End of Chapter 1, Beginning of Chapter 2

To all who read my blog, sorry that nothing has been posted for over a month. This is Sister Tiffany Ellis. I have been honorably released from my mission and am on medical release for the time being. My plans are to get back out in the mission-field as soon as I am able. It is hard to tell how long that may be though.

A few scriptures that have helped me throughout my mission and are helping me right now:

• D&C 122:7-8
• 2 Nephi 31:20 
• My mission scripture: Alma 29:9 

 I know that I accomplished everything that Heavenly Father sent me out to do during that time on my mission. 

Those 8 months of my mission, were the most difficult months of my life, but they were also the BEST 8 months of my life. Every hard time was completely worth it. I received so many blessings and saw so many miracles. If I had to, I would relive every hard time, just to learn what I've learned and experience what I've been blessed to experience. I learned that my Heavenly Father and my Savior are there for me every step of the way, and They will NEVER leave me, and They will always love me. I also learned of and felt some of Their immense love for the amazing people of Poland, and really, part of my heart will always be in Poland :)  

Even just 8 months, has changed my life forever, for the better. :) 

Now that chapter 1 of my mission has ended, chapter 2 has begun, which is the healing process. I am told that I have 'a mission of healing' now. 

Week 29 & 30 Miracles all around!

I love being a missionary! It is such a sacred and blessed opportunity to share the gospel, to bring hope,purpose and prospects of eternal life into the lives of others. My favorite part of missionary work, is feeling a bit of Heavenly Father's love for these people here. Each of us are daughters or sons of our Heavenly Father. He loves us more than we could possibly comprehend. He has an individual personal 'plan of Salvation' for each of us. He knows exactly what experiences we personally need to go through in order to learn, grow and reach our full potential. Which that potential, is divine potential. We all have the potential to one day be like our Heavenly Father. And it is thanks to our Savior, Jesus Christ's Atonement that that is possible. 

This week was a week of miracles, and to be honest, I have seen a miracle every day of my mission. Whether it seems large or small, the Lord works in all of our lives, we just need to open our eyes to see it. And when we open our eyes....we realize that all of life is a miracle. Think about that for a bit.

So first last Monday, It was Sister Swenson's birthday! :)
As a zone we went to Auschwitz, which is why I didn't e-mail. We all expected it to be a depressing experience....but it actually turned into a very spiritual one. For me, as I went through I kept on wondering why I wasn't getting sad, instead I was overwhelmed with love, hope and a reassurance that all of the victims were welcomed home with open arms into the Savior's loving embrace and that that hard time was just a small fraction of eternity and is nothing compared to the joy they are experiencing now. They were treated terribly physically, but nothing that happened, could hurt them spiritually. Heavenly Father has all power, and Jesus Christ's Atonement covers everything unfair. 

I realized how important it is for us to focus on our spiritual progression. This life is not that long, its not meant to last forever, its just a small testing period. 

Talking to the other 7 sisters in the Zone, they had similar experiences of feeling Heavenly Father's love and reassurance. 

That night, the entire zone went caroling in Katowice. We stood on the street corner and as we felt impressed to, we would either contact or sing (in the end doing both) and it was a night of miracles. We ended up with more than 30 people stopping and listening and desiring to learn more about this glorious gospel. It was a beautiful sight, full of the Christmas Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ.

Next day we had zone conference, which was great! They introduced the 'adjusting to missionary life' packet, which is all about dealing with stress, which has been helping me a lot! It was a great zone conference where we discussed the importance of the Spirit being as strong as possible in the lessons. Also about kneeling at the end of lessons.

A funny and wonderful moment this week was when Sister Swenson and I were out contacting and I talked to a man who said 'Już jestem' being he's already a member! It was so cool. He's a member from Austria and was visiting for the weekend. That's the first time that has ever happened to me.

Investigator-wise: Sabina is wonderful, I love our lessons so much. she is progressing. Also we have another lesson with Natalia this week. :)

Have a great week everyone!

Love you all! 

Siostra Ellis 

Week 28 Tender Mercies

November 25, 2013

Dear wonderful family,

I love you all so much. This week was full of many tender mercies. It is such a blessing to see Heavenly Father's Hand, every single day...if not every single moment. There are so many things I took for granted before my mission. I feel like I took almost everything for granted. How amazing Utah is and how blessed we are to have so many members in one spot. We have a ward and a stake. We have a patriarch that lives in the same country that speaks our own language, not only that, our patriarch lives a few blocks away, could even walk if necessary. With that blessing, it is very easy for us to receive Patriarchal blessings when we are ready....Polish members don't have that luxury. I also took for granted the security of home and how strong the Spirit is everywhere. We have an amazing ward building, that's HUGE. Our ward, before my mission, was I thought, a smaller ward, before the change and everything....no its huge. Also, I took for granted the fact that people understand who missionaries are. We are so blessed. As the saying goes, you don't realize what you have until its gone. I feel so abundantly blessed that in a year's time, I will be back enjoying all those blessings, which makes me more determined to give these amazing Polish members all I can before I leave. 

