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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