Here is today's email, Monday June3, 2013. Amber has sent lots of pictures and will try to get those posted soon.
So I'm just going to e-mail
this to a bunch of people this week, my weekly e-mail, I'm not sure how
much of it gets on the blog, and this may be a rather long one, so no
one is obligated to read...but it's going to be great, so if you do have
the time, put on your seatbelt, and hold on... keep your arms and legs
inside the cubicle at all times...
O.k... so on with it...
As you all know I'm on a
mission... in enemy territory, aka The World, aka Poland. There are
enemies that I meet everyday. But strange as it may sound sometimes,
they're also my brothers and sisters. People who tell me I'm crazy, I'm
going to go to Hell (even if they say it in a round about way), that
I'm being brainwashed, that why would I want to live forever? There are
also the people who scowl at me, throw my fliers on the ground, laugh
at me, or some of them drink beer and get drunk and then get really
close to my face and tell me they are lawyers and I'm not allowed to
hand out fliers in public transportation... um...first time I've heard
that in almost a year... Or maybe the guy who told us he saw us walking
on the grass and told us to 'hold the prophets and save the green'...
Well, sometimes it's really hard for me to not turn around and walk away
muttering under my breath and thinking 'yeah well we'll see where that gets
you in the eternities...' But I really need to STOP doing that.
There's got to be a way to love my enemies... I mean I LOVE Polish
people, expecially the nice ones. But it's the enemies I'm
having a hard time loving and showing respect to. And to their face I
usually do a pretty good job, it's what you do when no one's looking
that makes you who you are. I guess I need to put myself in their
shoes, remember that not everyone is as lucky as I am and stop
judghing. So if anyone has any shortcuts to loving enemies, throw them
at me! I want to fix this one!
I think I need to back up a bit
now, with the story telling. I missed a week, so I've got two weeks
worth of story telling to do. Therefore, we'll start with Monday, May
20th, I went to the trainstation and left my companion. It was like
sending my kid away to kindergarten (however I just saw on her calendar,
the time she had alone she marked 'freedom' haha...so maybe thats how
the five year old feels going away to school...). She went home for
like three hours by herself and then came back to the trainstation to
pick up her new companion - Sister Holmgren. So Sister Holmgren was
here in Kraków for a night a day and a morning...and I was in Łódż.
Well they tell me that Łódż is not the prettiest city, but I'd say it's
very quaint. It's quieter than Warsaw and Kraków, but it's not ugly.
The pictures I sent last week should tell you so. I LOVED the exchange
in Łódż. I was with Sister Wendel and we saw lots of awesome miracles.
We had four street lessons and I got to meet an AWESOME young woman who
I think will get baptized. She's so great! I am excited to e-mail her
sometime, (I just accidentally forgot my planner today so I've been
using Sister Young's to remind me what to write...and her e-mail is in
that, so maybe next time).
What I learned from the exchange: Miracles will follow you when
you have the faith and determination to succeed, and when you decide to
be happy no matter what!
Then when I got home from Łódż, a man who lives in Texas and comes
here for a couple months a year, a member, took us out to dinner. His
name is escaping me right now, so I hope he doesn't feel bad. But I was
so grateful for that pizza. So if you ever get the chance to take the
missionaries out to eat, or to feed them at your home, do it, they
really appreciate it.
I talked to a psychologist
woman on my way home from Łódż. We had about four hours of train time
so that was a very long conversation. Hope I didn't bore her out. She
was super nice and we went all over the place with our conversation -
those kind of things are really good for your polish! I love how every
person is so different. If we were all the same, how BORING would this
world be! I'm grateful for that woman on the train, she was so kind and
so willing to have an open conversation.
I got home Wednesday night and
saw my companion had made me a welcome home sign. She missed me!
Haha... it feels nice to be missed. I missed her too. I love Sister
Young, she's so much fun and we have such crazy experiences together,
it's just a hoot. And it's all hand in hand with sharing the gospel, so
can't get too much better than that! Thursday, the 23rd of May, then,
that was the 'by bus or by train' day where, I think I sent you the
recording last week, but we got switched up on which transportation to
take, the bus or the train and we ended up going out to Katowice and
back on busses. I had a hard time sitting still and so I went up and
talked to a woman and her five year old boy named Alan. I told him that
was my last name! :) Fun. She was cute, at one point we were
practicing counting, and Alan decided to count how many earrings were in
his mom's face, about 8 in one ear, 5 in the other, and one on her lip
and one on the nose. Haha... oh boy. They were fun, I really did love
them.
