SEAN..Oct 13, 2008...a baptism?

This was by far the strangest week of my mission to date... without a doubt. Alright so we work this street called Gdanska almost everyday for atleast an hour or two.. its the only street in bydgoszcz that has alot of people on it all the time. Except for saturdays and sundays when there is noone on any street in Poland... ive yet to find out where they hide. There is this girl named Marysza that we see all the time on this street because she hands out little ads for some bank. So we talk to her almost everyday.. she talks alot, and she is really hard to understand, but she is a really nice girl so we invited her to come to english one day.. she came. The Zone leaders taught the class that she is in.. we have two levels. She was interested in hearing about our church so they talked with her a little bit after english and they gave her a book of mormon. We saw her later that night while she was walking to her bus stop.. she unloaded on us pretty much her life problems. She is having troubles with her family and just life in general.. So my companion being the spiritual giant that he is gave her 2 nephi 2 to read.. we saw her the next day and she seemed way happier than normal.. the first thing she said to us was 'jaki wplyw ma ta ksiega' ... perhaps the sweetest thing ive heard out of a Pole's mouth .. ever.. it means like. what an influence this book has.. She loves the book of mormon and she said it totally changed her outlook on life. We met with her later that day with a member about her age (early 20's) ... and taught a full first.. it went well and set up to meet with her again in a couple days. Ewa was on the lesson again (Marysza had read from the start of the BOM to Mosiah by this point) and we taught a 3rd discussion.. the gospel of Jesus Christ.. then we watched the Restoration video .. the spirit was way strong and before the lesson slags and i had talked about how if it felt right we were going to extend a committment to be baptized.. so we felt right and we extended her one. She accepted! So that was easy... i guess thats how its supposed to be with the elect. However the week wasnt over yet. Earlier in the week we had a meeting with this middle aged woman named Justyna. She was kiiiinda weird during our lesson.. treated us more like Dr. Phil than like missionaries. Talked about all these men she was in love with ... we struggled to get a first taught but we still gave her a book of mormon and invited her to come to church. On saturday i get a call from the branch president who im pretty sure hates me.. maybe all missionaries because the missionary work in bydgoszcz has been less than stellar the past couple of years. Its been 2 years since theyve had a baptism... anywho he gives me a talk for sunday on whatever i want.. so sunday comes and both marysza and justyna come to church. Some members did a decent job befriending them but for the most part the members were kinda cold to them. These two investigators arent the 'coolest' people their personalties arent exactly superb.. but they arent by any means crazy.. i was kinda sad the members didnt do a better job at making them feel welcome. Immediately after sacrament meeting marysza asks to meet with slags and i urgently... so we do and she tells us how shes scared of her baptism .. one because she doesnt like pools at all and two she doesnt want people there that she doesnt know. I tried to assure her that she'll get to know the members over the next couple of weeks before her baptism.. so we'll see on that concern.. and we are planning on baptizing her in a river..We went to investigator class with both of them and it went well.. then they went off to relief society and hopefully the women friendshipped them. After church we set up to meet with both of them this tuesday. Then we had district meeting .. during which marysza calls us. She tells us she has been hanging out with justyna all day and that they need to meet with us urgently. We set up to meet with them on the rynek that night. Im kinda annoyed.. but whatev maybe it really is urgent. We meet with them on a bench and justyna starts talking about expressing feelings and im just kinda like.. what the heck are you talking about... she played the spokesperson for marysza and tells us how marysa has fallen in love with one of us. She asked if that was a sin. We let them know it wasnt a sin but it could be a potential problem .. unfortunately we dont have any sisters in our area so we asked her if she wanted to be taught by the zone leaders instead.. she didnt want to be. I talked with the zls about it and they said we could keep teaching her unless we felt like it was a problem for her. She called us today and let us know that she didnt mean what she had said last night and that she was just really happy to have people that care about her because she doesnt have a lot of friends and she doesnt get along with her parents at all (she lives with them). At this point i really dont know what we are going to do... she isnt the most normal of women and she is really needy... but at the same time she really needs the gospel.. she really needs a support system and she knows the book of mormon is true... for now ima pray for sister missionaries to get transfered here... sigh, women. She really is an elect person i just.. i dunno.. need time to brew it over. Her date is for October 25th... that is pending alot of stuff right now though.. however if we feel she is ready by that point than awesome.

Sorry if that was the most scatter brained story ever.. evidence that im a bio major, not english.

On a prettier sounding note... we went to gdansk for pday today! it was great to be back and to see the beach again... we had a meeting tonight with a freakkking awesome woman named aga ... she is so chill and way excited to read the book of mormon. so heckkk yeahhs babies. Mom i think we get the conference talks in ensign form.. probly in polish first but english eventually i hope so your good.. thanks for thinking of me though.. i heard it was an unreal good conference.

i love you all
miss you alot

sean