Zion In Poland

My family :)The temperature is dropping by the day, and we are very grateful that they have turned on the heating wall in our apartment. One of our walls, has boiling water running through iit, that is supposed to heat our entire home ha. I have a feeling I'm going to be spending many a study and evening huddled against that wall. You all sound amazing per usual, which is so good to hear. I know the Lord blesses you all as I do what I'm supposed to do. As if I didn't have enough motivation to do the Lord's work, that adds a bit for sure : ) Keep on smiling my fam and doing what you're doing, cos it looks like it's working. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be better ha, cos that is without a doubt one of the Gospel doctrines that have become ingrained in my mind. Tomorrow is always an opportunity to be better then we were yesterday. Oh how grateful I am for that! For myself, and for my investigators. I'm sitting in this little internet Cafe, in the smokers section, and I tell you I miss my little library is Bydgoszcz and Warsaw. It's a bit hard to focus, with the smoke and music, but it's ok. Aside from the internet situation, there is no where else I would rather be than sweet Katowice. It is my little piece of Paradise these days.We are incredibly busy- I think more busy than I've ever been my entire mission- these days. We are always either meeting with investigators, less actives, new converts or the occasional member to try to get referrals and build them up. It's the best way I've see yet to do missionary work lol. That is the main reason I haven't done white boards lately- they are still used far and wide in the Mish, but I can't complain. :) Lately we've been making bi-weekly trips to a city an hour away, called Tarnowskie Gory, to meet with a few investigators who are making serious progress, as well as Kazimierz, the member out there who feeds the missionaries almost every sunday, but makes them stay for like 4 hours...if you remember me mentioning him. We randomly pop in on him, and make sure we're out of there after an hour, and he can't complain, cos we didnt' have to go out there in the first place, and we can actually talk about spiritual things! Which can also be hard with him. The few investigators we've been meeting with out there are truly miracles- there's Ela, who is Carlos' fiance- i talked about them last week. But this week when we visited them, we had an amazing chat with her in her shop, and she listened so intenetly. It's hard to properly explain to you the range of people we work with here- I think only a missionary could understand...but Ela, is such a quality, salt of the earth woman who could be just a solid anchor in the church, that teaching her brings us immense joy. During our lesson with her, she asked about the Book of Mormon, where do we have it from and so forth. We had such a pleasant little lesson there, and after explaining it, she said "So, one has to read, like the Bible, to find out if it's true or not." We confirmed the statement and she accepted the invitation to read. We got a text a couple days later from Carlos that read "‘God. Jesus Almighty. Ela read now says Mormon book is truth she wants you to visit her always in Neonet.’ We got that sitting on our old beaten leather couch during study. We wanted to hug eachother, but because it was cold and we were still tired, we just cheered really loud and smiled a lot. ha. : ) :P They had plans to come to church, but couldn't make it, which in the end we were grateful for. I'll explain the full background of that last sentance after I explain Dominik Rędziński, the other investigator up there, who Carlos also has led us to. He used to be a punk- which has a different connotation here in Poland. They're the kids who wear really ghetto tight clothes, on the bridge of being gothic-like. They go around for fun asking for money and beer and on their off-hours, they usually do drugs and what not. This kid has changed his life 100 percent and doesn't want anything to do with the former life he's had. He's stopped all substances save it be cigarettes, which he has to quit this week. His desire to change is true and powerful. He accepted a baptismal date for the 24th of October. This is the same kid who came last week with a bloodied eye. He came again last week, and luckily isn't messed up from the experience. I mean-Church was a bit of a disaster, to put it lightly. Fast and Testimony meeting went so darn well at first, with some really poweful spirit-filled testimonies. Then Michał, the kid who sends missionaries wierd texts and isn't all there in the head, got up and started sermonizing for a good 10 minutes. Half way through his sermon, and old member...i'm not sure if he's still a member, but lately he's been coming to most activites...raises his hand, as if it were an open forum. Luckily the member sitting next to him reminded him that we don't do that, that we can't just commetn on a testimony! So MIchał finished and than that old member gets up and starts saying "My testimony is going to be a bit different then your'all's..." and it went down hill from there. He then opened up the forum for comments if any one wanted to better understand his philosphies. Then a new convert, Krzystof, yells from the back of the sacrament room, that we don't want to comment on his philosophies, just hear his testimony. They debated, yelling across the room in the middle of Fast and Testimony meeting, until the man at the pulpit felt that maybe it wasn't the right place for that kind of talk. All the missionaries were staring at eachother with really really