I'm Home! And have a new blog!

Well, this is me, Siostra Amber Allen.  Funny how I actually spelled that wrong before my mission and had no idea until half way through the MTC that  it was spelled 'Siostra' and not Soistra.  Well the damage has been done, and Sister Amber Allen now resides (for the time being) in Provo, Utah.  I'll shortly be moving up to BYU Idaho, in Rexburg, for the next little while to study Elementary Education/ Special Education.

Here's some photos of me coming home, and such!

 The sunset the night after I got home :)

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Back on the computer... with kids everywhere! :)

I've had several requests that I keep blogging.  So I will be starting up a new blog, this time called Be Delightsome, so find me at bedelightsome.blogspot.com.

Never forget, that God loves you, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true, and always will be, and everything will be alright in the end.  If it isn't alright, it isn't the end.  And in the meanwhile, let's be happy, and like the people spoken of in 2 Nefi 30 - let's be a Delightsome People! 

2 Nefi 30:7 And as many as shall believe in Christ shall also become a delightsome people.

Love,

Siostra Amber Allen

"Woman, Why weepest thou?"

So this morning, I wasn't sure what to study in personal study - not a good idea, I should have had that planned out earlier... But then I decided to study hello's and goodbye's and how I ought to be doing them up right... There isn't really a good exit scene of the Savior in the Americas, I realized... But there is a good hello from him to people when He's resurrected... I really liked that one.  The angels, AND Christ say to Mary, 'Woman, why weepest thou?' - Well I've decided to let my excitedness just overtake me... I'm just officially excited to come home.  I hope that's alright with God.  Cuz I feel guilty sometimes that I don't want to serve for like... 17 years or something... but seriously, I'm ready for the next step, the next mountain, and a good two months in Provo with my favorite people! 

 

Nathan wrote me a letter a couple weeks ago and it has been making my day for a couple of weeks :) It is so AWESOME.  Nathan, you are so awesome, thanks for the letter, there should be one in the mail for you today as well, and one for Gregg.

 

We almost got the Standard this week and saw a lot of miracles.  FIVE investegators at church, may be a record for me!

 

Sunday was pretty bittersweet.  I got to share my testimony with our branch, which was slightly diminished in numbers because a lot of people were sick or something... But the cool thing was that Anna and Łukasz bore their testimonies... They said really sweet things about the missionaries in their testimonies as well, goodness gracious!  We don't do THAT much!  It's mostly God!  :)  Well, so fun.

 

It's going to be a bit stressful, this week, getting ready for Kraków to be white-washed by sisters.  Poor things, they have to live in that apartment way out in the middle of no-where... it's gunna be alright though, they'll survive. 

 

I know that this Church is TRUE!  I know our Savior LIVES and LOVES us and He wants us to be happy and healthy and share the love.  This week is going to be one of those ones you remember for the rest of your lives... I'm sort of nervous, but like I said, mostly excited... I will probably miss Anna the most.  We're going to have to write and call alot.  I love that girl, SO glad God let me meet her.

 

Anyways, HURRAH for Israel, and see some of you soon.... VERY SOON!

Love,

Siostra Allen

Miej do siebie cierpliwość.

Dear Family,

I am sort of blowing up inside.  Trying really hard not to be "trunky" - it's harder than I thought, actually... But it's all about controlling your mind, right?  Always was and always will be.  So I'm going to keep controlling my mind and work out my little soul this week, and next... and next and so on and so forth... It's really super unreal for me that time has flown by.  And I'm so used to Poland!  Jee wiz... Well, it made me cry that you were all hooping and hollering thinking about me coming h...  so I will probably cry when I see you again.  But for right now I'm going to tell you about some fun miracles this week:

 

Łukasz got BAPTIZED!  :) YEAH!  It was so smooth and awesome.  My favorite part was when Sister Anna Mucha gave a talk on Baptism!  WHAT!  And she spoke from the heart and it was so GREAT! She did SUCH a great job.  She spoke and didn't even look nervous, even though she said she was.  My favorite part of her talk was when she looked at Łukasz and said, I think if Christ were here he'd say, 'Hi Łukasz, I've been waiting for you...' And it brought tears to my eyes, and the Spirit was SO strong.  I'm so proud of her.  She's amazing.  We made cookies again for the baptism and they were delicious.  Oh another favorite part, when Elder Żelezniak forgot his shirt and Sister King and I had to run back upstairs to get it.  We had already taken off our shoes to be at the pool and so we got to run upstairs barefoot...oh how I miss being barefoot.  That was fun.  And then right before our musical number, President Kucia was filling in some time saying some nice words and Sister King was playing with her hymn book, the hymn books here are messed up, I can't wait till they have real ones... but anyways, she was playing with it because it's spiral ring bound but the pages are stuck together and she like accidentally ripped it too hard nad ripped it right in half, really loudly!  haha, everyone in the room had a good laugh, President Kucia made some funny remark about how he must be pretty boring if the Sister was playing with hymn books and destroying them... oh boy.  What a wonderful weekend.

