Dzień Dobry, everyone!
This week has been super, super busy. I feel like we have "run into" a lot of people this week. I'm not sure how many people are in this city, but it seems much more than a coincidence to me...….
About a month ago, I invited a lady on a tram to English class, and she came 2 Saturdays ago, and then when she came this last Saturday, she brought her friend! Yay! She's really cute, and she always says "I haf problem when I speak English," but really, she just needs confidence. A few days before Saturday, we were right outside the chapel talking to some people, and we saw her walk into a shop close by. So when she came out again, we talked to her and she tried to get us to go to a museum with her because we needed a break, she said. It didn't work in our schedule, but now we are friends. Later that day, she rang the domophone and came into the chapel and gave us tickets to the museum for tomorrow. She is really dedicated to us getting to see the museum--so much so that she made us pinky-promise that we will go to the museum. I think I'm going to start using pinky-promises when I ask people to make committments. She is really cute, and I'm glad we've started a friendship with her.
We ran into Martyna at the dworzec (train station) and set up another meeting with her, which was really good, because we had been having trouble staying in contact with her. The meeting was great. I just love how open and honest Martyna is. We are praying for her to start feeling a testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, and that she will come to church. Feel free to also pray for this.
Thursday was FAT THURSDAY! Basically, this means that pączki, or Polish doughnuts, were really really cheap, and I guess that means you need to eat a lot of tchem. Our mission had a contest to see which zone could eat the most (there are usually 4 missionaries in each district and 4-5 districts in a zone. 3 zones). Sister Harmon and I weren't taking this contest too seriously, but the Elders did. I was pretty proud of myself for eating 5 (or not proud. I can't decide.). Sister Harmon ate 5. But here's the play-by-play of the Elders:
8:40: 15
11:00: 21
2:00: 31
21:46: 59
Elder Zabriskie ate 26 and Elder Olschewski ate 33. Which brings the grand total of our district to 69. They ate 12 for each of us. Unfortunately, we lost the mission-wide contest by about 4 or 5 (I should've eaten more, Dad!). But it was a really exciting day. It was like watching a sport.
We also did a finding activity where we walked around the streets and handed out free pączki and invitations to Church. It made people so happy. Some of tchem just could not believe there eyes that someone would hand out free food.
On Friday we had a mission-wide video call with President Turek. Basically, we were reprimmanded for not taking our legal work here seriously enough. Unfortunately, we have an Elder getting deported because he didn't register in the country for a year and a half. Man, we all feel so bad about it. But, um, yeah, legal work here is really fun. Also, we talked about perfect obedience. Honestly, it is so easy to rationalize some little things that are against the rules or that are a waste of time. So. Easy. But I know the Lord blesses us as we make those little decisions to follow Him. To sum it up, we feel humbled, and we feel more motivation to try to be perfectly obedient.
Later on Friday, Sister Harmon and I were near the city center doing some street contacting. As we were heading back to the chapel, we saw a couple on a bench and started making our way toward tchem to talk, but then Sister Harmon suddenly turned around, turned me around, and started walking fast the other direction. She whispered "It's Jan!" Jan is a guy we met on the streets a few weeks ago who we've decided is kind of creepy and don't really want to run into. So we started walking fast the other way, and 5 steps later, we saw our friend from Szczecin, whom we had met last week.
Do you remember the story I told last week about the lady we talked to on the bench who is having a really hard time? Same lady. And Szczecin is about 8 hours away from Katowice. And we found her again in this ginormous city. So HOW COINCIDENTAL IS THAT!!!! (hint: it's not). She had read half of the Book of Mormon, and she said she felt like she had come closer to Christ through the words written on its pages. She doesn't really want to meet with the missionaries in Szczecin (there's some inner Polish stubbornness for you haha), but she has our number. Wow, that was such a God-given encounter. Here are the lessons we get from this story: 1) Prayer brings miracles. We had been praying for her, and we got to meet her again, and 2) God can even use slightly creepy men to accomplish His purposes here in Poland!
To end, I want to share a couple of my favorite verses this week:
John 10:11,15
"I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep."
I love the scriptures were Christ talks about how He is the Good Shepherd. And my favorite pictures of Christ are the ones where He is holding sheep. We little woolly things don't understand much, but we can understand this: Jesus Christ loves us so much, and He suffered for our sins, our pains, and our weaknessess so that we never have to feel alone. We are His little sheep. He takes good care of us.
Love,
Siostra Eberting
