Awesome Autumn

WHAT?!? 

It’s Monday again?  When did THAT happen?  Weird…

(You know what else is weird?  Here they mow the lawn with weed-whackers- yeah it looks like it takes FOREVER and so...just be grateful, okay?)

Well, I guess here I am again, and oh yeah, DZIEń DOBRY!

Also, HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY JENNY on the 27th, you're the BESTEST!  Love ya!

This week has been quite unusual.  You see at the beginning of the week, we had about 15 lessons set up.  GREAT!...and then Satan got to work... and we ended up having a total of 9 lessons (maybe the lowest ammount of lessons I've had in one week my entire mission -- and some of those were not even the planned ones!)  So we had a lot of people fall through on us this week, but hey, so it goes.  Thing was, even though it felt like we were at war, (people not showing up, some hard lessons, and church this week was a bit… crazy…to say the least…)  for some reason we were really happy this week.  Every day we looked at each other and were like, ‘What is this?  We should be upset at least right now, but we’re not!'  And so that’s how it went, and I’m loving it!

Probably my favorite part of the week was our lesson with Anna Bird.  That's what she calls herself.  We met this woman in the park on a windy cold day a couple weeks ago while she was walking around with an older man who I think was paralyzed and in a wheelchair.  She was super cute and tried to speak some English, (to get a picture of her, she's about my size, blonde, and she's mom's age, got three kids, and super positive) told us that she’d welcome us over to her place sometime but she was really busy so we’d have to call later.  Usually that means, ‘I’m not really interested and I’m not going to pick up my phone if you call me.’  Well I got to call her last week and set up and she said we could come over!  So Friday we walked out to her HOUSE.  Yeah, well it’s mostly a house, smushed in between other “houses” – but it’s the biggest living space I’ve seen since the Mission Home.  We rang her door bell and she came out to get us at the gate and then we walked up to her house and it was so beautiful!  We got to meet her son first, His name is Mihał, who is 14 and he is in a wheelchair for life, but he sure doesn’t act like it, he’s AWESOME.  Then we met Lenna, the youngest, who is 12 and super nice.  Then we met Agnieszka who is 21 and also a gem.  Poprostu, there was this feeling in their house even before we started the lesson, the Spirit is in that house, and that family is amazing.  They fed us cake and tea (yes we drink a lot of fruit tea here in Poland because fruit tea is not against the Word of Wisdom) and we got to introduce ourselves and then once we got settled we were able to share a lesson with them!  A lesson about the restoration!  And as I told the First Vision, Anna’s eyes got all teary, and I was so hot, my face felt really flushed… and we just all could feel the Spirit so strongly.  Anna really is looking for something!  And THIS IS IT!  And we got to set up again with her and Agnieszka sat in on the whole lesson and so we have 2 new investigators!  And it was just so great, so, so great.  The thing is, her husband is a strong Catholic and wouldn’t let her keep meeting with the Jehovah’s Witnesses when she was meeting with them… so we’re hoping his heart will be softened and we can baptize the whole family and things will just be miraculous… it’d take a MIRACLE is all I’m saying, but God is a God of miracles and I LOVE this family so I’m not writing them off anytime soon.

ALSO, we have a woman with a baptismal date!  Her name is Izabella and she's an older woman, who wanted to learn English.  We began teaching her three weeks ago and she's the sweetest old lady - very, very humble.  She's started reading the Book of Mormon and shen sister Folsom asked her if she'd prepare to be baptized on November 11th, she said she would!  Wahoo!  It made my day!  That was ALSO the 22nd of September, which as my mother knows well (because she has such an amazing memory and remembers dates like a calendar) is the day that Joseph Smith actually recieve the Golden Plates from Moroni.  In our family we go hunting for the Golden Plates every year, so I decided to make up my own hunt for the Elders and sister Folsom at the chapel!  Haha, it was a blast.  I made some "Golden Plates" out of some gold butcher paper we had in our apartment and hid them.  Then we had a Search-For-The-Golden-Plates-Party-And-Eat-Microwaved-Pierogies!  :) Oh what a fun day.  And oh how I'm grateful for Joseph Smith.

