Siostra Carroll: The Black Hole: Szczecin (6/3/19)

Cześć!!

I am now in Wrocław and I love it here! It is so beautiful! My companion is Sister Ludlow and she's from Lehi, Utah. She did a year and a half of college before the mission, so she is 20 years old... And I'm still 19. Haha, so it's definitely interesting being the "senior" companion and training someone older than me. She did swim team and cross country. She's also the oldest child in her family. And that's a bit about her!

Well, I'm surprising myself more and more with my Polish! I actually know a lot more than I thought! But this week, really just forced me to actually use it. It's hard, but it's so so good!

Monday, I was picked up at the train station by my new companion, Sister Ludlow! She's been out on the mission for about 4 months, so this is her 2nd transfer. It's going to be interesting to see how things work with both of us being fairly new to the Polish language and everything, but so far we haven't had any major problems! Monday night we went to family home evening which was a blast and a half. It was so fun to meet some of the people here! I met Wiktor and Wiktoria. And when I talked to them, we discovered something.. Actually, I had forgotten (or maybe didn't even know), BUT my cousin, Brigham Kriser, served here in Wrocław when he was on his mission in Poland!! Not only that, but he was the missionary who started teaching Wiktoria!! When we figured that out, we were all really excited! So far, it seems like my cousin was a legend out here in Wrocław. I'm definitely very grateful that he was such a good missionary!! Thanks Brigham!! :)

On Tuesday, we did a lot of logistical things like weekly planning, where Sister Ludlow told me about everyone we're working with here. And I got my public transportation card, and we organized a bunch of stuff in the apartment. This apartment has been used by a lot of missionaries, so it has been collecting a lot of random things, which I fully intend to organize and clean out haha. XD We just will do that at night though, when we're done with everything so it doesn't interfere with anything during the day.

Wednesday morning, we organized the Area Book here. (That's basically just where we keep track of the information or people we teach, for example which lessons they've been taught.) I even found a few people that Brigham found. Or random notes next to a bunch a people that said, "Tell them you're a friend of Brigham's." Haha maybe since I'm a cousin of his, that will be even better?? We also went contacting. And holy smokes, I love contacting here in Wrocław!! People ACTUALLY stop! And they even listen first before just rushing off. I'm impressed. Szczecin was hit and miss, but most of the time we just had the classic "wow, this tree over here is suddenly so interesting" avoidance tactic. Haha! But in Wrocław, even the people with headphones stop, take them out, and listen. It's glorious. We also met with Julia who is from Italy. We gave her an Italian Book of Mormon today and she was really grateful. She told us that she feels really drawn to the Book of Mormon and really wants to read it.

On Thursday, we met with a less active member named Agnieszka. She was super nice! We had a great lesson about the Sabbath Day and Fasting. She didn't know that you could fast with a specific purpose in mind. She thought it was just a good spiritual thing to do. So, this Sunday, she is going to fast for something specific. After that, we had District Council. We were able to meet everyone in our District. In Wrocław, we have us, Elder Zabriskie, and Elder Stewart. And in Legnica, there's Elder Edwards and Elder Theobald. Once again, I'm in a district with the new/trainee missionary. It's super cool though, because I actually am really good friends with Elder Theobald's cousins. He was super surprised that I knew them and was really excited about that. I love having fun connections! Anyway, our District is awesome and it's going to be a really good transfer!! Later, we met with Solomiya and talked about the Book of Mormon with her. She's met with missionaries for over a year with nothing really coming of it. So we're really trying to get her to actually read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She said she would try and read everyday this week! After that, we went to this mall called Renoma. And I guess every Thursday they have this thing where people just go and practice their English together. You get paired up with someone and just talk for 30 minutes. It's super nice because then you can basically just teach an entire first lesson to them or introduce them to the church and they aren't going to run away!! From what I've heard, a lot of people have become interested in learning more about the church after talking with the missionaries at Renoma. Anyway, I got paired up with this guy named Zbyszek and we talked about the church a few times, but every time I tried to go further, he kinda skirted around it. (He's talked to the missionaries here before haha.) Anyway, we ended up talking about soccer and champions league and if Real Madrid or Barcelona was better hahaha. I think the last time I talked about soccer like that was with my Dad. So it definitely reminded me of him. It was really fun though. And I'm glad I'm a bit educated on the teams and such because of those conversations with my Dad!! :)

