Weekly Email - May 6th

Hey all,

Things in Szczecin have been great. I have been called to stay here for the next 2 months, and Elder K moved from the other side of town to be my companion. We are having a great time so far. Elders M and W are the two new Elders in Szczecin. Elder M is our District Leader and just got called to be Branch President as well, so he has a lot on his plate. There is a whole new spirit here in Szczecin, and overall we are doing amazing. In the last couple of days I have seen a new spirit and as much success as two weeks would have brought just a little bit ago. It is amazing to be able to teach S. She is our investigator. She is so amazing, just 2 months ago she had never even heard of God, and she is going to be baptized next week. She is such a spiritual person and it has been a blessing to be able to teach her for even just a few days. She is also our new branch pianist because no one here knows how to play piano. So that has been a miracle. The rest of the work has picked up as well. We were able to teach a lot of lessons to people on the street, we were able to share the Book of Mormon with a lot of people as well. We even talked to a man from Canada, he teaches English here and he was very interesting and had never heard our message before. He said he was interested in us because he had never thought of the concept of a modern prophet before. We told him that just like in the times of Moses, Abraham and Noah, God called men to be prophets and prophets revealed what men had to do to be saved. We need prophets in our day to do the same, nothing has changed. If you believe in the Prophecies and writings of the Bible, then you should see why a prophet would be so important. He was fun to talk to and we are hoping to see him again. All else is well, I hope all is going well for people back home and around the world. This is an amazing work that we are able to participate in and I am glad I get to work here in Szczecin and learn this crazy hard language and work work work...

Love you all,
Elder Godwin

 Here are some of the members in Szczecin.

Weekly Email - April 29th

From Mom:

 

It's been a while since I update the blog and I apologize for that. Life has been pretty hectic lately but good. Elder Godwin has been working in the Szczecin area since March. Szczecin is a small and remote town in the mission. However, he shares that it is pretty and they have a very nice apartment. The work there has been slow, but they are enjoying working with the small branch that is there. He has really enjoyed working with his current companion. They have gotten along really well and he shares that they tend to stress about the same things. 

 

The weather has finally warmed up. For a week there their water was all rusty and their heater didn't work. Of course, it also happened to be on one of the coldest weeks. Now their temperatures are ranging on the low range between mid 30ºF to high 40ºF, and the highs are between the very high 50ºF to high 60ºF. This is a very welcomed change. As of April they no longer have to wear suits, they can wear white shirts and dress pants which Elder Godwin is very much enjoying.

 

He is still taking us on a culinary tour through his mission. A lot of his pictures are of the food he eats. Those Kebabs are still his favorite.

 

Below is part of his email from this morning, enjoy!

 

Hey family, 

 

So I will start off by saying, I got called by President Nielson (the mission president) last night. I will be staying in Szczecin for another 2 months, and my companion will be Elder K (he was one of the four Elders here in Szczecin over the past 2 months). He will come over and live with me and we will get to continue to teach his current investigator. She is Chinese and studies music here in Szczecin and speaks English and Chinese. It will be weird teaching someone in English for once, I am excited for all of that to start.

This week was really odd. It was the LEAST successful week I have had on my whole mission as far as finding people to teach and sharing the gospel. There were some amazingly rewarding experiences though. We taught a member of our small branch. We teach her about once a week and we usually just share a spiritual. This time we did the same thing, but as we finished with our lesson, she had some questions like "what are the 12 tribes of Israel?", "why are they important?" "what does it mean when the Bible says that 'Israel will be gathered' and that we can be adopted into the tribes of Israel?". Then we suddenly realized that in such a small branch they don't really have someone that can teach these things. Elder S and I knew what we had to do. We went home and I did about 3 days of personal study just studying the Bible from the creation all the way to Jesus Christ. I drew up a nifty bible map that explained the sequence of events and everything that happened to Israel, it explained when the Book of Mormon Prophets (Lehi, Jared and his Brother, and Mulek) left Israel and went to America by boat. And we went on to explain some other concepts to her like how she can pray to know that these things are true and how she should write down answers to her prayers, how she should write promptings from the Holy Ghost and study these things. She has her Patriarchal blessing which is rare for someone in Poland since they don't have their own Patriarch, but she was confused clarification. We were able to explain that Abraham received a blessing from the Lord that his descendants would bless all the nations of the world, and they would be blessed. This was promised to Abraham by a loving God who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so the promise must still exist today. We know that we can take part in this promise that was given to Abraham and when we are baptized and follow Jesus Christ, then that promise is given to us as we are "adopted into Israel".