Mom, you asked about the language.  Honestly I am feeling a lot better about the language.  I can express myself better now and I can actually carry on a conversation by myself without my companion alright.  I tried translating for Sister Reed in Relief Society yesterday and Marta - the 20 year old AWESOME member here in Poznań said I'm grasping the language really well.  That's what people seem to say, but I don't know really, I still am not expert by any means!  It's all getting easier though, that's for sure.  I look at my language books and can understand them better, I know a bigger percentage of the vocabulary and...yeah it's getting SWEET!  I'm starting to realize I can speak a 2nd LANGUAGE! :) :) :)

Another cool thing: we bought tickets to go see the Ballet - Swan Lake - I'm going to a European Ballet!  We even bought the nicer tickets because they're so "cheap" and I'm pretty stoked (even though I'd rather watch a BYU Football game...).

Oh one more cool thing, so two weeks ago we were tracting and not getting much luck and we were leaving ulotki (don't know the word in English...flier maybe?) and we get to the last door and this older couple comes to the door and starts SCREAMING at us... yeah they were full out YELLING at us with all their lung capacity and I didn't know what to do...so we sort of said sorry and walked down the last flight of stairs with them still yelling.  Turns out, a guy upstairs who didn't open his door for us, heard the yelling and grabbed the ulotka and got interested and CAME TO CHURCH LAST SUNDAY!  He told us how he had heard the screaming and was curious...then he came AGAIN this week and he's now set up with the missionaries and will be taught by them!  WHOOP! 

Moral of the story is... that I love being a missionary.  I love Poland.  I love Poznań.  And I love you all.  No matter what is going on in your life, know that you can trust god to get you through.  So SMILE and TRUST HIM! :)  I could add so much more, but don't have time left.

Love you tons,

- Sister Amber Allen

Boot Camp and Cookies

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  The church is true and nothing else matters… And because the church is true, I have SOOoooo many things to be grateful for and to talk about and to smile about and sing about and… it’s just great! :) Sounds like BYU lost their football game, well that stinks!  I'll bet it gave grandpa heartburn, and the rest of you are depressed for the next couple days... haha, good ol' BYU. 

Yeah, so pretty much one of the best weeks of my WHOLE MISSION.  I've had such an eye-opening week, and it's been full of inspiration and guidance and love and...man, just such a great time.  So Monday afternoon, Sister Folsom took off to Gdańsk and I hung out with the Reed's at their apartment.  We ate some delicious soup and rolls and listened to a cool talk by one of the general authorities. (I'm sorry, my memory is so horrible, and dad that's probably why I don't remember your mission stories... arg...)  Then we went to pick up Sister Bezdjian.  O.k. so I was nervous because I've seen this girl in action, the first day we were in the mission home, my companion was talking to me about life and the happiness of the mission home, itd, and Sister Bezdjian took Sister Ostler into another room and they were PLANNING and she was telling her about the next week and all the lessons they had set up, etc.  Sister Bezdjian was only in the mission for 3 months before she TRAINED... this woman is A-MAZING... and she's just like a super hard worker.  I was worried that I wasn't up to par and such, but she gets here and she's so sweet and so awesome, and still a super hard worker!  So we got to tract that night, she's a head shorter than me, sorry I didn't take any pictures of us, but it was funny to see her try to talk into the domaphone sometimes...  And we just had a good time and talked about our companionships and I got to see how she contacted and tracted and the next day was super awesome too.  I probably just had my jaw hanging open part of the day because of how many names and numbers we got when she was here for just 24 hours!  We just ripped it up!  And my confidence in that 24 hours went up like 50% as well... it was super weird... but super needed.  Her polish isn't all refined like sister Folsom's is, but she still can whip stuff out and she memorizes stuff during the day instead of talking about nonsense... and man... she's like boot camp with cookies all mixed together and I LOVE HER STYLE!  I so want to serve with her later, I think she'd be really good for Poznań, and for me, I didn't get to learn all I wanted from her.

