SEPT 24th 2012 To Hel and Back Ending in Heaven:)
Dear Hannah, Andrew, Dad, Mom,
Hellooooooooo!!!
Life is so great here in Gdansk. We had a FANTASTIC week beginning last monday when we went to HEL and back! Sister Harker was so nice to give us a ride and it was amazing. See the pictures :D
Then on Saturday/Sunday we had the baptism and the confirmations of the Leskows (Agnieszka, Tomek, and Kasia) and Irena. It was a beautiful service and I got to sing with the kids "Love One Another" for a musical number. That was great. And Brother Harker learned how to say everything in Polish in just 3 days! So he performed the baptisms and it was really wonderful. Our friend Ola from our Manhattan English class came with her 4 year old son! That was really good. And Darek and Marzena were there, definitely some of my favorite people in Poland.
This week in our Manhattan English class we did a "restoration" activity. Each of the students drew a picture based on hearing a discription or only seeing part of it and it was really cool to compare all the pictures after. Then we played Telephone and we used those activities to describe the Restoration. Loved that.
Funnest part of Sunday was: President and Sister Nielson had dinner with us yesterday! It was great to just spend time with them in our apartment and in church. Sister Ostler is a great host. She made a DELICIOUS roast and I was inspired by the way she took care of the whole meal on Sunday and really made sure everyone was taken care of. She's really got some mad party-hosting skills.
We invited the Spirit this week by patiently loving our investigators. It is so crucial to have invitations in mind, planned for each lesson but to also heed the Spirit about when and how to extend those invitations lovingly and not out of a desire to "get numbers" or anything like that.
Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: Preparation with perspective and pacing ourselves. So that's been fun to think about and study. I'm still going to study it further this week. Something I learned in the Book of Mormon this week was from 4 Nephi. I really love that part of the Book of Mormon because it's all the history of the Book of Mormon compacted into one chapter. It's great. I remember my entrepreneurship teachers in Hawaii talking about the "no contention" throughout the chapter and how that is how the people were successful. It is true--both in business and in missionary work. So I was pondering about contention and how the reason the people didn't have contention was because of the "love of God" in their hearts. So what makes us harden our hearts? Love of anything else but God. So I encourage you all to love our Heavenly Father (who loves and cares about us) more than anything else this week--success, pride, encouragement, boyfriends, girlfriends, food, etc whatever it is! I hope you are all at Mormon 1 today and we can all be together on Ether 3 next week :) Thanks for your diligent reading for my birthday guys!
I LOVE you all!!!
Sara
P.S. Oh! We FINALLY decided what our culture night is going be. We're going to see Jennifer Lopez on Thursday! I'm so excited. It's her first concert in Poland and I'm just so grateful Starszy Myler gave us permission to go! We'll take a picture for you all.
SEPT 17TH - LIFE IN GDANSK
Dear Hannah, Andrew, Raffie, and Lindy,
Guess what today is? It's the 17th of September. And it's also PRESIDENT NIELSON'S BIRTHDAY!!! Let me tell you, he is one ridiculously amazing and inspired man. He had us do an exchange this week with the Sisters in Poznan and it was a really growing experience for me. I really look up to President Nielson and appreciate everything he does for me. I learned so much from the exchange and I really experience a change of heart.
Sister Ostler and I both learned so much from Sis Allen and Sis Folsom and their companionship. We really grew individually and as companions.
Sister Ostler is really wise. I learned a lot from her this week about how she works and what her vision of missionary work is. We're getting better and working in unity in contacting and in teaching and interacting with members. I love it.
Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: Knowledge. I am going to study the difference between just intelligence and wisdom. Being wise in all things (aka pacing ourselves, running the marathon not the sprint) is something I'd really like to improve in.
Exciting things from this week:
*I got to see Elder Tiner again! He was in my MTC group and now is the District Leader in Poznan. So fun to hear about each other's different but similar experiences :)
*Sister O met this really nice lady named Wioletta. Turns out she met with missionaries in NY when she was there for 2 months and she wants to meet with us and learn more from us.
*We started meeting with Wiola, this really amazing girl from our English class. She is so cute and nice and I feel like she is my sister! Please pray for her :)
*We had dinner with Marzena, Nikki and the Harkers this week. It was great to talk to each other and eat and enjoy the evening.
*Sister O broke her tooth eating a cookie (I know, right?! it was a soft one too.) so we paid a visit to the Stomotolog (Dentist)
*We read a really great verse in comp study today, D&C 3:10 -
"But remember, God is merciful; therefore repent of that which thou hast done which is contrary to the commandment which I gave you and thou art still chosen and art again called to the work."