That was way cool, she thanked us for actually teaching her something new. I guess that is why a good teacher needs to listen to those that they teach and really respond to their needs and study out and answer their questions.

We have planned a "Spiritual Fireside" tonight for our branch for Family Home evening. All four of the missionaries and 3 of our members have talks or musical numbers, or different parts of the program. It should be a lot of fun.

I am excited to continue working in this city, I love the city. The work is harder here than anywhere else I have served, but it is also very rewarding. I get to talk to some of the coolest Poles and serve around some of the best missionaries in the world, and I am grateful for that. Hope all is well on the homefront, I miss you all and wish you all the best and a happy May!!!

 Elder Godwin out tracting in an apartment complex.

 One of the member's dog wearing Elder Godwin's name tag.

 One of the branch member's with her cute dog.

 Elder Godwin eating a Kebab that instantly got him sick. Yuck!

 I guess you can buy these monkeys at the pet store for 6,500zl. I hope Hailey is not checking the blog. :)

 This was the color of the water for a week. Not good!

 Elder Godwin is still smiling though. Love the tie!

 More of the wonderful food he is eating in Poland.

 His apartment, pretty nice I must say!

 More advertising with the same girl Anya!

 A picture down the street of his apartment.

Repost from Sister Nielson's Blog.

The Interview trip moves on to....POZNAN!

 We arrived in Poznan Monday night.....just in time for Family Home Evening at the chapel. It's a great way for the members to enjoy each other's company as they study the gospel, play games and have refreshments. (LtoR): Marian, Marta, Natalie, Grzegorz, Jola and the Sheleys.
The next morning (Tuesday) we were up early and heading to the chapel....it was going to be a full day.

 We were greeted by the Szczecin Elders who had come in for interviews and Zone Training Meeting.

Elder Cieslak (District Leader) and Elder Kotter... both excited to be in Szczecin and serving the Lord.

 Elder Saltmarsh and Elder Godwin.  Our second set of missionaries in Szczecin who are just are great as any companionship we have in Poland.

 Our Poznan Elders, Elder Tingey (District Leader) and Elder Ciaskey, were there to open the building and make sure everything was perfect for the day's activities.

 The Sisters were hurrying to update the Branch Bulletin board....showing pictures of members and Branch activities...before the meeting started.

 They did stop, however, when I brought out the mail....and they had much to smile about! Sister Bezdjian and Sister Bown are teaching some great people....including a wonderful family!

 Our Senior couple, Elder and Sister Sheley, are wonderful and support the Branch in every way....including being the Branch President! Bringing something special for lunch, going out with missionaries to teach lessons and finding inactives are only a few of their many duties....we just love their enthusiasm for the work.

 The Bydgoszcz Zone Leaders, Elder Bokinsky and Elder Gudnason, are here in Poznan to teach and instruct what was discussed at Zone Leader Council the week before.  This is their opportunity to make sure the "water gets to the end of the row".  They did a great job of leading the discussion today.

Zone Training in this part of the Zone. (Tomorrow the Zone Leaders meet with the Bydgoszcz and Gdansk Districts in Bydgoszcz).  Front row:  Elders Gudnason, Bokinsky, Tingey and Caskey.  Middle row:  Elders Saltmarsh, Kotter, Cieslak and Godwin.  Back row:  Sisters Bezdjian and Bown.