Then when Sister Bezdjian left on the train Wednesday, I was by myself for like four hours and I made PHONE CALLS!  Yeah, Sister Bezdjian gave me enough confidence to make PHONE CALLS in POLISH... should have been trying that long ago, but it was sweet... I still had to sort of talk myself into it and write a few things down, but I got to call and a couple people answered and understood me and, no sweat, it was alright in the end :)  Haha... oh boy, it was just awesome.  I also made some apple crumble stuff for Sister Folsom when she returned because she's always baking for me.  So it was just fun, I needed some alone time, to really pray out-loud by myself for a good half an hour, just soak up the fact that I can improve, we're going to step it up, and yeah, it was just great.  Elders are lucky they get exchanges all the time.  We get so stuck in this world, we're really isolated and I don't have a clue what other sisters are like - only heard other sister's voices like 3 times in the past 3 months.  Speaking of months... this week I'll have been on my mission 5 months ALREADY!  CRAZINESS!

So Stephen Parker got himself hitched this week, I see.  Good pick, she's beautiful!  And I wish I could have been there, Congratulations!  Gregg, you packed yet?  I'm writing you a letter TODAY and gunna try to send it.  Also, Jack gets home the 3rd of October and I think speaks the 14th, if you guys want to go, that'd be cool, his whole family came to my farewell, so... yeah. 

We sometimes do what is called a whiteboard here in Poznań where we write a question on a whiteboard in a very crowded place and then ask people to answer it.  Like, "What question would you ask God?"  or "What brings you happiness?"  So this last week we decided to write "What is true love?"  We didn't realize how awkward that'd be for the elders, haha...but it was pretty funny, just to see their faces.  They said it was so weird to say that to a girl...and as well to say it to any guy...so that was just funny!  But I got to talk to a SUPER sweet MOM!!!  And her baby boy was chasing a pigeon at one point and she took a BOOK of MORMON and I got her number and we called her and she said we can meet in a few weeks.  Man, SO EXCITING!

Some of these pictures, so one was taken just a few minutes ago of me and my companion :) HI from the Poznań library! 

Some of them are from the Bazar, the market place, I thought it was cool some of the apples were called JAMES apples...!!!  Oh and they sell huge sunflowers...not sure what for, I mean the seeds of course...but... yeah.  And then they braid their garlic and there was an old woman selling those... The APPLES are in season and we've got BUSHELS and BUSHELS of APPLES, people just kept giving them to us so we had to think of new things to make with them...

O.k. so a few wise things:

If you look for spiders, you'll find them.

Sister Folsom HATES spiders, so it's kinda funny when we go ring domaphones and there's a spider, sometimes I have to do the whole building by myself - okay that's probably only happened once - haha, but here's the wise thing.  If she's not thinking about them, or looking for them, she's not bothered.  So in life, when we have something that bothers us, or we're looking for those things, life's gunna really be hard.  So apply Elder Uchtdorf's two word sermon and STOP IT, if you do that... There are much better things to look at.  Look for the GOOD things, because surely, if you look for spiders, you'll find them.

The Lord can draw a straight line with even the most crooked of sticks.

My dad sent me that poem, 'The Touch of the Master's Hand' last week, and it reminded me of this statement that sister Folsom found in an old Ensign.  It's so true!  God can do so many great things with us, his humble, no good, rotten servants!  Even if we are the weakest of the weak, he can make us strong and build us up.  It's mighty beautiful, I'd say!

The stars are still there, my dear.

No matter where I am, even in this crazy busy city, the stars are still there!  I saw what looked like the Big Dipper the other night and it just made me so HAPPY!  I love the stars!  They make me feel... at home.  God exists, no matter WHERE you are!  So believe in him, because HE BELIEVES IN YOU!

