Siostra Carroll: Valentine's Day and Enduring to the End/"Dobry wieczór! Czy chcesz ciasteczko?" (2/17/20)

Cześć!!

Monday was good! I had my first pday in Poznań. We're having a lot of firsts now haha. We were able to go and explore!! It was fun! We went to the Rynek and explored Old Town. It's so pretty!! We also went inside just about every Catholic church we came across. (Which, being in Poland, is quite a few! Haha!) It was a good time! We were also able to email and talk with family which is always really good. That evening, we had family night. We had a spiritual thought, ate brownies, and played Apples to Apples. It was fun to spend time with some of the Branch members here.

Tuesday we were able to have a meeting with Ola! She's an awesome girl!! She's been meeting with missionaries for about 5 months and originally met them while on vacation in England. She loves the Church!! She says she hasn't been baptized yet because she feels like she still has some questions or concerns. But she isn't exactly sure what those are. She reads the Book of Mormon regularly and prays every day. She feels like the answer God is giving her is to keep studying, searching, and learning. Which is perfect! We talked a lot about revelation and some ways that can work. I'm excited to keep working with her! She will be baptized for sure. Some people just need time and that's okay! :) But she does want answers and she's really driven to find them, which is awesome!! Later, we were able to go and check on a returning member named Iza. She's a sweet lady! She doesn't have much, but she's so happy and kind!! It was fun to visit her and spend a bit of time talking with her. Marcin was also there! He visits members like Bożena and Iza quite often and spends time with them. What a nice guy! Later, we were able to do our weekly planning and get that all done. That's always an adventure haha.

Wednesday we were able to go and start designing a new English Ulotki. After that, we were able to go and do another Finding Activity on the Deptak. I didn't have any *visible* success today. But Elder Long reminded me that I'm still giving people the chance and choice to listen. So that made me feel better!! Later, we taught a great English class and had an awesome religious discussion afterwards. We were at first talking about the worth of souls and how God cares about us. We read 3 Nephi 13:28-34 and talked about how God knows what we need and He loves us so we don't need to worry! I'm not sure how, but the conversation turned to baptism. And 2 people were really interested in that and how it works. Zofia especially was interested. It was such a cool discussion and the Spirit was very strong. Zofia really wants to meet, she's just so busy with work. But we're really trying to figure it out. She will be such a strong member of the Church someday.

Thursday was a pretty special day. It was my younger sister, Candace's, birthday! That's always a pretty special day for my family. I wrote about it a bit last year too. It's always a bit hard being away from my family for Candace's birthday. Especially not being there for my Mom... but this is the last time I had to be alone! And I was lucky enough to be able to find a cute little balloon shop. There was this cute, sweet old couple who ran it together (kind of reminded me of Carl and Ellie from "Up") and I got a pink balloon! I was able to do another balloon release from Poland. And it was really special. :)

Candace's birthday again. I did a balloon release!

Me on Candace's birthday. I wore pink and my butterfly necklace for her.

Okay, 2 other highlights of Thursday. We taught an individual English class with this super cute 9 year old named Zoe. She lived in England until she was 8 1/2. I think her Mom just wants to help her keep her English skills up. Now, I very quickly found out that Zoe loves wolves. I asked her what her favorite dessert or treat was and she asked.. "Does it have to be food? Because my favorite treat is when my Mum lets me play my wolf game on my phone!" She was adorable!! And it was pretty special to be able to talk with her, someone who felt like they could be my younger sister, on Candace's birthday. It definitely was a tender mercy!! Also, we had the best lesson ever today!! We met with Claudia and holy smokes, she is AWESOME!! She's already read to 1 Nephi 11 all on her own. She asks the greatest questions! One of her first questions was "If this is all true, how can I know it? How can I find out?" Wow... Needless to say, the lesson went very well. There were a lot of new things for her, but you could just see the lightbulb go off! She said things like, "Oh! That makes sense!" and "Wow! I really like that!" She told us that she is planning to read the entire Book of Mormon. And she hasn't prayed in forever, but she said she would definitely try to pray about these things and find out if they're true. She also really wants to come to church and is excited about that. AND she told us that she's off of school for 2 weeks. She said, "So I'm free and we can meet more if you would like!" I'm really excited about her! She is incredible!! I am SO GLAD that I followed through on the prompting I had to stop her on the Deptak. Wow. :)

Szczęśliwego Dnia Walentynki!!

Friday was a pretty good day. We had a lesson with a girl named Kasia! She is so nice! We had a great lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was really simple and straightforward, but I think she learned a lot and really like it. She especially liked the scripture we shared at the end, 2 Nephi 31:20: "Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."

She said it was beautiful and summed everything up really well. I love that scripture! What a great promise that we are given! I think that gives such hope to all of us. And I love sharing that verse with others. Kasia's really great! She prays on her own and has a strong (and growing) relationship with God. It's really cool to see her faith!

