Zone Conferences....No time for Pday

Hello y'all!

So this is going to be super quick this week.... THIS NEXT WEEK IS GOING TO BE INSANE. Elder cowley and I aren't taking pday today(except for this little short time to write home and tell you we're alive) because we're going down to Kraków at 5:45 tomorrow morning. We have zone conferences this week-Wednesday in Kraków, Thursday in Warsaw, and Friday in Poznań, and so we're going to be gone all week. But, President told us how hard we've been working, and expressed to us that he was okay with us getting a cultural experience when we could with all of our traveling between cities(I think he knows I haven't seen like anything in Poland). SO, we're getting on a train, and going to see Auschwitz tomorrow. It's only an hour and a half outside of Kraków, and we're just taking our pday tomorrow and going to see it.

It's going to be such a good experience, and something I've always wanted to see! The Lord is blessing us!  Other than that, we're just trying to work through all of the things going on in the mission, and get our last little preparations for zone conference in before we head down. I'm so excited to get to work with, and teach our amazing missionaries! Every single one of them could be doing what we're doing and teaching the rest of us, so I'm honored to get to work with Elder Cowley and do what we're doing! The gospel is true! Sometimes it's the only (seemingly illogical) things that can turn everything else in life into something beautiful and spiritually building. I am so grateful for my Savior and how He has carried me for such a long time.

I am excited to be able to use my knowledge and experiences to help out the other missionaries. I love you guys! Have a great week! I should be able to talk more next week. Love you!

These pics are so polish: We went out to the National Park Łazieńkowski and sat on the grass during a meal hour on Sunday and listened to a performer go up and play an hours worth of Chopin music. It was awesome, and there were so many people! We're going to try to set up a finding activity in the upcoming weeks to contact the people as they come to and leave from the park. We'll see how that goes if we try it! :)

District Conferences over Skype and the Organ in Sacrament meeting...

This week was so good. I literally don't know how the Lord got it all done. we had meetings with 4 or so people that we've met in the last few weeks, and they are awesome!! They are all set up to meet again this week, and we are trying to get members on every lesson we can.

It's going to be a miracle! Elder Cowley and I are working well together and just doing work. The Lord is carrying me through every day. I think I'm finally getting to that point where "your happiness and your love will far outweigh your trials." It's been awesome. I don't have as much anxiety about getting out the door anymore(even though there still is some), I'm loving the people, and everyone we're working with, and I'm getting so excited about the work. Big things are coming. I'm so excited for them! 

This week we had an exchange with the zone leaders from the South(Elders Einfeldt and Haskett). They are a bunch of studs... I love those guys! We had a perfect exchange. We met with members and asked for referrals, we were led to prepared people, we talked to a bunch of people at unexpected "dead times" of the day at tram stops and such, and just had a great day. the church is so true! It was awesome. On top of that, the forest last pday went so well. I'll forward some pictures... but it was just good to get out of my box and relax a little bit. One of the biggest miracles. There is an inactive ex-branch president here in Warsaw that I have been calling forever. We FINALLY got set up with them this week, and brought the District President with us, and went and met with him and his non-member wife. it was a good meeting, they let us share a spiritual thought, and most importantly, they talked about inviting us back. We really feel like there is something we can do to help them. I am excited to see what that is!

 Besides that, yesterday I had to play the organ in church(very interesting, indeed), and then sight-read the special musical number in church. Talk about flippin' a bean during sacrament meeting lol...the Lord definitely helped me through and made great things happen outside of my control. It was pretty awesome.

We decided with President this week that we're doing a district-leaders conference via skype tomorrow morning to talk about things we can improve(referrals and "an attitude of finding" and

such.) It's been cool to see how the Lord has blessed Elder Cowley and I with so many different experiences these last few weeks that allows us to testify of those things. We are excited to present that this week, and then to get to work on all of the things we need to do! The Lord is blessing us and being so good to me!

The National Forest with a Zone

Elder Cowley, Elder Einsfeldt, Elder Haskett and Elder Q

We visited the Forest in Poland May 15th, 2016

Man it's great to hear from you... always one of the best parts of my week! It sounds like life back there has been crazy! Jeremy Did it!  Not that anyone was ever worried, but he did an amazing job! I was just thinking about that... there's only going to be 4 at home here in a little bit, and 2 of us will be out on missions at the same time...that's crazy! Thanks so much for the pictures. It's awesome to get to see what it's actually like back there. Jeremy is such a funny kid hahaha I miss him.

