Dear Family,
Well, I’m no longer chora (aka SICK) – and I’m SO GRATEFUL! It really stinks to be sick. I don’t know if I was being a wimp or if it was really just that nasty but I felt so, so gross. I would drift in and out of sleep and had the worst fever ever… haha but at least it was funny! Sister Bezdjian had a good time with it. One
time she tried to feed me some bread and I like fell asleep while she
was putting it in my mouth and then… oh yeah she was complaining about
how she thinks someone destroyed some records that we should have in our
apartment of members – their teaching records from before they were
baptized, we don’t have some of them – and so I tried to quote Star Wars
– you know when they destroy the records and Obi Wan is trying to find
the Bounty Hunter and can’t find that planet… He comes and asks Yoda and
Yoda asks the younglings and they say, ‘well somebody destroyed the
records.’ - Yeah, tried to explain that part while I was deathly ill… was pretty funny I guess, I got some laughs out of it anyways…
Yeah, but besides that, after a blessing from the Elders, and telling
my MOTHER that I was sick (thanks for the prayers mom, I wished I could
have told you earlier that I was sick so I could get some
mama prayers, those always work 200% of the time!) – I got all better
and now we’re working hard as ever.
So: Some funny/ awkward stories:
This week we taught a lady named Jagoda – which means blueberry, I think, in Polish. Well she’s got a 2 year old, maybe 3… and randomly during the lesson she started breast feeding him in front of us. Yuck. He’s WAY too old for that, my good woman…
Haha, then this guy came into the chapel and asked if he could use the
bathroom…’Sure’ – so he goes in there, and doesn’t shut the door. Then Sister Reed walks by and shuts the door for him, and makes this face, -- you know the ‘Oh my chicken what is he doing!?’ kind of look – haha, yeah.
What
else… oh yeah, not so funny – we just double scheduled ourselves this
week and forgot to buy stuff and it was sort of stressful…but we made it
through and now we’re back on schedule and we learned from our mistake
and we’re going to do better.
We
ate at a cool pizzeria and watched the guys making pizza throw the
dough up in the air and swing it around and make the big crusts – super
fun, and delicious.
We
watched The Restoration video in Polish with some neighborhood kids and
their big brother Bartek, ate popcorn, cookies and sok (juice). By
the end, there was popcorn all over the floor, the kids were stealing
cookies to take home, and they also didn’t want to leave. But we gave them a book of mormon – the picture book version – and that was super fun. We had our member, Natalie, there with us and it was good for her to be an older sister for the night. I wonder if she ever babysits… she’s an only child.
Speaking of Natalie – So I was wondering if the Young Women in our
ward, preferably the beehives – but really whoever wanted to – I was
wondering if you could send a picture of yourselves with your testimony
to Natalie and then maybe I could get her to send her picture and
testimony to you guys. If you want to, you could write it
and then try to translate it on-line, or I could just try to translate
it here…or both… I just think it’d be cool. She’s always saying how she wants more young women her age to be in church with her and so we can have activities. I feel so bad for her, I was SO LUCKY to have such a big group of girls my age with the same belief system I had. I
was SO BLESSED to have friends in High School who I could go do
baptisms for the dead with, or attend a early morning fireside with! YOU ARE SO BLESSED!
A few things I’ve learned lately:
From Marlena, our sweet recent convert, who is currently sick and probably at home in bed. We visited Marlena last night and our lesson was on Baptism and Confirmation. As we talked with her she told us about how before her baptism she was sort of shy and always felt lonely and sad. After
her baptism and activity in the church, she said she was more
confident, that now she could talk to anyone – Even OBAMA, she said!
Haha, I thought it was pretty funny that out of anyone she chose Obama
to be brave in front of. Cute. And she says that even though she lives alone, she now never feels alone. I wonder sometimes, what it would have been like if I hadn’t had the gospel. I wonder, and know that it would have just been harder. There really IS SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS to people after they are baptized. The Holy Ghost is REAL. It’s not something we just talk about!
