10 weeks to work the best I can!

Dearest Family,

Thank you for all your support and wonderful emails! I love love LOVE hearing from you!

I had the most amazing experience this week...when our kids english family invited us over for dinner! We had dinner with them on Saturday and the whole family (parents and 5 kids) were there! It was a great time to talk, get to know each other, and kind of feel out how they are feeling about the Church. From that dinner Sister Bown and I now feel that they are ready and willing to talk with us more about the gospel and not just english. They are the cutest family and they already have such strong faith. We are now going to help them receive the restored gospel. So please pray for them!

The principle I learned was...I read the coolest thing in Jesus the Christ this week that really enlightened something for me. Whenever I read Moroni 7:48 I often wonder what does it mean that "we will see Him as He is for we will be like Him." I didn't really get it. But this week I was reading a bit during breakfast and I came across the parable of the talents. A Lord gave his servants each 5 talents, 2, and 1 according to their several ability. And the first two increased their talents and saw their Master as a good and wise man. The last, who buried His Lord's money and did nothing with it saw Him as a "hard man, who reaped where He had not sown." The author of Jesus the Christ goes on to say that the last servant didn't see the Master as He is. That is because the servant fell short of where he should be and how he should have served. If we truly apply the doctrine of Christ in our lives and we try to be merciful, helpful, forgiving, wise just as Christ is--then when we will see Him as He is. 

Sister Bown and I are....doing fantastic! I love Sister Bown and we are getting in a good groove of teaching and finding together. She is really good at talking things out and I have really loved her humor this week.

I have been laughing from morning til evening and it's great because we're still working hard. One funny joke she did really made me laugh. We were planning (on the floor because we were so tired) and I said "Hey, let's make tomorrow a church day! We'll invite everyone on the streets to church, and that will be the focus of all our lessons." And she goes "YEAH! And hey! Let's wear church clothes!"

Get it? Cuz we always wear church clothes. Hahahaha. 

 

Other things:

 

*We bought a frozen rabbit and decided to cook it this week. Yum. But kind of hard to cut. And I thought the legs were ears. Oops. 

 

*President called on Friday and has called me to be a "Sister Training Leader!" It's like a mix between zone leader and assistant. Basically it means that I get to attend Missionary Leader meeting once a month and travel around the mission and do exchanges---starting with...

GDANSK!!!! I leave on the train this afternoon.

*Darek (from Gdynia) called the other day. It was SO GOOD to hear from him! He and his wife Marzena are some of my most favorite people in Poland. I love them!

Love you,

Sister Bezdjian

April 8th -NOTE THE LENGTH NOW THAT SHE CAN EMAIL FRIENDS:)

Dear Hannah, Andrew, Mamusiu, Tato,

Thank you for the beautiful package!!! It was so fun to get and I'm so excited to hear from you all.

 

I had the most amazing experience this week...when our family had read the chapter we assigned! It was so great to walk in their home, see the Book of Mormon laying on the table, and listen to what they thought about Helaman 5!

The principle I learned was...miracles happen--even in crazy ways. We had some crazy searching out new investigators, random telephone referrals, and it led to a new family that we found and are now teaching! I love how the Lord works in mysterious ways.

Sister Bown and I are....doing AMAZING. I love Sister Bown. She has taught me so much this week. She is so faithful. We had a little event with an investigator where we thought maybe we were losing her but then we decided to move forward with faith and trust in the Lord's timing. Also Sister Bown is always on the ball. She always has our goals in mind. Cool experience this week when we were walking and contacting and an older man was coming by---I didn't want to talk to him because I told myself "he is old." But she stopped him, testified to him, got his number, and placed a Book of Mormon with him. So amazing.

 

Sorry I'm not writing much. A lot of the experiences this week can't be put into words. Just know this: I know it's all true. And the Spirit is really powerful. It can change people's hearts, minds, and lives. And God is our loving Father who cares about us and is involved in the details of our lives.

 

Love,

Sister Bezdjian

 

Happy Easter! And śmingus dingus!

Dear Family czyli Mom, Dad, Sister B2, and Broseph,

Making Easter Eggs

Thank you for your easter pictures! You all look SO STINKING good. I can't wait to do the bunny hop with you all again. All our investigators keep asking us what traditions we have and whenever I try to explain the Bunny Hop, they're like what? First time I've heard of that. Strange. But it doesn't matter because I love it!

easter lunch at bożena's!

