Friday, July 13, 2012

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

1 comment:

  1. *That taxi story is a classic, straight out of Preach My Gospel. All I can say is, wow!

    *And then even further, that dog story is so cute!! Ugh I can't get enough of Sister Bezdjian's and sister Ostler's success! Wish I was there to see it all.

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