Hello Everyone, this is Ambers mother again. Sorry it has taken me so long to get this posted. Just wanted to let you know Amber's brother Nathan received his mission call on Wednesday and he is NOT going to open it until we talk to Amber or Gregg on Sunday for Mothers Day! I am soooo excited!
Oh man... you have no idea...
I just squealed...literally let out a weird sound...glad the two people next to me have head phones...
E-mail time on your mission is a
crazy-exhillerating-awesome time. It's a time for reflection on the
last week of your mission and all the craziness that just went down. I
can't believe I'm here, now, doing what I'm doing, and being whom I've
become. It's a crazy realization that I'm a trainer...in Kraków,
Poland, opening a new city and preaching the BEST NEWS the world has
ever heard!!! My companion is an angel, this city is like the garden of
Eden it's so beautiful, and I get to talk to you guys next week! What
is this! It's like Christmas but BETTER! :)
So it all started Tuesday night, had to have my bags packed and ready to go - what a nightmare... forgot how much I love
transfers! So not cool... and so I got rid of a ton of stuff, sent a
box home, and left a box of souveniers at the Mission Home. Last time
I'll probably see the mission home like I remembered it, with President
and Sister Nielson still living in it. Makes me want to cry. This
can't be happening. I get so excited about time, sometimes, you know
- wishing things would just happen already, but then I realize
that really I just want it to slow down. I LOVE BEING ON A MISSION.
Wouldn't trade it for anything in the world right now.
Then Wednesday I went to say
goodbye to Elżbieta and Czesława :( They gave me a present! A wooden
owl, yes our family emblem...(haha dad, you crack me up)... It's cool,
but I left it in Warsaw and didn't take a picture of it, sorry, i'll
have to show you when I get home... I also said good-bye to maria and
wanted to say goodbye to Hania but instead just got their e-mails and
told them I'd try to stay in touch. man... Also got to go over to the
Cordova's for dinner Monday night - actually they just bought me a HUGE
CHOCOLATE birthday cake with hot chocolate to drink... and I absolutely
LOVED the party... :) Oh I love them. The kids even walked
down the stairs with us to say goodbye instead of just saying good bye
at the door. Oh man, going to miss them. Agnieszka and Kinga and Marta
too. And really just about everyone!
Thursday morning we headed out
to the Mission home, first picking up all the trainers at the Dworzec. I
got to see Sister Bezdjian!!! We had a good long talk, I love that
girl, it's so crazy to me that she only has one more transfer, so not right!
:) but we got all caught up - well as much as you can in like an hour -
and she told me about all the craziness happening in Poznań. One of
our former investegators, Bogusia, may die from internal bleeding and
infection...I'm worried about her but also think that this life has
given her enough hardships, she may just be ready for the other
side...and if that's the case I hope I can do her temple work for her
after she passes... how does that work?
We went to the mission home and had a wonderful
presentation getting ready to be trainers. President had us watch a
couple videos - like mormon messages - they were so good. The one that
really stuck out to me was about the father who says that his children
have no idea how much he worked for them to have a happy home. They get
hungry and they just expect food behind the cupboard doors, they don't
ask how it got there, they just trust. Man I'm getting goosebumps just
thinking about it... I will never know just how much my parents
sacrificed to get me where I am. And even MORE we will not at anytime
in this life come to a full knowledge of just everything GOD has done
for us to prepare this world for us. Lots of work went into it. Hard
work. And I never really thought of it before that way. He really does
love us. He worked so hard to prepare this life for me. And I hope
I'm living it well. I hope I'm being deeply grateful, and trying every
minute to be MORE deeply grateful. Oh how I love my Father in Heaven!
Then, Thursday night, the
trainees came in and they got sorted into cities. You've probably seen
on the blog, my new companion is Sister Young! She's actually one of
the younger missionaries - 19 years old. She's brave, speaks really
good polish (even though she thinks she doesn't), she memorizes super
fast and is learning super fast. She's tall and beautiful and has one
older sister and a younger sister, brother, and another sister...if I
remember right. She loves her
family and her MTC group, just like I did. I see a lot of me in her,
and can't believe I'm on the other side of this now. I just think about
what I put Sister Folsom through. Sister Young is way easy to work
with, though, probably not like me, I was probably a tough one...
haha... oh man.
Anyways, thursday night we got to stay in a HOTEL! Weird, since I
was planning on sleeping at the mission home. Then we came back the
next morning for breakfast at the mission home and sent everyone on
their way. I love these people, and watching some of them go was a
little hard! Man, like Elder VanBakel, we've been in the same district
for pretty much my whole mission, and I don't know if I'll even see him
again because he's from Holland! Crazy... Well we had personal study in
the living room of the Mission Home because we had to stay a bit longer
because I'm now part of that Missionary Counsel! We had a great
meeting and talked alot about diligence, finding, and self sacrifice.
