july 30th mission life

Dear Family,

Today has been a great day already. We got on the train this morning to Warsaw at 5:55 am (yikes!) and slept a little bit, had some study on the train, and talked to the couple next to us. Sadly they wouldn't accept a Book of Mormon but it was still good to talk to them and testify to the woman that she will see her uncle (who just died) again. We did some paperwork here in Warsaw and now we're near the train station and in a few minutes we'll be back on the train to Gdansk!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROSEPH YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
I hope it was a great one! You are the best brother ever and I love you so much! Muah and burzaczki ci!!

Sister Ostler is amazing. She truly loves all of our investigators and you can tell in the way she interacts with them. I also love how much she loves to cook! Sometimes she experiments in the kitchen and it's so delicious!! I am really benefitting too much from her good cooking I think.

Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: humility. It is so true that every sin, every thing in contradiction to God and his eternal purposes boils down to pride. Actively this week we are trying to be humble and I'm going to study this attribute more in my personal study.Something I learned in the Book of Mormon this week was how much humility is needed in order to plant the word. It's also impossible I think to feel the Spirit and prideful at the same time. I tried having the Spirit with me more this week by remembering Christ's patience even when I feel like there's so much work to do.

Some fun things in this week:
*We played tennis with the Harkers last Monday for Pday fun! It was great. Even though my swing was pretty bad...after awhile the instructor was like "I can't watch this anymore. I must correct you." Embarrassing right?
*We went to a referral who lived kind of far away. When we got there, she opened the door, said "NIE!" and slammed the door in our faces...oops? We left a letter explaining that she requested our visit and on the way out her neighbor invited us in for coffee! It was really great and Elzbieta (the neighbor) said she would read the Book of Mormon and would like to come to our church.
*Our Manhattan English/Book of Mormon Book Club is going great! We read the introduction together this week and talked about words like covenant, scattered, revelation. It was really cool. Please keep Mili, Ola, and Justyna in your prayers :)
*We had our last neighborhood grill, HAWAIIAN style thanks to Sister Harker! It was sad but our contract on the building is up so we are moving! To where, we don't know yet. For now we are meeting in a library downtown but I'll let you know when we figure it out.
*Agnieszka is doing well! Her 8 yr old son Tomek prayed for the first time in front of us last night! She is amazing and we had a lesson about charity. We love her so much.

Thank you for all you do and for who you are.

Sister Bezdjian

p.s. Congrats to Justi who got her mission call to Germany!!!! I am SO SO SO excited for you!!!!

p.p.s. I want to also congratulate Kelsey and Josh who were married this weekend :)

Sunny July

Dzien Dobry!  Hi there family!

Thank you for your support. I know that your prayers are blessing us here in Gdansk. Really, thank you so much for praying and thinking about us.

Sister Ostler is teaching me a lot. I love how simply she testifies about the work. I want to be more sincere like her in the way she teaches. She also is a really good example of faith for me. We were working really hard to achieve our goals this week and she just has so much faith to pray and work and then wait for our prayers to be answered. Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: diligently seeking to be persuasive. (I thought of persuasion and she thought of diligence so we combined them.) We are striving to diligently find people who are being prepared to hear the restored gospel.
We had a ton of miracles this week. They are:
*Agnieszka set a baptismal date for the 22nd of September! Please pray for her!
*...and Tamara as well set a baptismal date! She is really a sweet lady, with a 7 year old daughter Natalia.
*We had a really great meeting with Darek. He is seriously one of the most sincere, great people I have ever met. I really hope he will read the Book of Mormon and let it strengthen his already-rock-solid faith.
*Also met a really cool man named Andrzej who was a bible smuggler for 20 years to the soviet union! So amazing.
*Lidia prepared a great lesson for primary this week and we had so much fun with Klaudia, talking about what we can do to be more Christ-like.
Something I learned in the Book of Mormon this week was the way Aaron taught King Lamoni. I want to be more like him in the way he discerned needs and taught boldly and then invited to action. I also want to be more like those missionaries--Aaron, Ammon, Omner, Himni, Alma--especially in their patience. All of them didn't succeed after one day of work.
I love you all and I hope you are doing well in the Book of Mormon! Today is up to Alma 23 :) Next week we should all be at Alma 33.

