This week was awesome. We got really good numbers and talked to lots of awesome people and I am just learning a TON. I got to go to Katowice this week! I was there for just one day, two nights, and so technically three different days I was there but only one full day. On the way there I talked to a strawberry-blonde headed guy, curly hair, reminded me of Jed...wait is that his name? Laura Mumm's brother... yeah he was cool and has travelled a lot. The other guy that talked with us was a father of two little kids and they were both just really awesome. They didn't want a book of Mormon but I think they have a better idea of what being a 'Mormon' is like and who we are and what we stand for!
While in Katowice I had a miracle happen. Our mission president has asked us to envision the people we want to find. To really think about them, what do they look like, who are they, etc. I remember thinking Tuesday morning as I woke up in Katowice, okay Katowice needs a family, what does this family look like? Well I pictured a couple who weren't exactly skinny, the wife was not fat but bigger and with dark hair, the husband had a bit of stubble on his chin and was also chunky. They had a little kid at their side, like one that could walk around but was still pretty small... Well, guess what! Tuesday night, we're walking through this tunnel to go tracting and here they come, walking straight for us! Oh man... when you contact a family you get like sweaty palms and your mind is racing. You want so bad to tell them that this gospel is EXACTLY what they want, what they need and that we've got Primary and Young Women's and Young Men's and a living Prophet and the Book of Mormon and it's all TRUE and you can live with God again and Christ too! And you can be happy and have answers to your questions, etc., etc.! OH MAN! But I don't even remember what I said to them first, hey there we're missionaries and we'd like to share a message about Christ, maybe something like that - and the dad goes 'Are you guys mormons?' - In Polish... and we're like, 'yeah that's our nickname' and he's like 'I love mormons!' Haha... cool. He'd actually had Jehowah's witnesses knock on their door just that very day! But now God was interferring and letting these good Christian people know that he wants them to have the truth! It was so cool. The more we talked I realized how cool this was. They were so willing to set up and meet, they're not Catholic, they're not Jehowah's Witness, they're really not anything! They just read the Bible and want to be good Christian people and they are so awesome. AND they're the family I pictured that morning. They had an additional two daughters to the little boy I saw when I pictured them... but the more the better! Their son, Piotr, I think, is 3 and so cute. Anyways, the church is true, ALWAYS do what your missionary president tells you! :)
The exchange was very fun and really helped me see contrast to my area here in Warsaw and how I can always be more grateful! I'm so grateful for this big fast city of warsaw, seriously. I've been here so long I forgot how slow and quiet it can be in a smaller city. There's SO MANY PEOPLE in Warsaw, I love it. I never thought of myself as living in a big city, being a city girl, because I love living out by the lake, not many neighbors, fields and cows and mountains and trees... but I guess it's good to be well rounded. I officially like big cities and na wsi :)
At one point this week, and I can't remember if it was on my way back in the train (with five bubbly women from Warsaw working for a phone company called Orange) or at another time, but I once again pulled out pictures of my family to show someone (I do it often, in case you are wondering) and someone asked, 'do you have a favorite? - Referring to siblings... haha, I honestly said 'NOPE! I love them all!' - So guys, hope you know I love you all, SO VERY MUCH!
I got the mother-load of letters this week! Thanks Everyone!
Man, I'm thinking about moving out of Warsaw and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think I want to leave, I love Warsaw, but I feel like it may be time... and I also think it'd be fun to open a new city with a trainee. We'd have a good time. I'm convinced I'm getting the best trainee of the whole group, so just you watch and see! Yes, but as I'm thinking about moving, I've realized how much STUFF I've accumulatized... way too much stuff. How am I going to bring it all home?
Just yesterday we had a lesson with a woman named Anna. She's got a baptismal date and she's super awesome. She asked us 'why don't people want to talk about religion?' I said, 'Yeah good question! I don't KNOW!' - It's been so interesting to me, how everyone says how religious this country is and how few people actually want to talk about it. I can't generalize (because recently that's been a pet-peeve of mine, generalizing...assuming) but a lot of these people don't like talking about God. As we talked more with Ana and a sister from our branch, it was so nice to hear how they had similar thoughts, that we should talk more about spiritual things - your spirit longs for you to talk about those things that matter most! It's so important! So don't stop talking about spiritual things just because other people don't want to... I mean respect them and try to be kind, however, be more open to spiritual conversations! Learn to love talking about Christ and his Atonement, about the gospel, about your family, because these things ARE WHAT MATTERS MOST!
Also yesterday, we had an awesome opportunity to hand out 3 books of mormon in less than an hour. Cool thing was, our goal was 10 for the week - usually that is our goal - and we'd only handed out 7... so we were hoping to hand out three and whalla! The first was to a girl from Vietnam who I'd tracted into with Sister Sheahan and we'd returned once but she wasn't home so I wasn't sure we'd catch her, but we did! The second was to a woman who said she actually helped the church get started in Poland! She said she met 'our president' which that could be any number of people - but maybe the prophet! And that she helped introduce him to the president of religions or something in Poland... COOL! The third Book was to a young couple, probably just Boyfriend and Girlfriend, but so nice. They thought that Mormons had weird hats and long side burns and beards and that the women wear long skirts... And I didn't know I had it in me but we really joked around with them on this contact, 'Yeah, well do we look like them?' we said, 'Uh...nope!' 'Yeah so basically those films you've been watching are wrong... and then they wouldn't give us their # because 'you might be murderers'... once again... 'Yep, we're murderers...' I said, jokingly, they laughed and thought that was pretty good... then we invited them to our shin-dig this Saturday and they're like, 'whoa you guys are cool!' and then we told them about how they should pray about the book of mormon and she goes, 'sounds like a pretty rational thing to do,' - yeah and they were just kind of shocked and saying how cool this was... they're going to be Mormons some day. I like them.
I was reading a letter from my friend Elder Cattron - serving in Chile - and he talks about how he has to climb all these mountains to get to the next part of the city and such... well I realized that I should be grateful for the hill-less flat-ness of Poland :) There were a few more hills in Katowice, and a very pretty sunset, I really loved that exchange to Kato, it was beautiful and peaceful and just really good for me!
One more silly story. So we go over to this girl's house to share the message of the restoration, she's a college student from Ukraine and is the cutest thing ever. She loves people and is ALWAYS smiling. She speaks pretty good polish, english, and ukrainian. She'll make a great mom, and young women's leader some day. On our way to her house, we see her on the same tramwaj as us and then she comes and sits by us and we talk about the rain (it rained pretty good a couple days this week, but now the sun is out and it's GORGEOUS!) and she had to work from like 1 in the morning until like 11:30 ish - at the airport...it's starting to be busy season there so she's really busy... anyways we get to her house and she asks us if she can make us tea... Um nope we don't drink tea. 'O.k. well can I make you jam water? My mom always made it for me growing up, it's good.' Um... okay? So she heats up the water, puts tea in her cup with the hot water, and in our cups homemade ukranian cranberry jam. Mix it up...and whalla, your new favorite beverage. Ha, who would have thought! They've gotten me eating pickle soup, lots of cabbage and mushrooms, and now jam-water! Oh man. I love this adventure!
The church is true, folks, the Book of Mormon is the BEST! I read about the Brother Of Jared today and wow, what a man. He's such a great example of faith. I know I can keep working on my faith and believe in miracles. You can all do it with me! :) God lives. Christ died for you. It's all going to turn out okay! Love, love, love ya!
- Siostra Amber Allen
