One of the Coolest Things Happened

Elder McPherson and I singing after English class

My companion Sister Young and I awkwardly hugging photo ;)

The old town of Gdansk

This week we had some incredible experiences! I'll try and condense things because I don't have a lot of time- but first off- one of the coolest things happened! So last week Sister Young and I were walking to the nursing home to visit a former investigator and sing songs for her and just talk, so I had my guitar, and we cut through the mall to make our way over to her residence. In the mall, a security guard all of a sudden saw me with the guitar and said "Hey, play something!" and I was like "ehh.." haha then we ask who he was, and he just says "oh, Mormons, right?" and we say "yeah! have you met us before?" and he says "Yeah, but I'm Jewish" and then he asks to play my guitar and I say "No, it's mine" then he plays it anyway haha (it's all good, I really didn't mind) then he plays a Jewish song for us right there in the mall (it's in Yiddish! which is really cool, because it's similar to German) then he hands back the guitar and tells us to just wait for a second, then he gets on his phone and is talking to his daughter and asks her if she wants to meet with the Mormons, then he gets off the phone and tells us to take down her number and it's best to call in the evenings. Then he says he needs to go to work, and goes along his way, and Sister young and I are just left so confused but amazed at what just happened! So we eventually were able to set up to meet his daughter (who speaks incredible English by the way) and we got to visit with her and teach her about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, and a little bit about the Plan of Salvation- ah it was the coolest thing ever, and she was the sweetest, coolest girl! She also had a really cool dog, nicknamed "cow" (krowa, in Polish) haha it was one of the biggest but happiest-looking dogs I've ever seen. We can't wait to meet with her again. So it turns out, her family met with some Elders about 20 years ago- and they even remember one of the Elder's names! She had a photo with her and the Elders when she was a baby hehe so cute. So now we'll try and find out where this elder is now haha- we'll figure it out somehow! Yeah, so that was an amazing experience- that was no coincidence- God is activiely a part of all our lives and He wants to help us! I know that He loves us, and all of His children, all of the people we meet with and walk past- they are all His children and He loves us all more than we can comprehend. That was a great day to see the hand of the Lord in our lives (and in others'!).


Oh, later that day was pretty incredible too! We had gone around the old town and contacted some people on the streets, trying to talk to people who're interested in learning, when all of a sudden a couple of guys walk past us and one says "Siostry!" (meaning "Sisters"), and we trun around and they turn around, and we're like "Czy pan zna nas...?" (Do you know us?) and then we started talking and find out they're 2 return missionaries (Americans) and one served in Russia and the other in Poland (about 20 years ago), and they're just in Gdańsk for a couple of days. They've been in Poland for a little while (staying in Kraków) checking out things for work/business. So yeah, we had the whole conversation in Polish (they're both learning, but they both spoke so well!) and then they came to church yesterday which was really cool! Ah.. anyway, pretty amazing how people are put in our paths (or us, in theirs).


Well, a lot of other great things have happened this week, but I've got to go! So have a great week and be happy and I love you all so much!!!


Siostra Grgich <3

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

Kangaroos and Curiosity

A meerkat. Aren't they just so cute!?

An elephant and me

Me patting a donkey

Wallabies at the zoo!

Me at the kangaroo enclosure

Kangaroo chilling

Last week after emailing, we went to the zoo in Gdansk, hence all the photos! Of course we all went for the kangaroos ;) Sister Smith was super excited, I think it was her first time seeing them. And I was excited because I was able to lure one over with my accent and pat it through the fence :D We also had a pretty fun time looking at the elephants (one of them was totally dancing, moving its trunk and legs back and forth hehe) and the meerkats were pretty funny too! I've realised how grateful I am for animals- they make me so happy!


This past week we went out to a place called "Brzeżno" to find a former investigator family. After going to the house (no one was home unfortunately) we walked around the area trying to find people who might be interested in our message, when we found a man at a bench near the beach. He was polite and listened to us, took a pass-along card, said he didn't want to have lessons with the missionaries, and then we went seperate ways. Sister Smith wanted to go up to the shore for a quick breather so I stood nearby on the deck (I didn't want to get sand in my shoes) and the man we had previously spoken to came up to us. He saw on the card that it had a Book of Mormon, and he asked if we were affiliated with Mormons. I said well yes, we are Mormons! He then proceeded to ask more questions about us and what differences exist between us and the Catholic church etc. He was very friendly and we were able to teach him a quick lesson about the Restoration right there on the deck, and he agreed to take a Book of Mormon and said he'd be interested in coming to church! What was even more of a miracle after him coming up to us, is that another random lady came up to us having this conversation and started listening too! She unfortunately went away mid-conversation, but it was still a pretty cool experience to have 2 people come up to us and ask us about what we believe! It normally doesn't work that way haha (as much as that would be awesome!).