Mom, question, how many women are in our ward Relief Society?  How many in the Stake are you over?  We're going to try to help this woman get started with Visiting Teaching assignments here in Poznań and I was just wondering about that... man the dynamics are so different here... 

One more quick miracle story.  So we looked up some formers in our Area Book and found a family, we didn't have their phone number so we had a little adventure roaming all around Poznań looking for this address yesterday.  Oooh, what fun!  So we found it!  And at first they weren't going to let us talk to them, but we just chatted and the young girl, Matilda, opened the door and she was so sweet and I tried to talk to her while Sister Folsom talked to the mom and dad.  They live in a really run-down place, very poor, but in the end we got Matilda's phone number and her parents!  Matilda wants to come to a young women's activity!  We only have one young woman, but maybe we'll get another one!  HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE!  I already love this girl, she's 12 and has curly brown hair and she's skinny and tall and it just seems so... RIGHT that we got to meet them.  I don't think the parents really wanted us to have their number, but it'll all work out.  Her little brother came out at the end of the conversation and reminded me so much of Hyrum.  He was probably about five and had blonde hair.  I asked him his name - he's named after the last Polish pope, Jan Pawel the second :) haha... and I shook his hand and said, 'Jak się masz?'  he goes 'SUPER!!!'' = ) SO CUTE!  Man... I'm excited to see where that one goes.

O.k. so assignment for the week...Fight Satan... just keep fighting.  I know sometimes it seems like you can't hold your sword up anymore, you can't put on your armor today, it's too heavy... Sometimes it feels like the army is too loud, too large, too threatening.  But there are more than us than there are of them.  You DO want to be on the Lord's side, because he ALWAYS wins... he ALWAYS makes his free-throws and last second field goals... :) And if you're on his side, you'll always come out on top! 

I love you all, thanks for you're prayers, they're SO FELT.  I had SUCH a good week. 

Keep fighting the good fight of faith! 

- Sister Amber Allen

There's not many trucks in Poland... so I just had to get a picture with one of them :)

LOVE YA!

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When You Get on the Wrong Train

Well, I love, love, LOVED the pictures, Nella’s face looks lots better!  Congrats Katherine, by the way.  And Amelia’s hair is Soooooo long!  And I loved Tonja’s red skirt.  And if Hailey Rittenhouse reads this, she gave her farewell talk yesterday too, so good luck, you’re going to be a great GREAT missionary!  Gregg I'm sure your talk went great, because you are so amazing, and by the way, you are too handsome to go on a mission, those Brazilian girls will just fall in love with you.  Man…smokin’… And Hyrum… are you taller than when I left?  You should all measure yourselves and keep track so we know how much you grew while I was on my mission.  You know I’ve almost been on my mission for 5 months?  Holy crow… Haha speaking of holy crows… Sister Folsom says that people here think that priests turn into pigeons in the next life and that is why they feed them… hmf?!  Don’t know if that really is a true belief, or who she heard it from, but I do know there are some pretty ugly looking pigeons in this town…

