Week of a million referals (Week 28)

Hello!!!

I'm staying another week in Kraków, this is honestly a little bit annoying, the whole not knowing what is going to happen/how long I will be here. I'm doing okay though, I love being in Krakow!

Chalk Talk

I'll get right into it, so we have been spending a lot of time in this area called Nowa Huta. Its pretty cool mostly because there are a ton of people who live there, it is super densely packed communist housing. Its pretty fun because there is this Żabka (convenience store) that we go to pretty much every time we are there. We are pretty good friends with the kids who work there. They are like our age and are straight Hoolis (short for Hooligan, which is the word poles use for Hoodlums). Anyways, we were walking by one day and they had all these Pallets in front of the store with all their weekly supplies. We offered to help them take it in and so we spent like 15 minutes helping them carry it in, it was actually really cool because while we were helping like 5 different people asked us about our church and why we were here as missionaries.

Check out the sign behind me.  Ronald Reagan Plaza.  Cool.

We also went to this really cool Church in Nowa Huta, it was a little strange because there was an old lady praying over the PA system the whole time. It was really funny too because as we walked around the outside we saw this window at the base of the building and we could see into the basement. They totally had a boxing gym underneath this cathedral. I wish I could have taken a picture but my camera was dead. Catholics know what's up.

We have been working with a somewhat less active member named Klaudia, she is super cool. She hasn't come to church in a while, but we have gotten her to come the past couple of weeks, and she even gave a talk yesterday about faith, it was super good. It feels pretty good to help people come back to church, so far I haven't helped any new people come into the church so it was awesome to help someone come back.

Catholic church in Nowa Huta

So we got a ton of referals this week. The office elders found a bunch of 5 year old referals that got lost in the system, so we have been calling all these people saying "Hey, so we heard you had an interest in reading the Book of Mormon a little while ago." Its funny because some of them are still super excited and eager for us to visit, but others are like "That was 3 years ago, are you kidding?" Its fun.

There isn't a ton of really cool stuff other than that that happened this week, but I just remembered that Mom asked me to include spiritual thoughts in my emails so here we go:  So on the street the other day Elder Jackson was talking to someone who asked if he had a person relationship with Jesus Christ. Of course Elder Jackson said yes, but then the guy asked "How, have you ever seen him, talked with him, touched his hands and feet?" And so Elder Jackson and I had a cool discussion about that, about how we can attain a personal relationship with our Saviour. 

So first, I think a huge tool given to us to come to know Jesus Christ are the scriptures. I have been reading through the Old Testament with the help of the Old Testament Student Manual for institute and one of the things I am learning is how much we learn about him through what he did in the Scriptures, both in the mortal ministry in the New Testament, and through his Godly dealings with the Isrealites in the Old testament. Then with the testimonies of Christ given in the Book of Mormon along with his Ministry there after his Resurection we can learn so much about him

But Secondly, and probably more importantly: we can only really know Christ through sincere prayer and relying on him. That is really what I am learning on my mission, is how to rely on Christ, and to use his atonement to make me so much more than what I am on my own. I truly can feel myself growing closer to Christ and developing that personal relationship, and I testify that He lived and still lives, that he is there and wants to help us.

Well, thats all for me this week. I love you and miss you all!

-Starszy Everett