This week my companion and I decided to try something new- we both love to sing, and I play guitar, so we wanted to find a good way to use our talents in finding activities. There's a pedestrian tunnel (well-lit enough) with a good amount of traffic near our home. We had just eaten lunch and had small amount of time to spend before going out to a meeting with someone. So we decided to go to this pedestrian tunnel, sing primary songs and hand out pass-along cards. The acoustics were great and everyone was smiling at us :) We were able to get a few people to take cards, one lady even stopped to look up the website (mormon.org/pol) on her phone, and one man stopped to talk with us about our message of the Restoration. So far we've only tried this attempt of finding people once, and it was only for a short time, but in this upcoming week, we are hoping to try it with the Elders in our area, and with a 'free-table' where we put copies of the Book of Mormon, English class advertisements and brochures on the table for people to take for free (of course!). I'm hoping that this will help people be more open to come up to us (the power of music is an incredible thing!), and eventually lead to people taking the lessons.


This week we were able to visit a family member of my friend Stan who lives in Germany. He gave me the contact info for his sister-in-law who lives a half-hour busride south of central Gdansk, and so I gave her a call and she invited us over for dinner! So we went there yesterday and got fed a really wonderful, traditional Polish meal. We were able to speak a bit about our beliefs and message, and encouraged them to read the Book of Mormon for themselves to find out if our message is true. Unfortunately the parents weren't interested, but the daughter gladly took a Book of Mormon and said she read it. We were so impressed by the family's hopsitality and kindess, and although none of them are ready/willing to take the lessons from us at this point in time, it was a great learning experience for me, in knowing how precious and important member-referrals are. People are generally more open to listening to the missionaries when they have a friend or family-member in the church. (Of course that's not always the case, but statistically speaking, there is a lot more success that comes through referrals than from finding from the missionaries' own efforts). So just remember- when the missionaries ask you for referrals, know that they're praying for you to find friends/family with whom you can share the gospel, and know that they will treat those referrals with care!


Today we're thinking of going on a hike after emailing (the weather's getting much warmer, and the tourists have been flocking into Gdansk!) so I'll let you know how that goes next week if we end up actually going! This week we'll also be having Zone Conference, so my companion and I are very excited to be going to Poznan for that. Hope you all have a wonderful week :) Love you so much!
Sister Grgich

Science, Painting and Translating

Sister Herrera and I at the train station

Riding a science bike at the museum

Teaching Somchit (Thai member) basic English

The National Stadium in Warsaw- next to a bridge, and right around the corner from the Copernicus Science Centre/Musuem

Building a dome at the museum (it has an inflatable dome inside it, and you build the blocks around it then deflate it and see if it'll stand)

This week we had exchanges! So our p-day was on Tuesday instead of Monday because of the Easter Long Weekend, so after p-day we took Sister Johnston to the station and sent her off to Łódż, and then Sister Herrera swapped her place. So I got to be with Sister Herrera until Thursday. She's super cool, a convert to the church (she was Catholic and then converted to Judaism before meeting some of our missionaries), speaks a bit of Spanish and is super awesome! We were able to teach a recent convert and find some potential people to teach. We spoke to a lot of people and invited them to church- one man even rang us back and told us he was interested in learning more, so that was exciting! I was a little bit sick still, but we were able to get a lot done and learn from each other, and I was so grateful for Sister Herrera's enthusiasm! She's only in her first transfer, so I'm sure we'll be able to work with each other again in the field.


This week we also had our "culture night/day" for the transfer. Our district decided to go to a science museum here in Warsaw, it's called the "Copernicus Centre" or something like that- it's basically just got a lot of fun sciency stuff to play around with. I was grateful that they had everything in Polish AND English haha because you just have to walk around the different exhibits and set ups and figure out what to do with it all. It was great fun, and the weather that day was incredible- 20 Celcius, just glorious! Later we went to the chapel, had some food and watched a movie about Joseph Smith before heading home.