 Sidenote: It was also a reunion for the "Valley of the Sun" Elders.  Elders Caskey and Godwin were friends in Phoenix before their missions.  They knew each other in High School and in College.  When Elder Godwin got his call, Elder Caskey came over to congratulate him and said, "It would be so cool to go to Poland on a mission".  Well, a few months later Elder Caskey's wish came true!

 A quick lunch before some headed back out to 'Find and Teach' and some headed to the train station (to do the same thing!) A train is a great place to talk to everyone you see.  It was a great day and now to apply the things we learned.  For President and me, it's on to the next city...

As we have traveled under this bridge so many many times, I couldn't help take one more picture of this colorful site.  We appropriately call this the "rainbow bridge" (not to be confused with another Rainbow Bridge that we love).

 Every once in a while you will come across something like this.  'The arches' connecting both sides of the road.   Today with the snow, the colors just jumped out.  I don't know why I took this picture... just another memory for President and me. So....where are we headed next?

Even though the car wants to veer to the left.....we have more work to do. Lodz is our next stop, and we are excited to visit with our missionaries there.

Weekly Email - March 3rd

Hello,

This week has been crazy cool. I’ll start from the beginning. On Monday after we did our emails we had to figure out where to go shopping and all of that since we had no idea where to go. We had to walk all the way to Galaxy Mall where there is a grocery store. We bought food for 2 weeks. It was expensive. Then we went to FHE at the chapel.  The branch holds FHE together every week. It was a lot of fun. This branch is really young.

We’ve done a lot of contacting and tracting to find people to teach. On Tuesday we had district Meeting. We all had assigned topics to talk about. I talked about the role of the Holy Ghost and the authority we have as missionaries. How we have to work in order to be able to teach with power. We also met a really cool guy that we talked to for a while. We got his number and we are going to meet up with him again. We also named a lady by the name of N. She is really nice and she let us in and we taught her a lesson and gave her a Book of Mormon. We also have a return appointment with her. We also met another man while tracting that set up an appointment with us that we are going back to.

Wednesday, we did a white board. Szczecin is not very big, but we went to the center of Szczecin right off the side of the mall. There are always a lot of people there and we set up there and asked people what gives them happiness. We gave away a lot of Book of Mormon’s and we got a lot of phone numbers of people we need to contact. Elder K was really good at that. We also had English class. We have a lot of students, they are all pretty young.  We take turns teaching English because we only have one class. So the other Elders taught this lesson and we are teaching next week. It’s going to be really cool.

Thursday, we talked to a lot of people. Then we went and printed flyers to advertise our English class. On Friday we each handed out 150 flyers each. It was nice to be able to do that. We also had weekly planning day. And then we went tracting.

On Saturday we did another whiteboard it wasn’t quite as good as the first one. Elder K is really good at getting people’s phone numbers. We also went and cleaned the chapel and had a correlation meeting with the branch mission leader. He is really nice. After that we had dinner with the branch mission leader.  They had some interesting pizza like food that was really good. I would definitely go back there.

Today we had church and it was testimony meeting. There aren’t that many members there so everyone bears their testimonies. It is interesting in a small branch. Then we had lunch, tracted and then had dinner.

We are working really hard on finding people to teach. Things were pretty quiet when we got here so we are really working it. We do a lot of contacting and tracting. I really enjoy it and I’m learning a lot. I found the best Pierogi restaurant I have been to in Poland so far. I also am finding other really good places to eat at. I found a place that do “Swedish Pancakes” I bought ½ a dessert one that was stuffed full of Nutella and Strawberries. It was amazing. I haven’t found any cheap grocery stores yet. I’m only finding the expensive ones.

