Tuesday it seemed like we had a lot of surprise visitors. It was still pday, but we went and visited Marta for a second to give her banana bread! It was good to see her! Then, we went to the chapel and President Chandler stopped by to give us all masks. He's driving to a TON of cities today to deliver masks to everyone. He said he expected to be home by 2:00 am. Crazy! A bit later, another senior couple came to pick up some of the masks that were left for them. They stayed for a while and we had a pizza party haha. It was fun! As for pday, there was a lot of emailing that happened and of course I called the fam. Also, we finished the puzzle today!!! But there was ONE PIECE MISSING!! It was a brand new puzzle. 4,000 pieces. Took us a MONTH to finish!! Only to find that we were MISSING ONE PIECE!! Oh my goodness... my bet is that Elder Long took it home with him... XD Haha, kidding but way frustrating.
We finished our 4,000 piece puzzle!!! But we were missing one piece!! 😭😭
Then, I played some games with Elder Draschil and Elder Zabriskie! We had a good time talking and joking together. Then, that evening when I came home, I got a massive headache. Like, the kind that includes nausea. It was terrible. So, I guess those are in the category of migraine, right?? My whole life, I just thought I was getting really bad headaches. I didn't realize THOSE were migraines! I thought migraines were even worse than what I had dealt with. (High pain tolerance problems, right?) XD Oh well. It stunk. I hid under a blanket while listening to the nightly devotional. Hopefully nobody noticed haha. Then, I went straight to bed. But seriously I felt like half drunk or something. I kept losing things and forgetting where I had set things down and texted random things that were fine, but I forgot that I had texted them. Yeah, I was WAY out of it. But I think I'm better now. Sorry, that was probably way boring to read.
Wednesday was a day filled with a ton of studying up on the "Safeguards for Using Technology." We had to do a ton of stuff to prepare for a meeting we had with President and Sister Chandler. They called it a personal companionship inventory where we focused wholly on the Safeguards and technology use. It turned out to be a really good meeting and it sounds like we're doing the things we're supposed to, so they were of course happy about that. Also, on Wednesday, we had a meeting with Claudia! We actually taught the last four principles to her; Service, Missionary Work, Teaching/Learning in the Church, and Endure to the End. So, we taught her from beginning to end!! Whoo!! And I am so so grateful I was able to teach her everything. It's so special to see someone go from start to finish. And to see all those light bulbs go off along the way! She asked us about the interview and baptism again. She still feels good about May 9th for baptism. We asked her how praying is going, specifically about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. She said she feels like it could be true and that she has faith in it and it keeps growing. When we told her those were the last things we had to teach, she said she's learned a lot as we've had meetings and is so grateful that we've taught her everything. Most exciting to me though is that she said she has seen so many blessings come into her life since the time she met us and has started down this path! I love it when people are able to recognize those changes, differences, and blessings that come into their life as they begin to learn and live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a beautiful thing to watch and see happen to someone.
Later that night, we had a guest speaker at our nightly devotional. He was incredible! His name is Brent Wadas and he is a friend of the Chandler's. He told us his conversion story. Basically he was the most opposite from "golden investigator" that you could get. Like... he tried to break members and missionaries down and did NOT want this to be the true Church of Jesus Christ. But his story of change was so cool! And now he has one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard. The main thing I got from his story was that we should never give up on anyone. The gospel is for everyone, we just have to love them and let them choose to follow it for themselves. Just love people and they will learn from your example. Let the Holy Ghost do the teaching.
Thursday we had a meeting in the morning with a guy named Sergii. Now, I haven't experienced this before in any meeting, but especially not a video meeting, but after about 2 seconds of talking I just felt really uncomfortable. I had thoughts rush to my mind that we needed to have Ukrainian missionaries meet with him or our Elders meet with him... literally ANYbody else besides us. So, I tried to figure out a plan. Luckily, through all this, he received 3 calls from the same person, so he decided to take the call and said he would call us back. I decided to message him and let him know that we would start a group chat with some other missionaries who could meet with him because they are also male. He seemed okay with that, so that's good! It was really strange. But I figure that if I'm feeling that uncomfortable before anything has happened and through a VIDEO CALL, then I should probably listen to that.