 

Saturday night after the baptism, we still didn't have anyone to go with us to the District Conference.  I knew Sister King really wanted to go.  I didn't mind going but I really wasn't sure if I wanted to... it meant saying good-bye to a lot of people that I love.  So I just had mixed feelings.  But we looked through the phone and called Diana.  We'd just met her once and I'd talked to her for maybe 15 minutes or less on the street.  Well, she was like all down for going to the Conference with us!  So cool!  So she came with us, and turns out she's really awesome.  She's so cute and open and funny!  Haha, I hope that she will get baptized some day.  It was quite the adventure for her to come all the way to Katowice with us and meet a ton of Mormons! :) Yaya.

 

I got a PACKAGE from my lovely family!  And that was fun.  I just forgot to give some really important papers to President yesterday, pook pook... lame!  I guess it's a good thing I'll be in Warsaw next week to give it to the Office.  WHAT!  I want to just deny that I will be in Warsaw next week, I don't want to admit it.  I've just got to focus on the people and on the język.  I would love to just speak polish non-stop for the next 12 days.  That'd be awesome.  I think it'd just drive my companion off the walls though. 

 

Another awesome thing happened when we got to meet with Piotrek.  He's a super funny guy.  I love funny people.

 

I also learned more about our members this week - like the fact that Sasza was going to be a PRIEST and then changed his mind after two years thinking that he couldn't live in celibacy.  He's still single, poor guy.  I love him though, I wish I could just find all these single good mormon men in Kraków WIVES, they'd do so much GOOD as FATHERS!  Aaah! 

 

Today we are going to the Salt Mines and taking our Culture Night as well, it's going to be super fun!  But I also just worry that it will be too much fun, this morning I felt really lazy.  NOOooooooooOOOOOoooo!!!  No laziness allowed.  I think I'm going to try to work out harder this week, and study harder than ever, and just... be cooler than ever... yikes. 

 

Anyways, I know God lives and answers prayers!  I know He wants us to return to him!  Teaching a lesson about how Christ is our Savior to Dagna and Grzegorz this week, I just realized again how MERCIFUL God is, whoa.  What an amazing plan he has for us.  Dagna said that it's unfair that Christ paid the penalty for our sins.  She says she thinks we ought to pay for them ourselves and that is JUSTICE and that is FAIR.  She said that she wants to pay for her sins herself.  I have never looked at it quite that way, or something clicked aobut that, but really it ISN'T fair.  That's why it's so AMAZING, the plan that God has for us is AWESOME.  God loves us SO much.  And Christ loves us SO much.  He already paid for Dagna's sins, and he already paid for yours.  Don't make Him sad by insisting that you want to pay for your sins too.  Then the punishment will be suffered twice.  He already suffered for you.  Give it to him, let him love you!

 

I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true.  I LOVE wearing this Black name tag.  I love the craziness and adventures that a mission brings, but mostly I love the SPIRIT and the PEOPLE and the SAVIOR.  Wow.  This is the life.  I love it.

And I love you guys!

dozobaczenie,

-Siostra Amber Allen

Seek those things which are above...

"Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful." - Colossians 3:15

 

I've been trying to find Peace this week... He's an interesting character, that peace.  I'm not sure sometimes where to find him.  But I think I find him most when I'm thinking about others, when I'm thinking about the Savior.  :) And everything will work out, you know?

​

We had a lot of miracles happen this week, like the fact that Grzegorz and Dagna have more light in their eyes every time we meet with them... they read to 1 Nefi 9!  Cool!  And we ran into a really nice Baptist lady who took a Book of Mormon!  Then just my companion... she says things all the time that are so mądry.  Like, 'Kids are happy cuz they don't have that box in their head that is titled, 'what could go wrong'" - I need to burn that box in my brain... Then she talked about someone on their mission who felt like nothing was working and that the way wasn't opened until he prayed for it to be opened.  I'm going to pray for the way to be opened more often!

 

I had prayers answered a lot this week.  Even prayers that I didn't put much thought into, just little ones that I shot up and they came back at me fast... Like one day on the way home from the chapel, I prayed that we'd find someone who'd be interested, we had like five minutes before we'd be getting into our apartment for dinner, and because we'd been rejected a lot for quite a while and with no success I was feeling a bit desperate... Well there she was, an awesome young girl who gave us her number and is willing to meet and learn more, I think we gave her a book of Mormon! 

One night I prayed that we'd know where to go, that answer didn't come really so we just went where we thought was best, and turns out Agnieszka was ready in that apartment building to hear the message of the Restoration!  YES! 

