And Then There Was Light

Miracle #1

We came back from the Zone Conference we went to get something to eat at a grocery store where we don't usually go. It was raining so we were going to go to that grocery store in a way that we wouldn't normally go... and there downstairs we met up with  a girl who had a baptismal date back in April and she's been missing for three months, thought she just didn't want to meet! Well she was all excited to see us! She set up with us! And she's awesome, and we're hoping to re-establish a baptismal date with her this week, it's just crazy that she's back!

Miracle #2
Sunday morning we realized we needed five more lessons to get the 15. We were set up for way more than that this week, but a lot of people flaked us. So we decided that God could still give us 15 lessons. We had lots of faith. We got two in the morning, one on the street, one in the park. Then later we had about 2 hours on a free-board and split up to try to get the three lessons. Well we got two... and it was 20:10 and we only needed one more lesson. We debated because we wanted to be obedient and get home on time... and we weren't sure if we had enough time to do so. We all huddled together and prayed to our Heavenly Father to give us another lesson. If we had a lesson, we figured we could be home before 21:30 and it'd be according to rules. After our prayer and opening our minds and letting faith rule in them, we walked up to the next three people we met - to znacze that we each split our own ways and talked to three different people. Every one of those people was open to hear a message of the restoration and pray with us! WHAT! Each of us thought that we'd got the last lesson and when we got back together, we asked, 'did you get one?' 'YES!' - and that was yes times THREE! Oh man, it was such a cool feeling. We were definitely on a high last night. God is a god of miracles!

Miracle #3: Let there be Light
Well, this is a smaller detail, but we got light back in our apartment this week and that was fun! We realized how much we were GRATEFUL for the light :) and that also is a good feeling, to remember how BLESSED we are! It was also awesome that our fridge and washer didn't die on us, God is so GREAT!

Well, this upcoming week is going to be simply awesome! I'm super excited. God is the one doing this work, we're just being his tools and going as hard core as we can.

 

My companionship is so great! I can't believe it's coming to a close! It's like leaving your family all over again every transfer, it's a bit nerve racking. We're not going to think about it though, Sister Young, Sister Hemming, and I are going to just work our little souls out this week, and I'm stoked!

So besides these stories, I wanted to tell one more:

A girl works at this little bakery shop on the corner by our chapel.  Well I gave her an ulotka one night and invited her to church... that's it... then about a week later, we were walking past the bakery shop and she calls out to me and at first I didn't hear where the sound was coming from, then turned and saw she was motioning for me to come over.  So I came and she said 'are you a believing person?' ... well yes!  'Will you pray for my boyfriend?'  And from there on she would cry a bit and tell me about their sad story and, man, she was so sweet and i just told her it'd be okay and we'll pray for him and then she wanted to give me her number and meet sometime... okay!?  Sometimes I look up at the sky and ask God where he pulls these experiences from - like he's just thinking up the most awesome of awesome things and making them happen - like nothin'!  Our Heavenly Father is so AMAZING!  So we met with her and her boyfriend and gave them books of mormon - they were so grateful - what!? - her boyfriend came to church on sunday and they are AWESOME and I love them and I want them to get baptized.

 

For some strange reason I'm not feeling super into writing much more, so I'll just end with this, that I have a testimony of faith.  It is a force not to be rekoned with.  When you pray in faith, God can't withold his blessings from you, it's really quite the deal.  So pray with faith for the rigtheous desires of your heart, knock and it shall be opened unto you.  So here we go!  Crazy last full week of the transfer, let me at it!

Love ya

-Siostra Amber Allen

A Widow, A Wizard, and a Father's Prayer

The Widow

She told us that if she didn't have God in her life, she doesn't know how she'd be here now.  When her baby was only three months old (i think), her husband died suddenly, and she was left to raise her son by herself.  She had to depend on God.  And later, her son got really sick, he was in the hospital for days, then months, and those months turned into years.  She had to depend on God.​  Then he got better, she knew it was a miracle.  Now he's healthy, off with friends doing fun summer things.  She got re-married, and she's still smiling.  Her son is about 26.  She met with us!  She is such a great example!  Aaah!  I love her, and I pray that she will accept the gospel.