The members here went on a temple trip this past week. They traveled for a total of 27 hours to get to Frankfurt to go do baptisms for the dead. They met Elder C’s grandfather at the temple. He works at the temple and they were able to talk to him. Our branch is really cool. They all speak English in different degrees. They never do though because they are all trying to help us with our Polish. I really appreciate that. This is a really small branch the smallest one I have been to so far. They are all really neat people here though. There are a lot of young people that have really good energy.

The weather here is beautiful (relatively). Clear skies all week, haven't seen that since leaving phoenix. The day temps are warm enough for just a windbreaker, but the afternoons remind you that winter may not be entirely over. Szczecin is windy, but the city is gorgeous. I would dare say that Szczecin as a whole is as pretty as Krakow, it is just missing the rynek in the center.

I love you all and hope all is going well at home. I look forward to your emails. I hope you received my package. I can't wait to zone conference so that I can see Elder C.

Here are some pictures from Szczecin.

 This is the view from the apartment.

 Here is another angle with a view from the apartment.

 This is Godzilla over Szczecin. Looks interesting.

Weekly Email - February 24th

Hello,

I’m speaking from a train heading out of Krakow heading to Szczecin. It is a long train ride. I have 9 ½ hours on the train. At which point Elders C, K & S, should greet me. That should be fun!

This has been a crazy week. We planned S’ baptism. I’m so glad I got to help plan his baptism. When I told S that I was leaving for Szczecin, he told me I will love it there. His mom lives there and he used to live there too. He says it’s beautiful and it’s a port city. Well anyways, he wanted one of us to give a talk, so Elder S is going to talk at the baptism. Brother D. is supposed to perform the baptism.

This past week we also had a lady contact the branch asking for more information. She was especially interested in reading materials and also had some questions. So we called her and made an appointment to go and visit her. So we went to visit her and she was the nicest woman. She invited us in, offered us some fruit tea because she knew we couldn’t have regular tea. She also offered us some cookies. She grabbed a notepad and sat down and started to ask us a lot of questions. She was very interested in what we believe in. She is pretty much home bound, and has a lot of time to read and loves to read. We taught her a lesson and she asked some great questions. Then we set up another appointment to come back for another lesson. So we went back and taught her about the plan of salvation. She listened to what we had to say and it was all clicking in her head. She said that makes sense. That is why you are baptized, that is why you are sealed in the temple and do baptisms for the dead. This is why you do these things for people in the spirit world. That makes so much sense. She also took notes the whole time. It was a really cool lesson. We also set up another appointment for the Elders to go back and teach her. I told her I wouldn’t be there that it would be a new Elder joining Elder S.

We met with S on Wednesday for his last meeting with us before the baptism. We talked for a while and got him ready for his baptism. He was being his baptismal interview with the Zone leaders the next day. He shared with us that he has had many opportunities to read in the Book of Mormon and he prayed about it and he could feel that it was right and true. He felt the Spirit. So we made all the arrangements and we reserved the pool so he is ready for baptism. I’m very excited about his baptism.

I love Elder S. He has been one of the nicest companions I could have had. He is just super kind. I have a lot of respect for him. He reminds me of Karl but taller. He has a lot of talents, but is very humble. He has a lot of faith and is so spiritual.

I got to talk to Elder Caskey briefly yesterday. He was excited to be in Poland. It really wasn’t a reality that he was going to be here until I heard his voice. He is going to be in my Zone, serving with Elder T, my companion from the MTC and they will be in Poznan. It was nice to talk to him. We will see each other at Zone Conferences.

I left a lot of things behind here. I needed to shed some weight because I didn’t want to travel heavy. I still have the same amount of bags, just lighter. I’m alone in my train compartment right now. I’m sure that will change as we pick up more people on the way.

I have heard so many nice things about Szczecin. Everyone I talked to after I got my new assignment say I will love it there. There are boats there too.

We found out that our new mission president is President Steven C. Edgren from Danville, California. He will come in on July 1^st. That will be exciting.

