Dearest family bo bamily,
This week was so great! Mostly because I got some great packages from all of YOU!! Thank you for those. Hannah, your letter was AWESOME and I loved it! Thank you mom for the necklaces and those shirts. They are cute and I am wearing two now! Thank you also mom and dad for the debit card! Yay!
I had a great experience this week. We met a contact through another investigator! About a week and a half ago we met a blind woman named Basia on the tramwaj. Unfortunately I wrote her number down wrong and so when we called the next day, the number didn't work. Well we thought that she was lost forever. Then it turns out she talked to her friend about us who is already an investigator of ours! He gave us her correct number and we met with them both this week. It was a testimony to me that the Lord is really involved in the work.
Something I learned this week is to have faith and be patient in the Lord's timing. We have been pretty close to the standard but it is so important to listen to the Spirit. With lots of planning and help from our members (and most importantly from the Lord) we achieved the standard of excellence! We were a few things short yesterday. We needed to place 3 Books of Mormon, 1 new investigator, 1 referral, 1 lessactive/recent convert lesson and 1 more investigator with a baptismal date. We were so close and step by step, with the Lord's help, it all happened. The amazing part was our lesson with Basia. She is a neighbor of a less-active member and therfore has had a lot of contact with the Church over the years. Well we were talking to her about her religious background and I just had the feeling to ask her to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. And she accepted! Her date is for May 18 so please pray for her. She is really amazing and she has 5 sons from ages 14-24. I can't wait to continue to work with her. Sometimes I want so much for the church to burst out in Poland and I have the faith that it will blossom. At the same time, we want real growth and not just baptisms that turn into less-active members without testimonies and conversion. So it is important to do everything in God's way and in his timing.
Sister Bown and I are....doing really well. Elder Tingley is training and the new Elder is really great and being around him reminds me of my first few moments in the country. We are also doing better at evaluating our lessons and asking for referrals from everyone. Something I learned from Sister Bown this week was to be more obedient to our leaders and not complain or disregard their counsel. Sometimes it's hard for me to be humble and listen to leaders but Sister Bown has been teaching me a lot about that this week. If she doesn't agree, she just doesn't say anything and stays wise and quiet. Whereas when I open my mouth, I end up making a fool of myself. She's a good example of quiet dignity.
What I learned in the Book of Mormon was in Alma 17, the reading for today. Ammon is one of my favorites in the Book of Mormon and love reading his story and looking for clues for how to become a better missionary. It struck me today that even before he met King Lamoni, Ammon had "rejected the kingdom" and desired to preach the work. So I was thinking today, how can I reject the kingdom? How can I prioritize preaching the word over worldly influences? How can I forsake the world and leave those other things behind in order to meet our 'King Lamoni' aka golden investigator? I hadn't thought of this before either but it says that Ammon and those that went with him prepared themselves by bringing weapons to hunt food. What are our weapons? Anyway just thinking about that stuff. More about Ammon next week definitely.
Other fun things from this week:
*The Sheleys made the missionaries dinner last night! So yummy and delicious. Sister Sheley really knows how to cook!
*We went to Andrew and Ola's with Henry (member orginially from Ghana) and Andrew gave us a great cooking lesson. It was really cool. They also came to church which was so good. Henry bore some powerful testimony as well.
*We had lunch with the Sheleys and an investigatign couple. Sooo good! They are doing well. We talked about the Holy Ghost and how they can recognize answers to prayer. They are just so stinking cute.
Thank you all for your prayers. I am so grateful to have a family that supports me on the mission. I know that Heavenly Father really is looking out for our family and He is so willing to bless us.
Love,
Sara
LOVE BRIDGE IN POZNAN
The legend behind this particular tradition is remarkably modern. In 1992 Italian author and filmmaker Federico Moccia published a love story entitled Tre metri sopra il cielo. The book told the story of two young Italian lovers. The hero convinces his girl that it is traditional to seal their everlasting love by attaching a padlock to the third lamppost from the north side of Rome’s Ponte Milvio. Having closed the padlock the key was then thrown into the Tiber flowing below signifying the bonding of the pair forever. While the book later went onto become a film, the story prompted a series of ‘Love Bridges’ to spring up all over the world. In Poznań young couples have taken to engraving padlocks with their names before fastening them to the bridge and together throwing the key into the Cybina. As you can see many couples have already done this and the water below the bridge must be swimming with small padlock keys.
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