Then just today, I was a bit frustrated because Preparation days are always so busy and hectic and I don't ever feel like I have enough time to get everything done that is needed... but I just prayed to God that he'd help me love being a missionary and still try to share the gospel today.  I got to give a book of Mormon to someone like 30 seconds later and get his phone number... that is... AWESOME. 

One prayer I had answered this week doesn't have a lot to do with missionary work, but I know it was God just touching base with me and reminding me that I'm His Daughter.  I was in a tramwaj and knew I'd be on it for a while so I started a conversation rather normally with a young student aged girl.  She's studying economics or something and I told her that sounds important and impressive and that I'm studying Elementary Education and sometimes feel that that isn't very impressive... teaching children 2 plus 2... etc.  Then she very strongly told me otherwise and really gave me a ton of reasons why being a teacher is a GREAT job.  She was so kind.  She didn't have to stand up for my kierunek, but she did.  Tears actually came to my eyes a bit, cuz I know in the back of my brain somewhere, there's  a little worrier, with wrinkles on his face, and purple under his eyes, and his neck muscles are really tight, and he takes notes and the Worrier thinks about school and what I'm going to study and if that's really where I ought to be and what I ought to do and the worrier is also in charge of hitting himself when he lets the normal part of my brain hear him worrying, he's not allowed to be heard while I'm still on my mission...  I also talked to Brother Onken this week about what I'm doing when I go h... and when I told him I was going to BYU-Idaho he got a big smile on his face - that's where he went to school - and he told me to go to the Faculty Jazz Concert that they have 2x a semester.  You know what, I know I'm supposed to study Elementary Education and at BYU Idaho everyone.  Thought I'd let you know that my prayers were answered this week.  Whoa... I didn't even realize that until I just wrote it out.  But cool!  Now we know. 

 

We ordered pizza for lunch once this week.  That was fun.

 

We made the sacrament bread.  And burnt it.  But then we just ripped off the burnt part and used it anyways... people complimented on it... but I've made better.

 

We really want REFERRALS this week!  We also want someone to take with us to go to the Conference in Katowice.  I really want to go.  We want some new investegators and some baptismal dates and some... I sound so needy.  I love what we've got.  We really do have SO much!  I am living in the prettiest city in Poland, I have the best food in the world, I get to speak POLISH everyday!  I love an HOUR of personal study in the mornings and listening to The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing Christmas songs... or The Circle of Life... or I have some recent EFY favorites too.  I love praying for my family by name every night, and I love sunshine.  I love the Kraków Branch.  I love my planner.  I love the rush of the Spirit after a meeting where there was actually PROGRESS made!  I love receiving answers to prayers!  I love singing, and I love the song 'If You Could Hie to Kolob' And I love the Savior.  And Łukasz is getting baptized in Kraków this week - he's the Elder's investegator.  So stoked!  Maybe this means that Kraków is on a role... here we go, we need some more!  I know it can happen.  It's going to happen.  We're still going to see miracles and work our hardest!  While LOVING DEEPER.  I need to love deeper.  I need to love it ALL deeper, especially the hard stuff and the ugly stuff and the... yeah...

 

Well, this is enough rambling.  I love you all, and hope your week is FANTABULOUS!  Keep up the missionary work wherever you are and remember that the Church is SO true!

Love,

Siostra Amber Allen

When Your Best Friend Gets Baptized...

AAAaaaaah!  She's baptized!  I can't believe it.  It's so unreal.  And all this time I just want to tell you guys about it!  Yesterday I even said to Sister King, can I just call my mom and tell her that it happened!  The whole thing is so... unbelievably AWESOME.  Everything I ever dreamed it would be.  I'm just about to burst inside because I'm SO HAPPY! Anna is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  And her TESTIMONY is on FIRE.  That girl is AMAZING.  I'm so proud of her, and I'm SO aware of the fact, more than ever, that we don't even do anything as missionaries.  God does it all!  We just set baptismal dates and set up meetings and try our best to bring the Spirit, but the SPIRIT and GOD do the converting, NOT us.  I couldn't have made up all the miracles that happened to get Anna baptized.  There's just no way.  The baptism was so AWESOME, I could have sprouted wings Saturday night, and then after church on Sunday it felt like someone had pulled out the plug and a lot of stress sort of just left my body.  -- yeah anyways, we've gotten to meet with Anna a lot more lately and I've really gotten to know her these past two weeks.  We saw her EVERY DAY last week and she tells the funniest stories and we laugh a lot and she's just awesome, she's for sure a best friend forever kinda girl! :)  I love Anna!  

 

 

 

 

I feel like the baptism pretty much drowns out everything else that happened this last week... or the last month... or year maybe... yeah... it was pretty EPIC.  It's so true, that idea that if you work towards something and you have to sacrifice a lot to get it...and it takes forever... that once you finally have it, it's like SO much more PRICELESS and AWESOME.  That's how I feel about Anna's baptism.  This is just... awesome.

 

O.k. so favorite parts of this whole deal...

