Monday, right after sending out my email, Elder Womack had a phone call with Claudia!! They had been texting for a while and then she just called him. Turns out, she's still really wanting to meet with us! Wow! That was such a relief! But she seriously is having this internal battle, I know it. The fight and struggle between good and evil is real folks! But she knows what she's felt, (we know it too) and she can't ignore that! So that was happy news to find out on Monday. Later, I was able to talk to all y'all for a while which was awesome! In the middle of that, we went to this big park and played frisbee for a while with the Elders. It was such a beautiful day!! That night, we had our zone call with everyone. They have a specific set of instructions for missionaries being kept inside in quarantine. It's called "Coronavirus: Activity Plan for Missionaries." Since... you know we don't have Netflix and Disney plus, they've given us MANY ways to stay active and involved in missionary work even while inside. So, we will be staying very busy!!
Tuesday was Day 1 in Quarantine!! (partial quarantine) WHOO! Happy Saint Patrick's Day y'all!! XD We spent most of the day inside, with the exception of going on a walk to get some fresh air and save our sanity. We did our weekly planning, which was kind of a joke haha. But we actually still have lessons planned with people! We were also able to work on Facebook a lot and message a bunch of people. And that basically sums up Tuesday.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!!
Ooh fun thing though: the Elders decided to start making a Quarantine Vlog type thing and told us to do one too. So every few days, we'll be doing updates on the situation, how we're feeling, what we're doing... should be pretty entertaining!
Wednesday we had District Council, so we were able to go to the chapel! Yay!! We love getting out haha. For District Council, Kaitlyn Dyshkant joined our call and talked about more tools we can use for family history! Whoo! Funny moment: She was using my account as an example and to show all the Family Search tools. So she was showing us some different things and was showing how to add a person, like a parent or child... And on mine, she clicked, "Add a spouse." Everyone was laughing and I just said, "Oh... oh dear... let's not!!" Then Elder Long said, "Ooohhh what's his name?!?!" XD Who knew family history would turn into that?? Haha, it was funny though. After that, we all took a trip to Auchan and bought some puzzles to help fight the quarantine boredom. We got a 4,000 piece one, so it should last a while. XD We all went back to the chapel and started on the puzzle while working on Facebook, talking to each other, doing family history, listening to music, and messaging people. It was pretty fun actually! I even found more Polish ancestry that I didn't see before!!
Okay, so Elder Benson in our mission is a dancer! And he decided to choreograph something for all the missionaries to learn. Then, he wanted us to record the dance and send it to him so he can make a big video of all the missionaries dancing. So, after everyone left the chapel, we learned, practiced, and recorded the dance!! Whoo!! Haha Elder Benson is WAY good so we all spent half the time just feeling inferior. XD But it turned out not too bad and when we sent us, Elder Benson and his companion Elder De Baun said we were "DANCE MASTERS" so I'll take that compliment. XD It was a lot of fun though, really!!
A nice screenshot of us doing a dance that Elder Benson choreographed.
Thursday we had a mission-wide video call!! I've only had this one other time and it was when President Turek was here. And that was when a few missionaries were getting deported because of legal work things... yeah, that meeting was not good. XD But this one was! Basically, President Chandler was explaining a bit about coronavirus, what's going on in the world (since we don't have access to the news or pages on the internet that give updates...), and some stats of things. He explained the reason why Poland is one of only TWO missions in all of Europe that isn't sending missionaries home right now. This is because of the number of cases per million people. Right now, we only have 9 cases for every million. So Poland has done a really good job with things! They also clarified that we are NOT in quarantine, but we are social distancing right now. Anyway, they then introduced what our official schedule looks like for now. We're doing some cool things. So every day, we have a "mission activity." A few of them are District Devotional, send a spiritual thought home to your family for their in home sacrament meeting, call home for 15 minutes, write a personal history, etc. And every night at 20:30, we're having a mission-wide devotional. It'll be really cool to have a nightly devotional!! So there are the updates there...
Missionwide Devotional Call!
Then, we were supposed to have a meeting with Piotr through video call... but technological difficulties made that impossible, so we were going to try again the next day. Then, we had a call with Zoe to have her practice her English! The call was pretty difficult with her as well. These people have terrible connection! So that makes things difficult... but we still had fun with Zoe!! She makes me happy. She's such a sweet girl! We sent her a screenshot of a primary/children's song. She wants to learn it on the piano. So we're teaching the Gospel, English, and music. BOOM. Haha!
Later, we worked on family history and Facebook. Karolina, a less-active/returning member messaged me to tell me that she wants to work with me instead of with the Elders haha. She really likes me! Which is a huge blessing, because then she's willing to work with me!! She said she really wants to change and come back to church. But she just doesn't know how to start. That's so awesome!! It made me so happy!! I'm excited to work with her! :)
Friday morning, we had a meeting with Claudia through a phone call. It was a great meeting! She's doing really well, actually! Things kind if turned back around this week. We had a great lesson about the Law of Chastity. She really likes the Law of Chastity and all the good things that come from living it. We talked about how she went through a little period where doubts and questions started coming to her. And hard challenges on top of that. (Like her mom and coronavirus and whatnot.) We talked about how Satan is really working hard to stop her from progressing and is trying to make it really hard for her to keep going down this right path. She's smart. She recognizes this. We talked about how the closer she gets to her baptism, the harder things will get for her. We encouraged her to always remember the feelings she's had and the times she has felt the Holy Ghost. And to hang onto that when the hard times do come. At the end of the lesson, we set another baptismal date with her. She set this one. She thinks pushing it back a week will be good, so she is now set to be baptized on April 3rd! :) I couldn't be happier to have her back on date!
