Week 6

Well another week down, I can't believe I have only been in Lublin for a week and a half!!! We have done so much! Well here are the things I made note of in the week:

On Wednesday we had exchanges :D I went up to Warsaw to be with Elders Garrett, Brown and Tanner. Elder Mathews came down here. Yes, they do have a 4 person companionship up there....very weird. It was a fun exchange, when I got to warsaw Elder Garrett was waiting for me and picked me up. It was great to talk to someone from my MTC group again, especially Elder Garrett. We went to the Chapel and taught English, me and and Elder Garrett had to teach the beginning class by ourselves... there was only one guy... We did pretty well I thought :D he seemed to learn some stuff, and we were able to read a scripture at the end so that was awesome. After that we went back to their apartment for the night. It was fun being with them :D In the morning after studies I went with Elder Tanner, we were headed to the outside parts of warsaw to meet with an inactive member. It took a while to get there, but eventually we found it. He was a way cool guy, and totally wants to come back to church. He has noticed his life not go as well since he stopped going to church. It is hard though because it is pretty far away and he is pretty busy. He has a daughter who was there while we met, she was funny. Later after we got back into the main part of Warsaw we had lunch at Elder Tanners favorite Milk Bar. My first, it is essentially a place where they have home cooked stuff, you pick what you want, they put on a plate and then you pay for it and eat it. It was really good. Elder Tanner is way awesome! He is a great guy, and missionary. After eating we headed to the old chapel (the church still leases it, they use it for meeting with investigators) to teach a recent convert. He is from Mexico and is very smart, he had a way cool conversion story and has a lot of great insights into the Gospel, it was a privilage being able to talk with and meet him. We headed to the Dworzec after that, I had a train to catch. I had a great time up in Warsaw on the exchange :D It is so nice seeing people accept the Gospel and then see how much their lives improve because of it!!!

I have also noticed my laguage skills coming along, I can understand parts of what people say and I can say a lot, and a lot more when no one is around me that speaks english. I continue to learn words everyday and read tons of signs.

We had a meeting with an investigator named Nina this week too. We go over to her apartment and meet with here and some friends. She has some very tainted views of the church, her Polish roommates absolutely hate us for some reason, they are scared to be in the same room with us (I may have wrote about this last week...) Everytime we meet with Nina we try to teach Gospel topics but she usually steers the conversation very far from it. She has been getting better though. But still is not very open, I think she just likes talking to us in English... We will see how the next meeting goes, but if she is not willing to listen and learn then we may have to discontinue meeting with her.

We have done TONS AND TONS of area book work this week.... For anyone who doesn't know, an area book is where all the records of investigators are kept. We went through ALL the old records and read them all.... and sorted them. We split the ones that were pretty open to the church but needed time from the ones who won't answer when we call, or have told us never to call them again... :( We have done sooooo much area book work, this next week we will be working on calling all the people we have gone through, hopefully someone will be ready to be taught the Gospel :D

On Saturday it was Raining!!!! Not Snowing!!!!! It is so much warmer now!!! I love it, it is between 40-50 each day! All the snow is melting. I have found out Grass actually does exist here. I am so happy it is getting warmer, and the sun is Shining :D It helps me be happy :D We also went to the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Saturday. We have an investigator who keeps inviting us. Probably last time though, they think they are trying to convert us...

Then later on Saturday we had a meeting set up with a member, but she never showed up x_x ugh... so we went home and did........MORE AREA BOOK WORK!!!! Surprise right.... We finished sorting and started calling a few. Most people just don't answer :(

On Sunday we had church. It is usually pretty short because we only have 1 speaker each week, and then sunday school or priesthood/relief society. Not both each week, because the Branch is still small. We also almost ran out of Sacrament cups! We need more...we used everyone one this week and I had to pass on the water...lol whew...

After church we had a meeting with the investigator who is a Seventh Day Adventist. He brought a small book of something or other with scriptures in it to try and prove our church wrong? We weren't exactly bashing, it was a calm discussion but we showed him clarification scriptures for all the ones he presented from his book. We still think he is just trying to convert us... We may have to stop meeting with him if he isn't progressing soon.

Monday we did lots of Financial stuff again, I would not like being Branch President just because of all the extra financial stuff you would have to do....yikes.... We also had a kind of thing similar to Family Home Evening but for anyone in the Branch who wants to come, it went fine.

Today we had a meeting with Mariusz, we talked to him about the Word of Wisdom and he was fine with it and has been living it since starting talking with us again :D We also were able to set a Baptismal Date!!!! My first one!!!! April 24, 2010!!! It is kinda far away but hopefully he will stick to it! He is a really awesome guy in his 20s I think. Would be a great member here in Lublin :D I am really excited for him!!!

Well thanks a ton for reading :D I will do my best to keep updating each week :D

-Starszy Taylor