Sara Bezdjian

gdansk happiness

Dear Family,
Such a crazy, amazing week!

I love Sister Ostler. She gets the big picture. I've been learning a lot from her this week. She's taught be so much about the basic things. Kindness. Helping others be happy within their families. She's so real in the way she does missionary work and I love her sincerity. We're both working especially hard lately to put off our natural women and help each other to do so. Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: kindness. We are striving to be like Christ in a very fundamental way, loving every single person that we come across and treating them like He would.
Also something I learned in the Book of Mormon this week was how Ammon didn't start teaching Lamoni until he had served him and Lamoni had the desire to know. It really stood out to me this time reading that first he served and then Lamoni was willing to listen. We are going to be like Ammon especially this week by finding through service.
We invited the Spirit this week by working on our prayers. We wanted our prayers to be more specific and heartfelt . Having the baptism was such a blessing and I felt so happy. I can't even describe what it was like to see Basia really yearn to be closer to Christ. Sister Ostler told her after the baptism "You look beautiful" and Basia replied, "I know! It's because I'm without sin." You can really see the light in her eyes and I'm so grateful that we got to be a part of this experience! It's important to remember though that we really didn't do anything. Her whole conversion was led and guided by the Spirit.
Other amazing things this week:
*Great lesson with Janina (see picture) and she made us perogis with wild berries that she picked for over 6 hours! They were SO DELICIOUS.
*Agnieszka is doing great! She and her kids helped clean the chapel this Saturday and she stayed up til 3 am two nights ago reading Gospel Principles and the RS handbook. Keep praying for her :) oh and Mom, look for her friend request on Facebook, we told her to add you! Lidia came with us on a lesson with her this week and it was so much fun.
*always remember an umbrella...we got drenched a few times this week! In the morning it is all sunny and then in the afternoon...BURZA (storm)!

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

just another week in Gdansk!

Dearest Family,

I really appreciate all the emails and pictures. Really. We know we are blessed by your prayers. Thank you! I love you all so much, and we pray for you everyday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RAFFIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope it's a great day dad! let me know if anything cool comes in the mail for ya...

I love Sister Ostler. She is so down to earth. She taught me a lot this week about being verbally positive with each other and she's so real with people. I love it. I also like how she decides to not let anything ruin her day. It's very uplifting. We learned a lot together this week about planning and communicating better. I have to learn this lesson too many times but it is always better to be upfront and communicate clearly.
Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: prayer and faith. We are focusing on praying specifically and working hard, expecting results. The other day, we prayed to find a family who would receive us and the third door we knocked on has a family--two kids and at least 5 cousins were there when we returned! I'll keep you updated on them. I keep learning and relearning the importance of planning. Everything boils down to how well we prepare and allow the Lord to place miracles in our paths. Better planning leads to being better led by the Spirit. We invited the Spirit this week by: being patient with each other. I need to focus on being a better companion. Sometimes I am so worried/thinking about our investigators and appointments I forget to be the best companion I can be. I am going to work on that this week.

Something I learned in the Book of Mormon this week was from Alma 5:49. I thought about how that relates to missionary work. I also saw a little note I had written maybe 2 years ago and I thought Dad would appreciate it. "He who is isn't busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan. (If your daughter quoting Dylan isn't the birthday present you get today Dad then I don't know what is.) We read Ammon's lesson with King Lamoni this week as a companionship and identified ways we can better teach like him. Our companionship study has really improved our teaching and even strengthened our own testimonies.

Other than that we have a lot of cool news!
*Our investigator Bozena who makes arrows for her business gave us some as a present! she is really cool.
*Huge rain storms every couple days or so...they make life interesting. And kind of hard to pick clothes. But it's fun.
*We did a whiteboard with the Elders on Saturday downtown and before we even set up this man came up to us! His name is Are and he's from Norway. He and his friend Ania (who is Polish) came to church on Sunday too! THEN after church he took us to the Hilton and we ate Ania's homemade cheesecake. He is awesome! He'll be in SLC in October and here is his email (are@svedsen.com). PLEASE have him over for dinner! He is really great. He also bought us a taxi to our next appointment and now we're set up with the taxi driver (Waldek) in a week and a half to teach his family about the restored gospel.