 

We had a great experience this week...when we had a big Easter Obiad and a family of investigators came! It was great. We are hoping to teach our members how to better friendship and reach out to other but overall I think it was a great event. It was amazing to see everyone eating, talking, and laughing together. We had a family there and it was fun becuase we had an "easter egg hunt" in the chapel with them. So great. We also watched a short film about the resurrection. The principle I learned from the scriptures was...He is Risen. What better news could I bring to others? It was wonderful reading John 20 and Jesus the Christ this week. I love the season of Easter.

aprons made on Pdays

 

Sister Bown and I are....doing wonderful! I am still learning lots from her. This week she taught me a lot about listening. Sister Bown is a great listener. I don't think I've heard her interrupt anyone once since we've been serving together. And that sure is saying something! Anyway, she is always so patient and listens. Another example of her patience was when the Elders/Zone Leaders played a really good april fools joke on us. They called us late Sunday evening and told us that unfortunately Pday (Monday) and Tuesday are being switched due to the holidays. We were very upset to say the least. All of our meetings on tuesday now had to be moved and our precious pday time was being eaten up by district meeting and other nonsense. Well we were pretty bummed until mid-way through language study on monday when we get a call from the Elders. "APRIL FOOLS!" It was funny but Sister Bown was patient through it all. So that's why we're writing Tuesday because Śmingus Dingus was yesterday and everything was closed.

In Poland, Easter Monday is known as Wet Easter Monday or Lany Poniedzialek and is celebrated as Śmigus-Dyngus Day (SHMEE-gooss DIN-gooss) when people try to drench each other with buckets of water, squirt guns, whatever's available. 

 

Oh man, it was so good though. The other cool thing about Sister Bown is that she knows how to have a good time. We played THE BEST prank on the elders!!! MUAHAHAHAHA. Natalie was with us and we told the Elders, hey let's meet up at the chapel and we'll all go to dinner together.

Well. When they came we were ready for them. Six pitchers of hot water. (Natalie added horrible perfume to the water too.) 1 bowl of soapy water. A corridor sprayed with horrible perfume. And all of it on camera.

 

They had no idea what hit them.

 

One minute they were walking into the chapel, opening the door, and the next--WHABAM!!! We soaked them! Then when they tried to escape--WHABAM!!! I got them again!! Oh man. Revenge is sweet.

 

AND if that wasn't enough, we had to get them one more time. So that night when we were at Kamila and Marek's for a follow up visit, Marek joked that oh we should call your missionaries and say you're here at our house completely drunk. And we all laughed. But then we were like. Wait. Do it. So he called Elder Tingey and told him "there's these girls here and they say they need to go home but they kept drinking our beer...who should I call?" etc. etc. They totally fell for it even though we were laughing in the background. It was pretty funny.

 

Thank you so much! And happy late Easter.

Love,

Sister Bezdjian

P.S. So apparently there is a new rule with emails. We can write to friends and family! And apparently we get more email time. So that is great. More details when I find out.

March 25th 2013 - Happy Seder

Dear Family czyli Andrew, Hannah, Dad, and Mom,

Thank you so much for the 1 year in country package! We picked it up this morning and it was nice! Thank you for the brown sugar and the belt and please thank the Emerys for the sour skittles.

I had the most amazing experience this week...when the mother of our dzieci english students prayed at the end of our english lesson! It was a miracle and we loved it. We could feel the Spirit so strongly. Another cool experience was last night. One of our investigators  told us that she doesn't know the Bible well at all and would also like to read the Bible with the Book of Mormon. So last night we brought her one and we read the story of Namaan the leper with her (2 Kings 5). It was really cool. And then she started asking us a bunch of questions. Is there stuff about the Book of Mormon in the Bible? We read John 10 about "other sheep" and 3 Nephi 15. We also read about 2-3 witnesses is 2 Corinthians 13:1. It was so cool becuase we felt completely guided by the Spirit in the lesson---which scriptures to share, when to stop talking, when to elaborate, when to ask a question. It was awesome. Then as we were reading about Christ in the Americas, she was like Wait, wait what?? It was great. Then she was asking, well what about other places too, like asia, africa, etc. And so we read 2 Nephi 29. She really loved it. What about evolution/creation? It was the coolest scripture chase I've ever been on. You can tell she is really starting to feel the Spirit. Just in the last few months she has grown so much! It's amazing. 