Things this week were great. Miracles are happeneing, and we're just plugging along. It's flying by out here... I just realized that a year has turned into only 7 1/2 months... and then it's all going to be over. The good thing is, I'm finally starting to feel good doing missionary work. It's still hard and painful, but I'm starting to enjoy different parts about it that I didn't see coming. It's been good. We stayed out late(I called president haha) on Saturday night bbecause they had a Museums night across poland, and people were just walking into our chapel. So we spent a solid 4 hours teaching lessons with memebers, and leading them around the chapel. Itw as awesome. It is finally Spring, and the weather is amazing. Zone trainings went well, and yes I got to play the piano. Tell Colby that he HAS to keep playing. It's SO worth it to be able to play all the hymns, and ot know chords to mix things up. He'll be grateful one day! I remember those days all too well... ;)

Whats new.... we have an exchange with Elders Haskett and Einfeldt this week. They are both super young in the mission, and are zone leaders in the south. We are excited to get them stoked about missionary work, and give them some things to work on that will help them and the members of their zone. We met with a guy named Kas(abbreviated, of course). He's a bible scholar, and knows the bible better than anyone I've ever met... he's probably only 24. He agreed to take the lessons from the missionaries, so we're really excited to meet Thursday. Other than that, we're headed out to the forest today, which I'm super excited about. It'll be fun to hang out with the district and have a good time. :)

The National Forest in Poland.

Week of May 9th...Baptism and Mother's Day

Yeah, this was a definitely a surprise! I didn't think that I had actually had that big of an influence on Clara, but I was super happy for her. Her testimony was so cool about how the Book of Mormon has changed her life, and how she has felt a change since the very beginning when we gave her the Book of Mormon.  It felt great to hear that we made a real difference! All of the members came out to see it, and it was amazing! So cool!

The Baptism of Clara

                                                                                 Oh Clara!

I sure miss you guys. It was amazing to see your face on Mother's Day! I was sad I wasn't there to do anything with y'all for mothers day, but this will be the last one I'm away for! I can't wait to see y'all! :)

Elder C and I hit our STANDARD....with help from the Lord!

Hello. Hello.  So fastest update of my life:  This week was so good. Miracles after Miracles after Miracles happened. I'm just going to highlight the big stuff since we talked last...

So on Friday there was the funeral for the branch president of the 2nd Warsaw branch. He was an amazing man, and died of cancer this last week. It was so sad to see him go. Lots of people had a hard time with that. But, in preparing for the funeral, we went on an "AP Adventure".

We've always heard so much about them, but didn't really know what to expect. But we were studying in the morning, and got a call that we needed ot be to the chapel in 15 minutes.... and I didn't even have pants on at that point... so that was an interesting sprint to the chapel. Once we got there, president and sister edgren and the sisters were there already, which was unexpected. Then, two minutes later, our branch president came rushing into the chapel freaking out and saying "Oh rany Oh rany. CO JEST GRANY?????".....  oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh WHAT IS GOING ON??? It was definitely a new experience! We needed to go pick up 2 human-sized flower arrangements from some shop, and the van isn't at the chapel right now to carry them... so we jumped in our car, and president edgren and the branch president jumped in president's car, and we raced over to this sketchy flower shop on the side of the road. We finally get these flower arrangements in the car(with all the seats down), adn then have to pay... and they don't have enough money... So I pulled out the reserve fund(thanks Pampa and Dad for teaching me to always carry that) and we got it done.

President gave me a huge fist-bump and payed me back later... but it was hilarious! He said" This is why you're the assistant" lol. So then we get in the cars, and instead of driving on the road like a normal person, I'm following the branch president, and we throw on our hazards and literally drove through the middle of the national cemetery/warsaw uprising park.... like it was nothing. It was ridiculous... but we made it back to the chapel. THEN, the missionaries were told we had a musical number, and didn't even get to run through one verse before we found ourselves in front of the whole congregation singing some hymns in parts. That was crazy, but a miracle and it worked out so well! It was awesome!

On top of that, Saturday was MLC and it went really really well! the Spirit was there, and it was so good to be done with it all! Haha we made it through "H*ll week" as the past AP's have called it!

The most miraculous thing of the whole week.... Elder Cowley and I hit our standard. It hasn't been hit since they changed it while I was back home for surgeries... and the Lord just lined everything up on the craziest week of our lives, and made it happen. I literally don't understand how He did it, but we had 3 people in church, and 2 baptismal dates, and a bunch of new investigators... and it wasn't anything we did at all. We didn't even really have time to meet with people, but the Lord is a God of miracles! It was really cool to see how much He really is in charge of the work!

I don't have like any time this week because we're going as a district to the national park. It should be fun! But it takes a bunch of travel time, and so it's going to take most of Pday... but we'll talk either on Sunday for Mother's Day, or next monday! love y'all!