Eating Caterpillars

Sister Johnston and I at Park Łazienki last p-day (it's a massive, fancy park in Warsaw)

Me on the tram on the way to Zone Conference

Me with Sister Bąk at the chapel

4 of the 6 Commonwealth missionaries! (2 from Canada and 2 from Australia) There's another 2 missionaries from the UK but they weren't in this photo

Sister Johnston and I at Dennis' house

Us with Dennis and his friends

A plate of caterpillars!

This week we had a few exciting things going on! Monday after emailing we went to a famous park in Warsaw called the Łazienki Park. We saw a lot of interesting animals like peacocks, squirrels, ducks and humans ;) It was really nice walking around and talking with the other missionaries. The sun was also shining and it was just a nice relaxing time.

On Thursday, my companion and I went to the government office to get some legal work done with my residence permit- we had to wait a really long time :/ But now everything's all done and dusted so in a few weeks I should get my new card and not have to worry about any legal work for the rest of my stay here. It was pretty cool while we were waiting, we were doing some of our morning studies, and at one stage we were reading aloud to each other from the Missionary Handbook (in English) and a lady next to us started speaking to us and saying how she wants to learn English. We ended up speaking for a while, she's actually from the Ukraine, lived in Germany for a while, and is now nannying here in Poland. So we were swapping from speaking Polish, English and then settled for a while on German (it was her more comfortable of the 3 languages) it was so fun! Haha we invited her to come to our Enlgish class and we're hoping that we'll get to see her again soon. I always love having someone to speak German with :D And I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for Ukrainians after living with one for a year :) Then later that day, we were contacting people on the street, inviting them to learn about the church, and who did I find?- A German girl! Hehe, we started talking in Polish and she cuts us off and says "I don't speak Polish" and we said "Oh where are you from?" and she says "Germany" and I just about freak out ;) We spoke for a bit in German but swapped back to English so my companion could understand, but then she said she was in a rush to go anyway, so we gave her a pass-along card and we hope she'll look at the website and give us a call.

Oh, also, on Tuesday we finally got our washing machine fixed. It had been broken for 4 weeks and we'd been having to go to a laundromat (it was getting expensive :/), but finally someone came and fixed a broken part, and now we have a fully-functional washing machine :) I'll never take one of those for granted again! I also shared a Tim-Tam with the handyman and showed him my kangaroo fur scripture case, so that was fun haha.

On Wednesday we had a Zone Conference for missionaries at the Warsaw 1 meetinghouse. It was nice to see a lot of the missionaries and catch up. We also had good food and a lot of inspired words, aimed at helping us be better missionaries and people in general. I particularly enjoyed learning about how we all must strive to be perfect, but we shouldn't expect that that's going to happen in this life. We spoke about the blessings of obedience and we all committed ourselves to being better at specific things in regards to the missionary work. My companion and I are both working hard and we see the blessings every day from our efforts. I love being a part of this work :)

On Friday we were invited to go to an African member's house for dinner and a lesson. His name is Dennis and he's on of the most enthusiastic and happy people I've ever met! He made us fufu (not sure if that's how to spell it) and he had 2 other Christian friends there. He fried up some caterpillars and I mustered up the courage to eat just one haha. He also told us that he had crocodile and monkey meat, but he was just kidding! We all believed him though for a while hahah. It was nice to spend time with him and his friends, we all spoke about how beautiful it is to have the knowledge that we are all brothers and sisters- one big family and we need to look out for each other. I love multiculturalism- there's so much we can learn from one another :)

On Saturday we had a YSA girl Róża help us make calls to former investigators, and we were able to set up a meeting with someone for tomorrow. We've been doing a lot of work with trying to find former investigators and less-active members to see if there is anything we can do as missionaries to help them progress in the gospel. So far, we've had good contact with a lot of people, some of whom are interested in learning further, so we're excited to teach them and help them. Even though we don't always know what will come out of our efforts, we know that we have to give people the opportunity to accept what we teach, and then it's really up to them to accept the blessings that God is waiting and willing to pour out on them.

Love you so much, have a wonderful week!

Siostra Grgich