Sister Bown and I are....doing so well! I just keep learning so much from her. She taught me a lot this week about discouragement. I would dare to say she is never discouraged. It's cool when we can evaluate our lessons and she has good ideas about how we can improve but never gets down about it. She's always ready to try again, to do it better, to listen to the Spirit more. We have felt such a huge difference in our lessons this week because some of them...something was 

lacking. I couldn't even speak that well so it was kind of frustrating. But then a few hours later the Spirit was guiding our lessons so strongly and everything was great. I think the lesson I leared was to always rely on the Spirit. You can never go into a meeting thinking "I got this." But it should be a prayer, "please Heavenly Father, please help us so we can help them." Our Christ-like attribute this week is Dependable. I want that attribute because it is one of my weaker ones.

What I learned in the scriptures this week: Well I've been addicted to the Bible Dictionary lately. I'll open it up to look up something and then I'll get distracted reading the next definitions! And then 15-20 minutes later I go back to what I was actually doing. It's bad but I love reading it so oh well. One cool thing I read this week was about the devil. It was interesting to me how he is such a miserable being and that all his efforts are aimed at our unhappiness. The other thing in the BD on him was how eventually, he will be conquered and powerless. A comforting thought when we are dealing with his grip in the world.

This week we had Zone Conference and it was so great! Elder Schutze from Germany was there with his wife and I learned so much from him. He is a very nice man and right when he met me he looked at my name tag and asked, "Are you from Armenia?" I told him no, but I am proud to be half armenian. Cool right? The rest of the day he called me "Armieanka." Anyway he is really cool. One of those leaders that just by his character inspires you to be better. His wife talked frist and told her conversion story--how she heard about the Book of Mormon and met the missionaries. Well turns out she had contact with the church many times before actually taught but due to the faults of the missionaries (not having a pen, forgetting to call, etc. etc.) she wasn't an investigator until much much later. So after her talk, Elder Schutze talked about the Do's/Don't's about the missionaries with her. It was funny because he would ask us "is there any excuse for that? NO!" But it was really good. Then after Zone Conference he spoke at a fireside for the members and investigators in Poznan. Irena and Ryszard were there so it was a lot of fun. He talked about names and what they mean and family history and he is a very charismatic person to listen to. Or maybe it's just the German accent. Dad, you would have been proud.

The BYDGOSZCZ ZONE:  (Top row LtoR): Elders Kotter, Caskey, Tingey, Harris, Dodge, Bokinsky and Gudnason.  (Next row): Elders Sheley, Cieslak, Saltmarsh, Godwin, Zelezniak, White and Tufts.  (3rd row): Sisters Sheley, Bezdjian, Bown, Swenson, Masters, and Tufts.  (Seated:)Sister and Elder Schutze.

 

The Poznan District: Elder Caskey and Elder Tingey (District Leader), Sister Bezdjian and Sister Bown. Elder and Sister Sheley.

The Sisters always enjoy getting together and just being around each other.  Sisters Bezdjian, Bown, Masters and Swenson.  We have the best Sister Missionaries in the Church serving in Poland.

Slumber party during Zone Conference

Morning walk with the cow!

Hmmm...what else? Well because of the Zone Conf. and all, sister masters and swenson came and stayed that night with us! Needless to say, sister masters and I did not get TOO much sleep....too much to talk about and catch up on!! But Poznan is doing great and having progress.

Cookie dough - nutritious treat!

Family Home Evening with some of the kids in English Class

Blowing out an egg for Easter decorating

Love,

Sister Bezdjian

March 18, 2013

Dearest Family,

 

Well things are just great here in the Poznan region! Regardless of the freezing gusts of wind, the Poznan sisters are tearing it up. Thank you for praying for us and for the families that we are teaching. They are so cute and I am just so happy to be an instrument in the Lord's hands to bless their lives.

 

We had a number of great, wonderful meetings this week. One cool story is about Paulina. About a month or so ago, we ran into a really cute family on the street. We talked for a few seconds but they were hurrying to catch a bus and all we got was their address and the mom's name (Iza). We hadn't had time lately to go out to their house but we finally did this week. But when we knocked on the door, another woman answered. It wasn't Iza. We explained who we were and asked if Iza was at home. The lady said no, that she'd been living there since January and knew of no Iza. Darn. Well I wanted to say, well another time could we share our message about Jesus Christ with you?---but before I could say the words, I felt that I should just go for it right then and there. So we said, "we don't believe in coincidences so there must be a reason we came to your door today." She nodded. "Can we come in and share a short message about Jesus Christ?" She said of course. A few minutes later we were telling her about Joseph Smith and she was loving it. She prayed beautifully at the end and she has two little daughters (5 and 7) and her husband will be there next time. It was a testimony to me that the Lord is willing to put the right people in our path if we aren't afraid to go for it and trust Him.