It really struck me so many times this week really HOW merciful God is to us. We really don't deserve all the blessings, love, and mercy He grants us. I pondered this week about how merciful we should be to our
Especially reading the Savior's teachings in 3 Nephi right now--love our enemies so that we can we children of our father in Heaven who sheddeth his light on the good and the bad.
So this week we should all finish 3 Nephi and by next Monday be in Moroni. Yay for reading and diligence. Keep up the good work and I can't wait to hear about your experiences as my birthday gets closer :)
*Brat Bohdan came on some lessons with us this week and he is a stud!
*Janina decided to be baptized this week! Her date is the 24th of November :D We are so excited for her!!!
*Agnieszka is doing great. We love her so much and her baptism is this saturday! With Kasia and Tomek and Irena! It is going to be a great day. Also Zbyszek (this man we met on the street a few months ago) is being baptized too. So pray that all goes well on Saturday!
*We got the standard of excellence again. Miracles are just flowing to us and we are so grateful!
Thank you for all you do and for who you are.
Sister Bezdjian
p.s. Starszy Myler can do Peter Griffin's voice EXACTLY and he keeps talking to me as we do emails in his voice! Ah, I miss quoting FG with you all :) (sorry maybe that's not very missionary of me but oh well!)
SEPT 10TH 2012
Dearest Dad, Mom, Andrew, Hannah,
This week has been a busy and good one. Lots of traveling! We were in Olsztyn on Monday for Alexander's funeral and in Bydgoszcz on Friday for Zone Conference. Both trips were good and the events were enlightening. President and Sister Nielson are truly amazing people.
Sister Ostler is such an example to me of patience and caring for other people. She is really patient with me, and she always tries to relate to me and help. She is an excellent example of willingness to bear others burdens.
So this week was really exciting. Irena, wife of our Brat Jozef has decided to be baptized on the 22nd of September! Along with Agnieszka and her kids Tomek and Kasia. Also Zbyszek (this man we met on the street) will be baptized then too so 5 people! It is going to be wonderful. They are all so excited.
I'll be honest about the Book of Mormon. We should all be up to 3 Nephi 11 and I'm not there yet! But I will and you all can too. I really would like everyone to finish by my birthday so let's work hard and do what we need to to be up to 3 Nephi 21 next week :) These are some wonderful chapters and I just read part of them in Luke: "Bless them that curse you, do good to them that despitefully use you" and everything. It's definitely not easy. It is the powerful, higher law which we all can improve on. I'm really going to work on having more compassion and charity. Our Christ-like attribute is Hope which is related with patience and love so I'm studying those attributes this week.
Our investigator Bozena came to church and loved it! It was her first time and she said it felt like such a family group. She was great and we can't wait for our next lessons with her. Ada is another new investigator and she is really nice and interested in our church.
Some fun events from last 7 days:
*Sis O and I tried "Bar-A-Dong" this vietnamese restaurant for the first time. It was sooo good! Sadly we couldn't finish our food so we offered some to this homeless man who talks to us sometimes on the tramwajs. He was like (in Polish) "Oh, thank you so much! But how can I pay for this?" We were like, just keep it, you're fine. You can pay us back by coming to church on Sunday. And then he goes "Oh. I know how." And all the sudden in English he goes, in this really deep voice
"I see trees of green..." and then sings "What a wonderful world" JUST LIKE louis armstrong. It was hilarious! Oh and then he thrust out his hand and all my pamphlets went flying like a grand finale. It was so funny.
*We met this really cool couple in our neighborhood. They have 3 kids, 2 grandkids (even though they're not too old) and are so cool! So please pray for Jarek and Wioletta.
*Had a CRAZY lesson with a former investigator...probably the craziest lesson I've ever had. Little scary but we ran out of there as soon as we could!
*Agnieszka and kids are doing great! they are so excited and ready for baptism. In their new school Agnieszka proudly told the teacher "We are members of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints!"
I love you all so much! Keep being strong and doing what you know to be right :) Be the best you can and leave the rest up to the Lord.
Love,
Sara
Dearest family,
I can't describe the joy at seeing those pics of you with my fellow missionaries!!! ahhh! (and in NORMAL clothes too...that was weird.) I hope you all liked your presents! I love you all so so so much!
Sister Ostler is great. We are learning to blend together in our work. I love being able to learn from her example of diligence and study. Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: Faith. I am excited to study more about how we can implement this attribute more in our work. I really have seen the power of faith in this work--how when we truly believe something and we act on that pewnosc--surety, confidence--we can achieve miracles.
Something I learned from the Book of Mormon this week: one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon is chapter 12 of Helaman. I love Mormon's commentary on how foolish and vain we are as human beings. We should look to our Creator for advice, help, and knowledge rather than ourselves.