My mission president is the best mission president in the world, I'm
convinced of it. He's so great. We watched the video of the two boys
who decide to put the silver dollars in the poor man's boots - such a
good story. Also made me cry - those Elders, who usually have this
leadership meeting with just the priesthood, were probably all like,
'what the heck! We let the girls in and then we have a sobbing mess to
clean up!' - haha... yep that's what you get when you let the women in
:) Oh well, I can't help it. Mormon messages always make me cry! The
CHURCH IS SO TRUE!!!
So then Sister Young and I went
to get on the train...with like 6 peices of luggage... man...that was
an ADVENTURE! Luckily we decided to go down early, and our train was
already there, so the Elders helped us get our stuff on the
train...turns out it's like some sort of HOLLIDAY in Poland, like it is
pretty much every other week here! And we have NO room for our
luggage. We decide to sit in the hall with it... and we talked to a
little boy and I had the little kid give us Polish lessons. His parents
thought that was pretty cute. His name was Kuba and he likes horses.
SO FUN! Then the train-lady-person with the trolley comes down giving
snacks and water and tells us we have to move...so we start moving our
stuff and this young guy, about 25, decides to help us. So we go into
this area of the train where the two cars are hooked together, the two
wagons, whatever you want to call them, and it's SUPER LOUD! I ask
sister young if she wants to introduce herself, 'no thanks...' haha...
'here I go,'... I thought, and over the loudness of the train I started
basically yelling at the guy about who I am and he yelled back. He was
way nice, Piotr was his name. He has a girlfriend in Warsaw and was
coming back to Kraków to study, he lives here... anyways we got to
talking and he asked about my name tag and church...that's when I found
myself yelling my testimony - pretty cool...and very awkward situation -
'YEAH WE HAVE A LIVING PROPHET!!!' I'm saying and probably angels are
rolling around laughing watching this idiot trying to share the gospel
in such an awkward place. Turns out we get to basically teach him a
first lesson and offer him a book of mormon later - so cool. I had such
a good time.
here's the letter I sent to president this week...
Dear President,
An amazing thing happened this
week! After church on Sunday, we asked Brother Onken to pray for us to
give away a book of mormon before we came to his house for dinner. He
said he would! So we went out the door and started talking to people.
There was a super cute mom with two kids running around. The blood
starts pumping and you've got to say it all right! So we introduced
ourselves and told her we have a living prophet today and asked her what
she thinks a prophet is...she says 'someone who can see the future and
talks for God to tell us what will happen.' I said, 'yes, that's
right! So what would it mean to you to have a living day prophet
now!?' She says, 'that means I'd have a better future.' WHOA! That
never happens, SUCH a good answer. This lady was so awesome. She was
in a hurry but we gave her a quick first and a book of mormon and the
Restoration Pamphlet to her kids so they could look at the pictures.
They're actually not from Kraków, they live in a far out city, so I
didn't get her information, but I challeged her to read (and if I
remember right, to pray about it too, of course) - she was grateful and
they ran off to their bus. President, I LOVE these Polish people,
expecially the nice ones with kids!
What I learned... involve the
members, even the english speaking ones can pray for us and it helps A
LOT! And then that night at dinner we were able to report back, yes we
gave the book of mormon away, and to a MOM with KIDS! They were super
happy to hear about the story and I'm sure way more willing to pray for
us here in Poland. The more prayers coming our way the better!
Kraków is so thirsty for the
gospel, president! And our apartment is thirsty for sisters... haha,
it's missing some things, but hopefully we have enough funds and what
not to get most the stuff we need. It's not like un-livable or
anything... just... funny...
My companion and I are doing
GREAT. This girl is a star, president. She's got the natural
nervousness on contacts and is worried about her polish and says she
understands, but from my point of view she understands way more than I
did when I came into the country. And she's learning SO fast and SO
well. We established open communication really early and so I'm able to
ask her how she really is and she's missing home a bit but not enough
to slow her down too much. I am loving being a trainer. It's hard.
But I love the growth we're doing together. Sister Young is amazing and
she's seriously going to grow so much. Can't wait to meet her in a
year and a half to see what kind of a woman she's let Poland help her
become.
President, we're going to work
hard this week. I want to just shout from the roof tops that the
Sisters are in Kraków... but know I can't do that! So we're just going
to do this one person at a time! I love the work, President, and I'm so
grateful for your support, keep praying for us out here in Kraków, we
need it!
Love,
Sister Amber Allen
Sister Amber Allen
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