Less Duty. More Love.

 

Hey-Ho, Hey-Ho!!!

It's snowy outside!!!  The snow's been sticking, sitting, shouting, dancing, falling, and lookin' GOOD! :)  I'm so happy to see it, even though it means it's gunna get COLD!  I really do love how the snow makes me feel, it's like this crisp, clear, beautiful thing that makes you just want to curl up in a blanket and read a book... the Book of Mormon that is... and listen to Christmas music... the Mormon Tab, that is... and you know, just be excited for Christmas time!  I hope there is more snow in Provo.

 

I think I may start to copy-cat my companion in how she writes e-mails...then again, I've never been a copy cat and like to do things my way, but we'll see how it fits in this time... So what she does is she writes under the following titles:

 

Study Time: Czyli, what I studied this week...

Well, this week I studied about lots of things but two stick out to me more than any others.  One said that people listen to the commandments of men and the commandments of the devil rather than heeding to the commandments of God.  Well I started to think, what are the commandments of men?  What do men COMMAND you to do?  Really we shouldn't be letting anyone except God command us in any way - they should have no influence to make us do anything, but I think some of the "commandments" out there are, 1. Be skinny, look pretty, and show off... Don't listen to them!  2. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die... Yeah, see that one ALL the time here!  People tell us all the time that we are wasting our lives, that we should just try some beer, coffee, tea, smokes, I've been offered to break the word of wisdom WAY more on my mission than ever before...as a matter of fact, I don't think anyone ever asked me to break the word of wisdom before my mission.  But the world is FULL OF IT.   Don't listen to them!. 

This morning as I read our 'Good, Better, Best' article from our Mission President (remind me to send you a copy of that, it's really good - Jenny should read it!) I realized that Good and better missionaries are alot of the time fueled by duty.  I know that alot of the time when I think about why I'm on a mission it's because I felt as though I have been given SO MUCH, and I owe God so much --so it's more of a duty thing sometimes...but I should be more focused on Love.  That should be the motivation behind every commandment for me, and I'm really going to try to work on it.  Less Duty.  More Love.  The word for love is 'Miłość' in polish.  To say 'I love you,' that would be 'Kocham cię' :)

Also, this morning I was reading 2 Nephi 27:11, I think it was, and it says that the good news of the 'book' will be read on the house tops.  I sat there on the fourth floor of my apartment building looking out at the snow topped people and cars and streets and thought, man, I'm declaring this book from the house tops - and just like the Newsies' song - THE WORLD WILL KNOW!  I got pretty pumped... someone should go watch Newsies for me :)

 

Christlike Attribute:  As a companionship we've been chosing a Christ-Like Attribute to work on each week.  This last week we worked on Wisdom/Knowledge.  It was fun to learn about the THREE WISE MEN - you should look them up, they seem really cool.  Also, I read some Joseph Smith Translation of Matthew and found out that Christ spoke not after the manner of men, and he didn't need a teacher.  As a child, He was such a genious and had such a relationship with the Holy Ghost and with God that he didn't need an earthly teacher - how cool is that!?  Oh man, I want to be more like our Savior!

 

My Companion:

I'm guessing here she writes something about me... which is silly, I'm not much to write about... but Sister Bezdjian sure is!  This girl is the most optimistic thing I've seen since sliced apple pie and vanilla ice cream.  She's so on top of things and just believes...even when nothing is happening...which is really hard for me to do sometimes... and then when her companion doesn't believe, she carries the faith for the both of us and tries to get me back into gear.  I'm grateful for her.  So grateful for her example in hard times.  We now have zero of the three people with bapstismal dates, and the Elder's investegator also decided not to get baptized anytime soon, so it's just been feeling a little... slow... but hey, I signed up for this game!  And like Sister B. says, or rather it's just how she acts, things are going to work out, 'they're going to get baptized.'  She asks no questions... and so we go.

 

Funny Things:

We got contacted by this guy yesterday after church later in the afternoon - SO COOL.  He comes up to us, he's got an earing and a nose ring, nothing big, but he's skinny and tall and stops us and is all like, 'hey I see you girls here every Sunday at the same time, right at the time I'm coming back from playing soccer.  I figure you've got to be pretty dedicated to a schedule or something, and you're always smiling.  What are you up to?  what's your deal? 

