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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