Two more weeks and then....Poland!

Czesc!!

No word yet on my travel plans to Poland... maybe I’m never leaving!! Just kidding we should be getting them this week!! I am so very excited and also nervous because I have been here for so long I’m like king of the world here!! Everything is sort of easy and natural now! And I LOVE MY DISTRICT AND ZONE!! I am seriously so blessed to have them! I don’t even know how I got so lucky!

   

WHAT AN AMAZING WEEK! Actually there wasn’t anything crazy that happened but every week here is amazing! On Tuesday we taught Lidia again and talked all about General Conference! She watched it and LOVED it!! And then... SHE SAID SHE WOULD GET BAPTIZED!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!! On May 1. April is really hard to say in Polish so we said May 1st even though we won’t be here. I was so excited for her I almost burst into tears of joy!! She’s still having some troubles with her husband but it was cool cause we taught her all about the word of wisdom and the tea thing was a little bit of a struggle but she agreed to start living it so she’s really progressing and I love teaching her!!

My companion is still sister Lidtka! She’s awesome and she’s from Seattle! We stay with the same companion for the whole time at the MTC. Its like exactly two weeks today that I leave but were actually praying we leaving on Tuesday and not Monday because then our last day would be a P day and we could pack and go to the temple and hang out with everyone before we all separate!! Then we'd be leaving most likely with the Bulgarians. I am so sad already to leave these amazing people!! Especially the Bulgarians. They are the best and this is the last two weeks we have with them!!! And the babies too but at least we can all write each other!!

But I cannot wait to go to Poland!!!!!!!!! I keep getting more and more excited! To teach real people and to be speaking the language and talking to people on the streets and stuff!! It’s going to be amazing!!! The language is really coming along! I am nowhere close to being perfect but the Lord is helping me sooooo much!!

On Thursday we had our TRC and this week instead of teaching two 20-minute lessons we had to teach one lesson for 40 minutes!! I was so nervous but we went in there and taught them all about faith and how the Lord has his own time and everything will work out the way it should be because He loves us and knows what’s best for us and the guy we were teaching totally opens up and says that he has faith but sometimes its hard to get more faith. And how his girlfriend just decided to serve a mission!!! And he was so upset about it but in a funny way so we all laughed. I said to him the Lord has a plan for him and he’ said then why would she leave and go on a mission and so I said maybe she’s not the girl for you and he looked so shocked and we were all laughed and had such a great time and it was like we turned into personal councilors instead of missionaries! But the fact that we could teach them for 40 minutes ALL IN POLISH! Completely deviating from our lesson plan to talk about his life is pretty cool if you ask me!! I am beginning to love the polish language so much! And I know that going to Poland is only going to make my polish 1000x better!! Its cool cause all the trc people say that our polish is way better than what their Polish was when they were in the MTC and now they are all fluent!! Which is so encouraging!!

The MTC changed their whole language program, clearly for the better!!

Yesterday we had our devotional and we had this man come from the missionary media something or other. He told us all about how the church is with the times and is on the internet and set up mormon.org a few years ago and different things that they are doing to help people know who "Mormons" really are. At Christmas time they had these HUGE billboards right in Times Square advertising for the church and for Christmas. The effects that came from the campaign were so cool!!! Just this week the church did this huge thing in London where they bought advertising in a bunch of the tube stations and l250 double decor buses. Really neat because the Book of Mormon musical was going to London and you know how the church is in London and I guess their advertisements were, "the Mormons are coming" and so in a meeting with the missionary board that Elder Holland and Elder Nelson are on they were talking about it and Elder Holland in response to their advertisement said alright well lets go then! So this week they just launched all of it, it’s so cool!!!! I wish they could do it all over the world so people would see and know!!

You should Google it because he showed us all these pictures and it was so amazing!! It made me so excited to go to Poland!!! I wish they would do it their!! Anyways I guess even with just this week alone the amount of visits to mormon.org has grown by the thousands. Also the Church bought advertisements to go inside the programs for the Book of Mormon musical and its mormon.org stuff and its says things like; the book is always better. And you’ve seen the show now read the book. I feel privileged to be a part in the work!!!! Especially right when the Lord is hastening His work! There’s a special feeling about it!!!

I love you so much!!!!!! Thanks for everything!!!

xoxoxoxoxox

MISSIONARY WORK IS THE COOLEST THING IN THE WORLD!