Later in the day, we had another failed meeting with Piotr haha. We'll figure out how to make the wifi good soon... And later we had a short meeting with Kasia (internet problems...). BUT it was still a great meeting! She's been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and says that she finds so much peace as she reads it. She loves the books of Nephi and has been writing notes in a notebook about her favorite verses! All on her own! She's so good!! She's really starting to apply the scriptures to herself and I love that! :)
We also worked on Facebook a lot. I had an insanely long and active conversation with this guy named Mateusz. It started out fine, but then he thought I was lying about being American because my Polish was "too good"..... what the heck?! And he also was telling me that I'm in a cult and that he was offering his help to get me out. What even...?? And that's the story of how my afternoon was spent with yet another person telling me about "what I believe." Wow. Oh, and after not responding to him for 3 hours, he came back and messaged and said, "Hey, so I was thinking about it... and maybe I was a little too closed. This could be interesting to talk about in person. Maybe we could talk about it over drinks sometime." (But after quarantine, he said. Haha!) And THAT'S the story of how a guy went from telling me I'm in a cult, to asking me out for drinks... Adventures in the life of a missionary, am I right?? 🙄
Saturday was pretty mellow. We had 2 meetings though! One through video call and one through a phone call because their video still was not working. First, we met with Kasia and talked about the Sabbath Day and also about baptism. She said that she's actually been thinking about baptism quite a bit on her own. She feels like she doesn't know enough yet and that there's still so much she needs to learn before she can be baptized. But I think the desire is there and we planted that idea, which is good. She's actually going to be praying about baptism this week.
Next, we had our meeting with Piotr. We ended up talking a lot about the Godhead and how they are 3 individual, distinct beings. We read in 3 Nephi 18 about Jesus Christ's relationship to God, our Heavenly Father. And talked about how Christ showed us the way that we should so everything; even praying. He seemed to accept it and said it made sense. Later, we were able to do Facebook work. And GUYS!! Holy smokes, I'm messaging the most amazing guy!! (Lol that sounds weird haha, but seriously he's so cool!) After just sending my "script" message to him, he said he wanted to know more and that he actually had some questions. The conversation went so well! He was really grateful because he said nobody had ever taken the time to answer his questions before. Eventually I sent him the website after he was asking what religion I'm a part of because "the religion you're talking about sounds so good!" I sent him the website to learn more and let him know I was heading to bed, but would talk with him more the next day. He was happy about that and agreed to talk more. Mind you... this is a 19 year old guy. Who just immediately opened up and asked all these really deep questions he had. He is truly searching!! Wow, I'm so excited to keep messaging him!!
Sunday was a day full of meetings. We started out with our sacrament meeting. It was once again a very spiritually uplifting experience. It's so cool how in times like these Heavenly Father just pours His spirit out on us. :) After that, we did a video call for Sunday School and to discuss the scriptures from "Come, Follow Me" this week. It was really good! I actually loved it!! We were able to lead the discussion and ask the questions. It was such a good, hopeful, uplifting discussion!! Then, we did another one of those, but for the Polish speakers.
Video call with the Elders while waiting for everyone to get on for Sunday school.
After that, we headed to the Womack's and had a District Devotional. We read and discussed the Conference Talk "Called to the Work" by Elder Bednar. It was really good, especially now when so many crazy things are happening with missionaries going home and/or getting reassigned. It's good to remember that we're on the Lord's errand, He will send us where He needs us, and He will have us finish our missions when He needs us to. As hard as that last one is to accept... Yes, I am worried. Not going to lie about that.
All us missionaries on the balcony after dinner at the Womack's.
On a happy note, we had our Mission-wide Devotional that night. We have a daily mission competition and Sunday was a meme competition. (We had to make original memes, not just share them.) Mine got 2nd place!! Whoo!!
My meme!! Story: We're really hoping that coronavirus doesn't spread anymore here in Poland so that no missionaries have to go home!!
Also, for part of the Devotional, they used a video I had shared on Facebook. The one of Gus Mickelson and his companion singing, so the whole mission saw that! That was really happy for me. :) And yeah, wow, what another crazy week!
Please please please pray that we get to stay in Poland!! I keep seeing friends going home left and right. Please take this the right way... I don't want to come home!! Not yet. Not like this. I just want to stay until June! But of course, it's in the Lord's hands and I'll just have to trust Him.
Love and miss you all!!
Siostra Shaylin Carroll
Not to cause a stampede or anything... but we found toilet paper!! (Or maybe we're past that phase now? Everyone good on toilet paper?)
Beautiful blue sky!!
Journal entry about earring back!!
My earring back between the shoes!!
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