I wish I had taken some photos of this but oh well... on Saturday we helped out with painting and cleaning in our chapel with other branch members. The walls all have a lot of scuff marks, so we were able to clean a lot and get the Primary room repainted. They'll probably continue to paint different rooms as time goes by- it looks good and it was a lot of fun spending time with the members helping out. And we had Pizza afterwards so I guess that was a bonus too ;)


Yesterday at church I translated into English for the American members in our branch- it was pretty difficult, so luckily I had Kaja (an investigator) help me with it. For one of the talks she basically did all of the translating herself hahah poor thing. I did however translate in Relief Society by myself, and I think I did an ok job if I do say so myself ;) I'm slowly getting more comfortable with understanding Polish- it's an interesting language so you have to constantly be willing to study and improve! After church we went to the city centre to talk to people about the gospel, and we ended speaking to a man from Barcelona. That was pretty cool, although I didn't attempt to speak much Spanish because that language is pushed WAY back in some dusty corner of my brain now :p He said he's come to church in a couple of weeks, so we're hoping to see him there soon! We were also able to invite many others to come to church and see what it's like for themselves- hopefully they'll come :)


Well this morning was a little bit crazy with the weather, but the sun's already coming out, so I'm not sure what we'll do but hopefully we'll spend some time with Elder Hardy before he goes home (this is his last p-day before going home) and I'm gonna try to send off some letters too. I Hope you have a wonderful week, love Sister Grgich <3

Cool Experiences

This week we had a lot of cool experiences :) After p-day last week, we went to a newly-wed member-couple's home and had a really good time talking about their conversion stories and then about how we can work together to strengthen the branch in Gdansk. It was super insightful and we all of have a lot of good ideas that we are now trying to put in use. We ate mandarins while we spoke, so I was inspired, and this week I bought a lot of fruit because I remembered how much I love fruit! Unfortunately they don't really have mangos here, but I bought some grapes and blueberries so I'm happy!


On Tuesday we got to help out at a school and teach a couple of different classes about our different cultures (it was so they could learn English and stuff), so I was happy to speak about my country, only 1 day after Australia Day :) Later that day, we visited a lady we had found tracting a week or so earlier, and she and her husband were home and totally let us in to talk! It was a really cool experience- almost as if they had known we were coming (we didn't tell them we were, because we didn't have their phone number or anything) so we were so glad they were both home and able to talk at the time we happened to stop by. We were able to teach them all about the restoration of the gospel of Christ and left them with a copy of the Book of Mormon (Księga Mormona) and we just had an overall great experience with teaching them and listening to them. By the end of the lesson we were able to get their number this time (so we can teach them more) and then right before we left, they even showed us a fish that they had in a bucket (it was really gross and had eyes and its mouth was totally flopping around) so we left cracking up and they invited us over again to have dinner some time (I hope it's not gonna be that fish haha!). The next day we were able to meet with a member from the branch Jadwiga (we try to visit her as often as possible) and had a great time talking with her (our Polish babcia/grandma).

The next day after studies, we decided to go as a district to the edge of the main walkway (Ulica Długa) and set up a whiteboard (saying something like "What do the following things mean to Mormons?- baptism, restoration of the gospel, God's plan etc.) and a table with church materials so we could grab people's attention and invite them to learn about the gospel. We all ended up talking to different people on the street, and even got a couple of phone numbers to stay in contact and hopefully talk to these people some more. I was able to talk to a lady for a little while (Elder Jackson had approached her, but I came over to help with the Polish because this is his 1st transfer) and we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon and how Christ's church has indeed been restored and exists on the earth today. She had clearly been thinking about religious matters, because she was talking (and listening) with a lot of interest and emotion, and brought up some very interesting points about organised religion, and why family is so important. She unfortunately had to go to catch a bus, but she was so smiley and happy and even gave me a hug before she left for her bus :D It was a really cool experience, to have spoken to someone about something so dear to me, and then have her be open and leave happy and smiling. Tender mercy!

Well there were many other great experiences that happened this week (for example, finding more people to teach, planning for our Zone Training this week) but I'm running out of time, so I'll talk to you next week and I hope you have a great trip up to QLD!

All my love,

Siostra Sonya Grgich

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

My companion and I, and then our little Gdansk district at the beach on the Baltic Sea playing beach volleyball last Monday

Me and my super little guitar (bought it last week and it's the bestest travel guitar!) out on our balcony

My companion and I walking around Gdansk on our way to email home!

Gdansk Streetlight