Well, this week was mighty interesting…and something is wrong with my keyboard…so Im not typing very fast and there will be some weird mistakes now and then…just deal with it… Um yeah.  So this one time, on Friday, we had Zone Conference!  I was really pretty excited to see Sister Ostler again, cuz shes in our Zone, as well as Elder Raines from our MTC group.  So we went on our run early, early in the morning, like 5.30 and then we were to Most Teatralny by 7.30 I think, then to the train station by 8.  Our train was supposed to leave at 8.30.  Ive never gotten on a train by myself...(the keyboard is back to normal!  Wha-hoo!)... so I was just following blindly, you know, oh, sweet, this is our train, I'm following you!  We brought breakfast for the Elders so there were the two elders from Szczecziń (Garfield from Virginia, and Elder VanBakel from Holland) and our Elders, Elder Skolimowski (from Salt Lake City) and Elder Tiner (from LasVegas).  We ate french toast made of homemade bread with homemade syrup and I made some eggs and bacon with cheese... Um it was DELICIOUS and I was so excited.  So we get on this train and we're on there for like 2 hours, then we were stopped for like 40 minutes in this random place because something had been wrong with something and we were delayed so we called the people in Bydgość to tell them we would be late... not for another like 40 minutes was it when we realized what was going on... The man came to check our tickets - which according to my companion, USUALLY happens like 20 minutes after you get on the train - and he told us WE WERE ON THE WRONG TRAIN!  Wha!  So we tried to get it all figured out to get back to Bydgość and he made her buy the tickets to Bydgość without telling her what TIME we'd arrive there... so after she'd paid, THEN he told her and then we realized we'd be missing the ENTIRE zone conference since we were on the complete other side of Poland... Six missionaries... in Kutno, Poland, trying to get to Bydgość.  You should look it up on a map, see what we did, we went from Poznań to Kutno instead of going to Bydgość.  It was even worse for the guys from Sczecziń because they'd been on a train since like 5:00 that morning and ALSO had to walk like 45 minutes to get to the train station in their city... Ha...yep, so it was crazy and we all just got sick to our stomachs, I'm sure, especially my companion.  I was fine until after the whole ordeal and we had to go tracting in the rain... I was cold... I wanted to be at Zone Conference, and I knew that if I had been at home I probably wouldn't have even made it this long with out being pretty upset.  If I was home, I probably would have found someone to blame, would have been super upset that it cost so much and that we couldn't get our money back, and to add to that, we stopped in Kutno for a bite to eat and the lady was selling us frozen stuff she plopped in a microwave!  Haha...oh man... that was funny... but it didn't taste good, I got a pizza, a pizza with some...sauce on it...I'm pretty sure she slopped ketchup and mayonaise on top, it was all over the thing, and yum, yum, yum!  (said with a sarcastic grin...)  Anyways, Sister Folsom handled it really well after the fact...and I was just sort of...queezy...out of sorts later that evening.  She told me to cheer up... and I really tried...but I just didn't feel like singing, you know?  I wasn't yelling, or mad at the world, just out of sorts.  Looking back, I know I could have done better, and I know we can all do better.  In the long run, does it really matter?  No, and forever more I'll have a cool story to tell about KUTNO, Poland.  That's the thing, too, is when you get on the wrong train, you've got to just enjoy the trip.  And I could have enjoyed it more... On the way back we were on a really FULL train, there was no sitting room, so we were all standing.  We stood around this guy sitting on a small fold out chair in the hallway of the train.  I stuck my hand out first thing and said, (in Polish), "Hey there, what's your name, I'm sister Allen"  If I could have I would have been like, "figure since we're going to be here a while in this awkward position, might as well get to know eachother, eh?"  Haha, and turns out he's a Catholic Priest, lived in Ethiopia for 7 years helping kids learn English.  So we got to talk to him, the Elders and I.  It was sweet, we gave him a Book of Mormon - he took it!  Sweet, maybe he'll be convinced and then his buddies, and then a whole congregation, and then a whole city... Who knows, one man can change the world, right?  Joseph Smith did! 

 

And isn't that the coolest thing EVER!  Joseph Smith, a small 14 year old boy, CHANGED THE WORLD!  And I get to be a part of that, here in Poland!  So cool...

 

Other crazy stories... One time this week we set up meetings way too close to eachother, and so we ran from one to the next, like literally, RAN, in skirts and these shoes.  We had just picked up some chicken from Bożena because she didn't have any room for it in her fridge, so I was running down the street with a dead chicken in one hand and a Book of Mormon in the other... so fun!  What an adventure this is!  Bożena once made this cake that she thought was nasty, it had some fruit on it and it looked really yummy...but she told us she didn't like it and to throw it away on our way out of her apartment building.  So we went down the stairs, pretended to throw it away, but took it out of the garbage, put it under a jacket or something, (and we always wave to her on our way out so it had to be hidden) and then escaped.  It was SO YUMMY!  Silly lady... People in Poland just take for granted how amazing their food is, like seriously, the food here is UNBELIEVABLE.