 

We were waiting for Anna to show up and I was super nervous... I felt like just pacing around the chapel.  I knelt instead and prayed really quick... then we practiced the piano and singing because we were going to sing for her baptism, which we did, wasn't too bad!  We sang 'I like to look for rainbows' in Polish.  Rockin' - so then Brat Dziubla shows up and I said out loud 'everything's going to be okay' and he goes 'yeah it is.' - he's so SOLID, he's like an extra grandpa/uncle/dad thing going on here in Kraków, Brat Dziubla is seriously the MAN.  I love that guy.  He made me just feel a lot calmer.  Then Anna shows up and you can tell that she's freaking out too.  Haha, I joked with Sister King (who is also a stresser) that we just got the three most stressing people together and tried to plan a baptism, what a hoot!  And all the time Michał, her fiance, was there and trying to calm her down, he's such a sweet guy. So then finally the talks were over and we were on to the actual baptism.  We had three investegators attend the baptism (SCORE!) and... okay well one is actually a girl we just met in the park, we're not actually meeting with her, but I think it's WAY cool that she showed up!  And so we go downstairs with all the girls and Brat Dziubla - but with out Anna... and I wanted Anna with us the whole time so was a bit worried... expecially because I didn't even know where the basin was - the pool I mean - so anyways, we get lead by Brat Dziubla and turns out that Anna's group didn't know where to go to get to the pool either and wandered around a bit and Elder Skolimowski made some joke about a 'Plan' on the wall that was actually an Evacuation Plan... oh boy... well maybe it lightened the mood for Anna... haha!  Then we get to the pool and have to take off our shoes and socks, except we're wearing tights and I didn't want to take off my tights infront of everyone so I just left them on.  They got super wet.  But I didn't care.  Then Anna gets dressed, in WHITE!  YEAH!  And gets in the pool which is really deep, and Tim Tudor-hart, a convert from England married to Agata, a polish woman, who are both AWESOME and MIRACLES for Anna, got dressed in white too... and they went into the pool and tried going to the other end of the pool to see if it was not so deep - turns out it was just the same on that side :) So they're like swimming around in their white outfits, it was quite comical, actually... Then Tim says his perfectly memorized prayer in POLISH to baptize Anna and down she goes and WHALLA!  She's baptized!  Woot! We go back up and she gives her TESTIMONY,

 

O.k. let me just preface this a little bit, so Anna doesn't like public speaking, she's fine at it, but for some reason it freaks her out.  She was a witness at her sister's wedding last year and had to read the scriptures from a little pulpit and she said she was shaking so bad and grabbing the pulpit so hard that she practically took it with her back to her seat :) haha...

 

O.k. now fast-forward back to the end of her baptism where she was to bear her testimony - she goes right up there and stands there for a good eight minutes bearing the most beautiful strong testimony I've ever heard!  And she thanked the members by name and even said something about Elder Walter and she just was BEAMING.  She said she knew the Book of Mormon was true and that God had TOLD her that.  She explained how she'd just come to realize that we have a living prophet, even though that'd been a problem before.  She talked about how God had just been so much in her life recently and answering her questions that she KNEW he loved her and specifically wanted HER in THIS church.  She even spoke to Michał from the pulpit and told him that he was 'next' :) haha!  And she read one of her favorite verses from the Bible about how Christ talks to the apostles while he's on the cross and asks them to take care of his mother, that they are his family and that they are all brothers and sisters.  She told about how she knew she was now really a 'SISTER' in this branch and of Christ and even though she'd felt it before, never in this way and never so fully.  I can't tell you how big the smile was on my face.  I couldn't stop smiling, it was probably the biggest smile I've ever smiled in my whole life.

 

Then Sunday as the Elders and men in our branch gathered around Anna and placed their hands on her head.  That was so SO cool.  I can't even tell you how cool.  And I was hoping that Brat Dziubla knew what to do when confirming someone, he nailed it.  And you could definitely feel the spirit and God speaking through that man.  I know that the Spirit is REAL, and I know that BAPTISM is real and it is SUPPOSED to happen.  I KNOW this church is true, now more than EVER!  I even know that I knew Anna before this life.  We had to have been friends before.  I am so grateful for the opportunity to get to know her and just be a small part of seeing this all happen.  It's a miracle.  Our lives are miracles.  Missions are miracles.

 

There's more I could say... but I need to do some other stuff, so... I'll write more next week!  :)

Pray for us to find new investegators this week!  And new baptismal dates!   ONWARD!  It's not over!

I love this!

Love,

Siostra Amber Allen

Do I Seek To Please?

Monday October 7, 2013

Galatians 1:10, from our good man Paweł reads: "For do I now persuade men, or God?  For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ."

 

And so it goes, my friends, we are an unusual people, a czekawy, and interesting people, unique, what is the word I'm looking for... is it unusual?  Anyways, I know that even though sometimes people are not pleased with me, I can still be happy because they're not supposed to be pleased anyways.  If they were pleased, I'd probably be doing something wrong.  It's just such a paradox sometimes!  :) But it's an awesome one!

