Warsaw, Poland - We can't do it alone!

Happy Valentine's!

It's all about LOVE!!!

Love me some Lerch!  I love his girl!
We finally get to see each other! I am so mad this is blurry!
(Siostra Lerch was in Raquel's MTC district. They have never served in the same zone before!)

Love me some Dekker!
It's always a good time with Dekker!
 I can't tell you how much I love my MTC District!

Street contacting!

Train ride!

Our fish takes on Siostra Beem's look!
Taco night!

New Warsaw Branch!

Warsaw I Branch Presidency

Cześć Family and Friends!!!!

How has another week already flown by?!!! The weeks go by so fast here, I wish time would slow down! This week was such a good week!!

This week we had zone conference! As always it was incredible! Sister and President Turek are incredible leaders!! We talked about what our goal is as missionaries - to invite others to come unto Christ AND what our responsibility is - teaching repentance and baptizing converts! They are connected! Having others come unto Christ is the goal Missionaries are on that path towards that goal!  Teaching repentance is a step on that path! Repentance is the center!  We discussed how repentance is something we do but it doesn't make us converted, that is where Christ comes in! If we allow Christ into our lives it means we allow the Atonement to work! This was such an amazing conference!

Repentance is something I didn't really understand until I came on my mission! I use to think of repentance as this scary process you do because you messed up and that always didn't sit right with me because that meant I couldn't turn in my 100% report card when I got to heaven! I have learned though that repentance is such a beautiful process! You are allowing the Savior to enter into your life and help you become clean and free again!

I thought of this during the conference: sometimes when you erase something it still leaves behind a smudge but with the Atonement nothing is left, no trace can be found! I feel sometimes we find it hard to give Christ the full load (speaking from experience)! I think we believe if we give him the full burden we sometimes feel we have failed or that we weren't strong enough to overcome it alone! This is the biggest realization I have had: WE CAN’T DO IT ALONE!  We need Christ on our side! We need to allow the Atonement to work and we need to give up the burden! This is what the Gospel is about: Christ! Everything in this gospel is one with Christ!

I loved this conference and being able to talk about repentance and what it allows our investigators to do! We also discussed our baptismal goal for this year: 121! Yes that is right, 121 BAPTISMS! I have complete faith we can do this! It is Poland's time!!! As president said "Nie jest liczba, jest ludzi" or "That isn't a number, those are people!" We can do this!! People want peace and happiness and there is an amazing plan where that can be achieved for each and every one of us! Isn’t God just so good?!

We met with the girl from our English class! She is so so cute! We were able to sit down and get to know her! She is a believing person and wanted to know what we believed! She couldn't believe that we were only missionaries and that this is all we do! She asked us why we decided to come on a mission so we told her why it is important to us! She asked about church and and she really wants to come! She is so cute! She wants to learn more about what we believe and she accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon! We were so excited and we can't wait to continue to meet with her!

I also was able to get a little taste of Mexico this week! We had a Mexican party with our fish because he had never had tacos! It was so much fun! He tried Tabasco sauce for the first time and was dying from the spice a little bit! We also had a Mexican dinner at an American Family's house this week! I am honestly so impressed with all the American families here! It would be hard to live in a place where the language is so hard and be able to get around everywhere! They are so incredibly kind and always introduce themselves in Polish to all the Polish members! They really want to help the branch grow here too! They are so generous to us missionaries and I am so grateful I have been able to get to know so many of the families here! They have blessed my life so much! 

I want to add a funny story that happened to Sister Beem and I this week! We teach a personal English class to this older lady! She is seriously so cute! She wants to learn so badly and she repeats everything like 10 times! She is also hilarious and so much fun to teach! After our lesson she was showing us pictures of her family and her dogs and then all of a sudden she told us she has two hamsters! She shows us a picture of them and I said they were cute.  She looked at me in the eyes and asked if I wanted them! Sister Beem and I looked at each other and died! We told her no but thank you! We almost got a pet hamster for free!  Such missionary humor but people are so generous here! 

I am so grateful to be here and to be able to teach repentance to allow others to come unto Christ! This has been the most incredible thing ever, to see someone change as they allow Christ into their life!  There is nothing like it! 

Kocham Was!!!! 

Siostra DeMordaunt