I can't decide what's sweeter?? Trying my first ever McFlurry or setting the first ever baptismal date on my entire mission?? You decide. ;)
We were able to explore a bunch of rooms, the gardens, the courtyard, the grounds leading up to the castle, and even this sort of marketplace leading up to the castle (which is now all restaurants of course).
But I could only imagine what it was like... Oh, and we literally had to hike 5 kilometers to get there. It was a castle on a hill!! But as we were walking up there, I honestly felt like I was in a fairytale.
Like, we were traveling from some distant village to come to the marketplace and visit the castle. And as you climb up the hill and start to see it peek into view, it's magical!! I can only imagine how people back then felt who journeyed to the castle. There must have been girls in the marketplace who daydreamed about going inside the castle or even living there. It was such a cool trip to go see this castle!!
On Monday, for pday, us and the Elders, we went to Świebodzice (Wałbrzych more specifically) to visit a CASTLE!!
This was the first castle I had ever been to!! It's called Zamek Książ. And I guess it has around 5 or 6 hundred rooms? They don't really know because nobody's actually counted. But it's HUGE and we didn't even see a 4th of it I'm sure.
There was a tunnel inside the castle... This is a picture of me entering the actual Twilight Zone....
*duhduhduhduhduhduhduhduh* (sorry, hopefully you can hear the theme song through that haha)
Tuesday we had our regular weekly planning and studies. But at the end of the day, we went to Skytower for their English course. How this works, is we all pick cards with numbers on it. And whoever gets matching numbers, those 2 are conversation practice partners for that round. There are three 45 minute rounds. As luck would have it... Elder Zabriskie and I drew the same number. XD Well... that won't work. We're both missionaries and we're both native speakers... so that kinda defeats the point haha. Luckily, someone else didn't have a partner, so Elder Zabriskie went with him and I was left to wait for any latecomers. Which was a huge blessing! About halfway through Round 1, a man named Vlad showed up and asked me if we could talk or if I was just hanging out. I, of course, told him that I was here to talk! He is from Ukraine and speaks really good English. We had a really good conversation which turned to the gospel fairly quickly. We ended up talking for the rest of the 1st round and the entire 2nd round and were still talking and almost missed the 3rd! He had a lot of questions about our church and really wanted to know what we believe. He said that recently, he's really been feeling like he wants to be baptized and that he wants to do that to follow Jesus Christ. He brought this up! Not me! He also talked about how he loves reading the Bible and he feels like it's changing him. He said something like, "I can't describe it... but there's this power I can't describe. And I feel it when I read the Bible. When I read, I feel like I'm closer to Jesus Christ. And I feel Him coming into me." (Meaning, he feels like he's becoming more like Jesus Christ.) I couldn't believe it. It was beautiful listening to his words and hear him express his feelings about these things. As we were still talking almost into the 3rd round, the coordinator came over and asked us to come and switch partners. XD Haha, so I got Vlad's contact information and he is really interested in meeting with us. He was super willing and down to give me his number and meet with us sometime. He's a super nice guy and I really feel like he is genuinely searching for and seeking truth. I love to see this in people!!
On Wednesday, we had a really good meeting with Konstancja. She's always so ready and excited to learn!! She listens and seems to accept everything. And she always has really good questions. Also, she says that she agrees most with our church, or that our church is the best fit for her, than any other church she's studied. We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ; which is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. She really likes how repentance is between us and God and not between us and a priest. We also talked about baptism and read Mosiah 18:7-12 with her. We asked if that seemed like something important to do. She said something like, "Yeah, if there's a God, then I think baptism would be a good thing. I would be baptized." So, her main thing is knowing that God exists. She believes in a higher power, but she doesn't know if that power is necessarily God. She's praying for an answer to that question. I love how she is so faithful, whether she knows it or not, she is! She is praying to receive an answer. And that act of praying is an act of faith. She doesn't even know if she believes in God and yet, she's already praying to Him to ask Him about her questions and concerns. It's beautiful. I think the lesson in this, is that we don't need to know everything in order to act in faith!