 

Missionary work is going along awesomely!  This week we had a lot of fun first lessons on the street.  I love just meeting someone out of the blue and teaching them about the Restoration! 

 

My companion and I are really trying to get some new investegators and working on getting Anna baptized this week!  I'm super excited!  Things are looking up.  Praying like crazy!

 

I really don't have a whole lot left to say today, perhaps a simple testimony:

I know that the Spirit is real.  It testifies to me that this Church is true.  That the work I'm doing is worth it!  I know that the Savior lives and loves us.  He wants us to return to Him and live with our families forever!  I know we have the capacity to change our lives around and be better.  I will become better this week, I promise.

 

Love,

    Siostra Amber Allen​

Confidence

Dzień Dobry! 

An awesome eventful week!  I'm super excited to tell you about it!  I also got e-mails from some awesome people today!  So thanks everyone who sent me something!

You know what, I don't know if I just assumed that my last transfer would be like easy or...what... But it's turning out to be pretty hard.  I love it still, but just a lot of mixed emotions and craziness​!  I guess it's good, the refiner's fire just got hotter, I guess there's some things I really need purged out of me before I go...you know where....  One thing I've been learning again this week is about confidence.  I have felt sometimes that I'm not being guided by the Holy Ghost like I'd like to be.  But then I remember that he that is compelled in all things the same is a slothful and not a wise servant.  Also with being Sister Training Leader and Senior Companion with a Trainee and having this be my last transfer, a lot of people think I've got things figured out out here.  And I insist that I don't have them figured out, I mean I have them way MORE figured out than I did at the beginning of my mission, but I get asked so many questions and have a lot of decisions to make and I just start feeling the pressure sometimes. Then I get sick... haha... I'm sick again, yes.  I have a head cold, it's all up in here!  And anyways, I just hope that I can be the girl that everyone seems to think I am! :)  I was telling President Edgren yesterday... Ah yes, President Edgren visited us this week, he got here Saturday evening and took us to dinner.  It was delicious - Mexican food!  They had Mexican Independance stuff up all around the restaurant, so that was fun, reminded me of Nathan!  I talked to the young kid behind the counter, he looked like 15 or something, they've lived in Poland for two years now.  I hope he likes it here.  He was cool, Martin was his name.  Then the older guy who cleaned off our table and got our orders, he was cool too.  We left them a pass along card.  He says his best friend is Mormon back in Mexico!  Then Sunday, President Edgren came to church with us and had interviews with Sister King and I. (Haha, The King and I... makes me think of Rishi!) As I was talking to him I mentioned that sometimes I feel like I don't know where to go and then I get frustrated that maybe I'm not listening correctly to the Spirit or something and then when you are frustrated, you can't hear the Spirit anyways, so it just gets worse and goes in a downward spiral.  Well, I don't know if it was something President said, or something I just felt, but yesterday I really got this strong impression that I just need to have more confidence.  I need to believe in myself, trust my instincts, act upon them, and stop second guessing myself.  No more question marks.  I know that Christ was confident in himself, and we can be too.  Especially as His representatives!

 

I also got to go on a fun exchange this week to Kielce.  Man those girls..oops sorry, SISTERS... are ripping it up out there.  (My trainee, Siostra Hemming-2 months in the country- is out there with Sister Howell's trainee, Sister Barth -4 months in the country) (Sister Barth is in the picture with me and the other pictures are of Kielce) The Kielce branch is really small, but just got a new chapel, they were also preparing an Anna for baptism there in Kielce.  The baptism went through!  So Poland has a new member as of yesterday! :) YAY!

 

 

 

Me pointing to a map of Kielce

I can't find my gloves or my hair brush... o where is my hair brush? :) So if you want to pray for me to find them, that'd be cool.  I don't want to have to buy new ones...

 

This week we met some interesting characters:

Artur: He speaks 12 languages and wants to learn about 100... :) haha... oh boy...

A girl with bright BLUE hair... President Edgren walked past her and said 'there's some green hair for you' haha... I couldn't figure out if he really thought it was green or if he just said green and meant blue... :)

 

But my favorite part of the week was Sunday when we were in RELIEF SOCIETY cuz we have RELIEF SOCIETY now days!  And we were sitting there and Sister Agata Tutorhart - who is an ANGEL and I LOVE HER!  gave a SUPER inspired lesson on BAPTISM with both Magda and Anna there.  It was the COOLEST feeling of my life.  And Anna knew all the right answers!  And you could tell in her eyes that she understood them too.  It's so cool to see people's progression!  Peter Johnson sent me an up-date of his mission recently and talked about how cool it is to see them progress.  I agree, it's just so AWESOME!  She had a problem with living prophets a while back and yet yesterday during the lesson when Agata asked her and Magda who the living prophet was dzisiaj, she perked up and goes 'THOMAS S. MONSON' AH YEAH!  That's my girl!  I love her!  I seriously love her guts.  I want to come back for her wedding... and we decided that one of my kids will marry one of her kids :) haha.  Ah man, God is good.

