January 27, 2014

Week 44

Holy cow I can't believe this week was just one week! It seems like forever ago that I last emailed you! Things in Łódź are really great! We had a ton of lessons with members this week and tried to really establish some trust between us! The members here are absolutely amazing! We even have two blind members that somehow come by themselves almost every week! I have learned so much from the Polish saints here! I have committed to myself and the Lord that no matter where I live in my life, it is NEVER to far away to come to church! I mean, if people come from two hours away by train, a 20 minute car ride is nothing. I am so grateful for the accesibility to the church where I grew up! This week we also worked with a less active family. They have two sweet little girls and were married in the temple even! But they haven't been to church for a while. We had a pretty straight forward lesson with them and talked about repentance and change and how the way to progress and become a better person is by starting to do the things the Lord wants you to do! This family is not doing anything that is against church beliefs...they simply aren't doing the things the Lord wants them to be doing. We talked about that and about how action is necessary in this life if anything is to get done. If any progress in ourselves is going to be made, it always takes a pretty uncomfortable first step. And they took that step 6 days later when after months of inactivity, the whole family of four came to church!! Sure they had to endure some hugs and kisses and some "we're so happy you're here"s, but that's not really "enduring" anything anyways! As a sat in church with this sweet family, my joy was full! Seeing these saints recommit to what they knew deep down to be true was deeply touching.

Another really amazing and yet so simple moment happened last night. It was Sunday night. Dark. Cold. Snowing. But despite that, it was our will and also the Lord's will to go out and work! To be diligent with a smile on our faces! We went out and the first miracle was the snow boots I inherited from Sister Smithee (or maybe Sister Ence)! My feet weren't cold at all walking through snow! miracle #2: it wasn't windy a single smidge! small little snow flurries were so beautiful! miracle #3: we spoke to one of the only people on the street and it turns out that we actually met her a few days ago but she didn't have time to stop because she was going to a dentist appointment! It just goes to show that when people say they are "śpieszyć się"-ing (in a hurry), they really mean it! oh it was so cool! We had a whole heart to heart about her worries about life after death and prayer, etc, etc! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! Everyone knows I already LOVE my heart to hearts! and I just get to have them with everyone that I meet! on the street, on the bus, even just now i just stopped typing for about 5 minutes because the lady next to me started talking to me and I just 2 seconds ago got to testify of this gospel!!!!!! SOOO COOL!!!

Oh many... miracles are happening everywhere! Naprawdę! I can see how the Lord is blessing me for trying to be diligent and consecrated, but not because I have to! Because I want to! Anyways, after our sweet friend who we met last night (who looks like a little elf from Lord of the Rings or something since she is super short and has long red curly hair and is super earthy), we met another girl who is a photographer (Nicole! I used you to start the convo!) and looked just like Melissa Stewart! We ended up walking her all the way home and had the greatest heart to heart too!! Oh it was so fun to testify of these things that I know and love! at the end of our walk, she said that she'd write down our number and would send us a text later (NOOOO!!!! [usually that means we'll never hear from them again]) but we said a prayer of gratitude for her and later that night we actually DID get a text from her!! MIRACLE!! I just love being a servant of the Lord! ESPECIALLY here in Poland!!

Funny moment: Sister Montesinos and I tried to make this P{olish food called placki ziemniaczane (potatoe pancake sort of things that they love here) (dziękuję Siostro Kukurendo za przepis! mimo to, że tym razem nam się nie udało, dziś jeszcze raz gotowałyśmy i było pyszne...jak powinno być! :) )  and we were feeding the sweet senior couple because they do so much for us so we invited them over for our dinner hour...maybe we should've tried to make them before because it was our first time and it was just a disaster!! hahaha!! We ended up feeding them practically burnt hashbrowns! The house was so smokey and it was a bit of a mess haha! I felt sort of bad, but it was mostly just pretty hilarious!

pictures:
Me making placki ziemniaczane

and mm and my sweet and fun companion Sister Montesinos :)