week 6 in Gdansk!

Dearest Family,

So many amazing miraculous things have happened this week! I don't even know where to begin. All I can say is that the Lord's hand is really in this work--it's funny to look back and say "ok I felt like we should do this at this time" and then see who we met then, or how to ran into someone searching for truth.

Iga - she is a member of the church but a few years ago her whole family was very offended and left. But crazy thing is...we were walking on the street one day on the way to a less active member's house and I saw this woman walking and she had half her head shaved and I just felt like I should go talk to her. So I kinda chased her down and I was like "Hi, I'm from the Church of Jesus Christ..." and she goes I used to be a member of your church! And I was like are you sure? I'm not a Jehovah's Witness (there are a lot of them adn sometimes people think we're them) and she told us her story. It was amazing. Of all the people in all of Gdansk that we could have run into on the street. I know it wasn't chance. Also because for the past month I have been writing her name down because we're trying to find some of the inactives who have fallen off the face of the earth. So I've been mapping out where they live and stuff so I knew who she was when she said her name. It was such a testimony to me that the Lord is coordinating everything.

So right now we're meeting with a woman named Marta. Last week she told us her aethiest husband is really really interested in family history! So today we gave her some information about it and we're so excited. Hopefully it will spark his interest too. Her friend Krzystof has been with us at the last two meetings so that's been interesting. They've both searched for a long time to find the truth and right now they believe that it resides with the Catholic Church. For our lesson today we watched the Joseph Smith Restoration video and they said they felt like him too--searching for answers. Now we just need to help them understand the Great Apostasy a bit more. It's a hard thing to explain for me (words like nieksztalacic - to distort) but we get to practice it a lot with all investigators so that's good! They say they've been praying about the Book of Mormon but haven't received an answer from the Holy Ghost yet that it's true. We're praying they'll get their answers soon!

Ania's wedding- One of our members who was baptized last September is getting married on the 5th! We're trying to throw a bridal shower for her at the chapel. It's going to be so fun :D One of the members Wioletta suggested having a man at the party and the older member Halina (who is 85) said "Absolutnie nie!" I'm sure you all can guess what that means. Hahaha.

Eewa Metsa-Tokila from Finland with her friend Elisabeth Kaheonen. We saw them in the park below the chapel and I felt prompted to go talk to them and we did. We didn't know they were members but they are here in Gdansk on vacation and were looking for the church! And..this is the crazy thing--they know Liz!!! Turns out they're from the same home branch in Finland. So they were telling me all about Liz's family and how much her grandparents miss her and they love Liz! Eewa wanted me to pass this note to Liz:
 "I know your father and  your grandparents Kaarina and Raimo. They love you! and they miss you. I'd love to hear from you so much they always talk about you."
The world is so small!

Roman - a man who found an ulotki (flyer) on the tramwaj. Sister McAdams leaves them on her seat as we get off. He texted us and said he's been searching for truth for a long time. So cool! He's meeting with the Elders now and he came to the chapel on Sunday; it was great.
Marta blue coat
Sylwia
Irena and Wieszek and sledge

Love you all!!!

Sara

Gdansk life-5

Dear Family bo Bamily,

Hello! Greetings from GDANSK!!! Life is just fantastic here, the weather is getting warmer, buds are blooming, we are working hard, and I'm learning so much!

Sister McAdams is wonderful. I love her so much. We have so much fun together! Something I learned from her this week was from her talk in sacrament meeting on forgiveness. She talked about how forgiveness and repentance are so linked. She is a good example of being honest with people and teaching what she knows to be true.

Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: Obedience. Our goal is to be exactly obedient in all things. As Elder Nelson has said: "Obedience brings blessings. Exact Obedience brings miracles." So yeah! Shooting for miracles this week :D

Something I learned in Preach My Gospel this week was: the prophecies about Joseph Smith and the Restoration from the Bible. We are currently meeting with some very faithful Jehovah's witnesses and I have been studying the Restoration so we can help them understand it a little better. It's definitely strengthened my testimony of the restored gospel. Their names are Aldona Sara (her middle name, so she texted me some scriptures about Sarah in the Bible) and Ania. Aldona is my age and Ania is probably in her 30s and about to go on a mission for her church to Spain. It was very cool to meet with them because we were nervous it might turn into a bible bashing session but surprisingly they just sat and listened and we testified about the Book of Mormon.

Funny story: we're visiting a woman named Elzbieta who is less active and lives in Sopot. She wants to come to church but she has an old mom who won't let her and her son has autism so it's always fun visiting her. Anyway he's probably mid 20s and he's hilarious! He just yells out all the time "FACT!" but in a Polish way so it's more like "FAHKT!" "GAZETTAH!" (magazine) and all these other advertisements. It's so funny. And everyday at 6 pm his pants come OFF. So that's always a good motivation to keep our lessons 30 minutes or shorter! Last time he just BAM pulled them off! and he was like "JUZ! Jest 18!" Which means like it's 6 pm already these pants are coming off! So funny.

I love you all!