 

Anyways, love you all so much!  Keep your head up.  And I'll do my best to keep mine up.  Ah, I love e-mailing.  Thanks for being the backbone to my mission, family.  I would have died long ago with out you.  You keep me strong and happy and excited and energized.  And it's all thanks to God.  I tell people every day that everything good in my life comes from this Church and from God.  and it's TRUE!  Keep sharing the gospel!  Keep shining bright!

Love,

Siostra Amber Allen

Anyways, don't have much time, didn't read EVERYONE's letters

 

Allen the Mormon Nun!

Um my companion LOVES chocolate :) so that's why she's all excited about the Chocolate Factory!

Yeah so we were walking down the dark streets of Poland on our way home, had about an awkward 10 minutes left and tried to contact someone, there really was no one about.  I'm praying that someone will come around the corner...there's the sillouhette of a couple walking around the corner and I say good evening to them and the man goes, 'It's Allen, the Mormon Nun' - in English... haha... WHAT!?  We'd met this guy a while back.  Him and his wife are WAY nice, but not interested in the gospel.  They just speak really good english, and I think they're a bit happy about that, that they speak good english.  Which is fine by me.  They insisted on talking to us in english and we exchanged pleasentries.  I asked him at the end of the conversation to repeat what he'd called me because I thought it was funny.  He said sorry for calling me that, but I said again, 'no I really thought it was funny, I'm going to tell my family about it' - so now you are all hearing it :)  Anyways, if anything they like us and know we're not horrible people!

 

This week we saw lots of miracles.  Anna made it to church!  In Warsaw!  Her baptismal date is the 12th of October, PLEASE pray for her.  I love her so much!  Have I even said much about her?  She's 23, loves rollerblading, and is engaged.  She loves the Book of Mormon and the Bible.  She's just so awesome I can't handle it sometimes.  After lessons with her I feel edified and happy.  That's how it ought to be!  Yes!

 

We got TEXTING back in the mission!  And already set up two lessons with it!  YES!  Let's move forward the work! 

 

My companion and I are getting along and having fun.  Sister King is very brave to talk to people on tramwajs and her polish is improving every day.  She's like me in the fact that she forgets things and we get to re-learn polish phrases sometimes . I'm pretty sure I was like that with Polish for a long time, asking questions over and over again :) Oh polish, how I love thee! 

 

I've been reading in Deutoronomy recently, because that is where Anna is at in her reading of the Bible and I wanted to read with her.  Recently I decided to read all in Polish so that's been also an interesting twist on Personal Study.  I read about how the people are teaching their kids to remember Moses.  Then in the Book of Mormon, which I started over, there's also that again, remember Moses!  Then Nathan sent that e-mail today talking about remembering Job.  I just love the Prophets, and all they teach us.  I'm so grateful for this life.  As hard at it is, it's so beautifully hard.  It's like... ah man... it just wouldn't be near as breathtaking if it didn't have that PUNCH to it, you know? :) :)   I'm grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow.  Roll with the punches :)

 

I know Christ lives and loves us.  I know everything will be alright in the end, and if it's not alright, it's not the end!

Love you all tons,

-Siostra Amber Allen

Strip Yourself of All Ungodliness

I finished the Book of Mormon today!  I love the second to last and the third to last verses in the book of mormon, they're SO GOOD.  They talk about us stripping ourselves of all ungodliness, let's do it together, eh? 

 

I had an experience yesterday when I was really weak from fasting and there was a mom and her son hanging out in the park and the mom was all super protective and coddly with her son, it just made me think of how much mom's love their kids.  Then I had her son, 11 year old Piotrek, read the promise in Moroni 10.  He read it out loud and it just hit me hard that that book is TRUE.  You know when you're fasting, it feels like you're kind of hollow, and your body and spirit are sort of disconnected, and your spirit really can feel the holy ghost better, it was like there was more room for the spirit inside my body or something, weird to explain, but that's how it felt.  Anyways, i got a little teary-eyed, The Book of Mormon is TRUE everybody, in case you were wondering.

 

Sister Pearson and I went on a little exchange this week, that was fun.  :)

Thursday morning Elder Żeleżniak had a really fun super quick District Meeting where we set goals for the transfer.  It got me really pumped up.  He's really good at rallying the troops, even in a small four man city :)  I was greatful for that and had so much faith that things would work out.  He gave us a talk that he received from his Trainer back in the day talking about how we could do a fourty day cleanse and really give MORE to the Lord.  This cleanse starts out with a 24 hour fast then you are supposed to write a list of things that 'poke at your spirit' and promise God that you won't do them for 40 days. 

