I just felt a lot more motivated, reorganized some goals, and just felt positive overall. We moved buildings which was sort of a pain and stressful but a change of scenery is always nice. We now have another zone on our floor, consisting of Scandinavia and Holland/ Belgium.
We got another set of new missionaries this week, 6 of them, going to Bulgaria and Croatia. I have gotten to know some of the new elders pretty well and they are great. Elder Yentes (going to the Czech Republic Mission) is awesome, he's from California and is just a really good missionary. The MTC is great because we get to know so many people, all of us going all over the world!
To start off with some exciting news, our Tuesday Night Devotional this week was given by Elder and Sister Oaks. It was a broadcast to all the MTCs in the world and it was really good. There had been rumors circulating and we all knew it was an apostle but when Elder Oaks walked through the doors I was excited because his talk from General Conference really spoke to me. I got a lot of insight again and the main points that I needed to hear from him were 1. A reminder that the Lord qualifies who He calls 2. I need to strive to be the best I can be. This second point has given me some trouble over the past few weeks here. We are constantly reminded that as we do our best Heavenly Father will come in and help us with the rest. During a Polish district "Tender Mercy Monday" where we all share a way we saw Heavenly Father's hand in our life throughout the week, Sister Wood (the oldest and wisest out of the group) talked about how she saw that we were all trying our best and how we need to therefore have faith that as we try our hardest Heavenly Father will bless with everything we need to fulfill our role of inviting others unto Christ. When she said that I had two realizations, both to do with the fact that I didn't feel like I was doing my best. The first was that my best doesn't mean perfection, which is hard to accept. I had to realize that I can't do everything I want to do exactly the way I want to do it. The second thing I realized is that because of point one I never really thought I was or even could do my best. I never thought that I would be doing my best because I wasn't doing everything I wanted to, which I realized was terrible for my view of myself. I understood how bad it was that I never saw myself doing my best. I now know that I need to do everything I can and be happy with it. Likewise, I am prone to doing just short of my best as a defense mechanism in case my "true best" isn't what I want it to be. I am trying to accept my limits and really give it my all in order to receive the blessings and help I need. That's not to say that I haven 't been receiving blessings because I have received and noticed more here that ever before.
Sister Peterson is the jokester of the district and this past week she showed us our new favorite hymn, #269 (I don't have the title) in it is has the line "from Pole to Pole." We love our punny Pole jokes in our district! Another funny thing that happened this week... Brat Tribe was teaching us and telling us about some practical things about being in "the field." He said that one of our first nights we are going to be tired and hungry and our trainer (missionary companion who is experienced and been in Poland for a while, so helps us out) will have us call to order pizza. He was talking about a the nervous feelings that come as you have to think of words and numbers in Polish. The whole time I was laughing to myself because I have been the family's "pizza orderer" for the past six years. My parents always said it was good mission practice, having to use my French - who knew how right parents could be!
As always I have much more to say without the time to express it. We leave to Poland two weeks from Monday! Crazy, exciting, nerve-racking, and happy! Don't worry about being perfect but do strive to be the best that you can be.Serve others and get outside your comfort zone.
I love you all,
Starszy Kimball
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