Sara

Easter lunch after church at the Lewis'. They were kind to extend the invitation to Bolek, our investigator. WE had a great meal and shared some of the Living Christ and our testimonies. Then he shared a really spiritual dream he had so that was awesome.

A YSA activity making and decorating cookies
White boarding in the the center - we write questions about happiness and others can write their thoughts and answers.

yesterday 4/9/12 was SMINGUS DINGUS!! so sister McAdams and I waited on the balcony of the daplicy (chapel) to dump water on the Elders as they walked up!!! muahahah. it was awesome. they forgot all about it so we got them!! actually we sorta missed but we made up for it later with water bottles. We kept seeing kids all day with water bottles...scary :)

poland week 4 and Easter!

Dear Fam Bamily,

Hello! HAPPY EASTER!!! WESOLYCH SWIAT! (happy holidays!) Wesolego Allelujah!

Oh wow. So many good things have happened this week! Attached are pictures from Easter and some recordings from our eating on that wonderful day.

Some miracles this week:

*Meeting with a young girl named Maja who prayed for the first time with us in the chapel! She's awesome, and says she is Athiest but interested in religion.

*Meeting with Dzislawa (Gee-swavah) who is hilarious and old and hates the Catholic church. Hopefully she'll get well enough soon to come to church!

*Meeting with Agnieszka--she is so sweet! And so prepared. It's like she's just been waiting for the gospel. We talked about the Spirit in our last meeting and she was eating up everything, she just wants to know more about everything!

*Bolek came to church again! And we got to watch a few more conference talks after partaking of the sacrament so that was really good. It was so funny because we invited Bolek over to the Lewis's for lunch after church and he was kinda hesitating because we're pretty much all strangers to him and stuff. But eventually he agreed and as he's getting in the car he turned to me and Sister M and he's like "wait you aren't coming?" but the truth was there wasn't enough seats in the car for all 4 of us missionaries plus him plus Somjit, plus Bro and Sis Lewis and Brat Bohdan. So we were like don't worry! we'll meet you there! (we were going by bus) and he just looked terrified. He just got into a car of strangers, 3/4 who don't speak Polish and we were going somewhere foreign. But alas, we eventually met up, ate lots of good food, and shared some of the Living Christ and our testimonies! Then he shared a really spiritual dream he had so that was awesome.

Basically, everything here is amazing. Oh and yesterday was SMINGUS DINGUS!! so sister m and I waited on the balcony of the kaplicy (chapel) to dump water on the Elders as they walked up!!! muahahah. it was awesome. they forgot all about it so we got them!! actually we sorta missed but we made up for it later with water bottles. We kept seeing kids all day with water bottles...scary :)

I love you all! I hope you are all doing wonderful and I send you my best! I pray for you every day.

Love,

Sara

Spending Easter with sweet members from our Branch

The kindness of members - Siostra McAdams and me with our Easter gifts.
Easter dinner with members and our investigator on the right front

Poland week 3!

Hello!

Wow...time is starting to fly by! It's crazy. But I love it.

Funny story from this week: We were in a park contacting people and Sister McAdams and I starting talking to this man and woman. Then the man's like yeah well, we're talking about our business and stuff so we can't really talk right now. But then Sister M goes: "Ok great but Actually (minus Jenny Christensen's finger point), this is really important" and started talking about the Restoration. It was just great :D we laughed about it (your eternal salvation is on the line and you only care about your temporal business! gah!) and because that morning I had read the scripture about not putting your hearts upon treasure where "moth doth corrupt" and so it was just funny to try to talk to the business people. Anyway. Maybe you had to be there.

What else? I feel like the language is a fire hose on my face...but I'm starting to get a few sips in here and there. It's good.

One of the best things we did this week was visit our less-active Thai member Somjit Phronse! She lives is Gydnia and she is amazing. Sweetest lady, barely speaks English and all she wants to do is pay her tithing! So in broken english/thai her friend translated for her the different boxes of the tithing slip so she could pay. So cute. She is just such an example to me of stalwart faith. Even though she can't get work off on Sundays she still wants to be a good member and she is only here in Poland to work (she's returning to Thailand eventually) and earn money but still still pays tithing on it all.

Also the other day we were contacting in a park and it was FREEZING! But we saw this older man walking and we talked a little bit about prophets. He said he would come to church and we gave him a restoration pamphlet. Oh and he's a 7th Day Adventist. Best miracle/surprise was he actually came!!! He came and watched general conference (just the first hour of saturday) with us at church. His name is Bolek and I love him so much already! He actually looks quite a lot like Baba.

Ok last thing: Saturday night we had a YSA activity at the kaplica! A grill! Of course on this day, it decided to snow. So we went back and forth between the shed and the kitchen, cooking chicken with Igor.

Oh and the best part? Sister McAdams and I brought a drunk guy with us! He was hanging outside our building and we talked a little bit about prophets, invited him to the grill and he came with us drunker than anything! I think he would have said yes to being baptized too but I didn't ask. Anyway that's all for now!

I love you all so much! Keep reading the Book of Mormon every day!!!

Love,

Sara