Love Siostra Hailey Pearson!

April 8th - Still Amazing

So this week was so SUPERB!!!

On Tuesday we had Elder Ringwood come for devotional. He talked all about enduring to the end and how a mission is preparing us to know how to endure to the end for the rest of our lives. It was one of the best talks I have heard since being here at the MTC I will send more notes home but it was super amazing! Also on Tuesday we taught our investigator Lidia. We had the coolest experience! We weren’t sure where she was at or what we needed to teach her so we went in there with the intent to just ask her things like if she knew the Book of Mormon was true. We were unsure sure how she would respond but we asked her. She was like mmm ya! And we were like say WHAT! We asked her if she knew Joseph smith was a prophet of God and she said YES! And we asked if she knew the church was true, she talked and talked and talked and then said ya I think so! But she’s still a little unsure but she’s going to keep praying about it!! It was the coolest thing ever; we had no idea where she was at. It turns out she’s progressing much more than we thought she would! We taught her again on Thursday about the temple and invited her to watch conference and she said she would! She opened up about her husband and how he doesn’t support her learning about this gospel and going to church. I’m so glad she told us because I feel like there is real trust, it was amazing the spirit was so strong and we both just shared with her our thoughts about how Heavenly Father is happy for her progression and He loves her family and her husband and wants them all to be together for eternity! It’s all going so great!

Ok so extremely funny story! On Wednesday we had class with Brat Liemer right at the end of the night. We were all joking and laughing and having a grand time and then we started talking about something. He was our first investigator Arek; in one of the first lessons someone had with him they said miwosc taraz? Which they thought meant pray, now? Because it was the first lesson and none of us knew anything but to pray is molitva and they said miwosc which is to love... so they said," LOVE NOW?" We all laughed about it! We thought it was one of the sister missionaries but our teacher was like it wasn’t you too. But we knew it was sisters so we freaked out and found out IT WAS ME AND MY COMPANION! Hahahaha!!  He said we were both smiling huge and super excited and just said love, now? So I’m very glad my Polish is improving! But thought it was funny to share for everyone to get a swell laugh!

Everything else this week was just dandy! We taught more lessons and had lots of class per usual! On Friday Elder Blom and Elder Allen were teaching me as the investigator. My name is Eden. It’s so neat playing the role of an investigator. Anyways this person was actually a friend of mine so it’s extra special to portray her. So they were teaching me, it’s the second lesson and I was so proud of them the spirit was so strong. They were saying all these things that is EXACTLY what Eden needed to hear and they were so great! Near the end Elder Allen asks me right before we ended (I think it even took him by surprise) if when I knew the things they taught me were true if I would be baptized it was so amazing I sat there ready to say no because its the second lesson there’s so much I don’t know but I sat there and thought about it and I just felt so strongly that I needed to say yes so I did!!! We all were so happy it was so amazing because even though it’s role-play I was so happy and filled with the spirit that I was making the right choice to be baptized! It was the coolest experience ever!!!

As you know it was general conference on Saturday and Sunday!!! Woooo!!!!

General conference at the MTC was the bomb. It was just such a great feeling! The night before I wrote down all my questions and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM GOT ANSWERED! It was amazing!! I don’t think I have a favorite talk but I really loved Saturday. Saturday night all the sisters got to watch the Young Women's broadcast and if you haven’t seen it yet watch it"!!!!! And if Amber hasn’t seen it yet make her watch it!!! It was the best thing ever!

Sunday was one of the best days ever!! My companion and I were with the Bulgarian missionaries all day and I got so much insight! I love everything about General Conference! How lucky we are to hear from real prophets and apostles every six months! Its mind blowing!! After Conference we went for a temple walk, which is one of my absolute favorite things to do ever.  On Sunday night Vocal Point came to perform for devotional!!!!!!!! I ALMOST DIED! It’s a male acapella group from BYU and first of all you know how much I love acapella groups and 2, they were on that show the sing off that i loved a couple years ago it was so amazing!! Oh, did you watch the kill stuff in between the conference sessions, the world report? It was all about us!! It was oooo cool!!! 

And that is how my week went!!! Sooooo many blessings!!! I love everything about my mission

 I love you so much and I miss you everyday!!!

I should be getting my travel plans soon but ill keep you updated!!!

xoxoxox

Love your missionary!

