Monday, November 21, 2016

Only have time for the HIghlights.... Area Authority visit, etc...November 21, 2016

Hi. 
Great things happening. No time. We are so busy, and I have 8 minutes left to email because they're kicking us out of the library. 

Everything is really good. Working like dogs. No time to eat or study usually. It's awesome. Having lots of fun, and getting a ton done. Starting to feel real that I'll ACTUALLY make it home one day. We'll see. I'm still thinking I'll wake up one morning still in my first transfer, and realize that everything was a dream. It's good though. 

Had an exchange. Visiting authority from the 70(President Johnson) who is in the area presidency. Elder Mulder and I got a personal interview with him.

English system going well. We teach all of the mission leaders about it on thursday. 

Exchange with elders ashworth and dooley. Lots of fun. 



As a side note, our meeting with the Area Authority was great. 

He was awesome. He had a lot of really nice things to say. He had spirit strong. It was really cool to see. He just sat me and elder mulder down and told us what a great job we're doing, and how impressed he was with the way we are carrying ourselves. He also complimented our polish and said that he could tell, as well as president turek had mentioned that our polish is really good. It was awesome to meet with him, and to hear him speak to all the missionaries. So cool. The church is true, and President Johnson is getting added to the list of my heroes. 

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Finishing strong and having NO REGRETS!!

Another week down. I've been realizing that the fact that we're so busy is actually the answer to my prayers. I've been praying so hard that I would be able to finish my mission strongly and have no regrets and finish the work I needed to do here. We've been so busy that we don't have time to eat, or work out in the mornings, or actually have real p-days haha. We get a few hours today just to let y'all know that I'm still alive and that everything is well, and then it's back to the grind! good things are happening. 

This week was crazy(as before mentioned):
It's a little hard to remember what we actually did, because I'm looking back in my planner and realizing that our plans got shot(as usual hahaha), and we just got done what we needed to do that day, and didn't look back. Good things.
Monday: We went out and saw the national stadium, and went up to the... lookout point...(???) i guess at the top of the stadium. It was super sweet to get to see the whole stadium and be there. Childhood dream *check*.

Tuesday: Fixed a bunch of problems that popped up, and tried to get some studying done, and had district meeting. It was a good day. We met with our Ukranian peeps and taught them english, and about the gospel. They're great. Had dinner at the train station(or rather didn't have dinner), as we picked up Elders Fuhriman and Kriser from Wrocław. We had an exchange with them from Tuesday night until Thursday morning. 
Wednesday: Got up really early and played some soccer with the other elders in the district, and the Wrocław elders. It was super fun. Elder Fuhriman is originally from Ukraine, and balls pretty hard. we had a good time trolling the other elders. We had a good exchange with an english blitz at the college, some studies, a fantastic meeting with Klara at Nowy Świat, and then got flaked on a meeting directly after that. We did a bit of planning for zone trainings this week, and had a lesson with Agnieszka Ilnicka at the chapel, and she taught us how to speak polish. 

Thursday: Got the elders off to their cities, had some lunch, and worked on changing the english system. We had a meeting with Ren... at Nowy Świat, and it went really well. She's awesome, and we're just trying to help her get to church and trust God. Taught english after that, and got home in time for Elders Bebel and Garrison to come in for an exchange from Poznań.They're both bros, so we had a super fun time out on the grind. 

Friday: It was independence day, so centrum wasn't safe at all... which means that we spent a ton of the day out on the streets away from the center of the city, looking for people to teach. It's been cold as flip the last weeks, and it snowed almost every day, so that was pretty tough, but Elder Bebel and I got it done, and had a good time while doing it. Found a Browning store(biggest surprise of my mission), and taught a cool lady on the street who told us essentially had the gift of divination or discernment or something. Didn't know what to think, but she was open and pretty cool, so that was great. I conducted Bart's baptismal interview over at the Warsaw II chapel. He was ready, and the Spirit was there strongly, and that went well. Then I went out with Elder Garrison and we had a meeting with Andrz... and An.... They're so ADHD it's awesome haha. I love them, and we just have to work really hard to keep them focused. They gave us this nasty drink from Belarus that Elder Garrison was having trouble finishing(haha). He also wasn't smart about the speed at which he was eating this roll thing we were given, so he got another one, and was trying to make them give me another one too so that I would suffer with him. I won :) We read an awesome chapter out of the Book of Mormon, and it was a good meeting. Came home, and sat out in the cold because the other elders took the bus the wrong way and didn't realize until they were all the way at the end of the line... and they had the house keys. So that was fun. We had a good talk though. I love that guy. 

Saturday: The elders got themselves off to the train station, and Elder Mulder and I had a meeting with Jan... He was the investigator from Szczecin from my first mission that had a baptismal date while I was there. He just walked into English, and invited us over. We met with him and his friend, and they are coming to play soccer with us early saturday morning. It's a great opportunity to talk about the gospel and not scare them away. Then we went to english class and had a good time. We were waiting to hear back from our investigator that we were going to be having a meeting with, so we stopped in and got some warm food on the road while we could eat lunch that day, and ended up getting flaked... but while there, we english contacted two girls about coming to english class, and ended up having a super long conversation over lunch. They asked us out to a museum afterwards, and I realized that the whole "missionary" term hadn't made it very far with them. But maybe they'll come to english class and hear the gospel and give it a chance. We're just going to keep our distance haha. Came home and god some studies that we weren't going to get, and then went and taught our Ukrainians. It's interesting. We felt like we really really  needed to teach them english, and sometimes I wonder if it was just the Lord giving us an opportunity to try out our english system on them before we put it into practice next Thursday with all of the district leaders, zone leaders, and sister training leaders. We've been working on it non-stop... but there's still SO much to do, and we have every second of the next week completely filled already... which means that we might not get much of a pday next week as well, as we try to finish up everything monday night until wednesday morning. Pray for us. It's a big project, and we've gotten so much of it done, it all just needs to come together now. We need a miracle or two or three or four. (P90X joke).

Sunday: Church went really well. Mar... came to church, and finally set up to meet with us on Wednesday(elder mulder will be with someone else at the meeting, because we have another exchange this week). We also had Józ.... at church, and he wants to learn about family history and genealogy, so we set up a meeting for wednesday in a week and a half. Miracles. Hopefully he wants to learn about the gospel as well. Met with President late that night and worked through ideas about the english system, and zone trainings, and mlc(mission leadership council) stuff. It was fun, and good to see the Turek's. 
Today we got groceries for the sisters because Sister A broke her foot and Sister Dekker dropped a drawer on her toe... so they're about as homebound as you can get. They're great, and have just had the worst luck in the world the past few weeks. Pray for them! Then we got together with the other elders and practiced a song because we're going to be singing in sacrament meeting on sunday. We get a few hours here to relax, and then we meet with the ukranians, and then go pick up elders ashworth and dooley for our exchange this week. After the exchange, there's a zone training on Thursday, and an MLC with President Johnson from the european area presidency. That'll be good. 

Pray that we don't get sick(ain't nobody got time for that), and that we'll get everything done with this english project, as well as the next upcoming projects. We'll need it! Praying for y'all! Love you!

Elder Q