I'm so grateful for all of you, for your love,support and prayers. For your encouragement and patience and well...everything. 

I'm grateful for the chance to be me, and to be able to understand a little more of who I actually am. 'We can not determine who we are by actions, by mistakes or accomplishments, we find our identity by asking the One who created us'.  (yes, that is a quote I just made)

Tuesday- taught a young adult aged (25 +/-) woman named Sabina. She's awesome. We're teaching her English and the gospel half-and half. She's Catholic and isn't planning on changing anytime soon, but she's super curious and has intense questions. I have no doubt that in time as she learns more she'll want to have all of the gospel as part of her life.

Also on Tuesday taught Natalia. She is also a young adult-20's. She is married and is pregnant. She is wonderful. She is searching for truth and has been going to all sorts of different churches to find it. Though she suffers from skitsofrenia (I have no idea how to spell that word, so its phonetically spelled), which causes her to really fear praying, 'because she does not want to hear voices inside her head'. Previous experiences in other churches have worsened her physical state, causing her concern. She's amazing.

Both Sabina and Natalia are so wonderful and we thankfully get to continue teaching and working with them. 

Wednesday- a miracle happened as we were calling people on the potentials list and Jadzia (dzi making a hard 'juh' sound, like 'ju' in judge'), answered and said she wanted to meet right then. So we dropped what we were doing and went and taught her. It was an amazing lesson, led by the Spirit. She understands so much about having a personal relationship with Heavenly Father and that means for her. Its beautiful. She's Catholic, and not interested in changing, yet. Absolutely love Jadzia, she's amazing.

Thursday- we were trying to get a hold of a member, who apparently never was actually baptized. Teressa, she is an older lady, very old, but very active despite that. She's always doing something and very hard to get a hold of. So we went to her house, she didn't answer, so we were walking down the street and suddenly...there she was! She was walking down the street, so we were able to talk to her and spend a little bit of time with her as we rode the tram with her to the next place she was going. Love that lady.

Friday-had another lesson with Sabina, which was great. Though from the start of the day I was feeling dizzy and semi-nauseous. By the end of the day I was only semi-conscious and we came in early and Sister Swenson insisted that I go to bed early.

Saturday- we had a wonderful morning looking for a less-active, her house was really hard to find, making it a great adventure, despite her not being home. Then by the time we got to the chapel...well I was sick again. I was shaking at that point and I broke down crying in pain. I had the Elders give me a blessing. I am so grateful for the Priesthood and that the Elders were at the chapel, and that they live worthy to exercise the Priesthood. I was still sick, but blessed with 'the wisdom and faith' to make what choices I needed to. Which at that time was going back home to rest and get better. A beautiful miracle was that I was completely better while I was outside, able to contact and get home without a single sign that I was sick. I then slept for the rest of the day, waking up near the end of the day to make a few calls to investigators and potentials.

Sunday- I was well enough to go to church, take care of everything and everyone, have the missionary meeting with the stake president, then during lunch, my body 'gave out' again and Sister Swenson and I went home and slept some more. Then woke up around 6:00 to get out the door to go try to teach a family who lived nearby, apparently they don't actually live there. But some teenage girls gave us a referral to the nearby block (apartment complex), and we went and tracted every single one, which no one did want to listen, but I know that we were supposed to do all that for a reason, planting seeds is important too. We were able to talk to one family for a few seconds before the mom shut the door, so we were able to leave 'A Family: Proclamation to the World' in their mailbox, which will surely help them.

I love being a missionary. I love the gospel.

Oh and I'd love to share these quotes that you can share with others:

"In addition to inviting us to hold personal and family scripture study, Heavenly Father wants u to regularly study and apply what we have learned in Conference." ('General Conference:Strengthening Faith and Testimony' by Elder Robert D. Hales)  are promised that as we put our trust in Heavenly Father and head His counsel in faith we will be blessed with greater strength and also more peace and comfort in our lives.

"We move forward together. This is our opportunity, our responsibility, and our blessing. This is our destiny- to prepare the kingdom of God for the return of the Savior"- '(Power in the Priesthood' by Elder Neil L. Anderson)

Have a great week everyone! Have a great Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,

Siostra Ellis

 

P.S. I am grateful for our Savior, for His love, for His Atonement and everything He does for me. All the good that I am, I am thanks to Heavenly Father and our Savior.

Week 27 Krakow! Loving the missionary life!

Cześć!

