Training Love! June 25

Dearest Family!
Hey there!
Thank you all for your emails!!! I am so grateful for your faith and prayers for our companionship. Thank you for your love and support. So I am training and it is one big fun adventure! (Don't worry, I've only gotten us lost on the tramwajs a couple times...) I love Sister Ostler. She is really amazing. She hides how cool she is because she is humble and so positive but she really is one of the strongest, most fearless people I have ever met. I know that our companionship has been directed by the Lord and we are meant to serve together in this time. Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: charity. Seeing every person on the street as children of God, as our brothers and sisters has made our contacting more sincere and effective.

Something I learned in the Book of Mormon this week was from Mosiah 11-14. It really stood out to me this time the other doctrine that Abinadi teaches and how he teaches with questions. I really liked that and I want to incorporate his way of teaching this week.

We invited the Spirit this week by: laughing together and serving each other. It's been so fun to learn how we work together and what we emphasize as we teach. We had a miracle this week. We were almost home and Sister Ostler inspired me through her actions to just give a flyer to a man on the phone. Turns out he is a member of our church! His name is Rafal and we had a short lesson on the bench. He had moved away and gotten busy so he hadn't been to church and it was amazing to hear he still had a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I'll keep you updated about him.

Basia, our investigator with a baptismal date is doing great and determined to quit drinking coffee. She has so much faith. Yesterday she told us she is still nervous about baptism but whenever she is in church she feels at peace. We're going over to Jadwiga's house (our less active member) today to help her quit smoking. Goodbye every single papier rosa! (cigarette)

I don't know what else to say, other than I love you all! I am so so happy to be serving here in Poland. We are seeing miracles every single day. On Saturday we saw a guy looking lost holding a map so we helped him even though we were kind of in a hurry. Turns out he's from a small town in Alaska and he's reading the Book of Mormon and investigating the church! How cool is that? He thanked us for helping him and we felt really good that we stopped.
Keep up reading the Book of Mormon! By Mosiah 24 next monday :) Enjoy!

Thank you for all that you do and for who you are.
Sister Bezdjian

new companion in Gdansk!

(This can all be found on the mission president's blog site!)

Sara with Sister McAdams! We are going to miss her!

"Tonight we welcomed 9 new missionaries to Poland. We have been excited to meet this great group.We were not dissapointed, they came off the plane all smiles, excited to finally get here and ready to do missionary work! That's what we love to see"

"Sister Bezdjian will be training Sister Ostler"

and they will be serving in the northern-most part of Poland...the Gdansk Branch.o

"Our new missionaries are now paired up with their Trainers!"

"First, Olek and Alicja were baptized in Gdansk.Their daughter has been a member of the church for over 20 years and has been living in England. How pleased she was to attend the baptism of BOTH her parents. What a great day in the life of this family! And How wonderful it was to have Patryk ( a convert of less than a year) use his priesthood authority to baptize them!"

"Members and investigators from the Gdansk Branch were in attendance to welcome this new couple into the Church. What a great Branch! We appreciate how they love and fellowship the new members of the church"

june 18! Baptisms

Hi Family! 

Oh man. I love you all so much. Thank you for your prayers and support. You guys give me so much happiness. 

I love Sister McAdams. This week she taught me a lot about enduring to the end. She is on her last few days (she flies home this Friday) and she still works so hard! I love serving with her and I am sad that she's leaving. I love her! Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: serving with love. We are striving to help people "along the way" and we know that as we go about "doing good" we will be led to the people the Lord has been preparing. 

Something I learned in the Book of Mormon this week was about the conversion King Benjamin's people experienced. I always love reading his speech and it reminds me how merciful our Heavenly Father has been to me. Realizing that inspires me to be more giving, serve more, and be more like He is to my brothers and sisters in Poland. By next Monday, we should all be on Mosiah 15 so really dig in this week :) They're some deep awesome chapters. I'm going to apply them to myself: How am I like Zeniff? Like King Noah? I also read the talk by President Benson called "Beware of Pride." It was very very enlightening. I strongly recommend you to reading it. 

People are still going crazy for the Euro. But more on that in a minute. First I want to write about baptisms! Well this Saturday Alexander and his wife Alicja were baptized! The Elders received their info from their daughter who lives in England and was baptized there. They are an older couple but really want to follow Christ. The baptism was great, Patryk our recent convert 17 yrs old spoke and then we all walked across the street to the swimming pool. Then we sang a hymn and Patryk baptized both of them. It was really special and we had so many investigators there! Basia, Marzena, Darek and Marzena, and Janina and then the Elders had some of their investigators too. After we had treats in the chapel and everyone was so happy. Sunday they were both confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was amazing. 