Later, we had a meeting with Martyna. Martyna has been taught by the missionaries for over a year and she is AMAZING!! She wants to get baptized, but her Mom is making her wait until she turns 16. It used to be 18, but it got moved down from there, so we have hope! And Martyna is serious about it. She really wants to be baptized. She comes to church, reads the Book of Mormon every day, and prays every day. She's basically an "unofficial member"! We let her pick the topic today and we just read some things and had a conversation about it. (What's really cool is, before the lesson, I had had the thought that we needed to talk about temples and families.) Then, in the meeting, she said, "Since it's Valentine's Day... maybe we could talk about family and marriage or something like that?" It was so cool to see how that prompting was verified/validated (not sure what word to use there) by Martyna! That is definitely what she needed! We had a great lesson about eternal families and shared a video about the temple with her to watch at home. It was a good meeting!

After that, we made cookies with the Elders and Elias (another investigator) and delivered them to Branch members! It was a lot of fun! But I think the jet lag is a little late in hitting Elder Draschil! He was just looking for a place to sit down. So he crossed the street, sat down on this little fence, and greeted people as they passed. He would say, "Dobry wieczór! Czy chcesz ciasteczko?" ("Good evening, do you want a cookie?") And Elder Long and I were just DYING?! Here's this 20 year old kid, just chilling on the side of the path, with a tin foil covered plate, and offering cookies to strangers. Can you imagine?! XD Haha, it was a pretty good Valentine's Day. XD

Saturday was fun! We met up with the Elders and we all went to Bożena's in the morning. We had a good time talking with her and even brought her a Valentine card that I had made back in Szczecin haha. So we all signed it. She really liked it! Then, we helped her with her grocery shopping. After that, we were supposed to have a meeting with Piotr, but he ended up having a doctor's appointment.... so yeah, we didn't meet haha.

Then, we went to Zupa (service/soup kitchen). There were a ton of people our age who were there! Some Polish, one from Zimbabwe, 2 from France, and a few from Spain! It was awesome! I was on the Polish half of the table though haha. But the lady I was sitting next to was asking me a ton of questions about the Church! So that was awesome! And later, I was able to talk with a bunch of the young people. One of the guys from Spain told me he thought I was Polish and was so impressed that I could speak. Haha it was pretty funny. Oh! The group of us even played "Heads Up" together!! And we all walked to the tram together. It seriously felt like I had a little friend group again! It was so fun!! All the expats stick together haha.

Sunday was awesome!! Claudia came to church and she LOVED it!! She told me, "There's such a positive and happy energy here! I just feel so good here. I feel happy and like I'm at home!!" She said she would definitely be coming back and hopes to see us throughout the week. SHE asked us when we can meet this next week. Holy smokes, she's awesome! She said that before this, she wasn't super religious, but after meeting us, she started getting more into it and liking it. We talked about the day we met each other. Claudia said, "I'm so glad we met each other on the Deptak!! I'm so lucky!!" Then, I felt like I should share with her my experience of how I came to talk to her. How I saw her and immediately felt like I needed to talk to her. I had been looking for someone who felt sad and the Holy Ghost 100% prompted me to talk with her. She had been on her way home and was deep in thought about things. She said that after talking with me, she felt so cheered up and happy and had completely forgotten about her problems she had been thinking about. Wow. Seriously so cool! I've heard those stories before, but had never had it happen to me. And I'm so grateful for that! But seriously, I love Claudia so much!! My spirit just feels so light, happy, joyful, and even giddy around her!! I love her so much!! And our Spirits totally know each other!!

Martyna (L- in black), Me, and Claudia (R- in white).

Anyway, we had a few other meetings too. One with Ania, self-reliance with Konstantin, and a Skype call with Karolina (Marcin's sister, who is a returning member). And that night we had a nice Sunday dinner at the Womack's. I'm seriously so grateful for Sunday dinner with my "family" here in Poznań! But wow, what a great way to end a great week!

So I've been thinking a lot about enduring to the end lately. I'm coming up on the last 4 months of my mission, which is INSANE to me! Throughout my life, I've seen that people have many different approaches in finishing something. Whether it be school projects, a game, a class or program, or an actual race.. people finish differently. Some quit, some will slow down and jog or even walk to the finish, and others will pick up speed and sprint through the end. Most of the time, I find myself in this last category. (Not always, I'm definitely not perfect!! But most of the time.) I like to finish strong. In some things, I quite literally sprint through the finish. I'm definitely not a quitter. And as my time on a mission is slipping away, I can't help but feel a sense of urgency to do everything that God has planned for me to do here in Poland. As with other things in my life, I'm picking up speed and I plan to not just run TO the finish, but to sprint THROUGH the finish. And then keep on running after that in the other areas of my life and with whatever God needs me to do.

Love and miss you all!

Siostra Shaylin Carroll

"Okay... no." Haha "okno" is actually a Polish word that means "window." But my first thought was "ok no" because it was split up. I thought it was pretty funny!