Ok, I have 7 minutes to write this letter, ready, set here I go.... ;)

So Kraków is absolutely amazing! It is a beautiful city full of happy wonderful people, I absolutely love it here! :) Also, the branch is amazing. Relief Society was just officially organized with a presidency called this past Sunday. Its a small branch, but the members are amazing and there is such a special spirit there. I absolutely love all of them. The work is amazing, Sister Swenson and I whitewashed and well Sister Allen and Sister King, the sisters before us did a great job of finding potentials and already setting up a bunch of lessons for us, its wonderful. It is quite the contrast from last transfer, I'm loving it.

I love being a missionary, I love the gospel and I love my Savior. I love my Heavenly Father and I'm so grateful for everything He gives me, which is SO much. I am so blessed.

I love you all of you, have a great week.

Siostra Ellis

p.s. sorry that I didn't have much time to write 11/12/2013

Week 26 A crazy eventful week, memorable to say the least

November 4, 2013
So this week was all over the place, so much so, looking back its really funny everything that happened. Sister Lenhart and I are still laughing about it. 

Tuesday, Wojtek was baptized. It was an absolutely wonderful experience and the joy of his decision was felt by all of us. 

That night....one of our investigators that had a baptismal date (not Dagmara or Lucyna), turned out to be, well...possibly dangerous and we followed the Spirit and left as fast as we could. 

Wednesday, the amazing Jola spent an hour telling us all these lies from off the Internet and trying to tell us that we were wrong and sadly misguided. We bore our testimonies, still gave her a hug at the end, and she said she'd give us a call if she changed her mind. I have hope she recognizes the truth and accepts the gospel one day soon. 

Thursday was Halloween and we were able to read stories to some kids in school, which was enjoyable then we went out to Inowrocław to teach Dagmara and Lucyna. It was a 45 min train ride, then we got lost and ended up walking for another 45+min, just to get there and have them ask why we came, they thought for some odd reason we were cancelling. But it ended out well and we have another lesson with them on Tuesday and the Branch President is coming along. He sees the potential in them as well and wants to help, which we're so very grateful for. (Shout out to all the wonderful Branch President and Bishops out there and everything they do). 

We then had culture night that night and spent it listening to Mozart's Requiem, with Lydia Kagele (part of the American family) and then looking at the graveyards with the beautiful lanterns.I have fun pictures, but the computer isn't letting me send them right now, next week. 

Friday was All-Saint's Day. Poland in general doesn't celebrate Halloween. During All-Saint's Day they spend that day...and the entire week-end remembering their family and their loved ones who have died. It was interesting seeing the contrast between those depressed thinking about life and 'how little time they have left until the end' to the members who were thinking about how they need to do more temple work for their ancestry. Sister Lenhart and I went around writing resurrection scriptures on the sidewalk, no one was willing to talk, but we wanted to help anyways. 

Saturday, I was sick the entire day, and never left the apartment sadly. But I received a blessing Sunday morning before church. I am so grateful for the Priesthood and all those that live worthy to hold it. I'm not sick now. Yesterday was full of the Spirit and wonderful opportunities to talk to people. Then transfer calls came: I'm going to Kraków with Sister Swenson. She was MTC companion's with my current companion Sister Lenhart. President Edgren gave me a very nice compliment on my Polish, so apparently I'm doing better with the language than I realized. 'Dzięki Bogu, na prawdę- Thanks to God, really'  Gift of tongues is real! 

I'm grateful for ups and downs that make great memories! :) 'The down's make us appreciate the ups even more, and make great memories to laugh at later' 

I'll be leaving Wednesday, taking a 9 hour train to Kraków, staying with the sisters currently there (Sisters Allen and King), and helping them get to where they need to, then welcoming Sister Swenson to Kraków Thursday afternoon. 

I'm so grateful to have the knowledge that God, the Greatest Being, is my Heavenly Father. He loves me personally and is helping with the very finite details of my life. :) 

I'm so glad to be on a mission. This is the true church. Jesus Christ is our Savior and I'm grateful for His loving Atonement. 

Miłego Dnia! 

Love, 

Siostra Ellis 

Week 25 Miracles happening all around

Yes, there are miracles happening in Poland. The Lord's Hand is evident everywhere.

First off, there is a baptism on Tuesday, his name is Wojtek, the Elders have been teaching him for the past transfer, and its awesome and amazing.

Second.... We are now teaching three people, who are progressing and preparing to be baptized on December 7. They are Elżbieta, Dagmara and Lucyna. Elżbieta met with the missionaries last year and had a baptismal date, somehow the missionaries lost contact with her and when we got back in touch with her, she still wants to be baptized and is now keeping all her commitments. Sunday was another miracle with her, as she had told us that she couldn't come to church because of a floral class she has for her job. We had promised her that if she desired to keep God's commandments that a way would be made available to her, but she had felt like it was good enough to just go to her old church that week, and wasn't showing signs of coming then to our surprise, yesterday as we were greeting members before branch conference, she walked in! First thing she said was "you were praying for me weren't you?". I'm reminded how much prayers make a difference.