After that, we had a Zone Conference.... with the whole mission... so it was a mission conference. XD We had Elder Kopischke come and speak to us again. It was awesome! He asked us what we're learning during this experience with COVID-19. He also let us know that Elder Uchtdorf and President Ballard ask about the European missionaries often, especially since we are basically the only ones who stayed in our missions. They said they are learning a lot from US! And that they are using the things we learn to do Missionary Training things from leaders and missionaries. Elder Kopischke told us that we are writing history. That was way cool to hear from a General Authority!
We had a mission conference with Elder Kopischke this week.
A bit later, we had a call with Zoe for English. We were able to make up some fun stories together. At the end, we were able to talk about the Plan of Salvation by making it sound like a storybook adventure. That definitely caught Zoe's attention. She was asking lots of questions and making guesses on what heaven is like. We told her that she could ask God these questions. Then, she asked a really good question, "How can I know if God answers me?" I thought that was such a deep question. But so sincere and genuine. It really touched me. We explained how she would feel that God is answering her questions and that it sometimes takes time and practice to understand what He is saying. She told us she would pray this week and ask God a question. At the end, she even closed her eyes and sat reverently for the prayer!! It was such a sweet teaching experience.
Call with Zoe.
Later that night, we had our Devotional and a guest speaker came. It was John Hilton III. I think he came to BYS one of the years I was there. He was really cool! A great speaker and a great teacher!
John Hilton III was our guest speaker at Institute this week.
Not a ton happened on Friday. We were able to meet with Kasia in the afternoon. We had a good time catching up with her. We talked about faith, following Jesus Christ, and baptism. She said she hadn't really thought about baptism yet. But she told us that she would study, read the Book of Mormon, and pray about baptism. She told us that she loved General Conference and she asked us if there was a way she could watch past conferences too. She just soaks up everything she can! I love how much she loves to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ! We planned to meet the next day to talk more too.
Call with Kasia.
At the nightly devotional, we found out a few things. First, we're allowed to take public transportation again!! Whoo!! And a really cool thing President Chandler told us... Apparently the Poland Warsaw Mission is the only mission that didn't send any missionaries home. Let me say that again: We are part of the ONLY mission in the entire world who didn't have ANY missionaries go home due to COVID-19!! Holy smokes, that's crazy!! He told us that we are literally making history in this mission. Apparently, it even has the attention of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as well. I thought that was way cool. But wow! What a blessing to be a part of this mission and to be basically untouched as a mission and keep our whole family together!!
Saturday we were able to have 2 meetings! We first met with Kasia again. She said she had been thinking a lot about something I said yesterday; about how God will never ask us to do something that won't bring us happiness. And let me tell ya, that was 100% inspired by the Spirit. I'm grateful I listened to the prompting I had received to say that. The Spirit really does give us the very words we need to say, when we need to say them. She told us that she had been thinking, reading, and praying a lot about baptism. Even just in 1 day, in between our meetings! She's definitely been thinking more seriously about baptism. She had good questions about the Book of Mormon, the Priesthood, and Joseph Smith. It was good!
A bit later, we had a meeting with Himanshu about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He read in the Book of Mormon and prayed this week, which is awesome! He had good questions about the Holy Ghost and what that is. He said he would keep praying and will start praying in the way that we taught him we should pray. He's doing well. Slow and steady, but still progressing.
Well, I learned today that apparently it doesn't matter if you're in quarantine or not. You're still gonna get ALL of the contacts... even the crazy drunk guys who want to wife you up. It just takes longer to figure that out through text. Dang... So there's another marriage proposal for the books. XD Oh and a different guy asked me on a date a few times. 🤦🏼♀️ That's what's new with me... So how's your day going?? XD
Sunday we were able to have our normal church meetings. We had a full screen of people for our Come Follow Me class. There were 9 people besides missionaries! So that was really exciting! It went well. :)
We had a great discussion for Come Follow Me with lots of people. We had a full screen!! :D
Later in the day, we had a District Devotional and our weekly call-in report with Elder Mitchell. And we had dinner at the Womack's. For our nightly devotional, we had a guest speaker. It was Sister Cześlak. She was the first missionary from Poland... ever!! She served in Washington state and while there, she briefly met President Hinckley. A few weeks later, she was asked by the First Presidency to go to Salt Lake City. While there, she worked in the temple to translate the temple ceremony into Polish!! She later recorded the audio for the ceremony into Polish as well!! It was such an incredible story to hear! And wow, she is such a strong member. She is truly a pioneer of the church here in Poland. So faithful and such a powerful testimony. It was a really great devotional!!
Love and miss you all!!
Siostra Shaylin Carroll
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