wide eyes, and hurting inside that we had investigators that day. And to put the cherry on top, this member, who has been a member for 15 years, but is sitll grasping some Gospel topics, gets up and starts out condemnig the testimonies given that day, saying that were from the devil, and that we should all consider reading the gospel. He said stuff like, I don't know if I'm going to survive this church, and so forth, and Elder Brown and I wanted to get up and tell him to sit down. Oh it was a painful one :( Luckily, our investigators didn't get too turned off by the whole thing. We had an investigator class just for them and taught the plan of Salvation, and that made it all a bit better ha. It was a rough day, but was made better when we watched some conference. Oh i love conference! Because of our ridiculous e-mailing situation, I only got to watch about 6 talks- 3 of them from the Priesthood Session, and a few from Saturday morning and Sunday morning. I loved President Uchtdorf's Dad, about work and learning. I know you would be loving that one. It was so good. Spoke right to my soul :) I loved President Eyring's too. He's probably my favorite speaker. Lot's of power. It made me probably the trunkiest i've been to see that conference center and the power of the body of the church. It's a different thing working at the roots of the church here. It gives me a brand new and everlasting appreciation for the early church members and pioneers. It's amazing how much faith they had and how much they had to have endured to build the church into the insitution it is today. It is undoubtedly from God, and it must be built with the power of God. That is without a doubt. WE're going to download the rest of the talks onto EldeR Strobehn's iPod and listen to them for Comp study and during meals and such. I look forward to that. We had a district leader meeting this week- Elder Strobehn and I invited all District Leaders into Katowice and we had a good 2 and a half hour meeting with pizza at the end. We used this talk called Creative Leadership by something Sterling..i don't konw if he was a General Authority or what, but it was amazing. The talk inspires me so much to be a good leader, to be an inspiration for others and so much more I can't really expound upon because of time limitations, but I want to send tthe talk to you if i can find it online. The District leaders are really good missionaries and want to do what's good here, but a lot of them have serious struggles with small cities, not a lot of investigators. I feel crazy blessed to be here in Katowice with the investigator circumstance we've had. Elder Strobehn did nothing but walk streets in this small city that Elder McRae opened up, Kielce, before he got here,. He's eatin it up. :0Got to go! But real quick, we had an amazing little branch activity where we went to these mountains, and walked straight up the face of them. That was a LEG MURDERER. SO HARD! But so fun at the top. We had to carry little Michał, ania's son, the whole way. It was intense. At the end we resorted to carrying him like the anciet indians carried their pray, me and anderton carrying an arm each, and Brown carrying his legs. so funny :P It really was fantastic though. It took practically the whole day- Ania's whole family was there and it was a good experiecne for them all. I have such high hopes for this family. They need to all get baptized. It is the only way they are going to find true happiness in this life. The only way these kids are going to have the lives they deserve to have. I love em tons.So much is happening I don't even know what to write about these days. But I am so happy to be here, to be in this district. I love them all so much. Elder Brown is the man- we're way similar when it comes to music and we want to play some music together up at the Y and the whole district just is focused and wants to do what's right. It's pretty much the best place in the world, wherever you are, when you district has that unity and power. Fam I got to leave you. I', sorry for the slightly scrambled letter. All is so well here and I am so grateful to be serving where I am, having the burden to help these people progress. We have a couple investigators here, Piotrek and Tomasz in particular, who could be Branch Presidents, and they have the desire to learn. I feel a huge burden to help them progress the best they can. We need soem more solid leaders here. The church needs to grow now adding really strong and amazing members, so it can grow a lot and grow quick later. I cried when President Monson annouced temples in those 5 places- I wanted him to say Poland so bad. And i know he will soon. We just got to do our part so that the work isn't hindered in any way. I love you family. I know this Church is true. It is the way to happiness. We need to always change for the better and thanks to the Gospel and Atonement we can. We are so darn blessed to have that knowledge inour lives and family. I can't express how blessed we are in our family. People here in Poland think that kind of family only exists in movies. I feel guilty a lot of times talking to these young kids because the direction they lack I was blessed to have. So i'm doing my best to do what the Lord expects from me. I feel that is a lot. Have an amazing week and keep on smiling and doing everything you can do be the best you. I love yuo all more than I can say. z miłością ogromnąElder Rushtonp.s. This Friday I'm going to Bydgoszcz to and have the chance to Baptize Andrzej on Saturday. He hasn't missed church once since he came that last time i Was in Bydgoszcz :) -----Original Message-----From: