Surprise! A Tuesday pday! Because yesterday was Śmingus Dyngus.
Monday we woke up at 8:00 am again yay! Haha it's honestly pretty weird to wake up that late... You know, I really don't mind waking up at 6:30 am every day now. It's really nice to get up and get going. (I'll probably look at that sentence in a year and laugh at myself haha. But for now that's how it is haha!) We did our normal preparation day things. There is now a reserved time for senior citizens to go shopping from 10-12. AND they made a new rule that in the store, there can only be 3 people for every register/check-out stand there is. So, in ours I think there can be 9-12 people! We went as soon as we could in the morning, around 9, thinking we would have to wait for forever. But there were even fewer people than there normally are! So that was nice. Eventually we headed to the chapel, walking the whole way because we're not supposed to take public transportation right now. It's about a 30 minute walk. But it was way nice outside 21°C!! (70°F). So that was pretty great! Oh, and I saw this ridiculously long line for the post office. About 30 people... all 6 feet apart... INSANE!! At the chapel, we were able to play Ticket to Ride with the Elders and then Skype our families. It was a nice day!
Tuesday we had a mission wide meeting with President Chandler. We seem to be having a lot of those these days haha. It was good though! We talked about Joseph Smith's experience with being in Liberty Jail. President Chandler related it to what we are experiencing now, and how we're kind of "trapped" a bit as well. He compared this time of staying inside and social distancing as a type of our own "personal Liberty Jail." Which means that, just like with Joseph, the Lord has lessons prepared for us to learn from this experience. I think that goes for everyone and whatever our own personal Liberty Jail is or times of trial that we go through. There are lessons to be learned from every difficult and trying situation we find ourselves in. The rest of the day we spent doing our studies, weekly planning, messaging people... the usual. Cool thing though, Claudia texted and told us that she's "trying to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the week so that she can start Doctrines & Covenants"!! Wow!! That girl is amazing! Also, she said in Alma, there were a bunch of questions that he asked the people he was teaching. She said she wanted to see if she could answer those questions herself. So she did some research, found a list of those 50 questions online, and has been going through them and answering them for herself!! She just applies the scriptures to herself all on her own. I don't think I'll ever stop being in awe of her faith and real intent as she studies and learns about the gospel. Amazing! That evening, we had a guest on our nightly devotional call. It was Bishop Col. Al Finch. He was a friend of the Chandler's from their home in North Carolina. He's a Psychologist in the army and does personality profiling and things like that. He talked about a lot of things; personality, meditation, reducing stress, dealing with self isolation as an extrovert vs. introvert, and more. And I was reminded once again why I want to study Psychology haha. It was seriously SO INTERESTING!! Such a great nightly devo!!
Wednesday we had a meeting with Dharmik. He was someone our "Facebook machine" sent a friend request to for me. Cool thing though.. he had previously been taught by missionaries here in Poznań and also missionaries in Prague last Fall. And the machine just "happened" to "randomly" send him a friend request??? There's NO way. God definitely had a hand in this and obviously wants Dharmik to meet with missionaries again. We had a great first meeting with him. He already has a Book of Mormon and he also watched one small part of conference. But he said he'd watch more and read more. Nothing super out of the ordinary happened, but it was just a really solid first meeting. We'll be meeting with him again! The rest of the day we had District Council, messaged people, created Facebook posts, and we also all took a personality test. We were really curious about it after the devotional last night. It was really interesting! As the results turned out, I'm the only extrovert among a bunch of introverts. 😂 I'm still convinced that I'm a bit of an ambivert. Because in looking at the results for both the extroverted and introverted variations of my personality, I found both to apply pretty well. Though my results were 8 to 2 in favor of the extrovert quality in that section of the test. So who knows! 😅
Thursday we started out with our personal study. This week, in preparation for Easter, I've been reading about and studying the last week in the Savior's life. Thursday was about the Last Supper and the Atonement in Gethsemane. I had a pretty powerful experience as I read and contemplated what it must have been like there as the Savior introduced the Sacrament. And when He promised His apostles that He would never leave them alone or comfortless, even though He wouldn't be with them physically. I didn't even get to start reading about the Atonement before I had lyrics/lines to a poem flow into my mind. They were beautiful and captured so well the thoughts and feelings I had about the Savior's Atonement and the Sacrament. It probably still needs editing, and it doesn't have a title yet, but I wanted to share it with you all. :)
Poem:
It happened there, that passover night.
In that upper room all filled with light.
He instituted the Sacrament as a remembrance of Him,
Giving us the chance to grow and change within.
Now the bread is broken.. weekly, for me and you.
And we remember how Jesus Christ was broken too.
After comes the water, which represents His blood.
It helps us to remember His never ending love.
In the Garden of Gethsemane,
Christ began to make us free.
The only thing He had in mind
Was Salvation for all mankind.
When the mob came for Him late into that night,
He allowed them to take Him, never putting up a fight.
Broken, bruised, and beaten, He has borne it all,
Paid the price for sin and redeemed man from the Fall.
The Savior of the World died for you and me,
All so that we might be set at liberty.
He was buried and 3 days passed.
The day had finally come at last.
Just as all the prophets had said,
Christ had risen from the dead.
Saving us from imperfection,
Was the Savior's resurrection.
From breaking bread in the upper room,
To victor o'er the empty tomb,
Christ has shown the way to live.
He has promised His help to give.
If we just learn to walk in His way,
Christ can be with us every day.
-Siostra Shaylin Carroll (04/09/2020)
We had a meeting with all the Sisters in the mission. I guess the Area Presidency thought it would be good for the Sisters to have their own meeting as well. It was good, I mean, we just talked about how we're doing physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in fulfilling our missionary purpose. Honestly, I think I've been blessed and protected, because I feel like this hasn't really affected me at all?? XD It just feels like I'm doing all the same things, just in a digital form. It's really not that bad. So I'm grateful for that. After that, we had Zoom Exchanges!! Haha THAT was definitely a first. Basically, I was on exchanges with Sister Ludlow through a video call for 2 hours. It went well! We basically just did a companionship study, language study, talked about conference, and had a lesson with a returning member there in Kraków. I was surprised at how much could be accomplished on an exchange through Zoom. It was cool!
After that, we had a meeting with Claudia! We taught her about the Priesthood and about Eternal Marriage. It went well. She LOVED conference and thought it was so good! Her favorite talk was Elder Neil L. Anderson's. (The exact talk I felt like she really needed to hear! Wow!) She also said that as she prays, she just feels more and more eager to be baptized every single time! She said she would be interviewed for baptism, which meant we had to set a date. Now her concern was coronavirus interfering, but we set a date having the faith that this Worldwide Fast will help the situation. She was thinking sometime mid-May, and we set a baptismal date for May 9th!! She's on date again!! I was so excited!! Now we just have to finish teaching a few things, get her interviewed, and wait for coronavirus to chill out!! XD Yay!! She's excited and we are too!!
Friday was the day of the Worldwide Fast that President Nelson invited us all to take part in. It was so cool to see the unity it created throughout the world and among so many different religions joining together to fast and pray. There was definitely a strong feeling of the Spirit throughout the day. It was a really special experience to take part in. In the afternoon, we had a phone call with Zoe to practice English. We were able to read the children's Bible story about the Last Supper and the Resurrection with her. We talked about Easter and different traditions we all have. We even had fun with the Facebook filters and played some games with her. I love our calls with Zoe!
A quick screenshot from our call with Zoe.
A bit later, we had a meeting with Ola. She was able to watch a bit of conference too! So that's awesome! We had a good meeting with her where we talked about service, missionary work, and enduring to the end. When we explained that enduring to the end is more of just a lifestyle and who we are versus a checklist of things to do everyday for forever, she said that was a lot easier and better than it sounds. She's still studying the gospel a lot on her own and is praying about baptism. She's doing well and we'll keep working with her to help her prepare and feel ready for baptism. She's awesome! After that, we worked on Facebook for a while and eventually walked back home. Our walks are fun... because it's all through European streets!! So it's beautiful!! Honestly, I don't think I'll ever get tired of them. The architecture or the cobblestone or the lampposts.... I love it all!!
Saturday we had a few meetings, which was great! We first did a doorstep visit at Bożena's. It was so good to see her again! She's doing well. She wanted to wish us a happy Easter. She even gave us some chocolate, a vegetable salad (really similar to potato salad), a pastry, and some żurek!! (Żurek is really common for people to have for lunch on Easter. Not everyone I've met likes it, but I really like it! I feel like on my mission I've realized how I am not a picky eater at all haha.)
Bożena with her gifts for the Womack's.
