Okay so first off, some background on our two investigators.
Stanisław: Met the church somehow about 20 years ago as he was looking for things he realized needed to be in the true church. Upon his searching he stumbled across our church. He then continued to read just about anything about our church that he could get his hands on; he can read English but doesn’t speak it. He has known the church is true for a very long time now, but has been waiting on his wife, Wiesława, to come to the same realization before he gets baptized. He has recently decided that he has waited far too long and started meeting with the missionaries just before I came to the Office. Then Holidays hit and we didn’t meet with them for a couple weeks. He told us that he still wants to get baptized along with his wife, and he will make sure she is ready for the missionary lessons before we actually start meeting again in the New Year. He also told us that he would very much like to be able to go to the temple with her on the next Temple trip at the beginning of March to do Baptisms for the Dead there, which is really cool.
Wiesława: She is married to Stanisław and was born Catholic (like pretty much everyone else in the country) She recognized that there were some things missing from the Catholic church and eventually converted to the Green Witnesses (Pentecostal). All of their children are very against them joining the church. She reads a lot of the church material with her husband and now also feels that our church is the true church and is ready to get baptized now. She worries a lot and asks a lot of questions about what will happen to people who don’t accept the gospel here on earth.
So now for the story part.
Almost 2 weeks ago we had a meeting set up with Stanisław and Wiesława. We went into the meeting with the goal to get them to pretty much teach us the Restoration through us asking questions. We got to the meeting and were very pleased to see that they both had come (Wiesława had been very reluctant to meet with missionaries before this). We sat down and got to know them a little bit better and then Elder Darowski asked Stanisław the question, “So how did you meet the church?” He then jumped right into a 20 summary of why this church must be true and that the Restoration had to occur, based entirely on reasoning and logic! We were completely shocked. We were kind of just expecting something like “I was reading on the internet one day and discovered this church and then wanted to know more” or something to that effect. We knew he was ready, and that he knew a lot, but he still pretty much blew us away on that one. During his summary Wiesława had just been sitting there listening, so we were a little worried that perhaps she wasn’t as ready and was just here because she knew that her husband wanted her there. Until she started talking about deep church history along with him, and clarifying things he said. One of the things they brought up was how they noticed that the probable reasoning behind Christ being so blunt about all the other churches being false was because at the time he was talking to a 14 year old boy, you kind of have to be blunt and say it very plainly. I personally had never thought about that, but it makes total sense. Anyways, this just shows how carefully they have studied not only the Book of Mormon, but also Doctrine and Covenants! Which is amazing.
As we were talking about that stuff, a member (her name is Oksana) knocked on the door and peeked her head in saying “Czy mogę?” which means something like “May I?” so we nodded and she came in, we thought maybe she had forgotten something in the room, but then she sat down in a chair on the other side. I told her that she was welcome to join us if she would like. She said that she would love to; she hadn’t been on a lesson with the missionaries since her baptism about a year and a half ago. She launched right into a bit of her conversion story and her history, testifying along the way. It was amazing, especially for never having been on a lesson before and also not having had missionaries explain before what she should do to help. It ends up that she was born catholic as well and then eventually joined the Green Witnesses (Pentecostals)!!! Just like Wiesława! It was really cool to see the effect that had on her. We ended the lesson on that high note and had Wiesława pray at the end, we are focusing really hard on having investigators pray on the first lesson, and since it was one of her first (not sure if she did actually ever meet with the missionaries before) we were excited when she did. We set up with them for the same time next week and parted ways feeling very excited. Oksana later told us that she had a very strong impression that she needed to be in there and tell her story and that she felt almost pulled to the room we were in.