Today we are in Olszytn for Alexander's funeral and I am so grateful for the knowledge of the plan of salvation. Too few know about Heavenly Father's nature and plan for us and I just hope that soon everyone will have a chance to hear about it. Alexander was baptized in June and was such a good man. He came last week sunday to church with his wife who has alzheimers and sadly she was without a skirt, just underwear. She had taken it off somewhere on the way and he was so surprised and kind of not aware that it had happened. So I stayed with her in the bathroom while he went out to find her something to wear. So then he came back, paid his tithing and then left. Then some other stuff happened, including Alicja (his wife) being taken to a home in warsaw. Then on Tuesday (I think or monday night) he died. And today Starszy Myler gave me some money that Aleksander had given to President Kempa, telling him to give it to me and to thank me for helping watch after his wife. And to buy myself some new shoes (mine are really worn). How sweet is that? I am really beyond words I think. He was such an example of kindness to all and I think I will always remember that.
I love you all so much! I pray for you all the time and I really wish the best for you. This week has been so busy I don't even know what to write other than faith, hope, charity and love are really so important. We can ALL improve on these things in our live. We will never have enough love, or enough faith. Always we have room to improve on them. I love you so much and please keep us in your prayers!
Thank you for all you do and for who you are.
Sister Bezdjian
AUG 27TH 2012 I LOVE GDANSK
Dear Family,
Thank you so much for your prayers. I know that it really does make a difference for us and for me here. We sincerely appreciate all the time and effort from our families so thank you :)
Sister Ostler is so wise. She is still teaching me a lot about prayer. Her diligence in praying specifically for our investigators and their progress is inspiring. She really does pray with such great faith. Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: Compassion. Sometimes this attribute is a little bit harder for me so it is something I am personally trying to ponder and study. Like Sister Ostler said this morning in companionship study "If you don't have that, you're nothing." It is so true.
Something I learned from the Book of Mormon this week: I am in the Helaman right now and just seeing the vivid contrast between the happiness and prosperity and then the pride and downfall is so enlightening. All the bad things that happen right there all come from CONTENTION and DISSENSIONS. If there is anything like that in your life right now, I encourage you to do what needs to be done to fix it. That means swallowing our pride, getting over ourselves and being who we know to be right.
We all should be up to Helaman 10 today and I have something to confess...I'm not there yet! So don't worry if you're not either. We can catch up :) Let's all be together next week up to Helaman 16. We can do it! I promise that if you do whatever you need to do to read it, you'll find more time to do whatever else you need to. Kind of a paradox, but like Mom wrote me last week, usually it's the paradoxes in the gospel are the most applicable/true.
Our Book of Mormon English reading group in Manhattan library is wonderful. This week Lukasz had drawn the vision of the tree of life and we had a really good discussion about his vision. Sister Lewis was with us on the lesson and it was so good to have her insights as well. We talked about pride and happiness and I'm so excited to hear what the students have to say about the next few chapters.
Other cool things this week:
*Agnieszka and Kasia gave us talks this week. It was so amazing to hear their testimonies and how they found different references in the scriptures. Kasia quoted probably 5 of my favorite scriptures and it was so fun.
*We had another meeting with Wojtek and Sister Harker was with us. We talked about war and Amalikiasz and how Moroni is so much stronger (in the end).
*Had some ice cream for dinner with President Kempa and his wife Marzena. It was fun and seriously they are the cutest couple in Gdansk. Marzena is so patient with our terrible polish. She's a great example to me of true patience :)
*Somchit made us sushi and we spent our lunch with her talking and eating her delicious sushi! It was great :) She is so kind to us.
*Irena, wife of our member Jozef has made the decision to be baptized! Now we're just waiting until she decides what day. She is the epitome of hospitality I think--she ALWAYS tries to feed us when we're over there! It reminds me of Anna and Baba a little bit.
*Janina is working on keeping the word of wisdom. She says she loves to drink her tea but she will try it. She also makes her own wine. She was explaining it half in English half in Polish so we were like "Oh, but does your home-made wine have alcohol in it?" She was like "Oh...Yes." She said she wouldn't drink it because "she must!" So diligent and faithful.
*Then on Sunday night we had dinner with Will and Abby, this really cute American couple from Alabama. It was so much fun. They are really nice and the Lewises were kind enough to host and entertain us all.
*Thanks to the faith of Sister Ostler, we achieved the standard of excellence again. I really am in shock at all the miracles that come to us! It must be her diligent faith and determination to serve with all our strength.
Thank you and I love you!
Sister Bezdjian