After that, we headed to the chapel and had a meeting with Himanshu. He watched a bit of conference and enjoyed it. He said he learned a lot. We talked about the 2nd half of the Plan of Salvation. He really enjoyed it and liked it. He seemed to agree with it too. He even made the analogy of the 3 kingdoms being like 3 different vacation packages. Each has different things and some are better than others. The best one is obviously the most expensive. So it just depends on how much you are willing to pay. For the Celestial Kingdom, that's the highest Kingdom (the best), so naturally, it's going to be the most expensive. We have to be willing to pay the price, to make those sacrifices, if we really want to make it there. I thought that was a really cool connection he made and I've never really thought of it in that way. It's so great that he's really trying to understand it and make it applicable to himself. At the end of the lesson, we asked him if when he came to know that these things we're teaching him are true, if he would be baptized. He said he would! And that he would definitely follow Jesus Christ's example in this way.
Later, we had a meeting with Martyna. It was short, but good. She's been coming up with 4 goals for herself (like all the youth in the Church have done). She shared her goals with us and we talked about how we can help her. We were also able to talk with her about Easter. She's doing well and it was good to talk with her!
Also, President Chandler told us about this article that came out on Friday night saying that the worst was behind us. (In regards to the coronavirus in the USA.) I guess that was the first day that the data showed the numbers going down! And guess what else was on that day?? Yup! The worldwide fast! God is hearing and answering our prayers!!
Sunday was Easter! Happy Easter!! It was a little different here this year. Last year, on the day before Easter, there were TONS of people on the streets, all dressed up nicely, and carrying their beautifully decorated baskets to Easter Mass to have them get blessed by the priest there. I thought it was so cool! I had never seen so many people out in Poland before. This year, however, the streets were completely empty. Needless to say, we had a very quiet and peaceful walk to the chapel accompanied by the church bells of empty cathedrals. I'd say it was quite poetic haha. Springtime really is beautiful here though. Everything is so green!! They just don't have grass haha. Anyway, we were able to have a church meeting through Zoom for an Easter talk given by Marian (a member here) and then we watched President Chandler's Easter talk he made for everyone in Poland. It was really good! We were also able to teach our Come Follow Me classes. We talked about Easter, specifically about the Resurrection and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It was such a good discussion. I love the words it uses in 2 Nephi 9:10-11 to describe what Christ's Resurrection did for us. The words "escape" and "deliver up" stick out to me. And truly, that is what Christ's Atonement and Resurrection do for us. They provide us an escape and deliverance from death and sin; the 2 things that, alone, we could never overcome. But because of Him, we can. I'm so grateful for Easter and this time to specifically remember our Savior Jesus Christ and all that He has done for each of us. I love Him and I'm so grateful to be serving Him here in Poland.
Monday was Śmingus Dyngus! The holiday that's the day after Easter where people dump water on each other! Haha I did not get any water dumped on me, but it did rain for the first time in a few weeks. So I thought that was a funny coincidence! We just did our weekly planning today and not much else happened. We helped the Sisters in Lublin film for a video they have to make. We had to do a Zoom call and pretend like we were having a church meeting. We also had to pretend that we were Polish. So we took off our nametags and gave ourselves Polish names. I just picked a Polish name I love, so I was Gabrysia for the afternoon. That was probably the most exciting thing that happened haha... We also talked with Kasia on the phone for a bit which was really good! But yeah, that was the end of our week.
Love and miss you all!!
Siostra Shaylin Carroll
P.S. 2 funny stories... That guy who basically proposed to me on messenger. The Indian one? Yeah, so he texted me on Easter and said, "Happy Easter Princess". Oh dear.... 🙄 And the other one is regarding the subject line: So Elder Womack was talking about how small the Branch budget is and how ridiculous it is that they ask him to make a budget to show how they will spend the money. Then, he said, "How do you split a pea?!" And for some reason it was really funny to all of us. So I told him I would make him a t-shirt and he could wear it as a protest. I'll put a picture on here. Haha it made me think of the t-shirt/T.K.O. or whatever it's called.
Had to take a selfie because there were almost zero pictures with me in it this week haha. So yes, it's still me and I'm happy to still be a missionary. :)
Found this gorgeous green grass with flowers blanketing the whole thing and couldn't resist...
Please just ignore my hair laid out all crazy and admire the beautiful tiny flowers EVERYWHERE!!
Had to capture a bit of "The Sound of Music" vibe I was feelin. XD
Also, this may or may not have been illegal... I'm not sure if this is considered a park... oops. 😳
Social Distancing, but they still wanted to come see the baby!! XD
I got in the top 3 for potato carving this week! Whoo! (Yeah, I guess that's a thing??) It's an Idaho Potato!! Get it?! XD
On our walk home, this is the Opera House/Theater, right across from a huge fountain that should be running soon.
Okay, so I guess we do have grass in Poland haha. It's just not the same, but just look at how GREEN that is!!
More beautiful things... courtesy of springtime.
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