Our next meeting with them was also very good, we went over the Plan of Salvation which was really good because even though they both already knew it, we were really only meeting so that they can actually have all the lessons from missionaries before being baptized. Wiesława also told us that she would like to hear it from the missionaries and how we explain it rather than having them teach us this time. So we went through a great Plan of Salvation (it was the most balanced lesson, as far as taking turns teaching goes, between us missionaries). After we finished with the Plan of Salvation and answered questions they had about that, they asked us some questions about cultural stuff in the church, like do we still celebrate things like New Years and Christmas, we told them something along the lines of “Of course, but we skip some parts like drinking alcohol and the more reckless parts of some parties.” Then they asked some questions about Missionaries and who is expected to go on missions and how it is decided where we will go. So when you ask a missionary about how it is decided where we go, you never get a short answer. We explained that we submit information about ourselves and then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve prays about where we should serve and then we get a letter telling us. They were surprised to hear that I took 5 years of Japanese and didn’t go to Japan. I simply told them that I am where I need to be and while they do ask about languages you know, it doesn’t play a very large part in where you will serve. Simply put they now know how it is decided, and who decides. At the end of the lesson we asked them if they would like to set a specific date to be baptized and told them that the Temple trip they want to go on will start on the 28th of February so a good date would be the 19th of Feb. They thought about it and decided that that was good. So unless something happens and they move it closer or further away, the Office Elders will be having 2 baptisms at the end of February! Very exciting for them and for us.
Well, I hope that everyone is doing well. I have been pretty busy lately getting things formatted and able to fit in the new Mission Newsletter that will be going out by mail to all the missionaries. We are keeping busy here in the Office and still somehow find the time to get out and teach occasionally
Thanks for reading this week!
-Starszy Taylor
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Week 50
Huh it just occurred to me that I seem to have missed a week in my labeling of blog posts… seeing as this week is my 1 year in the Country mark and it will be post 51…oh well
And just so everyone knows I posted another post underneath this one labeled week 49. I had it typed up and everything last week but somehow forgot to actually post it… so there it is.
As for this past week, it was yet another busy week of office work and since we are still catching up and getting things set here we didn’t get a whole lot of actual missionary work done. As for some of the many projects I worked on this week, as well as all my other day to day tasks, here is a short explanation
So last week I was working on getting my computer all up and running nicely again after just having put Windows 7 on it. This week I was able to successfully put Windows 7 on two more of the computers here in the Office. Elder Darowski’s computer was first after mine because when he saw how cool Windows 7 was he kept pestering me to upgrade his next, which went a lot smoother than my installation because I had solutions for all of the hiccups already from the experience with my computer. Next was Sister Richards, which I upgraded last night, and that one had some new bugs and fun stuff to fix but eventually I got around it all and got the operating system loaded and everything. Then when I went to use the church provided program to install Microsoft Office I very quickly discovered that it wasn’t working…so I called my good friends at the Global Service Desk and asked them what was up. Of course it had nothing to do with my end; they had recently taken the church servers down to fix some apparently major problems they were having… And I also had a nice little issue with one of the printers… bugger just would not install correctly and I spent over an hour searching for the dang driver. Eventually found one that would suffice and now both of her printers work again
I was also assigned recently to design the format for the new mission newsletter, which is coming along nicely. I also had to design a new mission header thing for documents and such and I think it is kind of cool, I have had to edit and revise it a couple times because people keep changing their minds of what they like and what they want… oh well. I am still working with both President Nielson and Sister Nielson to get the newsletter format to work just right for what they want.
I also submitted our monthly orders this week and had to do a lot of cleaning in the supply room to figure out what we actually need and what we had tons of. And now as a result of that, the mission supply room is clean now and almost organized how I want it.
I was also giving the special assignment recently from President to learn more about something called “Mifi”. I have thus discovered how much I have missed since being on my mission lol… Mifi is a device that can take a 3G signal and convert it into a broadcasting Wi-Fi signal!!! For those of you who are wondering why that is so cool let me explain. Normal internet can be broadcasted through what we call a wireless router so that things like iTouches and laptops can get an internet signal wirelessly. A couple years ago when the iPhone first came out a new system called 3G was also released, it is essentially a connection to the internet through the cellular system so that things like smart phones can get internet signals. Now the question, why would anyone want a 3G signal to suddenly be a Wi-Fi signal? One of the main reasons is the new iPad, which has 2 versions, one that has a 3G receiver built in and one that doesn’t. The one that doesn’t have it built in can only get internet through a Wi-Fi signal. So to solve this problem people use this device, Mifi, to put a 3G network enabled SIM card in so they can then broadcast a Wi-Fi signal so they can still have internet on the go on the iPad. It turns out the internet is generally faster as well, and there are some apps like Skype that won’t let you run them if you are connected to a 3G signal but will if you are hooked up through Wi-Fi. So President asked me to find out about the Mifi and see if he can get one to use with his iPad, we will be buying one this week
Those are some of the big things that I did this week
Some of the other things that have been done/ worked on in the past couple weeks are listed here
• Updated the mission directory
• Cleaned up and improved phone directory
• Losing track of time in Office
• Working on buying new phones for the Office
• Working on getting some new comps and printer
More to come next week, unless I have enough pictures to post and if you didn’t already know I post some a little while ago
http://picasaweb.google.com/football80/ChristmasToTheNewYear#
Until next time :D
-Starszy Taylor
And just so everyone knows I posted another post underneath this one labeled week 49. I had it typed up and everything last week but somehow forgot to actually post it… so there it is.