Coolest story of this week. We had a little "Women's Conference" (there was one in Warsaw but none of our sisters from Gdansk could go) at our chapel on Friday. Well our investigator marzena and her daughter nikki biked there and this dog followed them all the way from brzezno (probably like 4 miles) and so after the activity two of our little neighbor girls (Kinga, 10 and Natalia 13) were going to take the dog back to its owner. Well we were going to go follow up on some tracting but we decided last min, those little girls shouldn't go alone so we went with them. It was really cool! We met Ewa on the tramwaj and she helped us find the address. We met with Ewa, her son Witold and his friend Kalina yesterday and we talked about Joseph Smith as we ate her homemade chocolate cake. It was really fun. They told us they'd read the Book of Mormon.
Then the lady who actually owns the dog, Rex met with us yesterday. Her name is Dorota and she is really cute, has 4 sons under age 11. Wish us luck with her!


I love you all! I hope you love the chapters in Alma. He is a stud. Next week is up to Alma 14. Enjoy the reading and savor it. Love you!!!!


Sara

So Blessed!

Dear Fam Dam,

Dzien Dobry! Oh family. I am so happy to be able to have the technology and time to talk to you all! Seriously. It is so inspiring to hear from you, write to you, and see pictures (you can always send MORE :D I love them!)

I love Sister Ostler. She is so cool. Something I learned from her this week was that she is really good at promising blessings while extending commitments! It is really powerful to hear what she is inspired to say, even if the grammar isn't perfect. She also teaches really personally, sincerely and it is very powerful.Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: patience. Being patient with ourselves, as well as our results and investigators is going to be in the forefronts of our minds this week. I am also grateful for this because it helps us testify more powerfully about being patient while waiting for answers when we talk to our investigators. 
We invited the Spirit this week by: being patient with each other. Also I need to be more patient in the training...getting used to a city, people, and language takes time! So I am working on that personally this week as well.

Something I learned in the Book of Mormon this week was from Alma's experience with the angel. The angel didn't tell Alma to join the church, or to gain a testimony. The angel only warned him to stop destroying the church according to the prayers of Alma the Elder. The choice to follow Christ and be converted was all Alma's.

We had our culture night for this transfer with Sister Marinella (she speaks Russian and Polish) and Janina, an investigator who comes to English and church regularly. It was so much fun! First we had a lesson (the 4 of us) and lunch and Janina's house and we talked about the BOM and the Spirit. Then we all went to Centrum and watched the most ridiculous half polish/russian opera and these people singing/playing flutes in white wigs. They were talented though. It was kind of silly but we had fun spending time with our members (the Lewises and the Harkers were there as well). Then we went out for ice cream at Grycan (the BEST ice cream in the world) and walked around downtown. It was a good culture night!

Other cool things in this week: We are meeting with a way cool lady named Agnieszka. She has 3 kids, a girl who is 11 and two twins boy and girl who are 8 1/2. They are so stinking cute!!!

Remember Rafal the inactive member we ran into? He came to church! We are so excited and he seemed so happy to be back :) In church this week we had miracles. There were 5 of our investigators, and 3 other men we had met who all came (they are meeting with the Elders now)! It was packed in church and everyone was so happy :)

Our investigators are doing well and we are praying to reach the standard of excellence in this upcoming week. Miracles abound and are blooming everywhere!

I love you all so much! 
Sister Bezdjian


p.s. Everyone should be up to Mosiah 24 this week and finished with Alma 5 next Monday. You can do it! (in polish instead of we can do it, they say "We will give advice/counsel" DAMY RADE!) These are some money chapters so enjoy yourselves :) 

"the tramwaj!!! (so much time we spend on those things...sheesh)"

"the elders!"

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At Jadwiga's!

"perogi lunch with Marinella (dark hair) and Jadwiga (blonde) and Elders"

"us at the neptune in centrum"

"my lovely companion making cookies for us"

"us having lunch with Klaudia and Sister Violetta :)"

"Us shopping and SOAKING wet but still having fun (the rain surprises us sometimes)"