Also that day, we had a meeting with a lady named Alicja. We thought it would be a normal meeting, but I guess she wanted to meet just to say hi, get introduced, and set up for another meeting. We met her in this shopping mall.. in Aisle 76 of the Auchan grocery store. And we were just talking about the gospel.... in the middle of this grocery store.... that's a new one! Haha! So we talked with her and she believes the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. Also, she's met with missionaries before. It was actually exactly a year ago. She told us that she had a baptismal date for January 2018, but she still had doubts and questions and didn't feel ready back then. But then SHE said (in the middle of this grocery store.. XD), "So, I was actually thinking again that I want to get baptized. I was kind of thinking like, August 21, but then I thought that might be too fast. But maybe..." By that point I'm struggling to stay calm... I pull up my calendar on my phone and she picked August 31 to be baptized!! It was so exciting! She's trying to come to church on Sunday and we'll be meeting with her on Tuesday. But that was it for today. She's not even an investigator right now and she set her own baptismal date!! WHAT?!?! It was too easy!! XD But I am so excited to finally have gotten my first baptismal date EVER!! And I'm so excited to get to know her better as we help her prepare for baptism! :) :)
Oh yeah... and we got McFlurry's to celebrate. Which... I've never had a McFlurry before, so this was a day of many firsts. XD
1st Baptismal Date EVER and 1st McFlurry ever!!
Thursday... HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! We took a train to Katowice for our first Zone Conference with our new Mission President, President Chandler!! It was awesome! Fun thing, both President and Sister Chandler served their missions here in Poland. So they are so excited to be back! For Zone Conference, we were even able to sing the Star Spangled Banner!! (As much as Elder Stewart tried to fight it... but.. looks like the Brits lost again.) Hahaha ;) XD Anyway, we were able to get to know President Chandler, his wife, and 3 of their kids who are here with them (Ellie, Sam, and Emily). President Chandler was pretty excited to hear that I'm from Beaverton, Oregon too! He is actually from there, so he was excited to have a "fellow Oregonian" here in Poland. They talked a lot about how we're going to change the way we do missionary work here in Poland. Instead of trying to contact and talk to EVERY SINGLE person on the street, President really wants us to let the Spirit guide. Finally, after 30 years, we're changing. :) (His words, not mine. But I wholeheartedly agree!) We're going to walk down the streets and talk to people we can see and feel are ready. He talked about how the Lord has prepared people to receive the gospel, but we need to let Him help us to find those people. And the way we do that is by contacting with and by the Spirit. Brilliant. I'm so excited to see how this changes things. :) I'm also so excited to work with the Chandlers! They are amazing people and I KNOW that they are called by God to be here at this time and to lead this mission. There was such a strong feeling of the Spirit with them and I know that the work is really going to pick up speed. They are going to be wonderful and I'm so blessed to serve with them here in Poland.
Katowice Zone Conference with President and Sister Chandler!! :)
The Elders were OUT on our way back to Wrocław from Katowice (4th of July Zone Conference).
On Friday, we were able to go and visit Babcia!! I love her so much and I love being able to visit her every week. She doesn't have any grandchildren, but she says that all the missionaries are her grandchildren. So she had many, MANY grandkids. She has such a light heart and a happy spirit. I just love being around her. She really is like a grandma to me here in Poland. And I'm so grateful for that! After visiting Babcia, we went to our normal Friday service project where we pack grocery bags for homeless people. Normally, it's about an hour or so. But today, they had 2 truckloads of food!! Which took a while to unload and get situated around the room. Oh, and not to mention like 8 crates of asparagus!! I don't think I've seen more asparagus in one place.... and we had to bag that up so we could put it in the bigger grocery bags... anyway, the whole thing took about 3 hours!! But they didn't have quite as many people as normal, so we were needed even more. I'm glad we were able to be there!
Me with the TONS of food for homeless people that we packed up.
