English Class!

Hey family- I love you! This week we had our first English class of the transfer! So since I've been here, we've been handing out flyers for free english classes, and posting up advertisements for it on noticeboards like crazy. We finally had our first class on Wednesday and we were so excited to have about 10-15 people show up (flyers do work)! My companion and I will be teaching Intermediate English for the duration of the course (the Elders teach Beginner, and the senior couple teach Advanced).

I love being able to interact with Polish people and be of a service to them in some small way. It was really cool, we had one girl in our class who asked who we were, and we explained that we're missionaries. Then she was confused because she asked why we're doing this (teaching English) and we said our primary purpose is to teach others about Jesus Christ, and our English class is one of the free services we offer to the public around here. She asked "Does your church pay you?" and we say no, we're volunteers. And it actually kept going back and forth a bit because she couldn't believe why we would do this and pay our own money to be out here to talk to people about religion, and then to teach English for free haha. It was a great opportunity for us to bear our testimonies of why we actually are here, so I was grateful that she asked! Anyway, I hope that we get some more people coming to our class in the coming weeks, because teaching English is one of my favourite things (not just about being a missionary here, but in life in general). SO yeah, it's the best! (in a Nacho Libre voice)

OH, I bought a guitar last week! It makes me so happy to play after like 11 weeks of not playing any guitar! It's just a little one (you can see in the photo I've sent) but it's super easy and smooth to play, and it's light, so it's perfect for when I have to transfer and lug my bags around on trains. I've been writing down guitar chords in my Polish hymn book, so that I can hopefully go on the streets and sing songs in Polish to the public :D haha, well, we'll see if I can make that work! I play it at lunch time when we're back in the flat, and my companion and I will just sing and relax- it's so nice :) I miss dad's playing though, and everytime I listen to Barrios (I brought some of his music with me to Poland) I think of dad playing it and all us sitting in the living room as a family and just having good times. I love our family so much!

Yesterday it was fast and testimony in Sacrament meeting, and I was sitting next to a member, and she nudged me to go up and bear my testimony haha. So I did (and I'm very grateful for the patience of the members and others in the congregation who had to put up with my slow and terrible Polish) and one of the first things I said was something about how I'm so grateful for my family back in Australia. Then I had to pause for a bit to stop myself from crying! Ah I'm an emotional wreck haha. I was thinking about my amazing sisters, and my nieces and my parents who I owe so much of my happiness and talents to. I know that God has given me everything that I have, but you are all definitely such a big part of who I am, and God put you all in my life for a reason. I'm not homesick, but I definitely appreciate you all so much and can't wait til I can hug you all and see how you've grown (especially Stevie and Madison!).

Ok, before I go I will just leave you with an awesome scripture that we used in a lesson with a member and his non-member wife last week. It was super awesome and we had a great discussion about why it's important to pray as a family! It's pretty simple, but it's powerful and true. This is Jesus Christ himself speaking to the Nephites:

3 Nephi 18:21
"Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed."

Mum and dad, I really have been blessed so much by your constant care and love for me, and in bringing me up with a knowledge of Heavenly Father's perfect plan of happiness.

Love you all!

Sister Grgich