So  this starts out with the fast - from 14:00 Saturday I decided to fast for 24 hours.  Well things after church were hectic and we wanted to still go contact a referral so 16:00 Sunday comes around and we are no where near any food or water.  So we were talking to a woman and teaching her about the Restoration I started feeling really light headed.  I had to sit down on the grass.  We still had a long bus ride and tram ride to get to the chapel.  It looked like an uphill experience.  I was really worried that something horrible was happening to me. I ate some of Sister King's peanuts and water which she had in her back pack and hoped that would help, I don't think it helped...   We weren't really sure what it was, dehydration or something with my blood... after I got off the bus, I had a hard time getting to the tramwaj and once on the tramwaj I was just sure I was going to pass out or throw up on someone.  We got out of the tramwaj and I tried walking to the chapel and threw up three times on the way, haha, oh looking back now, I'm so stupid, should have just brought food to eat!!!  So then I felt better after throwing up and made it to the chapel.  Sister King was so sweet the whole time, she carried my backpack and then fixed me tacos and told me to put my feet up and lay down.  She's a good doctor.  I love Sister King.  I told Sister King that we still had to give away a book of mormon and teach a lesson that night to reach some goals we'd set (Kind of like James getting that goal after he was sick) and so we went out and I felt good enough and God placed this guy from Egypt on a park bench.  His bus didn't come for 25 minutes.  So we sat and taught him about repentance and prayer - he needs a lot of it, he's really messed up his life.  Poor guy.  Anyways, it was a cool experience, we have his number and I hope God can help him turn his life around.  Then on the tramwaj we met a kid who's uncle is a Mormon!  Cool!  He wants to read the Book of Mormon, so we gave it to him :)  He's a Jehowah's Witness, but if he reads that book, and prays about it, I know he'll be a Mormon in no time too :)

Sister King has been awesome this week, and has really got us into some places that I know I wouldn't have gotten had I been alone, or with any other companion :)  We were talking to different people on this tramwaj on Friday night and it was our stop and I went to get off and saw that Sister King was still talking to someone,so I went and was gong to tell her we needed to get off, but didn't, she wasnt' getting up.  Cool.  So we kept going a few more stops and talking to this lady, who we later found out was named Anetta.  I don't even know what we were talking about but she didn't seem super interested, but was really friendly.  She thought it was cool that Sister King was learning polish, I think it's cool that Sister King is learning polish too!   Anyways, so I decided it wasn't going anywhere and said we're going to get off the next stop, let's give you a pass-along card thingy, and we get off and keep talking to her and she says good bye once, and shakes our hands and Sister King just keeps talking to her... and we say good-bye a second time, shake hands, and I don't know how it happened but somehow we kept talking, she asked us a question or something and then she INVITES US TO HER HOUSE!  We hadn't eaten dinner yet that night and she also FED US!  And introduced us to her son and husband.  Her son loves fishing and is 12 years old and blonde and plays the violin :) I love him!  His name is Kuba.  We got along well :)  Ah man, I love deacons... always have and always will...they're the coolest age.  Anyways, we got to teach them about the Restoration and they listened really nicely.  Sister King was bold enough to ask them to turn off the t.v.  I was so grateful for that, I hate asking if they'll turn it off, I feel rude, especially when they just invited us over and gave us pickle soup - which was so DELICIOUS - and cookies and juice cuz we don't drink tea :)  Ah man, what a fun night.  Kuba read that promise in the book of mormon out loud as well, and the spirit was there.  I asked Aneta what she was feeling, she said 'peace' and that they ought to read more as a family out loud in the bible - EXACTLY!  :) Well they are just going to get baptized, although they don't know it yet  :) :) After that lesson I gave Sister King a huge hug, what a cool feeling!

 

Anyways, some hard things hit this week for me, but I know it's just Satan trying to get the best of me, I'm not going to let it happen.  Nie bój się! :) Nie lękaj się! Everything's gunna be sweet!  I memorized a scripture this week, 'Wszystko mogę w tym, który mnie wzmacnia, w Chrystusie' - it means, 'I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me' - AWESOME! TRUE! And we still saw lots of miracles, so it's just going to be great, whatever happens, I have to trust that God knows best!  and just keep smiling.

I love you all!  The church is true!  It's getting cold real fast here in Poland, I forgot about the cold, weird.