In the evening, we were able to have 2 quick meetings with Solomiya and with Wiktoria. Today we talked about obstacles that could be keeping Solomiya from getting baptized. She said she thinks her only obstacle is that she wants to know more and understand more about our church. She even said, "I should probably read the Book of Mormon." Which was the first time she's ever said that!! She always talks about reading the Bible and wanting to read that first, but hopefully that will change! As a mission, we're going to be reading the Book of Mormon in 40 days (starting today! Monday) and we invited Solomiya to do that with us! She said she'll think about it. And Wiktoria, we talked about service and committed her to do some service or go to service projects or activities with the missionaries in Germany. (She's going there for a few weeks.) She said she would and that will be really good for her.
Saturday morning, we headed over to the park for Sports Saturday. While waiting for our tram, a lady came up to me and asked me for directions. Which is like the hundredth time this has happened. XD Literally EVERYONE asks me for directions. XD Which means 2 things: 1. I look Polish, or at least that I look like I speak Polish. 2. I look like I know what I'm doing. Haha!! XD Anyway, Sports Saturday was fun. Then, we taught our English class at the chapel. We had a new girl there whose name is Krystyna. At the end, we had our religious discussion (or spiritual thought) about the Book of Mormon. She seemed pretty interested and asked if the copy we had handed to her was for her. She asked if she could take it home and use it. She really seemed like she wants to read it! Of course we told her that the book was for her. She said she'll be coming again to English. So I'm excited to see where this goes. Later in the day we were able to call a lot more potential investigators. And then we visited Lucyna for a while. We read the conference talk from Elder Uchtdorf about missionary work and asked her to invite 3 people to church this week. She said she would! :)
Sunday was really great! We had a meeting with Lena, who is now our newest investigator!! I guess she met missionaries on the street 8 or so years ago, but they never set up with her! WHAT?! So this was her first meeting with missionaries. She really wanted another copy of the Book of Mormon and she'll read this week. She started crying towards the end of our lesson as she talked about how she "doesn't know the goodness of God" or she hasn't experienced it yet in her life. I was able to testify of God's love for all of His children. It was just such a simple, sweet, tender moment. :) Later in the evening, we went tracting and MIRACLE!! We were immediately let in by an older woman. She said, "Please come in!" She brought us into her living room where her family was already gathered (after they had just finished dinner together). She said to them, "There are missionaries here to talk to us!" And everyone looked happy about it! I have never experienced anything like this before on my mission. We came in and there were 6 people just sitting there ready to listen. Anna (the woman who answered) and her husband Bolek. Then, their daughter was there with her family. Joanna (the daughter) and her husband, with their 2 teenage kids Stefan and Hanna. It was so nice because we were just able to have a conversation about our beliefs. They asked a lot of really genuine and sincere questions about our church. And then, they just really listened. They were all SO NICE!! And it was just such a relaxed environment where we were sharing about our church. And I think we all genuinely enjoyed each other's company. We left each family with a copy of the Book of Mormon (which they said they wanted to, and would, read). And we were invited to come and visit them again! AMAZING!! And people say tracting doesn't work in this mission. Psssshhhhhh... I'm just proving that wrong left and right!! ;) And right after that meeting, we were walking home and met a woman named Halina who had heard a lot about our church and found it really interesting. She wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon to read and she wants to meet. Holy smokes what a day! So.. we got 1 new investigator, 2 potentials (well, that's just the phone numbers! It's more like.. 7!!), and gave out 3 copies of the Book of Mormon!! Best Sunday Ever!!! :D
This week we're starting our 40 day Book of Mormon challenge. I invite any of you who have never read the Book of Mormon or who would like to read it again to do it with us!! You can be part of the Poland Warsaw Mission even from the comfort of your own home! ;D But really, I know that reading from the Book of Mormon daily brings such blessings into our lives. I always feel happy and uplifted after reading the Book of Mormon. I know that you will too!!
Love and miss you all!!
Siostra Shaylin Carroll
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