I Really Do Love This Place!

Saying goodbye to Siostra Montesinos at the Dworzec Główny (Main Station) in Gdańsk.

Saying goodbye to Starszy (Elder) Wolfley at the Dworzec Główny (Main Station) in Gdańsk.

Myself, Stanisław, Sister Monte and Elder Jourdan taking a photo of us haha

This is myself with Sister Monte, and a member Wioleta (it was her birthday yesterday!)

My companion and I with 3 awesome little ones in our branch, Kasia, Ania and Tomek

And myself with a newly-wed couple in our branch (they're so awesome!) Gosia and Marcin. They're getting married in the Stockholm Temple tomorrow :D

My companion and I with 2 members Irena and Józef

The senior couple here the Shaw's (from Idaho) with my companion and I

Sister Montesinos, myself, and 2 Polish members from our branch Marinela and Jadwiga, and a Hawaiian member Sister Harker.

This week we got to finish watching General Conference, and I absolutely loved it! There was one from Elder David A. Bednar about why we do missionary work, and it was so awesome! It made us all laugh at some points too, I hope you got to hear/watch it!

So this week is transfer week! And I'm staying in Danzig! (That's the German word for Gdańsk haha) It's super exciting to get to stay here, because I really do love this place. Unfortunately my companion is leaving to a different city, and so are both of the elders, and I will truly miss them, but I'm also super excited to get to meet 3 new missionaries, and work with them to help build up our assigned area. I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, but I'm actually especially excited to get some type of musical fireside/talent show organised for the branch, because I've heard that at least 2 of the 3 new missionaries coming here are musical, and that makes me SO happy! :D So, I'll keep you updated on what happens there! I thank Heavenly Father every day for giving me an amazing musical family who fostered my own love for music and the chance to develop my talents to bless the lives of myself and others.

On Wednesday during English class, we had a new guy come to our class, and when we introduced ourselves as missionaries and said that our main purpose is to teach others about Jesus Christ, he said he really respects that and was grateful to be in our class, and it was just such a tender mercy to have a friendly person say that to us! We also had a lady come up to us at a park the other day, and after taking a few pamphlets (she asked for them! super cool) I invited her to come to church on Sunday, but even though she said she can't because she has her own church to attend, she told us she was proud of what we're doing and wished us well. It's so nice when people say such nice things to us. Never underestimate the power of words and honest compliments!

Oh, a pretty funny thing during English- we asked if anyone had done their homework from the week before, and Stanisław (a non-member friend) pulls out a piece of paper with burnt edges, with "My Homework" and scribble written on it. It was so funny! So then my companion asked if she could keep the piece of paper, and now she's got it as a memoir! Hehehe

Yesterday we went to an American member couple's house in Sopot (a super pretty and posh city in our area) and we had two awesome other ladies (one Polish and one Russian) from our branch there as well and we had an awesome dinner together! It was so nice just getting to chat with them and it's so awesome that Sister Harker (the American member) is so willing to help out with strengthening our little branch here, and just be a good friend to the other members here. We got to learn a lot about each other and it was so nice to hear from Jadwiga and Irena's lives. It's crazy listening to all the stories from War and Communism times and it makes me so grateful that I grew up in such a peaceful country. I especially loved hearing from Jadwiga who told us of how she would play pranks on her late husband during communism time (I'll have to tell you her funny stories one day!), and it's so good to be acquainted with such strong people like her who still kept hope and had a sense of humour, even in such dire circumstances. Sister Harker also showed us a video from a couple years back, and it's got Jayden (Elder Zelezniak) doing the Haka in it hahah that was cool to see.

Well I feel like my Polish is slowly coming along! Yesterday at church, I went into Primary and translated (or tried!) for Sister Shaw (the American senior missionary who is also the Primary President in our branch, but doesn't speak Polish), and it was amazing how much I was able to say and understand! I made a lot of mistakes, but I'm getting better haha. I hope I get to do this translating in Primary more often! I also found myself understanding a lot more of conversations that I had with the members, so I'm excited to continue to make progress and get to know the members more in depth.

Well, know that I love you so much, and I'm excited to hear how things continue to progress at home!

Lots of love,

Siostra Grgich