Crazy part was on the way back from the swimming pool, there were TONS of fans (it was the Poland game that night vs. Czech Rep.) so there were wild crowds of red and white painted people. And our average age of our members is 85 so that was a fun combination. 

Anyway, so other cool news, Basia set a baptismal date!! For the 14th of July. So amazing. We went over there last night and we talked about the baptism and how she felt and what it is. We read Mosiah 18 a little bit and asked her to be baptized. She nodded and started crying and said "I told Jadwiga earlier today yes, I want to." Then we got our baptismal calendar out and she was worried that she doesn't know enough but we comforted her and told her it will be ok! She is so cute and I love her so much already.  

In other news...

*We had lunch with Lidia and her husband Wojtek who isn't a member...yet :) that was nice.

*We are teaching English at a mall nearby for service and our students are so fun and nice! They're all librarians who are gorgeous, love to read, and are so fun. I showed them all pictures of you and they thought Mom was my sister. Hahaha. Aleksandra was like "she's the prettiest!" [pointing to mom]

*Elders Hayes and Klosowiak are staying here in Gdansk

*Poland lost vs. Czech...everybody was kind of put out about that

Thank you and I LOVE YOU!

Sister Bezdjian

p.s. I am training as of Wednesday! That means that Wednesday morning (our train leaves at 6:30 am) we will head down to Warsaw and that afternoon I will meet my new companion, fresh from the MTC! I can't believe it and I'm so excited. 

GOALO! Gdansk week 12 :)

Dearest family,

Hi! GO POLAND!! Did you know it's the Euro right now and everyone's going crazy? There are tons of Spaniards here and it is so funny! Because they're much louder than Poles and everyone just stares at them. It's hilarious. One guy was doing a "torro torro!" with his Spanish flag and the cars.

Thank you all for your emails and faith. Honestly, I love reading emails from you and they really brighten my day and inspire me to work harder and smarter. Thank you! Also, I know that our companionship is so blessed from your prayers. Thank you for caring about us and the work here in Poland.

I love Sister McAdams. This week she taught me a lot about always being teachable. She is so willing to improve and I think that is her best quality. She is also really open to talking and working things out and I admire that a lot. Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: charity by the means of the Spirit. Having the Spirit and loving our investigators are directly related. We are striving to love them so that we can feel the Spirit in our meetings and discern their needs. We invited the Spirit this week by: repenting and asking for forgiveness. Falling short is inevitable but we can choose to be humble and seek divine correction and help each other improve. Doing that really invited the Spirit this week. Something I learned in the Book of Mormon this week was from Jacob chapter 4. I love reading about the faith the people had that "even the very trees" obey them--but it is Christ's grace that does it all. We all should by read up to Jacob 7 today so way to go! Keep up the good reading :) By Mosiah 5 next week...some of my favorite chapters are coming up!

We had a lot of amazing things happen this week! We visited our less-active member Jadwiga again, and she had a friend there named Basia. We talked about the Spirit, what it is, how we can invite the Spirit, and a few minutes into the lesson Basia was crying and she agreed to read the Book of Mormon. It was really amazing and the best part is, they both came to church this Sunday! Jadwiga has just felt really guilty in the past because she smokes and she feels bad coming to church when everyone knows that she smokes but she was so happy when she came. It was really really good. And Lidia (our recent convert) had a great idea. She heard that Marzena (a former investigator) was in a car/bike accident and so together as a ward we all brought one thing to church foodwise to give to Marzena. We're delivering the items tonight and it was so cool to see everyone pull together and all because of Lidia's great idea!

In other news, we met Krzysztof in a park and he invited us over to meet with his whole family. There's the wife, Krystyna, daughter Agnieszka, son Damian, Grandpa Jozef, Ciocia (aunt, not sure her name), and the dog Kylia. They're wild and awesome! We started calling them Brother Krzysztof and Sister Krystyna and they loved it :) Cutest and saddest part was they introduced grandpa as "Oh, this is grandpa. He doesn't have legs and his wife died two years ago." And he was just laying back in the chair with the hugest smile on his face!

Other coolest thing this week: We met with Bartek and Lidka. Lidka owns the flower shop near our apartment and is athiest. But they both keep joking about converting it's so cute and funny. Bartek started calling their cat "Mormonka" which means "little Mormon." They really liked the Plan of Salvation though. Hopefully they will read the Book of Mormon!

Thank you and I LOVE YOU!

Sister Bezdjian


p.s. As of this week, I am officially trained! See following picture. Sister McAdams made me a certificate and everything. So it is official.

p.p.s. I chopped off my hair! It is shorter than my shoulders and it's kind of weird. But I really like it!