Witamy serdecznie! This week was BARDZO wonderful. Sorry to make you use Google Translate, but Google Translate is also a major part of my life, so maybe we'll all be even now.
I didn't have time to talk about it last week, but last Sunday, one of our members gave a talk on prayer. And I just love this member to death. Katowice would not be the same without her. She gave such a wonderful talk and she is so passionate about the Gospel. She also doesn't take any nonsense. Basically, she roasts the Catholic church a lot (on Sunday it was about how they pray to Mary and other saints, in addition to God). And then when she started talking about how we don't start the second hour of church meetings with prayer any more, she got really into it and passionately denounced this change as being a change from Satan. Sister Harmon, who was translating, and I looked at each other, and Sister Harmon kept right on translating with a grin on her face. And then the presiding branch member had to get up and tell her to move on. And he had to get up afterwards and explain that no, this change wasn't from Satan, it was from our prophet, who received it from God. It was so great.
Also, I think I accidentally told a lady we were fake. Meaning, we were on a tram and I started a conversation with a lady (by asking a question about Polish. That's the way I usually do it), and she said she had gone to our English class years ago, but she was convinced we only taught English so we could "fish" for people (yep, she described it as "fishing," which is actually what we are doing). Unfortunately, I didn't understand everything that was going on, so I accidentally said yes to something, and admitted to something??? Not quite sure. Also, she told me her name was James Bond. But, just goes to show, it's better to actually ask for people to repeat themselves 5 times than just pretend you know what's going on.
1 and 3 May were holidays (flag day and constitution day) this week. So basically, a lot of the roads were abandoned. But we did a really good finding activity by the dworzec with the elders. When we were about to leave our chapel all together to start the activity, the elders were just looking so tired and worn down. So Sister Harmon and I did our pep talk/pump-up speech--we did jumping jacks, pretend burpees, and I even used my loud voice. And guess what. We went out and had so much fun. And we had some really good conversations.
On Thursday, we went with our friend Agnieszka to go find a specific cathedral because we needed to talk to some people there about a service opportunity. When we got there, it was about 5 minutes before their office closed. So we were looking around for the office when we saw a guy on the ground and some other guys around him. At first I thought he was drunk, but then we got a little closer, and one of the guys asked for the water bottle I was holding, and then they sat the guy up and gave him a pill (no idea whose pill it was/what it was). And then they were calling an ambulance. So I guess this guy had had a seizure, so we stayed there for a while as emotional suport and waved the ambulance down (it missed us the first time). Later, we saw tchem all by our chapel, so we invited them to church.
Yesterday we made food for Break the Fast after church. Mashed potatoes, kiełbasa, cookies, pickled veggies, it was great. We were worried we didn't have enough food, but somehow the loaves and fishes miracle repeated itself and we had enough.
This next week is gonna be super great. We have Zone Conference, we get smartphones, we have exchanges, and we have District Conference.
Also, we found quite a few people this week who want to meet. 2 of them we found on benches right by our chapel. We just decided to talk to them on our way from the chapel to our tram station. The other 2 we found during our finding activites. So, just goes to show, that the little extra bits of missionary time really can make a difference. :)
Yesterday I learned a lesson about being GRATEFUL. For some reason, I was just cross yesterday evening (I know half of you don't think "cross" is a word, but it is). And I was in the middle of my personal study, and the thought popped into my mind to write down some of the things I'm grateful for. And I started writing, and then I realize I have no reason at all to be cross. In fact, I have a milion reasons to be happy EVERY single day! It totally flipped my attitude. And I don't think I'm an anomaly in this world. 'Cause God is blessing all of us. He has given us a living day prophet, scriptures, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and many, many other blessings. So I invite you all to spend 5 minutes in the next week writing down some of the things you are grateful for and why you're grateful for them. Don't just read over this and think about how it would be a good thing to do. Just do it. And keep writing. It will make you really happy.
