Birthday!

We went to the Solidarność museum last pday- "Żeby Polska była Polską!"

Sister Smith surprised me with streamer-confetti and balloons and post-it notes put all around the flat for my birthday :) The little board is really cute, coz normally it's filled with her vocab verbs in Polish, and she'll have like example sentences of how to use the words she's learning. So she replaced them all with words and examples about me hehe :) so sweet!

So this was hilarious. We're walking this morning on our way to go email, and Sister Smith is like "oh, we need to go up to the tram platform" (we normally don't catch a tram to get to the emailing place) and when we get up there, the free-for-all advertisement boards are filled with these posters for me saying happy birthday haha. A lady was staring at the board, really confused! Sister Smith got the elders to put them up just before we got there- I wonder how long they'll stay there before getting posted over or ripped down!

I gave a presentation on Australia for our last English class :) Those 2 kids fighting are British-Poles- they have the cutest British accents!

I sent a lot of photos and stuff so now I'm going to be lazy and not write a lot haha. Well this past week was really great! Some of the highlights:

 

We got to meet with an investigator couple, they invited us over for dinner, and they're both super awesome! They have a dog named Sonya haha- I'm not sure if I've told you this before, but like everyone in Poland has a dog named Sonya (or maybe it's spelled like Sonja, I don't know how they spell it). It's so funny when people are like "SONYA, GET OVER HERE" and they're talking to their dog hehehe (of course, in Polish).

 

This week we spoke to a lot of people about modern-day prophets, and how the Church today is still led by a living prophet and apostles, like times preceding, during and after Christ. We had a lot of spare copies of the October General Conference Liahona, so we took a bunch with us to a park and offered them to people, letting them know a bit about what General Conference is and how great it is that we have living prophets. People were generally pretty open (everyone likes free stuff!), and it was good to know that these magazines weren't just getting thrown away, but rather, are being used to potentially help soften the hearts of those who'll read them. 

 

Tuesday was our 'day of miracles' (that's every day, but this day was particularly miraculous!) we met a lot of people randomly on the streets- like former investigators with whom we had lost contact, members and really friendly strangers that were so nice to us. I got to speak to a German family from Dresden, we got in touch with a German investigator who has been wanting a copy of the Liahona in English, and we just happened to have a copy with us, so we were able to give it to him before he goes to Germany for a couple of months. There were tram problems, so our original plans of going to contact at a particular park changed, and instead we had to catch a tram that we normally wouldn't have caught back to the main city, and we got in contact with an investigator who we hadn't seen in a long time (now we're back in contact). We ran into a family from our branch on a tram platform and got to talk with them. I had my guitar, and from another side of the platform a lady asked us to sing her a song, so we did, and she loved it :) There are so many more great experiences, and I've got to go now to eat birthday lunch haha, but yeah, this week was amazing!

 

I hope you all had a great week too, and may your next week be even better!

Love you so much!

Siostra Grgich

Testimonies of the Book of Mormon

Most of the missionaries from our MTC group

Sister Smith and I in southern Gdansk

Sister Bąk and I

Some of the Sisters from my MTC group

This email is really hard to write because there are Germans in this internet cafe and I'm eavesdropping haha ;) Anywho, last week we had Zone Conference in Warsaw and got to wake up super early to catch a train in! We got a bunch of our mail from the office and got to see lots of the other missionaries so there were big smiles all around like this --> :D haha It was a really good conference- the mission president (President Edgren) spoke about so many things that I have just been studying in the past week- it was cool how relevant everything was/is to me. We spoke about being disciples of Christ, and how important it is to learn His doctrine so that we're prepared with strong testimonies and more importantly with an ability to teach by the Spirit. We also learnt how to improve our finding methods- how we can talk to people and be better at setting up lessons and helping them become progressing investigators. There were so many great ideas from the different missionaries, and it was a really uplifting experience.


Last week we had a small, but important experience. We were walking around the city trying to talk to people about the gospel, and one lady was staring at our badges and Sister Smith and I of course stopped her to introduce ourselves. She was with her husband and they had a pram (although I'm not sure where the baby was..?) anywho, it was a family so we were so excited that they stopped and wanted to talk! So we started talking and getting to know them, and they told us they were Jehovah's Witnesses, and they din't see a need in another book of scripture. I was able to bear testimony that God really did call another prophet- Joseph Smith, and he translated the Book of Mormon by the power and under the direction of God. I told them that if this actually happened- if God and Jesus Christ really did appear to Joseph Smith in 1820, then that is the greatest event to happen on the earth since the time of Christ. To my surprise, they actually nodded and agreed that if it was true, then that really would be the most important thing that's happened since Christ was on the earth. I know that if people have honest hearts, and just give our message a try, they will find out the truthfulness of it through reading and praying about the Book of Mormon.


