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