I was Starszy Moody for Halloween!!/Halloween Party and Sassy Skeletons XD (10/28/19)

Cześć!!

Monday we were able to just relax again which was nice. Grocery shopping, emailing, skyping, etc. Nothing super exciting. But we did have a good English class and game night afterwards. I'm sorry that Mondays are so boring to read about right now. But it's really nice and relaxing for me haha!

Tuesday we didn't have a ton going on. We did our studies, weekly planning, and then we had a train to Kraków for exchanges. 

Me and Sister Aramaki on the train to Kraków, we put a "sticker" on the picture that said "Halloween" but it turned out to be backwards and upside down haha.

Me and Sister Aramaki on the way to Kraków. 

We had fun with some filters on the camera haha.

On the train, I watched a video by Al Fox Carraway today about feeling like God is sleeping through our "raging storms." It was way good! She is such an amazing speaker and so inspiring! Highly recommend listening to her. On the way to Kraków, I read the homecoming talk of a missionary who recently returned from my mission. It was really good and they had some really good thoughts. I want to share a few of them here:

-The toughness of the situation never let up. It was a constant. But, so was the striving love of my Savior.

-If we are the battery, the Light of Christ is the energy stored inside each of us to ignite others. As we learn about Christ, we know we want to become like he is. Even in Christ’s darkest trials, he turned outwards. This is his character.

-The Light of Christ will lift us up and give us purpose, with it we can’t lose hope.

-Our Father in Heaven knows us so incredibly well. He knows how to prepare us for what’s coming next and he places us where he does because He has a plan for us there.

-If any of you feel this way in whatever you are doing, if you are feeling tired, or defeated, or lost, or uncertain about your personal standing and worth before God, I give you a two word suggestion: ask Him. That was when I finally felt the words “You are enough. I love you.”

-This is the enabling and persevering influence of the Light of Christ that can and will take form as we look for it. It is the hope we need and can hold on to when we need it most.

Sorry for the lack of "adventure" today. But I hope those thoughts I shared are uplifting. I loved it, so I wanted to share. :)

Wednesday we had exchanges in Kraków! I was with Sister Lueck for the day! It was so great! We started out with our studies and then we had an impromptu lesson with Gabi over the phone. She is getting baptized on Saturday, but she had some last minute concerns come up (as they usually do right before someone makes such a good decision as baptism!). We were able to answer her questions, give advice, and help her feel at peace. The Spirit was so strong and I really felt it as I was bearing my testimony of Jesus Christ and of His and Heavenly Father's love for Gabi. I felt it as I promised Gabi that they would help her with anything. With questions, doubts, struggles, hard times, direction...anything! We were able to settle her concerns and she's still getting baptized on Saturday!! Yay!!! It was such a sweet and tender experience to share with her right before her baptism. Later in the day, we actually met up with her for lunch and then she came with us to help teach English. It was a new service opportunity of teaching English to these 4 boys, all 10 years old. (So it felt like being with my brother and his friends. It was really sweet.) We had them practice the alphabet and writing a word for each letter (4/4 times, "A" was Apple.) XD And we also had them draw a picture of their families and practice introducing themselves and their families. It was fun! Later in the evening, we went contacting and ended up having a really long conversation with this man about what we do as missionaries. He wasn't super interested in learning more about the Church, but we still had a good conversation. He kept telling us that we had to travel!! He told us we just needed to go to Vienna tomorrow and "I'm serious! Do it! Nobody will ever know! I won't tell!" We just kept telling him that's not why we're here and we definitely WON'T be going to Vienna!! XD Anyway, it was an interesting conversation besides that weird thing haha. But all in all, it was a good exchange and a fun day in Kraków!

Thursday was fun! First, we headed back on a train from Kraków to Wrocław. A few cool things happened today. First, we were waiting for our train for a while on Platform 4. After a while, I kinda had to go to the bathroom so we went to find one. But we also thought it was strange that our train wasn't at the platform yet. So we checked the Departures board and sure enough it had changed platforms, so we went to the correct platform (Platform 3) and got on the train! It was weird because there was no announcement or anything. So if I wouldn't have had to go to the bathroom, we would've missed our train! Miracle!! Blessings of being hydrated hahaha, never thought I'd say that! Later, we were at our apartment doing our studies and then Sister Aramaki started feeling kinda weird and antsy and just like we needed to leave RIGHT then. So, in the middle of Personal Study, we got up and left and headed towards City Center. We talked to this cute old lady for a while. We see her all the time and she's way sweet. Her name is Maria. Anyway, we talked to Maria for a while until she said she was going home now. Then, we just hopped on the first tram that came from our stop. 

Super pretty sunset at the tram stop.

Sister Aramaki said this "poke bowl" tasted like and reminded her of Japan. 