And so it goes,

Love you all

-Siostra Amber Allen

Unto Every Creature

Dear Family,

 

Whoa.  Trying not to stress... do you ever... yeah you probably do... feel like you have a million and a half things to do and no time in which to do them?  Yeah, that's how I feel!  But we get things checked off the list every so often, so that's cool! :)  And I should just enjoy the rush :)  YEAH!  Just going from 3 experienced sisters to one is a lot in a few days!  But guess what!  GOD IS ON OUR SIDE :) And what's the worst that could happen, i could go to jail, maybe a den of lions, have to walk accross a desert in the winter... nah, it's gunna be good! :)

 

This week has been crazy.  I know that several times this week I've had something happen and think, WELL, I'd better tell my family about that!  Then later okazało się że nie pamiętam!  Przepraszam!  Today it is rainy and a bit cold.  I've been meaning to tell you about the weather for a long time but keep forgetting.  It's starting to look a lot like FALL around here, and its psyching me out!  This is not happening!  (the passage of time, that is)  - crazy.

 

Well I had to say goodbye to some of my favorite people this week.  On Tuesday we did a free-board with the Elders and then went to Długas for our last time as a district.  Elder Walter left us this week, NOT COOL.  I'm gunna miss the man.  He's such an AWESOME święta osoba.  (Sorry I just feel like writing more in Polish today, sorry if you have to translate it.)  I also had to say goodbye to Sister Young and Sister Hemming.  Sister Hemming gets the privilege of opening up Kielce for Sisters, I'm so proud of her, she's going to do great things!  And Sister Young gets to go to the great city of Łódż (I was there on an exchange once and really liked it) - and she's going to get the Standard this transfer, I can just feel it :) :) :)  I'm so excited to see what these girls do with their missions and with their lives, they seriously are my heros.  (And I miss them like none other).

good bye to Siostra Young and Hemming

We met again wtih the Rooster ManApparently he's more famous than we think.  -- He talked to us more about aliens this time, aw the adventures!

 

We had a lesson with Anna and she asked to meet with the Sisters again the next day - she's SO AWESOME!  And she's like for sure going to get baptized!  HURRAH!  I'm so, so excited.  So excited that I squealed after she came to ALL THREE HOURS of CHURCH on Sunday!  Oh man, I love her! 

 

my new companion

 

Then I went to Warsaw this week to pick up my new trainee!  Her name is Sister King, from Utah.  She's spunky and has lots and lots of faith.  I'm excited because I prayed for my next companion to have lots of faith.  I really want to see miracles here in Kraków and now that I feel like I know a bit more how faith works after last week - not this last week, but the one before it - I just want to see it happen again.  And one thing this requires is NO DOUBTS.  I can't let them enter my mind.  It's a hard game, but I'm learning to play and it's awesome!

 

In Warsaw we had a fun time, but it was weird cuz there was more down time than I'm used to... You guys are really going to have to put me to work when I get back around because um... I don't like free time.  It's awkward and makes me feel all yucky.  In fact I think Elder Walter had it worse than I do, wonder if he's back in California pacing right now? :) Haha...

 

I got to then participate in a meeting with the leaders of the Poland Warsaw Mission - and I was super emotional and it was stupid.  The night before we'd had a testimony meeting and one of the Elders is 18 years old.  His name is Elder Fogg.  He's Nathan's size too, shorter, skinny, looks like he plays soccer, not blonde, but still... He was sick when he got into Warsaw, and so when he bore his testimony about being homesick and sick at the same time I just got thinking about Nathan and... then the next morning during testimony meeting Elder Rittmanic tells us a story about getting head-butted in the FACE!  I just started thinking about Nathan and Gregg and... lost it.  I stood up to bear my testimony and had a hard time getting the words out.  I thanked the Elders for their example.  I love the Elders of our mission, serioulsy, haven't met a bad apple yet!  I love every missionary in this mission, they're so STELLAR!  I just, man, I know that this work is real.  This church is TRUE!  God stands at the head of this work and He leads out in knowing where we ought to be and what we ought to do.  And because of that I know it's okay that I won't see Nate for so long.  I love you, Nate, and Gregg too!  Please don't get head butted in the face where I can't be there to punch the guy back for you.  o.k. no I'm not going to do that, but, aaah!  Stay safe.  Please? 

 

We met a girl in the train station who was wearing a white jeans jacket on with patches from star wars.  She gets together with other people and like re-enacts starwars scenes or something, not quite sure.  She was cool.  We magically got 16 lessons again this week, a lot of street lessons, but AWESOME stuff, we're going to get 15 lessons every week this transfer, especially if you pray for us to get it and you have faith with me :)  It's gunna be sweet!

 

I gave a talk on Nephi this last Sunday in church.  Because i have a cold, I was a bit worried that my cough wouldn't let me get through it.... It was good for me though, until the last like five minutes.  Then Brat Onken had to go get me a drink of water.  I love our branch! :) :) and it just got bigger, I told you about the two new families that moved into our branch, right?  Cool.  SO COOL.

 

Listen to the Spirit this week, everyone, it's real and it works!

I read in Mormon this morning - everyone is dying and it's so sad, that must have been so hard.  But I know Mormon had the spirit with him and he said something about preaching the gospel to every creature :)  So I'm going to do that, every CREATURE!

 

Love you all so, so, so much,

-Siostra Amber Allen