbee at first but then I whipped the football out, next minute about 9 Spanish lads came over and asked if they could play, of course we said yes and we had a big game of footy on the park.  Of course, they beat us - I had 2 Americans and a Canadian on my team.  I showed them how to play the English way though and scored a few goals. They were good lads I just wish the people here were that enthusiastic about playing football and as open. We spent the evening out with Maciej, he's a member here who's not too much older than us.  We went out to dinner and had sushi which was super good. 

Me and my Spanish footy pals.

This is Krowa, the Airedale Terrier

Then came church, just your standard Sabbath day here. We had 13 at church though which was good to see. It makes the day better when the members come. I gave a talk which went ok and then Elder Bebel gave a good talk too about patience.

I got a really cool message from Malgosia this morning, our investigator.  We had a meeting with her last night and talked about prophets and then extended her a baptismal date which she wanted to talk further about on Wednesday but we asked her to pray about prophets and baptism and she said this morning she was riding her bike and saw a sign that said 'TRUST PROPHETS' and so she took that as her answer - ha ha!

We had a good week here and a lot of good has happened - it's tiring of course, but as I say - you've just gotta do it.

Pozdrawiam,

Elder Ashworth 

'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!