 

The Wizard

Well, he's actually a Father from the Catholic Church, but they dress in those cool long black or brown dress-looking-things, ok it's like a cloak, and they look like wizards.  We were at a place where the tramwaj goes by and the light was red, I thought for sure he would stop...but he didn't :)  I thought about it just for a minute, then later a couple days later, I was trying to hand someone an ulotka and I'm pretty sure I started crossing the street on a green, but when I looked up it had turned red.  I felt guilty, for judging the catholic priest, and for being a hypocrite... However, we can learn from this that people are always watching you.  So don't break rules, especially when someone thinks that FOR SURE you aren't going to!  Be the bigger man/woman and let's be obedient!

 

A Father's Prayer

Well, we weren't sure where to go last night, well that means that Saturday night planning we weren't sure where to plan to go Sunday night.  We decided that it felt good to go and visit a couple, well we go there last night and no one had been listening for a while... then BAM!  We saw this guy in a park między the buildings and we stopped to talk to him.  The light was getting dimmer and dimmer as we talked to him but he was so nice and so open.  He was about dad's age and writing something on a peice of white printer paper.  As we told him the story of Joseph Smith and quoted scriptures to him and talked about the Bible, I saw that he knew his bible well, he wrote down the James 1:5 reference!  And he was just intrigued by the fact that we could speak polish too, he asked probably like 5 times where we learned polish.  We get that a lot - people wondering if we have Polish parents or grandparents or what not... NOPE od zero uczyłyśmy się!  It's so cool!   Anyways, in the end he told us he would chętnie read the book of mormon and pray about it!  He said he's SEARCHING!  AND he said that he was writing a letter to his daughter because he was trying to figure out how to have a better relationship with her.  I really felt like we were an answer to a father's prayer last night.  And he's so cool.  I hope that his relationship with his teenage daughter gets better, that she's nicer to him, because he really does love her.  I hope that he reads - we gave him Alma 41 where Alma speaks to his son who isn't exactly in line either.  The father told us that we were like three angels - an adventure he hadn't expected.  We ended the conversation with a prayer and left the conversation on a high!  I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!

 

The Mountain Man

We also had a lesson with one of the coolest people I've ever met this week.  I met him at a stop light close to the Rynek a couple days back.  He has longish strawberry blonde hair, fairly sunburned skin, and bright blue eyes that kind of bore into your soul.  He was on his bike, looked like a rock-climber, and I don't even know what I said to him, but we talked about God and that I was a missionary and that we wanted to meet sometime.  He agreed.  We also talked about rock-climbing.  Oh man.  He's so cool!  So he wanted to meet in a park, so we set up to meet back where we'd met the first time.  The morning of our meeting I looked up some scriptures that had to do with Mountains in them, and I kept coming across scriptures about the Holy Ghost that morning as well - AAAAHHH I love the SPIRIT!!!! - - Well we were on our way to this meeting and we're talking to this lady on her bike (yes contact people on bikes, it works) and she was just wrapping up our conversation when Maciej comes whizzing by on his bike.  He slams on the brakes and says hi and was about to keep going to meet us there but I just said 'hey let's just go up to AWF if you want, wait for a sec.' So we finished our conversation with Barbara and went on with Marcin to walk to the AWF park.  We shared a first with him and he seemed to like it, he had really good comments.  He told us about how he prays up in the mountains and how his life has been really hard and that he's a black sheep and bunktował przeciw Bogu, but I don't see much of the rebel in him.  He seems really humble.  We talked about how reading the scriptures is important.  He believes he doesn't need the scriptures as much as just fervent prayer and listening to what God says to him - but that God doesn't say things as much as he helps us feel things.   He said he thinks he can get an answer from god if the book of mormon is true with out reading it - i've never thought of that... maybe with faith like that, you can!  It was such an interesting conversation.   And the things I studied seemed to really fit with his personality.  He says he likes to spend time with people who are calm because they don't suck his energy.  He says he's a vampire when it comes to energy - cool... He really is super SUPER chill, Jenny Williams would get a long with him well too... anyways, so I look up this verse in the Bible, where God comes to Elisha not in the wind and not in the fire but through a still small voice, and I can't FIND it!  Haha, I didn't really think i was worried about it that much, but he was all like, 'calm down, it's fine' - so I guess I was giving off nervous vibes.  I know I was giving off nervous vibes.  Anyways, just being around this guy made all three of us just realize that life could be so much more chill. We can just be calm.  The Scriptures say, 'be still and know that i am god' - and man, we learned that from him.  At the end we asked if we could pray with him and he said we could pray but he wasn't sure if he wanted to.  We always try to encourage them to because we know there is so much power in prayer, so I asked again and told him that he could do it.  He agreed and waited for some people to pass us on their bikes.... then he takes off his bike-riding gloves, and comes in front of us and crouches down and asks if we could hold hands... okay not sure what to do here... but we said okay, so the four of us hold hands and he says the most amazing prayer I've ever heard.  It was so heart-felt and he prayed for us a lot - that we'd have strength, that God would put good and kind people in our path, and then he paused and told God that he could also put hardened people in our path that have the capacity to change!  Ah, man, it was so cool.  And the energy was like EVERYWHERE.  I KNOW that God exists, can I get a Halleluljiah! :) Can't spell hallelujah, but that's okay... Anyways, such a cool experience, and we were all so calm afterwards, so nice.  Then he texted us later that day with the SCRIPTURE I couldn't find.  We got him to look up a scripture!  Yay!!!! :) anyways, he's getting baptized.... we hope!