Also, I didn't know what else to caption this picture as... XD

We were talking about how weird it was that Sister Aramaki felt like we needed to leave. I said something like, "Well, I guess we'll find out in a few minutes, or we'll never find out." And then, at the first tram stop, the door opens and this lady gets on, seeing us, and immediately says, "Missionaries!! I knew I'd run into you eventually! I've really wanted to see you and I knew that Heavenly Father would make it happen sooner or later!" And we just sat there totally in shock!! It was seriously the COOLEST thing!! It's a good thing Sister Aramaki is so sensitive to the Spirit because I was not feeling the need to leave at all! So it's good that we listened to her feelings. Anyway, this lady's name is Jami!! She just moved here on Sunday and she's a member of the church. She is from everywhere in the United States (military family) and had just come from living in the Netherlands for a few months and Korea for 4 years before that. Jami is going to be working here as an English teacher, so she is now part of our Branch!! So cool! Anyway, we went to her hotel room where she's staying for now and we spent the evening with her just talking and getting to know her. 

Us with Jami!!!

Then, we all went to Renoma for the English conversation practice. And there, we found the Elders. Elder Moody was talking to this British guy I had talked to once, and he was annoying him by using his "British accent." It was actually pretty funny to see that go down. After English, we all went out for dinner at this pizza place by the chapel. 

Dinner with Jami and the Elders.

It was such a fun night! Our days literally never go according to plan, but it's good! We plan our day and then we go forward with that plan until the Lord tells us it needs to change a bit. Today was such a cool experience with that!

Friday we had a lesson with Agnieszka where we watched the first Book of Mormon video and talked about it. She loved it! We also talked with her about All Saints Day and Halloween. So that was really fun! I just love Agnieszka so much! She is so kind and loving. She really does love the gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ. Hopefully she will feel our love and want to come back to church with us. :) 

Agnieszka gave us pierniki!! (It's like gingerbread, but soft like a cake. I love it.)

Later, we were able to have District Council and talk about our missionary work here in Wrocław and with the Elders in Legnica. We were able to share ideas of what they could try doing with certain people they're working with. And that's one thing I love about missionary work. We really are just one big team and we're all working together towards the same goal. So, it's just so cool that we all can help each other with that. Then, Sister Aramaki and I went with Jami to help her check out an apartment, which was pretty fun. Then, that evening, Vova came to the chapel and we all made decorations for the Halloween party. It was a lot of fun! And Vova is actually super creative and artsy!! Kinda surprising, but it was really cool! We all had a good time getting that ready. And at home, we watched the next Book of Mormon video!!! Yay!! It was so cool to see how they made them all look older. Especially Nephi (he was only 17 when they filmed this!!) and how they made him look AND sound older. So cool!

Saturday was great! We were able to visit Babcia in the early afternoon and then we headed to the church to finish decorating for the party and teach our English class. Then, we had our Halloween Party and quite a few people came!! It was awesome!! We had some good food, conversation, games, and lots of fun! 

Some of our Halloween decorations (Vova is the mastermind behind this sassy skeleton haha!)

Guess who we were for Halloween?! Yup. Elder Moody and I switched name tags for the afternoon!

Me dressed up as Elder Moody the pumpkin Ravenclaw student (Elder Moody and I switched tags, I had worn black and orange for the Halloween party that day, and Jami had a Ravenclaw tie from Harry Potter that I borrowed for a quick second.)

Part of it, we did this big scavenger hunt, which I guess people here call that a "quest." (Which I think is cool and makes it sound super legit haha.) But yeah, us missionaries had planned out this entire scavenger hunt with the clues and everything. Basically how it worked is they were split into 2 teams and I would send them the clue using Facebook messenger. They had to go to that location and take a group selfie and send it to me. If it was right, I would send them the next clue. If not, they would have to keep looking. It worked out beautifully and was seriously... so awesome!! (Thank goodness for technology, right?!) After everyone got back from the scavenger hunt, we all played more games. It was an awesome Halloween party!! :)

Me and Sister Aramaki in the middle of the scavenger hunt I was running. :)

Also, Gabi got baptized!!! YEAH!! She is the girl from Brazil who lives in Kraków right now. I was able to teach her all 3 times I went on exchanges there and I feel so lucky to have been a part of that. :)

Sunday was great! So one thing about Sundays that are kinda fun... I get to play the piano in sacrament meeting because nobody else can. Anyway, the guy who picks the hymns doesn't pick them until the day of and so I never have more than 20 minutes to practice 4 songs. Most of which, I've never played in my life. XD And today, before church, he told me something like, "Oh, and by the way, nobody here has ever sung these ones before." So I had to play some songs for the first time with people who didn't know them. It was... awesome. XD Haha, but really, it all worked out! After church, we were able to go and do service at Magnolia Park again. We made a ton of food and were able to talk to a bunch of the people there. Then, in the evening, we had a Facebook meeting with the other Facebook missionaries and Agnieszka in Warsaw (who is over public relations). We went over the last month of what went well and what didn't, came up with some solutions to some problems, and we brainstormed ideas for content for the next year of posts, so that was fun! Being a Facebook missionary is pretty cool! I love having the opportunity to work as a missionary in this way! Also, I have been messaging a lady on Facebook messenger about one of our posts that she "liked" and she said she's really interested in the Book of Mormon. So that was exciting!

Happy Halloween!! Happy All Saints Day!! Happy Dia de Los Muertos!!

Have a spooky Halloween and spend some time with your families on All Saints Day on November 1st!! :)

Love and miss you all!!

Shaylin

How the 3 of us looked when Sister Aramaki came into the room and we acted like we had a super serious topic to discuss with her. She laughed and took a picture of us haha.