Friday was really fun! First, we visited Babcia. That's not her name, but it's what she has all the missionaries call her. Basically she first met the missionaries about 10 years ago (or something like that.. it's been a long time though!). She's never joined the church, but she LOVES the missionaries! Basically she thinks of us as like her many, many grandchildren. And she wants to know all about you and talk to you for forever. She's just like a grandma. And that's why she has us call her Babcia! :) She was also really happy to hear that Brigham is my cousin. She said how happy she was when he came back and visited her. (I'm telling y'all.. I already have connections thanks to my cousin!! It's so nice!) After a really nice time at Babcia's, we went to this service project where we bagged up food for homeless people. As we were leaving, a bunch of them just really wanted to talk to me! So basically the next thing I knew, I was being bombarded by a TON of questions. I was asked if I was from Sweden or Norway or even if I was Polish! Wow! Haha, and then a man made a comment that I spoke Polish, but I wasn't even Polish! And they all thought that was pretty funny. There also was a lady who thought I had Polish ancestry because of my blonde hair. Babcia had also complimented me on my "beautiful, blonde hair" and said how she had always wanted blonde hair. Wrocław just loves my hair I guess. XD

On Saturday, we were out contacting and all of a sudden, we see this older lady coming straight for us and she said, "Sisters?! First we see the Elders and now we get to see you?!" She was a member (of the Church) from Germany! And her daughter and their family were visiting from St. George, Utah!! They were so excited to run into the missionaries and we were so excited to meet them! I bet they thoroughly enjoyed the completely shocked looks on our faces when we heard American English and had people know exactly who we were!! After that fun adventure, we had a meeting with Wiktoria (the member who Brigham actually started teaching). I love her already! She's not always making the best choices, but we're doing what we can to help her out and be her friends. :) We also had a meeting with a sweet older lady from the Branch here in Wrocław. Her name is Lucyna and she's really quiet, but it was fun to see her light up when she talked about the Book of Mormon. And right after that, we had a meeting with Nadia (a woman from Ukraine and she's actually Solomiya's mom). It was actually a straight miracle that she could meet. She apparently always has work, but we happened to call her this morning on her only free day!! MIRACLE! We taught her about the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She met with missionaries a while ago, so she already had a Book of Mormon in Polish, but we got her one in Ukrainian. She says she knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true, which is super great!! We were able to set up another meeting with her (another miracle). So now we have a new Investigator! My first one in Wrocław!!

Sunday was pretty good too! We went to church of course which was kinda crazy just because I didn't have to do... ANYTHING!! There are probably about 15 active members, maybe more.. I didn't actually count. But for once in my mission, I didn't need to lead the music, give a talk, sing a musical number, give the closing prayer, and translate all in one meeting. XD Anyway, after church, we went contacting and talked to some really cool people! We went to Old Town over by the river. It was literally like walking through a fairytale town! It was BEAUTIFUL!! We met this lady named Lubomira who is actually a professor at the University here in Wrocław. We had a really fun conversation with her. She actually lived in the US for a while, but doesn't speak any English haha. And while in Florida, she met some "Mormons" as she said (*ahem*...members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) haha. And I think that pretty much sums it up for this week. It was CRAZY!! But so so good!

Love and miss you all!!

Siostra Shaylin Carroll

P.S. The reason for the subject line is because the entire week I have basically still been taking care of/contacting/passing on info about a ton of people in Szczecin. As Elder Thornton put it, "Szczecin is like a black hole. Once you go there, it just sucks you in and you never actually leave." So yeah, basically that's true. XD