International Week!

Dearest family,

This week was amazing! I am having the time of my life. Sister Blake and I are working so hard, laughing off the rejections, and enjoying missionary work. 

I think that is part of why I am depressed about going home...I know that the things I will be busying myself with are going to be so trivial compared to missionary work! But to every thing there is a time and a purpose (Ecclesiates 4).

NOT THAT SARA'S MOM AND DAD ARE COUNTING BUT........:) WE CAN'T WAIT!!

 I am more and more grateful for the chance, the opportunity to serve the Lord as each day passes. The Lord has blessed me so much and I will be ever grateful for the time I have as a full-time missionary to more fully represent Him.

The principle I learned this week was...believe in miracles. They happen! We set some high, some might say ridiculous goals but we had the faith that we be given opportunitites and all we had to do was seize them. So when our previous baptismal candidate, Danuta said she didn't want to meet anymore (has lots of family problems right now), we didn't lose hope. We were shooting for the standard and when we planned on Saturday night, we said, let's get one more baptismal date! So the next day, we worked so hard and we were blessed with someone amazing. 

Which leads to........my most amazing experience this week was...when we taught Faruk. We met him a few days ago as we were walking to the chapel. I noticed that he was slowing down, like he wanted to talk to us, so I said "Dzien dobry" and it turns out he speaks English! (As well as about 8 other languages.) We talked about church, God, and our role as missionaries. He set up a meeting with us for Sunday afternoon. So we had planned to teach him about the Restoration. But as we were talking about prophets, it just didn't feel right. It felt forced and...not right. So luckily my wonderful companion Sister Blake took the discussion in a different direction. We talked about Christ and how we can follow Him and instantly the Spirit was there. 

You could tell Faruk was feeling the Spirit too---he kept patting his chest and saying "Yes, I know." So when we invited him to follow the example of Jesus Christ, it was perfect. He accepted the invitation to be baptized on July 20th.

The Spirit is so crucial in everything we do---I am learning the lesson again and again. I am so grateful that we are not alone in missionary work. We have a strong, wise, third companion who is always with us as long as we are worthy of his help.

Sister Blake and I are...doing amazing. I love Sister Blake. She is so in tune with the Spirit. 

Let me just tell you a quick story. We had just been flaked and were finding a place to eat dinner. The way it worked out, we didn't have too much time to pick where to eat---just had to find somewhere. So we sat down and this restaurant under a bridge we've been dying to try but again, it just didn't feel right. After a few minutes of looking at the menu we looked at each other and just said....yeah, let's go. 

We ended up going across the street. With all the rush to go to the next place I didn't replace my badge on my coat and it was still on my shirt so it wasn't visible. I didn't realize this but Sister Blake did the same thing. We walked in the restaurant and it's kind of like a Chuck-u-ama deal where you can walk up and get your food and sit down. We went up to the Chinese area and we ask the man working there how it all works, etc. And suddenly he (in his thick chinese accent) asks, "are you missionaries?" We say yes and look to where our badges should be, thinking that he saw the name tags. But they weren't visible! We're like how did you know? He's like...[struggling for words] "you guys just are so nice....and you're higher." Turns out his name is Johnny and he already has a book of mormon! In chinese! I am so excited to meet with him this week and it is the best feeling to be led by the Spirit to those people who truly need and want to hear the restored gospel.

Other fun events/things:

*We met and taught a man named Kamal from India who is way cool! He even came to church with us and I translated for him.

*Roman, a guy we met on the street, also came to church and and loved it!

*We went to "europe on a fork" on the rynek for lunch on saturday. So fun! an big international food fest and food from all the countries in europe! we had italian dessert, portugese mouse, finnish crepes, and hungarian goolash. yum!

*we have new english students who are becoming investigators! it's great!

I love you all!

Sister Bezdjian