Wigilia, or the Polish Christmas Eve was a huge success at our little chapel. Everybody brought food, the main dishes were Catfish, Potatoes, Piroggi and Beet soup. Elder Stokes and I prepared the traditional drink of Kompot! Where we are supposed boil a ton of fruits add some cinnamon and sugar and make some sort of punch. Ha, we didn't know what we were doing, but I just faked it, solely banking on my polish instincts to kick in....it didn't turn out too well ;) Tradition goes lsomething like this; everybody before eating, takes a piece of bread and then walks around exchanging bits of their piece of bread while making Christmas wishes to everybody personally for the coming year. Then we feast.
After the feast, the kids go outside looking for the first star of the night. Once they spot the first star, they can then run back inside and open all their presents under the tree from Saint Mikołaj. Then during the 25th they solely spend time celebrating with family. Then on the 26th the spend their time visiting and exchanging gifts with all their good friends. So basically here in Poland there are 3 days of Christmas!
Our Wigilia was great because we had a handful of our invstigators come, including a guy we had just felt inspired to invite off the street a few days ago. His name is Robert and he is actually really interested in the spirit and feeling of warmth, happiness,joy, and just pure relief that he felt when he walked into the chapel. He mentioned to me a couple throughout the night how confusing the tangibility of this "spirit, or positive energy" was and he said he wished he could have it all the time. We promised him he could...We have been meeting with him since. It was a neat miracle.
For P-day last week we had the chance to travel to Kraków. We visited Auświtż and then we had dinner and walked around in the Kraków rynek. They had so many gigantic Christmas trees, stages, and little shops filled with antique hand-made Souvenirs, toys and prezents. It seriously felt as if we were in the 16th century, I can't really describe it, it just felt as if we were in some kind of ancient Christmas children's story. It was magical. The food was great too. They had these old-style meats(shish kebabs, hams, sausages and steaks) with potatoes and these really big whole sauteed mushrooms cooking over these big fire grills or big tin bowls in these little shacks.We got some and ate at a wooden table in the festive square and it felt like I was literally thrown back in time. That was a fun culture night.
Then we got to work. We met with Jarosław a few times this week, he is building his understanding and faith, and truly changing his heart and countenance every time he reads and studies from the Book of Mormon and applies the truths and the commandments into his own life. It has truly been a blessing to see him change from being really really shy and confused, to very open, more confident, radiating with happiness and intelligence, to spreading his joy with others! He even brought his brother to church last week when he was in town, and gave him a book of Mormon.
We also met with Paweł a few times. A 25 year old post College kid who aligns himself with the lutheran faith because once he found out the catholic church didn't make sense, the lutheran faith was the closest that he could find to the truth. He has taken a real interest in the events of the restoration, and the Book of Mormon. We even visited him in the hospital towards the end of this week, and he said he wanted to just drop everything bad from his life and start fresh and fill the lack of something inside of him. We taught and testified of the Gospel of Christ( Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end). The power and the peace of the spirit we felt there in the Hospital Cafeteria during our meeting with him was was so strong. He said he would love to be baptized! It was an interesting experience.
For the next few days during our time when we didn't have meetings we set up our little mormon get-up in the town square where the Christmas Bazaar was taking place. We were talking about our Savior and Family History. Miracle of the week, we met a chill young guy about 28 that is a professional geneologist. He said he loves the mormons and wants to team up with us in our new Family History initiative. It was an answer to our prayers because finding ancestors in Poland and Eastern Europe is rather difficult and none of us knew how to do it. So that was such an amazing blessing to have him offer to help us and teach us. I feel like in the coming weeks I will be able to find my Polish ancestors and help the members to do the same. They have taken a huge interest in it as well and are starting to catch the fire of finding and bringing together their entire family. Funny side story, We found Elder Stokes' like 10th great grandmother was Elizabeth Hart who was accused of being a witch in the Salem witch trails! haha it was so funny! (not the Salem witch trials but of the extraordinary relationship of Elder Stokes).
We also finally got into contact with a Professor who teaches U.S. History here at the university in Kielce, who has such a facination with the United States that he is willing to give us free polish lessons twice a week! He is sooo awesome, funny and helpful. It's mind-blowing just to see everything just perfectly working out.
I could go on for eternity explaining the amazing experiences, blessings and miracles on my mission. But I would not want you all to just read my account. Go make your own story. For those of you who are about the mission age, or the thought has crossed your mind even once if you should go...GO! This is a once in a life time experience to see the miracle of the Atonement, the Hand of God, and the truthfulness of this great plan from a front lines perspective. You will increase your testimony, receive the absolute definite witnesses that you have been waiting for your whole life, make incredible lasting friendships, and change your life and the lives of your families for the better, as you bless, serve and change the lives of others while simply bring the world the simple truth of our Heavenly Father's love and plan for them. You will not regret it. PLEASE, listen to the spirit, take a leap of faith, start those papers, submit them, and just go forth with faith. You will be eternally grateful that you did. Your Father in Heaven will be with you every step of the way, along with your Savior, Jesus Christ. It's real. It's all true. I promise and testify. Go forth with Faith and you WILL see.
Starszy Wood
The security guard kicked me out of this lookout.
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