Sometimes I get a little shy in my missionary work, and I think, oh these people don't want to read this book, they're happy enough with their lives, they've told me no once so I should just leave them now. But I know that it's worth at least telling those who will let you, how important this is for them, and how much God loves them and wants them to find this out for themselves. Of course I know it's not good to pester people, but I think people don't know what they're saying "no" to. That's why it's so important for us to start teaching people the message of the restoration, as quickly as we naturally and tactfully can- then if they still choose to say no, I at least feel better that I gave them some information that might come back to their minds at some point in their life in the future. This message really is so important, and everyone deserves the chance to accept it. I generally do a good job at being persistent with sharing the message, but I think that experience has taught me maybe to ask that question to people more often- if this really happened, wouldn't you want to know about it? I'm grateful for all the learning experiences I have daily- and I'm continually looking for ways to improve my finding and teaching skills.


We had many, many other amazing experiences this past week- we met with a young woman who is a rock in the gospel and in the branch :) We love her so much- we're trying to help her with her Personal Progress and we're trying to meet with her more regularly. We also were able to see someone we had found tracting and invited to church, actually come to church! It was really cool that he came, afterwards the Elders had a lesson with him and we hope that he'll be able to continue to meet with the missionaries and come to church :) We had some more guests join us in our branch yesterday, so that was really nice. I love the summer time! Today we plan on going with the Elders to the Solidarność museum here in Gdansk- it should be good!

Hope you have a fabulous week and give everyone a big hug from me!! (especially Alexa and Mandy :D)

Love from Sestra Grgić

Exchange!

There's a big street here called Startowa (it's pronounced like how an Aussie would say "start over" hehe)

This is a photo of our district at Malbor

Sister Smith and I at Mabork

Sister Smith and I with a little boy we met with his mum in the park (he came up and was like "Can I play your guitar?" so yeah, that's how we met hehe) :D

Sister Smith and I at the beach

We went with the Elders to Park Oliwski to talk to people about the Church. We have these super cool banners the mission bought recently- they're easy to out up so it's great!

Sister Smith and I have been visiting a former investigator Wioletta in the hospital for the past few weeks. We sing her songs and chat, and she always makes us smile!

This week we had an exchange! Sister Smith went to Bydgoszcz (yes mum, that place you love to not say haha) and Sister Woodward (from our MTC group) came up to Gdansk with me. We had a great time together, and I learnt a lot from Sister Woodward. We found a couple of potential investigators, got water dumped on us while tracting (we were at the domophone, and someone leant out their window of the apartment block and dumped a bucket of water on us)- luckily they missed, and it only got like our arms wet haha. It was really good getting to talk with another missionary and learn from her experiences (I haven't seen her much since the MTC). 

On Thursday, Sister Smith and I went to a member's house to practice a musical item for Sacrament Meeting- we sung Teach Me To Walk in the Light (Naucz Mnie Chodzić ze Światłem) and we sung it yesterday- it was so great and we loved being with the member (she doesn't always get to come to church because of work). We had a lot of people at church yesterday- right before Sacrament Meeting, a family of 7 from Finland came in and it practically doubled the size of our branch haha. It was pretty cool, it was just a big reminder to me about how important families are, and how families are so blessed by the Restored Gospel- that's what life's all about! We are all children of our loving Heavenly Father, and our goal is to return with Him and our families to be happy for eternity. Families really are at the centre of everything in God's plan. This message is for everyone, and everyone who lives trying to be obedient and God's commandments, even if circumstances on this earth don't allow, will have the wonderful blessing of being with their families forever. I love that I've grown up seeing so many great examples of loving families- I know that there is no better way to raise a family than based on the gospel of Jesus Christ. If only everyone knew that, the world would be an incredibly finer place!

On Friday we went on the street with the Elders and set up with a board for people to write on- it said "Jestem wdzięczny za.." (I'm grateful for...)- we were able to talk to a lot of people so that was a fun and different experience! Later that evening we went to a former investigator's home (she hadn't been met with in 15 years) and her parents still lived there and let us in! They fed us and spoke to us about their daughter and their lives and Poland end everything. Their daughter lives in a different city now, so we'll try and get in contact with her again and see if she's interested in meeting with missionaries. But yeah, her parents were so nice! Sister Smith and I were in shock a little, from how incredibly nice this couple were. So that was a great experience, and we're hoping to meet with them again in the future to talk more about the church (the wife is really interested in genealogy and she knew that our church has a lot to do with that, so we'll try and help her in the near future with that!)

Ok we actually had some other really great experiences in the week but I've sort of run out of time, so I'll talk to you next week! Love you so much!

Sister Grgich