As for this past week, it was yet another busy week of office work and since we are still catching up and getting things set here we didn’t get a whole lot of actual missionary work done. As for some of the many projects I worked on this week, as well as all my other day to day tasks, here is a short explanation
So last week I was working on getting my computer all up and running nicely again after just having put Windows 7 on it. This week I was able to successfully put Windows 7 on two more of the computers here in the Office. Elder Darowski’s computer was first after mine because when he saw how cool Windows 7 was he kept pestering me to upgrade his next, which went a lot smoother than my installation because I had solutions for all of the hiccups already from the experience with my computer. Next was Sister Richards, which I upgraded last night, and that one had some new bugs and fun stuff to fix but eventually I got around it all and got the operating system loaded and everything. Then when I went to use the church provided program to install Microsoft Office I very quickly discovered that it wasn’t working…so I called my good friends at the Global Service Desk and asked them what was up. Of course it had nothing to do with my end; they had recently taken the church servers down to fix some apparently major problems they were having… And I also had a nice little issue with one of the printers… bugger just would not install correctly and I spent over an hour searching for the dang driver. Eventually found one that would suffice and now both of her printers work again
I was also assigned recently to design the format for the new mission newsletter, which is coming along nicely. I also had to design a new mission header thing for documents and such and I think it is kind of cool, I have had to edit and revise it a couple times because people keep changing their minds of what they like and what they want… oh well. I am still working with both President Nielson and Sister Nielson to get the newsletter format to work just right for what they want.
I also submitted our monthly orders this week and had to do a lot of cleaning in the supply room to figure out what we actually need and what we had tons of. And now as a result of that, the mission supply room is clean now and almost organized how I want it.
I was also giving the special assignment recently from President to learn more about something called “Mifi”. I have thus discovered how much I have missed since being on my mission lol… Mifi is a device that can take a 3G signal and convert it into a broadcasting Wi-Fi signal!!! For those of you who are wondering why that is so cool let me explain. Normal internet can be broadcasted through what we call a wireless router so that things like iTouches and laptops can get an internet signal wirelessly. A couple years ago when the iPhone first came out a new system called 3G was also released, it is essentially a connection to the internet through the cellular system so that things like smart phones can get internet signals. Now the question, why would anyone want a 3G signal to suddenly be a Wi-Fi signal? One of the main reasons is the new iPad, which has 2 versions, one that has a 3G receiver built in and one that doesn’t. The one that doesn’t have it built in can only get internet through a Wi-Fi signal. So to solve this problem people use this device, Mifi, to put a 3G network enabled SIM card in so they can then broadcast a Wi-Fi signal so they can still have internet on the go on the iPad. It turns out the internet is generally faster as well, and there are some apps like Skype that won’t let you run them if you are connected to a 3G signal but will if you are hooked up through Wi-Fi. So President asked me to find out about the Mifi and see if he can get one to use with his iPad, we will be buying one this week
Those are some of the big things that I did this week
Some of the other things that have been done/ worked on in the past couple weeks are listed here
• Updated the mission directory
• Cleaned up and improved phone directory
• Losing track of time in Office
• Working on buying new phones for the Office
• Working on getting some new comps and printer
More to come next week, unless I have enough pictures to post and if you didn’t already know I post some a little while ago
http://picasaweb.google.com/football80/ChristmasToTheNewYear#
Until next time :D
-Starszy Taylor
Week 49
Okay so I still haven't gotten around to posting those pictures but I should be posting them sometime this week. I have been really busy doing a lot of other stuff in the week and I figured that today I would just write a bunch of the stuff I have done here in the Office :D (Mostly in the past 2 weeks...time is blur here)(And there is no inherant order here either...just as I remembered them)
