Monday night we decided to stop by and visit Bogusia. The timing was PERFECT!! She just "happened" to be packing up and carrying things outside, so we were able to help her! She is moving to New Jersey for a few months to work as a nanny for a half-Polish family there. Super random, but it's not the first time she's done this. (That's actually how she originally met the church was when she was working in New York for a few months.) Anyway, we were able to send her as a referral to the Elders in New Jersey and get her contact info. She really wanted missionaries to visit her there and she really wants to do skype meetings with us, which is exciting!
On our way to the bus stop, along a seemingly empty road where NOBODY was walking. A man suddenly turned the corner and crossed the street to our side. He was wearing headphones, so we tried to invite him to English. He immediately stopped, took of the headphones, and was ready to talk to us. He was SUPER nice! His name is Jago (not sure if that's how it's spelled, but that's how it would be if it were spelled the Polish way haha). And he is from Brazil!! He spoke English really well. He said he's actually heard about the Book of Mormon and our church before when he was in Brazil. (Shout out to all the missionaries in Brazil who are doing a good job!! THANK YOU!!) He was really open and willing to meet with us. He even asked us if he could bring his wife because he really wants her to meet us. He is so cool!! So excited to meet with them.
On Tuesday, we were able to watch President Nelson's address in the Priesthood session of General Conference. Holy smokes, it was powerful!! It was so good! If anyone has not watched it, I highly recommend it. It's called, "We Can Do Better and Be Better." I love how much he talked about how crucial it is at this time for us to be worthy and ready at a moment's notice. I think this goes for all of us, not necessarily just the men. We are "among the finest, most valiant [people] who have ever come to the earth." I LOVE that!! Being called that, we need to act like that, and BECOME like that!! Do better, BECOME better.
On Wednesday, we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders (they're a trio right now) in Poznań. (We took a train Tuesday night.) I was with Sister Baldwin and Sister Aramaki! It was way fun! We did this thing called a "chalk talk." For this one, we drew out a big tree and put a genealogical tree (family tree) on there and some information for people to go to . We also were able to talk to people about our chalk drawing, to talk about the gospel. Sister Aramaki actually talked to a lady for a while. This lady had a son who had lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. So the lady actually knew about our church and had even been to Temple Square, which is WAY cool!
Thursday, we all took a train to Wrocław for Zone Conference. It was a combined one and so I saw and met even more missionaries this time. There were a bunch from my MTC group. There was Sister Webber, Sister Eberting, Elder Cheal, and Elder Olschewski. It was really fun to see everyone again! This zone conference was way great! We did a bunch of training on how we will be using our smartphones as missionaries. And now we can officially use smartphones in our missionary work! I am so excited!! We are also able to use Facebook. So if anyone has seen me pop up on there, that's why! Don't worry, I'm not just completely breaking rules. And yes, I am still on my mission haha. I'm not home not yet!! I still have a while.
Actually, speaking of that, I hit my 6 month mark tomorrow!! CRAZY!! Haha, I just thought that was something worth noting for a moment.
Friday, we took a train back from Wrocław to Szczecin. We spent some time getting all set up on Facebook and had some struggles getting logged in. Since I've never logged in while in Poland, it was doing the whole security check thing. Basically, it was trying to make me get in contact with 3 Facebook friends who they randomly selected from my page. They give 5 options of people to contact. And 3 of those 5 are currently on missions!! HA! Facebook just doesn't understand how hard they make things for missionaries. (#MissionaryProblems...) Later, we were able to get Kebab at this place by our house. It's owned by 2 men from Turkey. We were able to have a really good conversation with them about religion and prophets. They're both Muslim. One of them is way closed off and just tried to preach to us the whole time haha. But the other seemed pretty open actually. He said something like, "we can't really say if we know something's wrong when we don't have the information for it." So, we are trying to get him information! ;)
We got Kebab!!
Saturday, at ParkRun, Josh (our Australian friend) told us that he had accepted our friend requests on Facebook. He said, "Ever since then, all my friend suggestions have been very happy looking, young Americans holding copies of the Book of Mormon." We all laughed super hard because now he has a ton of missionary friend suggestions. XD Later, we had another really great lesson with Ewa. She is still progressing really quickly. We were able to watch the "Restoration" video with her and talk about Jospeh Smith. She says she already knows that he was a true prophet of God and she believes everything that happened to be true. So that was really great and exciting!
Sunday was Mother's Day! We tried to make it really special for Sister Williams since she's like our mom here in Szczecin!
So we wrote a card for her, gave her Reese's peanut butter cups, and picked some flowers for her. She loved it! During church, in Sacrament meeting, I gave a talk on the Book of Mormon and it went really well. (Warning: if you come to Szczecin, you WILL give lots of talks :) haha) After church, we had a "Mother's Day lunch" with all the missionaries which was really fun. Then, we met with Ewa (a different one). She asks so many questions and just wants to know EVERYTHING she can about the church. Lessons with her are always fun.
And then, in the evening, I was able to skype home and talk with my parents! :D It's crazy to think that today would have been the first time since December that I would have skyped them! So glad we can skype every week if we want to!
Sister Williams on Mother's Day.
Sister Godfrey, Ewa (with lots of questions), and me.
I think that's all for this week, but go give your mom a hug and tell her you love her!!
*tries to hug mom through email and skype... doesn't really work* XD haha! I LOVE YOU MOM!!
Love and miss you all!!
Siostra Shaylin Carroll
View of Szczecin, riverside...
Us and Ania (the one we met on the bus who asked for our number).
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