 

 Moroni the Hell Shaker

I was reading about Moroni this week, what a driven individual!  I love him!  I want to be more like him, so dedicated!  

 

THREE OF US ON MISSIONS!!!

I am feeling some of this weird pain that nathan is gone. It's so weird!  I can't even wrap my mind around it.  But this week when I have the usual conversation of how many brothers and sisters do you have are they all in the states no one is in brazil... and then I've got one in MEXICO!  YEAH!  It's so fun.  I love telling people that three of us are on missions.  The church is SO true!  I'm so excited to hear from Nate.  And Scott!  :) Tonja wrote me, she's so cute.  And Laura Williams wrote me this week, that brought me joy!  And Brother Roberts wrote, tell him thanks!

 

Well, anyways, I have so much more to say!  But I already wrote a ton, so just know that I love you all!  The work is moving forward.  Lives are being changed!

Kocham was!

-Siostra Amber Allen

The World Hands out Free Beers, We Hand out Free Books of Mormon

Dearest family, what a crazy week, Scott and Nathan both heading out this week!  Aaaah!  I am feeling it... But you know what, it's gunna be sweet, our work will just bless and sanctify eachother's works as well.  I'm thinking in Polish and it's really not helping me write in English.  I spoke a lot more Polish this week and I'm really grateful I did.  I need to do it more.  I love the Polish language.  It's a pain sometimes but I love the pain :)

We had one of the craziest weeks of my mission yet.  It was fun... and we were all over the place!  I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!  The work is picking up, I think it's because people are coming back from vacation, for one thing, for another, I made another attitude change and FAITH really moves mountains.  I don't know why sometimes it's discouraging (oh wait, yeah I do...) but it SHOULDN'T BE, we're on the winning team and even if we can't see the score board, we know who will come out on top so we have to keep fighting the battle and EXPECTING miracles.  I love that.  We've been being a lot more positive and we're shooting high with our goals this week, things will just HAVE to happen awesomely, I'm excited.

We went to go meet with our cute friend on Friday night and we get to this tram stop and there are TONS of people, and a HUGE container on a pedestal with about four ronchy looking people handing out free beer.  We were handing out ulotki on the other side of the street inviting people to order free books of mormon.  And which one do people take?  The beer.  WHAT!  There was a tangible lack of the Spirit in that whole vicinity - It made me almost sick and definitely nervous, I wanted to get out of there.  Unfortunately I'd heard our friend wrong on the phone - I thought she said she'd be there at 20:00 but instead she said she'd wait until 20:00 -- oops, so we get there, she's not there, call her, she has to come over again, :( Sorry!  And then we waited for EVER in that wretched place... We bought her some yellow roses for 10zł and waited... Some kids, like maybe 10 or 12 came up to us and asked us to go get them a beer.  NO, kid!  I told him it's not good for him, it's not going to help him.  He's like 'my girlfriend has one and i'll look stupid if I don't get one.' 'Forget it!  Take her a rose!' so we gave him a rose, but we saw him again later, with out the rose, asking someone else, so... to no avail... However, how did the world get here!  I just can't believe it sometimes.  I was on a train back from Warsaw this week as well and the two men in my cabin were being so defensive about their beer.  I hate beer.  I HATE it, yes.  It ruins lives!  I met a woman in the park the other day who's son is in the hospital and has been for a couple months because of alcohol!  I wish I could just destroy it all.  But Satan has to exist for a while longer, I guess.  Let's just do our best to keep him away from OUR homes and lives!

We met with some AWESOME people this week, Marietta, Magda, Iga, Krzyszek, Rafał, Alicja, Gosia, Angelika, Sławek, and many others on the streets.