 

Our Christ-like attribute this week is: Virtue. I actually studied it this morning in personal study. So good. I really liked reading about the stripling warriors (Alma 53...coming up!) and how DEPENDABLE they were. I want to be more dependable and remember when I commit to do something for someone.

 

Other news in THE POZNAN!!!

 

* We did a surprise visit with Natalie, our 13-year old coolest member ever to some of our investigators. We had been thinking and praying about how we could help them be more humble and Natalie's testimony and simple faith was just the perfect thing. They are so amazing!

* We didn't have sacrament meeting this week because there was a district conference in warsaw. The Sheleys, Marlena, Marta, Marian, and Regina (Wiktor's mom) went to it.

* We had a meeting with Abraham and Metmed (matmed? metmat?) who are from Turkey. Kind of a language barrier, as we both speak broken Polish but we showed them the Restoration video in English so that was good!

*President and Sister Nielson joined us for zone training this week and it was fun. I love spending time with Presdient. We also had an interview and it was just so good and reassuring to talk with him. Coming home date is now June 27th.....

*Freaking out because time is going so fast! But it's all good. Just please keep praying for our families!

 

Love you all so so much!

 

Sara

hard day's work = laying on the floor sometimes

eating dinner on the kitchen floor

 kamila gave us this herb...rzeżifone something or other. and now it's growing on the window sill!  it smells like sulfur but it's supposed to be healthy

 

p.s. Hannah, Raffie, Andrew you still didn't do your praca domowa. It can be one sentence long. Please reply :)

 

Raffie: What blessings have you received from living the word of wisdom?
Hannah: What blessings have you received from following the prophet?
Andrew: What blessings have you received from being baptized and confirmed?

One year in Poland...officially this week 3/11/13

Dearest family,

 

Thank you for all the pictures! They were so cute. It is so fun to see your faces and the house. I love it.

 

I had the most amazing experience this week when our investigator read 5 minutes from the Book of Mormon by herself! It was amazing to see her accomplish that.

The principle I learned this week was...Don't be so worried about teaching all the doctrine or all I know in one meeting. Keep it simple and testify and realize that these investigators have a lot of time to learn and digest it all. Better to be too short with the Spirit than too long. We had two meetings this week that, for some reason or another, were just way too long! Grr. I hate that. Sometimes it's hard with all the doctrine, listening, invitations, commitments, etc. but I guess sometimes you just have to be blunt at the beginning and tell them, "look we've prepared a lesson for your family this evening and it's going to be 30 min long." Being blunt/more direct is a really good attribute and I'm trying to work on it more.

Sister Bown and I are....doing great! She has taught me a lot this week. We are getting better at reviewing our lessons after we teach. It's been helping us improve and learn A LOT. Sister Bown is really good at evaluating and taking a lot of information and spitting out the important stuff. I speak my thoughts out loud and then after 5 minutes straight of brainstorming-out-loud-then-coming to a conclusion, Sister Bown repeats in one sentence what I was getting at. At first it drove me crazy but now I can see the benefit of her sum-it-up skills.

Our Christ-like attribute for this week is: Charity and Love. We did a comp study from Preach My Gospel this morning where we had to look up the attribute in the missionary library.

We also brainstormed a lot this week how we can explain authority. Because to be honest, a lot of our dear Catholic investigators don't quite get it. So. We took examples of our investigators and practiced how to apply the doctrine to them. For example:

-Romana recently got a fine for crossing the street on a red light
-Blanka is a student
-Angelika rides the tramwaj to work

So we asked each other questions in each of those situations. For example, with Romana, what if a normal pedestrian tried to give you a ticket for crossing on red? Why did you listen to the policeman? Why did you pay the fine? Because he has the authority to do that. And if he started using his authority illegally, he would be kicked out of the Police.

Blanka, what if a fellow student told you what score you got on the test? Why do you listen to the teacher?

Angelika, why do you show your ID to the guy who checks the tickets on the trams?