When I first got this computer it was a mess, and because I am weird...my brain is only as clean as my computer files are...so I have been itching to format this computer and then we suddently got in the mail and installation disk from the church for Windows 7 :D The very next thing I did was ask president if it was okay for me to put windows 7 on my computer he said it was fine and so I backed up any important files and wiped the whole hardrive!!! :D That was the easy part lol. I then proceeded to instal Windows 7 from the CD supplied by the church. The first couple times it got stuck at installing the actual Operating System image... I let it run all night thinking maybe it just took a long time... the day after I learned it only takes about 30 mins lol. So I finally got the Operating System installed and as it was trying to instal all the church programs it got stuck again...so I just figured I could instal those on my own. Which wasn't too much of an issue until I got to Microsoft Office...which needs an activation key... After a couple calls to the Global Service Desk I got it all running and everything was great :D
The way the internet was set up here in the office we had to use some dumb program called Odyssey in order to view and connect to the signal here. Which was fine and didn't cause too many problems...still made no sense to me and I couldn't figure out why it had to be that way. After I had installed Windows 7 on my computer I called Global Service Desk to find out why odyssey wasn't working nicely on Windows 7. Turns out that even if I had been even better at computers than I already am (I'm working on Humility okay...) I still wouldn't have been able to fix it because Odyssey simply isn't compatible with Windows 7... And then I very quickly learned that there is this other way the router can be set up that would let us access the Wifi (LDSAccess) simply using Windows built in interface to connect. When I heard about that I just about flipped out and started asking myself why on earth it was ever set up any other way... The tech guy on the phone agreed with me fully :) we then spent the next 3.5 hours working on rescripting the firewall and setting up the router to broadcast the new network. I also had to move my whole computer to the other room where the router box is due to some very strange ways Polish people design buildings... and I wouldn't be able to unplug the router box in there without going to the floor above to do something...and we don't have a key to there...ya no sense...anyways...I moved my computer :) I have pictures. After lots of working on it we finally got it all working and set up how Salt Lake thought we had it set up (Don't know why it was the other way to begin with...) So now our internet works a lot faster, we have less problems, all computer will be able to connect now when I put Windows 7 on them and the kicker! I was able to finally hook up President's iPad to our wifi here at the office :D He was pretty much ecstatic when I told him I would be able to do that and it scored me major tech points in the office :D So now he officially asks me about all things technical for the most part :)
I have a lot more things to write about but am now out of time for today. I will try and write some things each week about what I did in the Office recently and hopefully we will find time to meet with some investigators soon...it is tough in the office and was impossible over the Holidays... So hopefully soon, but Elder Darowski and I are really working hard to kick this Office into shape since it was recently kind of neglected so that missionary work could thrive more for the office...which is great and all...but the Office kind of needs to work or the whole mission kind of suffers. So we are on a bit of clean up at the moment...
Until next week! Have a Great New Year!!!
-Starszy Taylor
P.S. I posted this a week late...I actaully typed this last week just didn't click the post button...lol
When I first got this computer it was a mess, and because I am weird...my brain is only as clean as my computer files are...so I have been itching to format this computer and then we suddently got in the mail and installation disk from the church for Windows 7 :D The very next thing I did was ask president if it was okay for me to put windows 7 on my computer he said it was fine and so I backed up any important files and wiped the whole hardrive!!! :D That was the easy part lol. I then proceeded to instal Windows 7 from the CD supplied by the church. The first couple times it got stuck at installing the actual Operating System image... I let it run all night thinking maybe it just took a long time... the day after I learned it only takes about 30 mins lol. So I finally got the Operating System installed and as it was trying to instal all the church programs it got stuck again...so I just figured I could instal those on my own. Which wasn't too much of an issue until I got to Microsoft Office...which needs an activation key... After a couple calls to the Global Service Desk I got it all running and everything was great :D