Well, I can’t keep recording for the next 8 hours, so I guess I will let you go. I will record more once I get there.  This is going to be a crazy transfer since we will both be new to the area.

I love you all. Everything is going good over here. I’m excited! I hope everything is well in Phoenix and with the ward. There is a sister missionary from Poznan here in Poland. She has been called to serve Chicago Illinois. She will be serving in the same mission as Connor. That is pretty cool! Talk to you later, bye.

Hello, it’s Monday morning in Szczecin. I got in at 7:15 on Friday. There was a lady that was maybe 5’ 3” that offered to help me get my bags off the train. She was really nice. The other Elders were right there when I got off the train. We went to the apartment and dropped off my things and then went and got something to eat. I didn’t get any food on the train so I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime the day before. On Saturday we got up and tried to figure out where things were at in our area. We then went out and started contacting. On Sunday we went to church. We had 4 missionaries there, the branch president, a YSA member who speaks good English, but refuses to speak anything but Polish to the missionaries. She gave us all an English lesson after church. It was awesome. There was also another member there. There are more members but they were just not there this Sunday. Elder S. is awesome. He just served with Elder V. His Polish is really good.

Szczecin is a great city. It is built on a river and everything is on the west side of the river. Except for some industry. It is built the same way as Paris France, but much smaller though. We live in the old part of town. Our apartment is beautiful and we have a great view out of our window. We are looking right out on the river with lots of fancy eating places right here. We have a lot of work to do here.

I love you all! I will talk to you later.

 Elder Godwin at Hard Rock Cafe in Krakow.

 That looks yummy!

 This is at the Rynek in Krakow.

 Elder Godwin and Slawek

Baptism in Krakow

This past weekend Slawek was baptized in Krakow by President Dziubla. This is a wonderful baptism that is very close to Elder Godwin's heart. Elder Godwin has a lot of love and respect for both Slawek and President Dziubla. Slawek has had the opportunity to be taught by the missionaries several times but has never been ready to enter the waters of baptism. Elder Godwin feels so blessed to have been part of Slawek's conversion and to have seen the change in his life. He was sad to leave Krakow the day before the baptism, he wanted so badly to be there for Slawek. He was thankful to know that Slawek was ready to make the commitment to be baptized and welcome the gospel in to his life. We have never met Slawek, but we are so thankful for the opportunity our son has had to teach him and to get to know him. It has changed our son too. The gospel of Jesus Christ is wonderful!

This next weekend there is another baptism in Krakow. We are so excited for Oskar to be baptized.

Weekly Email - February 18th

Hello to all of you at home,

I will start from the beginning.

On Monday, we were going to go to the museum under the Rynek in Krakow. We had heard that it was free on Mondays, except for it was not free on Monday it was free on Tuesday. So we figured we will come back on culture night. So instead we went to the mall and had a goody from the bakery. It was a raspberry pie thing with sour cream. It was delicious.

Tuesday we wanted to meet with O because his baptism is coming up. He was sick so we weren’t able to go and teach him. We did get a call from Sister Nielson that there was a package for us to pick up at a hotel. So we headed there to pick it up. Elder S was sick with a cold so we had to cancel our appointment with T. He was sad, but we really didn’t want to get a 96-year old man sick.

Wednesday we had English class. We had 3 new students. Well, one of them had been there once before. He brought a friend and then there was a lady there that we had met once before. They are all beginner English. So that is cool. We had dinner at the chapel afterwards. S came afterwards and we taught him a lesson. We talked about the word of wisdom and the law of chastity. We had a good lesson and he is feeling really good about his baptism.