I hope that all makes sense, I probably was horrible writing it. Oh well. It was really helpful and good to explain it and we're going to keep practicing it in companionship study.

What I learned from the Book of Mormon this week: well. We have officially read my favorite part of the entire BOM. Alma's letter to Corianton. I love his advice, counsel, and the doctrine he teaches. Also the loving but serious way he teaches is awesome.


Other events in the life of Poznań sisters:
*It is officially winter still. Last week I went around without a scarf, gloves, and only 1 layer of tights. I felt so free. Now it's blizzarding again :(

*I have officially sewed an apron for Sister Romana. Pictures coming soon.

*The Elders are officially sick and throwing up...so grateful we are healthy and happy!

*Yours truly spoke in sacrament meeting yesterday (don't worry Hannah, you got it!) and I talked about faith and compared it to repelling with friends.

I love you all so much! I pray for you by name every night.
Love,
Sister Bezdjian
 p.s. Keep up reading the Book of Mormon! Even if it's just 5 min a day. I promise if you will make the time, you will see blessings in your life and be more happy.

 BRANCH PANCAKE FAMILY HOME EVENING

they acted out Alma 30 and then ate together so fun!

brat marian, sister sheley, starszy tingey (who i like to call tingley), elder sheley, elder caskey, agnieszka, and sister bown

marta, in the orange shirt is going to chicago in june on her mission

Good Morning form Poland 3/4/13

Dearest Raffie, Lindy, Hannah, Andrew, (czyli Rahfi, Lyndi, Hana, i Andrzej Bezdzian)

 

Guess what? You ALL emailed me this week!!! That makes me really happy. Thank you for your emails and pictures too. You all look so good and I love hearing from you.

 

This week was just great. I really saw the miracle of prayer many times. For example. We had a bunch of new kids and parents at our kids' english class on Saturday which means a bunch of new potential investigators! We have been especially been praying for one of the families which has been coming for awhile now that their hearts will be softened to hear the gospel and desire to meet with us. Well guess what! After class on Saturday, the mom offered us to come over to her house! (Miracle!) So we went over with all 5 of their ADORABLE kidlets and she gave us some frozen bigos to have for dinner later. It was really amazing because we just had prayed for her the night before and that morning and wha-bam! She wanted us to come! The next day we went over again and I think slowly but surely their family will be ready to receive the restored gospel.

Sister Bown and I are....doing fantastic. I love Sister Bown. She has taught me a lot about exact obedience this week. We've been really trying to be exactly obedient together and we've seen the blessings. Last night we were getting home later for dinner and we could either eat dinner for 45 minutes. We decided to have the full hour and it worked out perfectly. We caught our investigator right when she was coming home and she even told us, if you had been 5 minutes before or 5 minutes after, you wouldn't have caught me! She was happy to see us, as we were to see her and then we had a short and sweet member lesson.

The principle I learned from the Book of Mormon this week was...always give the Lord the glory for what is accomplished. Ammon (and Alma) in the readings this week (Alma 26 & 29) is such a good example of this. He was a successful missionary inside and out but he was so humble and gave all the credit to the Lord. Also, the sons of Mosiah didn't worry about what the world thought. Their brethren at home scoffed them for their hopes of converting Lamanites but they knew that it was in the Lord's hands.

We also watched the Restoration video with one of our investigators this week and it was really great. She is still not 100% sure that this is true but she wants to know and she wants us to keep meeting with her family. Her husband gets back from work this weekend so we're excited to meet. They are truly awesome.

I had the most amazing experience this week...when we met a really cute family on a tramwaj on the way home yesterday afternoon. I saw this mom and dad with a little baby girl standing on the tramwaj and I just knew they had to hear our message. After observing them out of the corner of my eye for a little while I noticed the father was holding a painting in a plastic shopping bag. I was debating for awhile in my head about what to say but then I just felt a prompting that it doesn't matter how you start it just GO talk to them! So I awkwardly went up and told him I love art and could I see his painting? A few minutes later and we were getting off the tram together, talking, shaking hands and setting up to meet with them on Friday. They are both in a confusing time right now (with the Pope abdicating) and want blessings for their family. It was a testimony to me that the Lord truly will give us what to say and how to say it in the moment that we need. We just need to show our faith in him by putting one foot forward and acting.

 

 

I know the Lord has a lot in store for Sister Bown and me this transfer and for Poland. Thank you for all you do and for who you are! I pray for you specifically every day.

 

Love,

Sister Bezdjian