WELL, sir, we'd LOVE to tell you about it... Man it's so fun to get contacted, it's like my favorite thing EVER :) - so the guy eventually tells us that he doesn't use the Internet because he's an "enemy of the internet" - haha funny, and he also doesn't watch t.v. - he's a young guy, plays goalie and recently broke his wrist from it and we're going to meet with him tonight and he's sooooo gunna get baptized.  :)

 

We ate FROG-LEGS in a CHINESE restaurant, with Christmas Decorations all around and in the middle of POLAND... conflict of traditions and cultures going on for sure... :) 

 

We got hit-on by some random 15 year old guys who asked to exchange numbers and then guessed how old we were... interesting...

 

Other:

Well, hope you liked that organization above, besides that, here's some of the other amazing things that happened this week:

 

Two families came to church yesterday and it was such a miracle!  (No mom, not the cool awesome family with the tiny baby, we'll get them next week I hope)  I miss having kids at Sacrament Meeting, and this church really is a FAMILY church, so I was super excited to have four kids at church. Two behaved really well, the others not so well, and I felt bad for their parents so I showed them where the primary room was - half the size of the play-room in our house - and they let the little boy play during sacrament meeting.  They will learn, it will just take some time... also the members in our ward will have to get used to some noise!  I missed a big part of Sacrament Meeting and realized that this is just the beginning.  Soon enough I'll have kids of my own and here goes my crazy life!  Man, it's so exciting!

 

I've been reading a lot from Daughters in My Kingdom - I LOVE IT!  I just love it so much... you should all read it.

 

We had a crazy couple meetings this week, Smoky meeting with Alcoholics and an Angry meeting with Athiests... the Smoky one was pretty horrible at first, then I just let myself not be worried and it wasn't as bad.  The air was FILLED with smoke and i did NOT want to enter that room, I swear I'm going to get cancer for just sitting in that room for 30 minutes... they were also drunk... and told us they were alcoholics so, that was interesting.  We really didn't get much across to them, I'm sure.  It was a husband and wife, and the man's mother.  Sad... I'm just so glad they don't have children and never did have any.

Then there's the Angry meeting with Athiests.  It's a man and his girlfriend, they've been living together for a long time, he doesn't believe in God and just wanted to fight about it.  At one point he grabbed the book of mormon and basically yelled in our faces saying it was wrong.  I told him right back I knew it was true and just felt real defensive while trying to act peacefully....kind of hard to do...actually kind of cool to feel like I was defending the faith, but the spirit was not there...so we ended with prayer and left.  Aah!  PEOPLE!  God exists.  He loves you.  PLEASE JUST BELIEVE IT!

 

Well, family, I think that may be most of all I wanted to say today... I'm excited to read Gregg's letter!  And all of yours too.  I love hearing from you.  And to everyone who reads anything that I'm reading, thanks for being interested in the work, and in what I'm doing.  I hope you all are having a WONDERFUL holiday season.  Just remember the reason for the season!  Read and remember Jesus Christ, the center of it all!  He is so amazing.  I love Him so much.

 

OH and a SHOUT OUT to Sister Bezdjian's SISTER who just got her MISSION CALL!  Man, that was exciting, I don't even know you and I was still excited.  Congrats - she's going to Georgia, will be the first Sister Missionary there EVER and speaking what... three languages?! WHA!?  Cool.  You're going to rock it girl.

 

Yep, the church is SO true, keep up the good work,

Lots of love,

- Siostra Amber Allen

These pictures are of the snow, what I see infront of me as I study, and the christmas tree in the library here :) enjoy!

1. Creepy nun picture... there are lots of nuns in poland, just didn't think they'd use them in a grocery store add...

2. ICE SKATING!

3. Yeah they're selling these... maybe you guys should make and sell them too...just kidding - YAY FOR RANDOM CACTUS SANTA CLAUSE MEN!

4. Us sitting here typing...last week...or the week before it was I think :)

5. Us by the river... last P-day... we are... MAD!!! Just kidding...

6. Us and the cathedral!

j