Well, this week was a week of holidays. And the Polish people?? They love their holidays! (Also, side note: The teachers are still on strike!! They've been on strike for almost an entire month now... I think it ends on May 9th though. At least, everyone is supposed to go to school that day. So that's been fun!)
Monday was super crazy. We had a really fun service project again with lots of people. The Elders also had a super cool investigator (Jurek) there for everything. He lived in Canada for a really long time and says his English is better than his Polish haha. He is loving everything he sees about the church so far. He even was saying things like, "Wow! Your church also does service?! That's exactly what Jesus taught. Your church does what Jesus taught. This must be His church." So that was awesome to hear from him! Then, this crazy guy showed up and was talking about our church and was secretly taking pictures (which I caught him doing). And actually is illegal for people to do anything with the pictures without other people's permission. After we asked him to leave because he was beginning to cause problems, he started going off on a rant and getting loud and stuff. After he left, Jurek just says (in English), "Well, you can't save em all!!" It was SO FUNNY!! But besides that, we had a really nice evening and even an impromptu musical performance with Elder Boden on guitar, Sister Godfrey on violin, and me on the piano. It was a great end to a crazy p-day!
Our p-day jam session (before the service night) BEST THING EVER!! :D
Family Night/Service Night (frosting cookies for homeless people!!)
Tuesday evening we were able to meet up with Sofia (our friend from Greece) and spend some time talking with her. The conversation very easily turned to religion and it was really good! I'm really grateful I was able to spend some time in Greece and have a better understanding of how things work over there and how our church works over there as well. As it turns out, Sofia's home in Greece is just about 5 minutes north of where the chapel/meetinghouse is in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is NOT a coincidence! Her family isn't super religious and she's really open to learning about new religions. I'm working on getting a Book of Mormon in Greek for her and I'm really hoping to connect with the missionaries in Greece to start teaching her in Greek!! Now that we'll be able to use technology starting on Thursday, it will open up a lot of opportunities!! :) I'm so excited to see what happens!
On Wednesday, it was Polish Labor Day! In the morning, we went with Marcin to the Szczecin Central Cemetery and he gave us a tour of the whole thing, complete with a lot of history about the place.
It was really great! And Marcin is honestly the best. We're really good friends with him now. We had a meeting with our babcia friend Ewa (the one we kinda had to escape from). (read more about her later in the email) And we met a guy on the street named Jakub. He lives on the same street as us which is cool. And he is super open and really wants himself and his family to meet with us!! Something really funny though, he said, "I have only one question... Are you Jehovah's Witnesses??" We told him no and he did a huge sigh of relief and said something along the lines of, "Oh praise the Lord!! Yes, you are always welcome!! We are very willing to have you come over. Our door is ALWAYS open!!" Best street contact ever!!
At Szczecin Central Cemetery with Marcin.
The Cemetery is BEAUTIFUL!! Here's a taste of Springtime for ya :)
Old windmill in the cemetery.
Thursday was Flag Day! We did some English finding today. About halfway through, this guy comes and sets up shop on the corner where we were standing. He had a ton of boxes of packages of cookies!! And he was selling 7 packages for only 10 złoty (under $3.00)!! It was insane. We asked him where he got the cookies and he only said, "from far away..." and wouldn't actually answer. So... we think they might have been stolen and that's why they were so cheap haha. And yeah, we met the Black Market Cookie guy. XD
Friday was Constitution Day! (And my little brother Ethan's birthday!!) We went to the place where we do ParkRun every week, but today they were doing a mile run. . .
So, we of course ran it!!
Arkońska Mila on Polish Constitution Day.
Arkońska Mila with the Park Run crew (Marcin on the far left, me, Sis Godfrey, Oliwia, Josh and Michalina (his wife), the Elders, and Elder Williams).
We even got the Elders and the Williams to do it with us.
We got Oliwia to run with us.
Saturday was Star Wars day... May the 4th be with you!! hahaha sorry, just had to throw that one in there since there were so many other holidays this week!
Sunday was...another holiday!! CINCO DE MAYO!! And yes, we did eat tacos!! ;) President Turek came to church on Sunday. He's starting to make his "goodbye tour" before his time as Mission President ends! We had a really good fast and testimony meeting. About halfway through, he asked the missionaries to bear their testimonies. Now, we normally do this since there's not a ton of members, but it was kinda cool to be requested by your Mission President to share your testimony. It really brought the Spirit into the meeting to have all the missionaries do this.
After church, we had lunch with the Branch and then we had interviews with President Turek! (He told me it could potentially be my last interview with him, depending on where I am next transfer. Ahhh it's crazy!! I can't believe he's already finishing up his time as Mission President!) But yeah, church and interviews were both really nice!!
Szczecin Branch with President Turek.
Sunday evening we met with Ewa again. This week, we've met with her quite a bit. She is progressing SO FAST!! She's already in the middle of 2nd Nephi, she reads the Book of Mormon every night, she has been praying to know when she should be baptized, and she has received an answer that the Book of Mormon is true. In her words, she said, "najprawdziwe" (which basically means "the most true"). She also talked about receiving an "answer" (information?) that her husband is in heaven, but he is waiting for salvation!! (Of course, we immediately told her about the Plan of Salvation and temple work!!) She is awesome!! And she's so easy to teach!! I've never experienced teaching someone like her. She is so believing and so full of faith.
I think that's all for this week. Hope you all celebrated Cinco de Mayo haha. If not, go eat a taco today or something. XD
Love and miss you all!!
Siostra Shaylin Carroll
Guess who left their keys IN THE CHAPEL DOOR???
Not us! It was the ELDERS!! XD
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