Witajcie!

Witajcie! 

I had the opportunity to go to Kielce this past week. Kielce is a smaller city south of Warsaw by a couple hour train ride. It was fun to be in a smaller town again. It's fun to work with other missionaries and have new experiences. Meeting members around the country gives me hopes and raises my spirits. 

One of the members in the branch here in Warsaw, Lesław Ilnicki, passed away recently and his funeral was this past Wednesday. I caught an early train from Kielce to make it, we had to run and I showed up with my luggage but I am thankful to have been there. It was touching to see how many other church members were there. It goes to show the unity and significance of the relationships we have as members, especially here in Poland where the "social" aspect of church is prevalent. Brat Barchwic, Siostra Jarosz, and Brat Wiliński all gave talks, Brat Borowski led the meeting. It was peaceful and hopeful. Poland is a nation that looks to its predecessors with reverence and respect. Graveyards have the reputation of being haunted, dark, or scary but the cemetery was calm and illuminated by the sun. It was exciting to walk through and think of all the lives led by the people who are now remembered by their stone marker. Poland is known for its cemeteries and there is a holiday later this year - a day set aside to remember those that have passed. I am grateful for the culture of understanding and appreciation of the ancestors of this beautiful nation. 

I love Poland. I forget how much I have become accustomed to life here - even buying my pierogi and kiełbasa this morning, it's just a part of life now. I am not perfect at the language but it no longer seems impossible or unattainable to reach a level of fluent understanding and expression. The people, the food, the history - everything. Never did I think my mission would look the way it does but how grateful I am for it!

This week President Edgren sent an email all about time, which was right inline with what's been going on in my life. I have recently been thinking a lot about time (it has been a major concept consuming my thoughts but more so now than before). Recently, being prompted by the advice of others, I have been focusing a lot on my mission vision. My old mission vision included a long list of every attribute I wanted to acquire before my mission ended and every dream I wanted to fulfill. Rather than expecting to be perfect at the end of my mission I have been severely altering my mission vision. I am working on making it simpler and more focused on the words of President Uchtdorf when he said "your mission should be the foundation of the rest of your life" at the conference he held with us missionaries hear in Warsaw. I want my mission vision to help me create a base that I can work from. Rather than defeating all of my weaknesses I hope to learn the process of tackling challenges and personal short-comings. Rather than being able and confident in any new setting I hope to have a mental outline of how to react and grow in new situations. I am still working on my battle with time. I need to remember two lessons I have learned recently: 1. I need not fear to shoot to do my best, it's true that my best won't be perfect or everything I want it to be but I must give it my all. Luckily this is coupled with 2. Heavenly Father has a sure plan for me, he knows my true potential, which is greater than what I now see. I am motivated to use my time with greater wisdom. I have already felt an improvement this past week as I try to be a good example of just getting out and working as well as using my down time for personal spiritual growth. I have met much peace recently as I think about my mission and its timeline. I am being blessed with a realization of all the things that have been accomplished. My time has been full of experiences and although I still wish that my efforts reflected more blessings in the lives of others I am feeling more fulfilled.

I know that there is still time. We are all always learning things that we need to learn and apply. There is time to change and to go for it. That time is always now. I know that we can work with what we have now to reach our high potential. I know that Heavenly Father loves us and helps us in this journey, He has placed tools in our path to help us: family, friends, scripture, prayer. Do those little simple things that bring peace and happiness into every day.

W pokorze to twierdzę z pewnością. Kocham was i wszystkiego szczęśliwego zyczę! 

Pozdrawiam,

Starszy Kimball

By Small and Simple Things

Summer is here! It is hot and that can make it hard! At the same time we had a white board this past week that got rained out. I have realized that there are always excuses for people not to talk with us: it's too hot/cold, I have work, I am on vacation etc. Of course I want to give people the best opportunity to hear our message but I am comforted to know that Heavenly Father will guide others to us and will fulfill His work. 

Things are good here. Church was great! I know that it took me a little while to adjust to the branch here but I love it so much. The members are great and I feel the Spirit so strong. Andzrej received the priesthood so next week can help administer the sacrament! We are working with members (Filip, Stanisław, and Wolodymyr) teaching them how to use Preach My Gospel ( a missionary guide to teach and work with others). Ever since President Uchtdorf came in the country member missionary work has exploded. We are meeting with the stake and branch presidents soon to receive their vision for work. It is exciting to see Polish leaders in the church here. Soon missionaries will have a smaller role and members will be fulfilling their potential! 

This week started off a little lame but it became incredible. Nothing that remarkable happened but I was blessed with love for others and a desire to work as I sought them out in prayer. The power of the Holy Ghost is powerful. It was by simple things: personal scripture study, reading church magazines during lunch but these little things led to great blessings. The blessings themselves were also small but great and personal. I love the way commandments work. For example reading the Book of Mormon. We don't have to follow a commandment suffering and sacfricing and after the test we are blessed. Rather we receive the blessings through obedience. Of course we are tested and it is hard at times, especially when our vision is blury but keep doing the small daily things and you will be blsedd! 

Poland is great! My language is okay, I am feeling pretty comfortable. I feel like I am on the verge of a huge breakthrough. I am learning a lot in my personal studies and feel like I am so close to reaching a new level of communication. I am excited. 

We had Culture night this week since Sister Swenson is going home at the end of this upcoming week (she extended for a month). We went to Ogród Saski and saw the bench that plays Chpoin music. I love Poland. We then had a picnic but because of the rain had to move it inside. It was still a lot of fun. 

Love,

Starszy Kimball

1/12 of a teaspoon

There is not much time (the lady at the library won't give me more time even though nobody is waiting... hard times...) 

1. Zone trainings. Elder Blom, Sister Poklinkowska, and I presented some training in Warsaw and then in Lublin. It was a lot of fun, the focus was on self conversion and receiving personal revelation for ourselves and for our individual areas of missionary work. Something that I enjoyed was thinking about conversion - it's a process, remember that it's not about reaching the "point of conversion" as much as being converted every day!

2. I had to go to get my permanent wire fixed - it fell out. We went to this crazy place - we were having trouble finding it in the rain, it was in this weird warehouse thing. It was a super fancy warehouse with fancy stores and then this random orthodontist office. It was crazy fancy, tv screens everywhere, it was a little sterile, all the of the workers there had braces, it was all women that worked there. It was sort of an intense place, like a scary movie would happen there but we made it out alive. 

3. We celebrated the 4th of July by going out for ribs and burgers with the Elders here in Warsaw I. 

4. Wolodymyr received the Aaronic priesthood yesterday and Andrzej will receive it next Sunday. We are working with a few cool people. Tomek has a baptismal date. Dawid is probably the coolest person I have ever met. Rafał we were just led to yesterday (I am excited to work wtih him), and Edward is praying about being baptized. They could use your prayers. 

5. In a general conference talk from October 2012 Elder Ballard talked about honeybees and how they work. (it was a really good talk I would encourage you to read it). He talked about the incredible things we can all accomplish together but it takes a lot of work. One pound of honey requires bees to travel to millions of flowers with a distance equivalent to flying around the world twice. One bee will only add 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey to the hive before it leaves. So small compared to the hive's total and in comparison to the demand for honey. We can't do it all but the small addition of each of us is so vital. As I read I felt comfort, I felt reassurance that my Father in Heaven is happy with my effort despite my short comings and the things I still need to do. I am thankful for the realization that we must do our part, we must search to fulfill our roles in our personal positions and circumstances and not worry about the rest.

6. I feel so good. on top of things. confident.hopeful! 

7. Have a good week

8. Love, Starszy Kimball