Siostra Pearson

April 1st - Another Amazing Week!

This week was AMAZING!!!!!! Like for real, one of the best weeks I have had here!!

Tuesday we had our devotional and it was really good! I forgot my notes back in the room but it was a super great talk like usual! Guess who I saw! My friend TRENT! Well Elder Rasmussen, it was so cool! It threw me back home hanging out in the young single adult ward in Calgary; it was so fun to see him!! We got some great awkward boy girl missionary pictures that I will send you!

Wednesday was super great!! First off my companion and me decided we were going to be super positive and just love everything about everything this week and I think that’s why it was the most amazing week ever! The weather was so beautiful plus we had service in the morning. I don’t know why but its one of the best parts of my week AND Wednesday is baby missionary day (when new missionaries arrive at the Missionary Training Centre)! We usually stand out in the sun shouting welcomes to the new baby missionaries in Polish they have no idea what we are saying and it is so much fun! This Wednesday was even more special because all the new people from our zone came! We now have 29 Elders AND 29 Sisters in our whole zone! Its completely split I love them all :)

I started my new assignment as an online trainer. It was pretty important and it was so fun because I got to know them all. They all thought my awkward comments were hilarious and whenever someone would tell me something about their life and I had a type of connection too I would get so excited and be so happy, they would all just laugh. It was grand. We are the old ones now and they are the babies it makes us all feel like proud parents. It keeps things interesting!!

And then we had night gym! I went on splits with a another Sister because the Elders invited us to play 4 square at gym and I’ve only played 4 square like once and we usually go to a small gym and do a real for real boring work out so we went and played 4 square with the elders and it was the MOST FUN thing I think I have done this far!!!!! It was the most amazing thing to do! Who knew gym time could be so fun! So now that’s what we've been doing every gym time! Elder Allen calls me the blue cobra because my work out shirt was blue and I’m getting pretty good!

Thursday was also awesome. My teaching skills are improving! We taught Lidia and its so amazing because we prepare for our lesson but then we go in there with no notes or anything just us and the scriptures. The fact that I can teach a lesson to her in POLISH about the PRIESTHOOD is pretty dang cool!!! Tomorrow were teaching her about repentance and I am very excited :) We also taught TRC which went well!! It’s getting easier to teach and have a conversation in Polish. I can just see all the blessings around me so much! I could not be learning this language without the Lord. I just love seeing how much I am being helped right now in everything that I do! :)

Friday my companion and me taught two of the Elders in my district as progressing investigators! For one of them we knew his back-story and taught him for 30 minutes and then we switched and we "street contacted" Elder Blom or should I say Pavel! We taught him for 30 minutes, it was so scary but so much fun!! Later that night my teacher Brat Trible taught me as the investigator and he taught me in polish in front of the whole class!!!! It was so cool to be put in an investigator’s shoes and to feel what they are feeling! Brat Trible did an amazing job and I was very proud of myself for how much I could say and understand since I couldn’t speak English! It was quite the excelling moment for myself! 

Saturday Elder Allen and Elder Blom taught Sister Lidka and me as investigators for 30 minutes. It is so fun teaching another missionary!!! There is less pressure and I just loved it!! At the end of the lesson we taught Elder Blom after the closing prayer we said chrzest?! taraz!? Which means baptism?! now!? and then shouted CHRZEST!!!! WAHOOOO!! We were able to learn so much and have so much fun at the same time!!! It was great!

Yesterday was EASTER!!! It was sad not waking up to an Easter egg hunt like we usually do but it was still great!! Me, my companion and some of the Bulgarian Elders got to be ushers for the special sacrament meeting!! It was so cool I felt so important. We all had the sacrament!!!! All at once!! There were over 3000 MISSIONARIES who had the sacrament all at once!!! Isn’t that amazing!!!! We had Bishop Causse speak to us, he is the first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric for the Church, and he did a really amazing job!

And THEN!!! We had our night devotional, SHERI DEW SPOKE!! She did such a good job she is so inspirational! I admire her so much!! Over all it was a super fantastic week!! I am so happy to be on my mission I have already grown so much and I feel so much closer to my Savior! I know that there is nowhere better I could be and nothing better I could be doing! I miss you all greatly but I know that the Lord is taking care of you for me :) I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!

Dooonn’t Stop Believin! The Church is true!!

xoxox

Love Siostra Hailey :)