Then Dagmara and Lucyna, they are for sure an amazing miracle story. Saturday night we received an unexpected phone call. Someone had called the Wrocław sisters trying to get a hold of missionaries for the Inowrocław area (closest area is Bydgoszcz). So the Wrocław sisters (yes, wonderful Sister Blake and her trainee) called us up and told us the story and gave us their number, we called them and set up for the next day (yesterday). Funny enough, we originally thought they said 'inowrocławska' which is a street on the bottom of Bydgoszcz and not that far....then we figured out that it was in Inowrocław, which is a 45 min car ride. Second miracle and wonderful blessing: Brother and Sister Kagale drove us out there. The lesson was absolutely amazing as the first things they said after we started was: 'So we want to become Mormon, how do we do that? Is there something like Baptism? Who decides that and how do we prepare for it? What do we need to do?' We answered their questions and they are happily preparing to be baptized on Dec. 7. It was an amazing, perfect lesson, where they actually were telling us our role as missionaries. How they needed us to be the guides to prepare them for baptize and to help them know what to do, and we reassured them that that is exactly what our purpose is, that's what missionaries do. Our work is to be guides for the investigators, so they know how to strengthen their relationship with Heavenly Father  and their Savior Jesus Christ and what steps they need to make/ what they need to do in order to prepare to make that sacred covenant of baptism with their Heavenly Father.

Miracles are happening all around and I feel so blessed to be an instrument. Its all the Lord's work, we are just blessed with the privilege to enjoy being an instrument and seeing the Work being done. Yes, the Lord is hastening His Work, what a glorious time to be a missionary and to even be alive :) We are all so blessed to live at this time in history.

 

Funny story this week also....Sister Lenhart and I have been living below our privileges ;) As we just figured out yesterday how to make our futon beds into actual beds instead of couches.... a week before the end of the transfer. :) Now we have actual beds, its wonderful :)

Transfer calls are next Sunday, how fast time flies, I'm willing to do whatever's next :)

Also random happy thought, we are teaching a wonderful mom, Ania, her family is so adorable and precious.

 

Some random scriptures I was going to include last week but forgot:

Alma 34:16

D&C 123:11-17

2 Nephi 22:2

 

część polski (a piece of Polish)

"Moja dusza brzydzi się grzechem. Moje serce lubuje się w prawości, i będę chwalił święte imię mojego Boga." - 2 Nefi 9:49

 

Have a great week everyone! Remember to S.M.I.L.E. :) (spiritually minded is life eternal- eternal perspective means the greatest joys are ahead of us, and even more reason to rejoice now for the many blessings we have right now. :))

 

Also, thank you so much for all your prayers, support and love. Thank you for all that all you do to further the Lord's work, whether full-time missionary or not. Thank you so much.

 

Love,

Siostra Ellis

Week 24 Life - a time of learning

October 21, 2013
This week went well and I love being a missionary! It is such an honor to represent my Savior Jesus Christ and to be an instrument in bringing others closer to Him. 

This week Sister Lenhart and I tried some new things. Sister Lenhart, last transfer had drawn the plan of salvation in sidewalk chalk on the sidewalk, so we decided to do that here. We did it two different times, first time was by the chapel and we drew an arrow at the end pointing towards the door of the chapel, saying 'witam' (welcome). The other time was by a park in a busy area. We sadly didn't have a lot of time to actually teach after drawing it, but it was there for everyone to see and learn from and enjoy until the next time it rained. It was so much fun. Also, during one of the rainstorms Sister Lenhart and I went to an underground tunnel area that connects the tramwaj stops, and Sister Lenhart sang while I contacted. 

This week I've realized how grateful I am to have an eternal perspective and the knowledge of why we're on earth. I like how my companion explains it: "Life on earth is like going to school, we leave our parents for a little bit to learn and to grow and then we return home" Right now we are separated from our Heavenly Parents, but They still want to hear from us. Heavenly Father has given us the gift of prayer, so we can still communicate with Him, despite being separated. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer for our sins, pains and to overcome death so that we could have an Advocate, so we could talk to Him in the name of our Savior; and so one day we could return home to Him. Heavenly Father has set up everything perfectly so we can return home in His presence one day, all we need to do is follow our Savior, Jesus Christ. His infinite love can strengthen and uplift us. His love motivates me and comforts me, I know They are both here for all of us, because of everything They help me through on a daily basis. This eternal knowledge not only keeps me going, it brings me joy :) I love my Heavenly Father and I love my Savior Jesus Christ. 

I hope all of you have a great week. 

love, 

Siostra Ellis