Then President Nielson came down to Kraków that day and gave us not just Specialized Training but specialized Specialized Training.
(Because originally we were supposed to be in Kielce with everyone
else, but he ended up coming and giving us individually that training in
Kraków). It was a great experience and the Spirit was so strong. I
know that my mission president is called for a reason and that he has
the keys to the work here in Poland. I'm going to miss him a lot, he
goes home at the end of this transfer (which we are half way through,
into it about 4 weeks today). I'm a little nervous about the next
mission president, what he's like and how that will turn out!
Friday we made our own
tortillas...a bit salty...and met a woman in a tramwaj that said she was
from Great Britain but we didn't believe it...
Saturday was a hard day... it was long...
And Sunday last week, that is
what we've been calling Survival Day. We set up a meeting with a woman
who lives a little outside of Kraków in a place that one of our Elders
knew. She was a self referral - called into the office and requested a
visit and free book of mormon, so for this we're definitely willing to
go out of our way. We scheduled a ton of time to get out there and back
not sure how long exactly it would take us. So we get to the end of
one line of public transportation and then find a bus, the bus doesn't
come for about fourty-five minutes and we hadn't had lunch hour so we
went over and decided to look at a Catholic Church. We walk over there
and there were TONS of people coming out of this church, well, come to
find out, that's the day everyone was getting their babies sprinkled!
Crazy! So they, like us, have their little babies in white and they do a
big family picture and it was so cute and fun to see, but also sad
because you know that there is just something missing! Anyways, that
was a fun little adventure. Then we go back to wait for the bus.
Finally our bus comes and we head out to our destination, I called the
woman as we were going out there - she's actually only 18 turns out -
and she tells us we have to walk a bit once we get to the stop. So we
end up walking for about 10-15 minutes to get to her house, in this
SUPER cute area on the outskirts of Kraków. The sun was shining, there
were big white puffy clouds in the sky. We walked on a bridge over a
beautiful river with trees and high banks and heard the birds singing.
We got to teach Joanna about the Restoration and also her friend, who
was there at the meeting! Yay! Referral! Then we headed back... we
get safely back to our bus stop (which is just a big blue post on the
side of the road, not even a bench to sit on) and read the times... yep,
you guessed it, our bus wasn't going to come for another 2 hours or
so... maybe 1 hour and 45 minutes...well we decided to walk... but as we
walked we realized we needed to relieve ourselves... so we went
off-roading. To be honest this felt very wierd. I have not done
anything camping-style for like a year at the least, and I left in the
middle of winter so... anyways, this was fun... and we laughed a great
lot that day... Sister Young got a blister on her foot and ended up
walking barefoot and tearing apart her pair of socks... we waved at cars
going by and walked all the way to the next stop, way further between
stops than I remembered in the past. Then we decided to wait at that
stop and sat across the street on a low concrete barrier until our bus
came. Oh what a day!
That day we also had a ton of
students at church. We had a class of about 12 studying religion here
in Kraków and it was so fun to have them at church. Elder Walter gave a
great talk on The Restoration and President Kucia also gave a great
talk, I've never seen so many people in church that aren't members
before. Pretty awesome!
Then Monday, last week, we went
to Auschwitz. It was a crazy 2 hour bus ride out there, pretty sure I
got car sick. And it was a cold and rainy day - we've been having lots of
cold and rainy days lately here... So that made it all the more a
solemn trip. The museum wouldn't let us just come in an walk around
ourselves so we had to go with a tour-guide. She spoke in English and
we had little head-phones that we could listen to as we tagged along at
the back or front of the group of about 30 people. It was such a sad
place. It's really hard to imagine all of the hard things that happened
there. I couldn't help but think, though, that they can't want us to
dwell on it. Those that have passed on, well, they've passed on and
those who were the executioners will recieve their just rewards. I know
God is a just God and he'll make it all alright in the end. It was not
a fun day, though. We also had a mis-hap at the end of the day, we
were hoping to get back and do at least a little e-mailing before the
end of the day, but we got on this bus and something was wrong with it,
so without telling the passengers, the bus driver drives to this remote
bus-fixing-place and we wait for like half an hour for a replacement, or
for them to make repairs - we weren't even sure. So then they get us
another bus... we switch busses once, then twice. And we had to stand
the whole 2 hours home. It was hard. I was also really weak because I
hadn't eaten much earlier that day and I think just the whole
experience, at one point I felt sort of like falling over, so I just sat
on the floor of the bus for a while and tried to close my eyes. I was
alright, but Tuesday was hard I think, because of that whole ordeal...
Hey but it's over!
Tuesday I think was Miracle
Pond day. We felt we should be out by this mall as we planned the night
before, so we go out there and on the way past the Pond we see a woman
and her son, I stopped them by asking 'What brings you happiness.' The
boy - a ten year old named Anthony - said 'SNAILS' haha and the mom said
something else, I can't even remember. But it made my day and then we
got to talking with this mom and turns out she failed a test that day -
well got a C on it and doesn't know how she got a C and she was just
really worried, she's put so much time and effort into her schooling,
etc... She sounded really crushed. She asked us to pray for her and
that she really doesn't have the head to be meeting with us about
religion but would we pray for her? Of COURSE, I said, and put her name
in my planner to pray for. That ALSO made my day... then I also got
the opportunity to tell her that really her grades won't matter after
this life, what will matter is this son of hers, and how cool it is that
she's a mom and 'good job!' and 'keep it up' - She said we were going
to make her cry. :) well good, you should feel that spirit all the
time! Because that's the TRUTH! Next awesomeness about the Pond. We
saw this man looking out over the pond and sort of in a contimplative
way... so I told him we're talking about how we know God loves us and
shows us through beautiful days like today and this pond, etc. We got
to talking with him and turns out he's READ the Book of Mormon... whoa!
And I asked him if he believes it's true... well, he goes 'As a person,
I'd say it's true, as a scholar/student I'd say it's probably true.'
Man! So we ask about meeting and teach him a little bit and then I ask
about his family. This man lost two children to death early on. It
sounded so sad. I didn't ask details... but I did tell him that we
prayed to know where we aught to be that day and I KNOW God wanted him
to hear that families can be together forever. We have his number and
are planning on meeting in a few weeks!
We had a funny experience this
week when we walked through a park and saw two younger kids kissing. We
have this fun game we play, Sister Young and I, the awkward game... and
if you do awkward things, you get awkward points. So I was SO going to
win this game and I decided to contact the two kissing teenagers.
Well, turns out that we got to sit down with Maciej and Ola and teach
them about the Restoration. Maciej is an AWESOME young man and if he
just reads the Book of Mormon, we're going to see miracles in Kraków.
So, moral of the story, there's no growing in the comfort zone and
there's no comfort in the growing zone. So get out of your comfort
zone!
Then we had a trip to Warsaw on
Thursday morning for the Missionary Leadership Council Meeting. We had
a great trip there and got to talk to a guy and offer him a Book of
Mormon, he didn't want it but was very nice, he works for Google. The
meeting was great! I learned a lot and had a wonderful time being back
in Warsaw, I love that big city... with all my heart! We also got to go
to Ogród Saski, where Poland was originally dedicated. There we sang a
hymn and prayed together. It was pretty awesome. The spirit was so
strong. Then I realized I had no time to get back to my train. I
decided to make a quick-split-second decision and after walking up ahead
of the group aways (on the way back to the train station) I decided to
RUN. So I ran, and ran, and ran...probably like 3/4 of a mile! And I
made it, just on time, with my face splotchy as ever!
Anyways, this week has been
awesome. I love being a missionary. I sent some stories to Dad about
how we really had to listen and GOT to listen to the Spirit this week,
it was a great experience. I know God lives and LOVES each and every
one of you, and life is an adventure so live it up! Keep up the good
work, smile big, and love EVERYONE!
Love,
Siostra Amber Allen