A cool story, so we wanted to get 15 lessons this week, I've been wanting to hit it for some time now, and we were at 14 on Sunday morning.  We had 15 minutes before we were supposed to be at Magda's to pick her up for church.  So we pray hard and Sister Hemming literally runs down the street, so I ran too, and pretty much the first person I met and the first person she meets we teach the Restoration to (two lessons going at once) and they both let us PRAY with them on the STREET! :) Awesome, awesome, AWESOME!  :) So anyways, I love the work, faith, prayer, and Sister Hemming is SUCH a grand example of all of those things! 

The most amazing point of my week was perhaps the meeting in Warsaw with all the mission leaders.  We have the most amazing missionaries in the church, I swear.  I don't know how many times I've already said it, but I'll say it again and again, the CALIBER of these MISSIONARIES are just OFF THE CHARTS!  Elder Żeleżniak and Elder Raines (Assistants to the President...who also were in the MTC with me) just ripped it up with the spirit in that meeting.  They both took part and told us different things that really 'prepared the minds of the people spiritually' - as it says in Alma, I think, somewhere... When Moroni is fortifying things, maybe?  Can't remember... Anyways, They wrote a list of things on the board that missionaries in Poland see as impossible.  Then Elder Raines had us look out the window... for some strange reason... why were we looking out the window... then he said, 'ok this was a object lesson, look back at the board' so we look back at the board and they'd erased the "IM" in the word 'Impossible' and it now said 'The Possible List' - It was because we CHANGED our PERSPECTIVE - and that's really how simple and beautiful it really is!  -- After that meeting, all I wanted to do was just go talk to EVERYONE again with renewed vigor - I never want to SLEEP!  I know we can do this!  I KNOW we can baptize in Poland.  I know we can get to that point where Poland explodes with the Gospel like it is in other nations. I know we can do more than the norm, more than they have in the past.  God wouldn't have his missionaries here if it weren't for the fact that there are PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY who are praying to find us.  I know that God wants me here, in Kraków.  I LOVE KRAKÓW... um I may even say it's my favorite city... aah, I'm not allowed to say that, am I?  I love all of them, but I seriously feel so at home here and I LOVE everything about this city.  I love the branch and the people and the atmosphere (except the beer part, that is) - and ah, man, I never want to leave.  (ok maybe someday I could want to leave)

I just hope you all know that I know that the Spirit is REAL.  I know that God lives and LOVES us.  One last little story for you all before I go:
The Bike Crash
I actually didn't see the bike crash, I wasn't there.  But God saw it.  And He knew she was hurting.  I saw a nice looking girl with a bike, in a tramwaj.  I said hello and started to ask if she'd like to hear a message about the church that has brought me so much happi.... 'No I'm not in the mood right now.'  - I could have said 'okay, sorry.' and left it at that, but instead the spirit prompted to ask her what happened, 'Well, are you okay?  Did something happen today?  How has your day been?'  She replied that she'd gotten in a crash on her bike, and that she hurt bad, all over her body.  I looked and saw that she had ripped up her skin on her left arm pretty good, there was blood, and her hand wasn't super pretty either.  Her clothes looked dirty on her left hip and I'm sure I got a 'mommy face' on as I looked at her wounds and cooed 'oow!' - 'are you okay!?  I have ibuprofen in my bag if you want some, and if I had something to wipe you off with, and how is your bike?'  She slowly started to lighten up, it's crazy how a little pampering can do that to people.  She said she'd be okay, that she just needed to get home and then she'd be alright.  We then shared some small talk, where are you from, what are you studying, the likes.  She's an only child, I told her about my family and she asked if I did a lot of babysitting when I was at home, yes I did... and then we were getting close to her stop...I didn't know whether to bring up the gospel again - yes I'm a missionary but I don't want to push things on people if they don't want it, it's their choice and at first she was not excited to hear about it - she told me thanks for the nice conversation, and I said you're welcome, and i also felt to say something else and so after a second of thinking,  'I hope you know that God loves you,'  I said simply... and she just sort of looked beyond me and nodded her head a little... it was a yes, but a very weak one... I waited for a couple seconds of silence and then said, 'You know that right?  That you are a daughter of God, and he loves you?'  'Sometimes,' she said.  And I waited again, what could I say?  'can we meet with you sometime?'  'Yeah, I think you can'  Great!  And I got her number, and stood out of her way tried to help her get her bike off the tram -  I called her an hour later to ask if she'd gotten home alright.  She didn't answer but texted back saying thanks for the call and that she's still pretty sore, but at home and all is good.  I don't know, but there was just something about that experience.  I love her!  I knew her for like 10 minutes tops. And I love her.  She's so cool.  And so humble and she doesn't have the assurity that God loves her but I do, and it's my duty and my privelege to share it with her.  How cool is that!  I LOVE the Gospel!  I know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is TRUE!  We CAN do this!  Sweet is the work,