Speaking of the Holy Ghost, I had a really cool experience this week when
as we walked home from an appointment and we were about to turn down
the street to walk home when I felt like we should keep walking. Sister
Bezdjian later told me she had felt the same way so when I suggested it
out loud, she agreed whole heartedly. So we keep walking and the first
people we see are this young guy and girl standing out on the door step
smoking and chatting. I felt like my stomach kind of leaped or
something and sort of felt pulled towards them. Immediately we walked
up to them and started a conversation. I remember that the way I
contacted was really weird. It wasn't super interesting and didn't say
anything fancy, may have just said, 'hey I'm Sister Allen, what's your
name? What are you guys up to?' Anyways, it turned into a full on
conversation and we were able to give sort of a whole Restoration lesson
there on their front porch! We gave a book of mormon to the girl and
she said maybe we could chat later. This whole experience was just
AWESOME and I KNOW I saw the hand of the Lord in our lives that day.
The Principle I learned was this: ALWAYS listen to the Spirit, ALWAYS!
Also, last night we had a lesson with an older member of our branch, named Bożena. She’s upset with an investigator in our branch who she feels has offended her. It’s pretty ugly. Thing
is, I don’t think this offending stuff has really been happening as
much as she thinks – a lot of it is just built up from months and months
of callouses of the mind! You know, when you think about
something long enough it starts to make it’s ugly head bigger… So we
suggested she talk to this investigator about it and work things out.
Well, she’ll have none of that, she said, no sir. It just made me sad. Are you going to let imagination get in the way of friendship? What if things really aren’t all that bad and all you have to do is talk about it? Really, people, COMMUNICATION! Sister
Bezdjian read me something this morning about how Moroni was a man of
great understanding, then she looked up synonyms for understanding and
somewhere found communication. So
Moroni, yeah that guy who shook Hell and if every man (or woman) were
like unto him, the very powers of Hell would be shaken forever, yeah
that guy – he’s a man of great communication. You better believe it. We really need to talk things over with people, in a kind and gentle way, but really just be open and HONEST. If this world were just more honest with itself!
Want to hear some MORE cudowny things? Miraculous, that is? We had like 30 people at church this week! THIRTY! Okay there was more like 28 or 29, but still, THAT’S A TON! I was STOKED!!!
We woke up Sunday morning and all we did was peel potatoes and make carrot cake and Jesus Bread for like 2 hours. Man… we had so much to bring – but the OBIAD (Lunch/Meal) after church was delicious!!! We
also had these things called Rogale, they’re special to Poznań and it
was a holiday celebrating this guy who came in on a horse and usually
gave money to the poor, didn’t have money at the time, but his horse
lost his shoe and the peasants sold the horse shoe and had enough money
to live, so now they make these super yummy pasteries in the shape of a
horse shoe and they’ve got almonds on them and almond flavored filling
and they’re seriously DELICIOUS!
Yep, what else…
We are really trying hard to get to bed on time! We seem to have so much to do at night time recently. Filling out teaching records, etc. At the same time, it's so AWESOME that we have so many teaching records to fill out!!! I also want to just make sure we're taking things at a pace in which the Spirit can keep up with. If we're moving too fast to feel the Spirit, that's besides the point! I also am working on saying nothing negative. It's hard! Not because I say negative things all the time, but I've realized I do say them more than I thought...in small ways.
Basically, my companion and I are doing SO great. Especially now that I'm feeling completely back to normal health and we're just ripping it up again in Poznań. We heard about Sister Ostler going home because of sickness, and we're not sure how to handle that, super sad! I hope you are okay, girlie! Also, Sister Folsom, I've got a present for her from Pani łucja and I'll try to send it if I get the chance, just don't know where to send it.
Thanks, everyone, for your prayers and smiles. I can feel them even over here in Poland! I love you all SO VERY MUCH! I read something this morning in Preach My Gospel that said, we are helpless without the Atonement of Jesus Christ - and it's true. Remember as you're being THANKFUL this week, that Christ suffered and died for you. But I know he lives! And loves us!
Much love,
- Siostra Amber Allen
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