 

So since we didn't make it to Zone Conference, we're having EXCHANGES!  My companion is leaving me today and she'll be back in like 2 days but I'll have Sister Bezdjan for a while (not sure how to spell her name), and that should be interesting.  I'm nervous to show her around Poznań just because I'm not sure I have a good hold on it yet myself, I should, I just follow too much.  So this will be really REALLY good for me to figure out.

 

I'm just so grateful for all the investegators we have right now!  We have about 8 of them, and we're meeting with Ewa this week and I just love that woman!  She gave us a Polish Cook book the other day!  Sweet!  I'm excited to try out some recipes. 

 

I am so grateful for Personal Study time in the mornings, we get at least an hour of personal study time every day and it's just so, so SO great.  I loved reading my Patriarchal Blessing today as well, and it talks alot about my family and my extended family.  Looking at the pictures you sent today just reminded me once again just how great families are, and how much God really does focus on them in this restored church of His!  It really is the focus of our day to day lives, it's what keeps me going in Poland and I love FAMILIES!  I encourage you to read your patriarchal blessing again this week, if you have one, and if you don't, I want you to just keep reading your Book of Mormon.  I am trying to read it through in Polish right now and it' so interesting in a different language!  I can't believe that Laman and Lemuel saw an angel and RIGHT AFTER were murmuring again.  I need to murmur less and smile more, don't we all?  The church is SO true, the Lord LOVES us and ANSWERS are prayers.  And even if things are not going if planned, if you are finding yourself in KUTNO, POLAND and you planned to be somewhere FAR different...remember there's a plan to everything.  God knows what he's doing and he'll get you where you need to be, when you need to be there.  Trust him!

 

Love you tons,

- Sister Amber Allen

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Sweet September!

As my mission president said today in his e-mail to the whole mission, "If this were a 'walk in the park,' you would go home and miss out on one of the important parts of what the 'stroll through life' is all about - forgetting yourself and serving others."  Life is hard sometimes, and hearing about the Lambs this week, having their son pass away, that is made all the more clear to me.  Life is so hard.  But it was meant to be that way, for a reason.  Amazing things is, that we KNOW that reason, and we have something to fall back on in hard times.  That's the gospel of Christ, and that's the Atonement of Christ.  We know that all things that aren't fair in this life will be made fair.  I may have mentioned this before, but I feel like God always prepares me to be happy before I write home on Mondays... it's like He knows that people at home need my happiness more than I need to be happy... if that makes any sense.  It's not like I'm super depressed during the week, but I have my hard times for sure.  I just always feel the love of God and it brings me back around.  So if any of you are feeling like you're having a hard time, just hang in there, because here's a promise from a 21 year old girl out here in Eastern Europe trying to learn one of the hardest languages on planet earth... I promise you that everything will be okay in the end, if it's not okay, it's not the end, so HOLD ON.  Keep moving forward, it WILL be okay.

 

A few quick fun things:  I ate this really long french bread looking thing with a mushroom spread and some salad stuff and sauce and meat and it was DELICIOUS.  Also, you think people in America use the word 'LIKE' too much, haha, here in Poland they have a TON of filler words that they use all the time and I'm trying to learn them all... What else, oh so this lady fed us tea this week and we told her we could only drink fruit tea and she said it was fruit tea but Sister F. said it wasn't so we just didn't drink it and this was an older lady so luckily she just talked alot and didn't notice!  Aaah!  Haha and one of the chocolates she gave us was filled with liquor!  I didn't eat it... good thing I don't like chocolate! :) - haha sister Folsom took a bite and then realized what it was and put it in her bag...oh the ADVENTURE of being a MISSIONARY!  I love it!