Love,
Siostra Amber Allen

Learning Heaven

Happy Birthday Grandma Ethel -  :) I wore pink today even!  I didn't even look at my list of birthdays, just felt like it was her birthday, but I wasn't sure :)  I'm glad I remembered - and glad I have someone watching out for me from the other side :) And I'm glad she's a convert too.

Yesterday was Sister Young's birthday and she's now 20!  Yay!  That's pretty fun.  Thankfully, the Onkens had us over for dinner and even made cake with a candle and she got to make a wish and blow out a candle.  Sooooo nice of them!  It was pretty much the best dinner of my life - considering the difficult hot and sweaty and fasting day we had yesterday -

This week has been actually one of the coolest of my mission.  Oh, wait, the HOTTEST in terms of weather... but coolest as in rockin' in terms of awesomeness.  We had some CRAZY experiences and I just have to remind myself I'm not dreaming sometimes.  But it was about a lady named Teresa.  She is a little old lady whose number was on the old contact sheets of the Elders.  They gave them to us, we called her, she's 79, and turns out that she says she was baptized.  Um, she's a long lost MEMBER!  Well, the elders are a bit skeptical but on the Sister's side of town, that's our story and we're stickin' to it!  To make it more exciting, Teresa apparently is...was... pretty good friends of the late Pope John Paul II... haha, oh man... and I can't help but smile every time I think of that experience we had Friday night! :) :)

I read this in D&C 6 this morning, "Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and Hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock they cannot prevail." - and I LOVE IT!  We're doing the Lord's work out here and I'm just loving it so much.  Really, when you put your faith first, when you LEAD with your FAITH and remember all the awesomeness that is backing you up in this church, then you really can't be unhappy.  The Church is TRUE, everyone, and oh if everyone could just know it!

I read again some of my favorite talks I've collected on my mission yesterday in personal study.  Let me state that again...  Yesterday in Personal Study, I read some of my favorite talks.  These were talks I've collected while on my mission :) there we go, nicer... :) One is called the Inconvenient Messiah by Elder Holland.  It was a speech to the students at BYU before I was born.  IT is MONEY.  He said that we need to never stop offering up our bruised hearts despite the continual rejection we get out here... He said that in our extremeties we will come to Know Christ and find the price to pay a PRIVILEDGE!  I saw a mom with four cute daughters today - that is VERY rare in Kraków, Poland.  I asked if all of them were her's - yes they are, she responded - WAY TO GO!  I told her, YES!  I know it's not easy, but the price to pay is a priviledge. 

Another talk called 'The Atonement: All for All' by Bruce C. Hafen said 'We can have eternal life if we want it, but only if there is nothing else we want more.' - it's so true.  So many times there are people who say they have enough, the're close enough to God.  Or people who say they can live in their sins and God will be merciful anyways.  That's not the way it works, my friends!  Mercy can only claim the repentant.  and Justice claims the atonement, and those who don't correctly use the atonement.  Let's all correctly use it!  Let's repent and come unto God and CHANGE.  I still have a lot of changing to do before I get to where God wants me.  But I'm grateful for this mission and all it's teaching me to change.  Aaaah!  I LOVE POLAND.  And most of all I love my Heavenly Father, He's... MAGICAL.  Like He's WAY better than Harry Potter!  Or Gandalf!

We have five new invesgetators this week - YES!  People actually said 'yes' to their commitments this week.  We had 13 lessons and we're shooting for 15, or above, I really want some more, but yes, this is what we are working on if you want to help pray for the efforts.

Not much more to say - even though I know I'm missing like a million stories... However, I know that the CHURCH of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is TRUE!  YES there IS an institution on the Earth that is of God!  I know that President Monson is God's mouthpiece on the earth today just as in times of old.  WE ARE SO BLESSED.  You just remember how blessed you are this week and remember how you have been given your specific assignment in the Kingdom.  Fulfill it well.  What ere thou art, act well thy part!  Love you tons
-Siostra Amber Allen