Thursday we did contacting and institute. There was no one that showed up to institute. It was sad that no one came because he does a really good job and I really enjoy his lessons. So we ended up leaving. We also got 2 referrals one from B and one from the office. She lives in a satellite city of Krakow. We have been trying to reach her but haven’t had any luck yet. We will keep calling her though and see if we can set up an appointment to go and see her. We actually did try finding her house on Friday and that’s when we found out that she doesn’t live in Krakow but in a suburb. After that it was culture night, so we went to dinner at u Babcia Malina (grandma raspberry), it’s an old style polish restaurant. I ordered a Golabki and potatoes. It was really good. It’s a cabbage roll swimming in gravy and stuffed with hamburger meat mixed with all kinds other stuff. Then we went to the Rynek museum. It is kind of hi-tech because they have computers where you can read all the information. It was neat with really cool exhibits. They had pieces of the original roads when they first built Krakow in the 12^th century; they had wooden beams and cement. They also had artifacts like measuring devices and tools. They even had 2 real skulls there. One was from someone that had early medical procedures back in the 11^th century. The other one came from someone that was tortured to death. It was interesting and informative. They had videos to watch at the end of the reenactment of the Tatar invasion. The Tatars came in and there was a guy with a trumpet or a horn and he ran up to the tower to alert the citizens of Krakow. He was shot to death. So in his memory they play the trumpet every hour on the hour at the church on the Rynek in Krakow. This is not where this man played the trumpet but it’s in his memory.

After that we went to the grocery store to see if we could buy some chocolate candy on sales after Valentine’s Day. They didn’t have any on sale though so we didn’t buy any.

Saturday we had to open the chapel in the morning for the District President. T showed up to clean the chapel too. We did some contacting around the chapel and then we had an appointment to teach a lesson to M at the chapel. He had a lot of very honest questions. He is very nice and we will meet with him again. After that we contacted some more. Then President K called and asked us to come with him to visit P. It takes about 45 minutes each way and then an hour visiting so it took the rest of the day. We gave a lesson regarding the Unspeakable Gift from God from last conference by Elder Craig C. Christensen. We had a good visit.

Sunday we had a visitor at church from the US. He was there for business. I translated during Sunday school; President K translated Sacrament meeting. I got to bless the sacrament again. O came to church too, he was feeling better today, so that was good. We visited with Brother U for a while and then we went home ate and then finally we got to see T, the 96-year old. He was happy to see us. He is such a nice man and is so trusting. He is a lot of fun to teach. He is very devoted and wants to do what is right.

We are waiting for our transfer calls. I really would love to stay in Krakow, but we will have to see.

We heard from President K about the meteor in Russia. That was really exciting. Then Brother U told us more about that. If you haven’t heard of it you need to look up current events. Maybe you have already written me about it, or maybe you are not going to write about it.

We are still waiting for transfer calls from President. I’m getting pretty stressed here. My theory is that we are both staying in Krakow and the Elder S will be training hopefully Elder C and I will be here to with someone that has already been here for one transfer. Maybe he won’t call at all and in that case that means we are staying here just like we are and that wouldn’t be bad at all.

Did you hear that the Pope resigned? I’m sure you heard already. So I guess they are looking for a new Pope. I also heard that his house got struck by lightning. Is that true?

Well, I guess I will let you go and I will make another recording when I hear from the President.

Hello again,

So we just got our transfer call from the President. Elder is S is staying here and he will be getting a new companion. And I will be moving to Szczecin. Elder C will be my District Leader. I will be serving with Elder S who has been here 2 months less than I have. I will be the senior companion. Szczecin is on the border to Germany in northern Poland. There are 4 missionaries there. They are doing really good in Szczecin. It’s a small place though. There isn’t a whole lot around there. I’m really sad to be leaving the branch here. I’m also sad because I would love to see Krakow in spring. I will also miss our 2 baptisms O and S and I will miss M. I will also President K and The U’s. Elder N is staying in Kielce and is getting a greenie. Maybe even Elder C. Elder L is also staying in Kielce and Elder B is joining him.

So I guess I’ll talk to you from Szczecin next week. I will have met the branch members already when I talk to you. I’m so sad to be leaving. I bid my farewell to you all.

Love you all,

Brian