 

Well this week we met with Ewa again, except this time we called her ahead of time to tell her we were fasting Saturday night as Sunday was Fast Sunday.  This was like an added bonus to Fast Sunday because we were then able to share with her our views on fasting and why we fast.  But that wasn’t the point of the lesson, really, we also got to talk to her about what she is thinking in regards to baptism.  It was a crazy lesson… she started out by telling us how she’d turned on the T.V. to find a Mormon Fundamentalist show on and it was all about polygamy and it was horrible.  She tried to show us this YouTube video on it and the music was creepy and they had clips from our General Conference.  It was all just super eerie and the spirit left right away.  I was really sad and just felt like throwing up.  But then Sister Folsom, thank heavens for my amazing companion, was able to side step that punch and with her amazing un-phased testimony just brought it back to the scriptures and how the scriptures say that polygamy is not for us at this time and that we need to study the scriptures.  We then talked about how the WORD is the seed which we should plant to see if it will grow.  So we talked about the Book of Mormon and Ewa began to tell us about her favorite parts of the Book of Mormon.  The first “favorite” scripture she read was about baptism!!!  Thing is, I don’t think she realized it herself that it was all centered on THAT!  But God is SO telling this woman to get baptized and we’re praying SO hard.  So the Spirit came back, Ewa got to feel it, and then we asked her to pray to know God’s will for her in getting baptized.  It actually took two prayers for her to actually ask the Lord in front of us, but she DID!  And it was so amazing!  I pray for her to really get a super strong un-deniable answer that this is the path she should choose.  If she gets baptized, there is going to be some Hell-Shaking going on here in Poznań!!!

 

Well, then I was having a really hard time Saturday night, things just weren't well in my mind and I wasn't very happy, sort of angry really.  It only took a few hours into Sunday, though, before God just started dumping random blessings on me.  Henry, a man from Ghana who is English speaking in our ward here in Poznań (going to medical school here in Poland) was one of those blessings.  He was so kind to me and just came and sat by me and asked about my life.  I got to try to interpret for him and it was a horrible translation but I got to serve and it took my mind off of my problem for a minute.  Then we went over to the Reed’s for lunch and on the way I got the courage up to talk to the guy sitting behind me on the tramwaj.  He had long curly brown hair and green eyes and he looked like he could be scary, but he was super SUPER nice!  And we got to talking and ended up giving him a pamphlet about the Restoration!  Then lunch at the Reeds was AMAZING!  Can I tell you just how much I love the Reeds for a second?  They are just GREAT!  They’re like my parents away from home and I’m seriously very grateful for them!  They fed us chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, some deep fried vegetables, salad, and then apple crisp with vanilla ice cream.  After fasting, that was like HEAVEN!  And then we went contacting in one of my favorite places in Poznań around Malta Lake and there were TONS of people and we got TWO park bench lessons which hasn’t happened in forever!  The second lesson was this really nice lady, probably mom’s age, who at first thought we were Jehovah’s Witnesses and didn’t want to talk to us.  Sister Folsom told her we were not Jehovah’s Witnesses and who we were and a little about us.  She warmed up to us and let us sit down.  Turns out, one of her sons is DEAF!  Yeah!  And so I got excited and told her I knew sign language because of my sister and stuff, it was cool to weave that kind of thing into the story of the restoration, how the Atonement can fix our bodies and I know Rachel will have a normal mind and body some day!  Towards the end, her son came by on his bike and stopped!  We shook his hand and, he reads lips, doesn’t know a ton of sign, but was really nice.  Then for the closing prayer I asked if I could pray in SIGN LANGUAGE!  Sister Folsom said it was so beautiful – I’m not sure if I did it all right, haven’t practiced in so long, but it was so FUN!  I loved it, and I felt like I could love these people better because I had that skill and I’d met deaf people before and had those experiences.  Haha, then Sister Folsom had me teach her some sign because she was so excited about it.  I’m so grateful for my companion!  She’s so awesome!

 

Yes, and that's that!  I know that God answers prayers.  He answered mine TODAY.  I can say that with out a doubt, that my prayers have been answered in the past two hours as I've read e-mails from friends, family, and my mission president.  God knows you, personally, he knows me personally, and he'll make everything alright.

Keep up the good work!- Sister Amber Allen