The way the internet was set up here in the office we had to use some dumb program called Odyssey in order to view and connect to the signal here. Which was fine and didn't cause too many problems...still made no sense to me and I couldn't figure out why it had to be that way. After I had installed Windows 7 on my computer I called Global Service Desk to find out why odyssey wasn't working nicely on Windows 7. Turns out that even if I had been even better at computers than I already am (I'm working on Humility okay...) I still wouldn't have been able to fix it because Odyssey simply isn't compatible with Windows 7... And then I very quickly learned that there is this other way the router can be set up that would let us access the Wifi (LDSAccess) simply using Windows built in interface to connect. When I heard about that I just about flipped out and started asking myself why on earth it was ever set up any other way... The tech guy on the phone agreed with me fully :) we then spent the next 3.5 hours working on rescripting the firewall and setting up the router to broadcast the new network. I also had to move my whole computer to the other room where the router box is due to some very strange ways Polish people design buildings... and I wouldn't be able to unplug the router box in there without going to the floor above to do something...and we don't have a key to there...ya no sense...anyways...I moved my computer :) I have pictures. After lots of working on it we finally got it all working and set up how Salt Lake thought we had it set up (Don't know why it was the other way to begin with...) So now our internet works a lot faster, we have less problems, all computer will be able to connect now when I put Windows 7 on them and the kicker! I was able to finally hook up President's iPad to our wifi here at the office :D He was pretty much ecstatic when I told him I would be able to do that and it scored me major tech points in the office :D So now he officially asks me about all things technical for the most part :)
I have a lot more things to write about but am now out of time for today. I will try and write some things each week about what I did in the Office recently and hopefully we will find time to meet with some investigators soon...it is tough in the office and was impossible over the Holidays... So hopefully soon, but Elder Darowski and I are really working hard to kick this Office into shape since it was recently kind of neglected so that missionary work could thrive more for the office...which is great and all...but the Office kind of needs to work or the whole mission kind of suffers. So we are on a bit of clean up at the moment...
Until next week! Have a Great New Year!!!
-Starszy Taylor
P.S. I posted this a week late...I actaully typed this last week just didn't click the post button...lol
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Week 48
Well... it has been a crazy flurry of business in the Office here especially over the holiday weekends. And unfortunately I am totally exhausted right now because we have just spent most of the day driving to and from Białystok to drop off baggage for an Elder out there. So i'm pretty beat.
Christmas was great, especially being able to talk to my family at home :D and between Wegilia (Christmas Eve Dinner) and all the food we ate on Christmas I was absolutely stuffed...as in I ate more food than I ever want to see again. And of course, I have pictures that I should hopefully be posting soon, since last week should have been blog but got offset because it was Christmas Day. So I have a bunch of pictures that need to be uploaded now, including a couple movies from what I recorded last night for Sylwester (New Year's Eve) The movies really say it all...it was quite an event, nothing like I have ever seen before.
We are staying busy here in the Office, I am still helping everyone out with their computer problems and all is well :) It was really sad to say goodbye to the last group of departing missionaries because I have so many friends in that group. Our Mission is sooooo young right now. About 52% of our whole mission is at about 4 months or less in the Country and about 90% at about a year. It is insane. There are only 6 Elders in the whole mission that have been here longer than my group! Crazy huh. Well, I gotta get to uploading those pictures and also to fixing my computer, I am installing Windows 7 on it, but the instal disc is scratched...so I have some things I have to fix...of course :)
Love you all and have a Wonderful New Year!!! Życzę wam szczęśliwego nowego roku!
-Starszy Taylor
Christmas was great, especially being able to talk to my family at home :D and between Wegilia (Christmas Eve Dinner) and all the food we ate on Christmas I was absolutely stuffed...as in I ate more food than I ever want to see again. And of course, I have pictures that I should hopefully be posting soon, since last week should have been blog but got offset because it was Christmas Day. So I have a bunch of pictures that need to be uploaded now, including a couple movies from what I recorded last night for Sylwester (New Year's Eve) The movies really say it all...it was quite an event, nothing like I have ever seen before.
We are staying busy here in the Office, I am still helping everyone out with their computer problems and all is well :) It was really sad to say goodbye to the last group of departing missionaries because I have so many friends in that group. Our Mission is sooooo young right now. About 52% of our whole mission is at about 4 months or less in the Country and about 90% at about a year. It is insane. There are only 6 Elders in the whole mission that have been here longer than my group! Crazy huh. Well, I gotta get to uploading those pictures and also to fixing my computer, I am installing Windows 7 on it, but the instal disc is scratched...so I have some things I have to fix...of course :)
Love you all and have a Wonderful New Year!!! Życzę wam szczęśliwego nowego roku!
-Starszy Taylor
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