Tamara's First Baptism: Libert!

There is no greater joy than to see someone's life changed by learning about the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Tamara has a little Girl! - Sister Garner has arrived!

Czesc!It's a girl! She's a little bigger than 8 pounds, but at least i don't have to carry her, just her luggage! It was so much fun to go pick up our kids from Presidents house! President draws it out trying to make it suspensful so he talks for about an hour before he tells us which one is ours! I got Sis Gardner she's from saratoga Springs and she's amazing! It's been really entertaining with her because I'd forgotten how different Poland is from America until she got here! She asked me the other day if I knew what U Tube was, I had to remind her I'm not that old in the mission! But I honestly couldn't tell her what the last movie I saw was other than the testaments!It's been amazing though because we've been so spoiled and we've seen so many small miracles in the past few days! On her first night I took her contacting on the streets and I taught her how to say good evening so she could stop people and then I would take over, then I taught her how to wish people a good evening to tell them goodbye. I told her she had the next person to stop, and I could see her tossing and turning the words over and over in her head while they got closer, then when they finally got right next to us she stopped and looked like she was going to say something, but instead she just stood and stared them down and looked like she was frozen! I guess I told her too many things at the same time! They passed by glancing awkwardly at the frozen missionary, and I couldn't help it, i just busted up laughing! She's amazing! She's getting better and better and everytime we contact someone I find a way to have her bear her testimony on the book of mormon or something, and they can't wait to listen to her because they know it means so much to her she just doesn't know how to say it! On saturday she stopped somebody all by herself and then turned it into testifying of the BOM! I didn't want to jump in because they were hanging on her every word knowing it meant so much to her! At the end of meetings she's so excited to find out what happened! On time when the investigator had to answer her phone she just burst out with 'quick what's happening!' She's doing all she can to understand and even brings her english scriptures everywhere with her so she can understand what we're reading!But it's been incredible how spoiled we've been in the past few days! One of my favorites was we were going back to the church because we had to get her scriptures and we stopped Justyna. She was way cute and wanted to learn more about the BOM so she asked if we could meet right then and talk about it, we were only a block from the church so we took her there and taught her a 1st! while teaching about dispensations i opened up to Ephesians 2 to talk about apostles and prophets, and she almost cried. Apparently a few days ago she'd woken up and had a thought to read Ephesians 2. She'd read it and been thinking about it, and then I opened up to it to show her a verse! It was incredible! She told me we had to be messangers from God! She ate up the BOM and couldn't wait to read it! She even accepted the Joseph Smith story readily! She already has an amazing relationship with God and she lives the law of Chastity with her fiancee! Our only trick is she lives 100 Km from Bialystok and won't be here for another month, but she gave us her phone number because she wants us to call her and talk about the BOM with her! I almost gave her a baptismal date on the spot, but I knew she'd be out of bialystok for a month, so I'd have to wait till then, and we'll just have to teach her by phone, but she was so incredible! She ate up whatever we said, and when she said the closing prayer it was incredible and she called heavenly father "daddy" in her prayer which was really cool! I'm so excited!Another day we were going back to the church because the elders had forgotten to lock up and on the way there 3 girls ran up from behind us who I'd talked to on a whiteboard, they are a little gothic(not too much though) and said they'd talked about what we'd talked about in the BOM all night(I talked about the spirit world and death! They're favorite topic!) Anyway they said they really wanted one of those books we'd talked about, so they walked with us to the church and took copies of the BOM and they were so excited to read it! I've been so amazed in the past week how spoiled we've been! We even met somebody on Saturday and gave him a flier and set up for after church because he had church during ours, but then he decided to come to our church instead with his friend! And it's been like that all 3 days I've had Sis Gardner! She has to be something amazing because miracles and tender mercies follow her like crazy! I'm so excited to see what happens this week!Love yall,Tam

Tamara at a Mission Conference

Tamara and Mission President Engberg

Tamara between two Poles!

Tamara & Her Companion in Castle Ruins

Tamara at MTC with Her Elder Companions

Tamara entered the MTC on August 22, 2007 - and had from 11-13 elders as her companions! She fit right in with all those brothers! She is the cute one on the front row in a SKIRT!

August 11, 2008 Tamara's Weekly Letter!

czesc wam,Hey guys, well it was another good week, we worked hard to try and get the district standard, and we got really close again. It was really cool though because we got more progressing investigators and we had some really cool meetings. One of my favorite meetings was with Maciej. We had 2 meetings with him this week. On tuesday we really wanted to challenge him to baptism, even though it was only the second lesson. He'd already read the chapter we'd given him in the BOM and so we started teaching him a 3rd lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ. he's so amazing and so humble! It's incredible to teach him! We taught him all about faith and how it grows like a seed and everytime we teach him a principle he'll listen and ask a few questions and then by the end if we make a statement about how it applies to people in general or how it can help him, he'll ask us if we've seen how it helps us in our lives. It really makes us think, and personalize it I love it! Towards the end of the lesson sis Coles felt like she should still ask him to be baptized even though we were pretty sure he wouldn't accept yet, and he didn't, but it really made him think, he didn't totally reject the idea, he just wants more time to decide(he said it could take a couple years!, I'd give him another 3 weeks!). Then we had a meeting again with him on friday with Krzystof(our EQ prez) and his girlfriend, and we taught the plan of salvation. Our secret goal was to get them to be buddies so they can both have a friend, and it's already working! Krzystof helped out on a few questions and answered them for him. The best was when we asked him to change his work schedule so he didn't have to work on sunday so he could come to church, he accepted because of the testimonies of Krzystof and Agata. Members are so amazing! They bore strong testimony of the difference it has made in their lives and he was able to see that! So we should have an investigator in church next week!We also met a Hindu! He wanted us to convince him that Christ is the son of God. So we had a whole lesson about Christ! It was really awkward because we had to do it in english, and I slipped twice into polish! But he took the book of Mormon and he has already read a little bit in it! Anyways love yall lots,S. TamP.s. we had a relief society party and I don't think I've eaten so much sausage and chicken in my life!-Agata's family are all members and they are sealed in the temple! She's the only pole I know that's not american that is sealed to her family!

Tamara's Letter 7/28/08

Hey guys,I love zone conference! It's amazing how it comes right when we need it every time. This one was amazing too. And the next one is going to be heaven! Elder Perry is coming! So their bringing all 100missionaries into warsaw so we can see him! It's going to be insane! I'm so excited! This zone conference was combined with both Warsaw zones so we had 50 missionaries and it was already a ton! We Went to Hard Rock Cafe when we came in with a bunch of missionaries and it was amazing! Zone conference was incredible because they've come up with new programs for us and they were so motivating! We have the busiest family history center in Europe so President decided to use it so we have these new fliers where we have them fill out their parents names and info and maybe they're grandparents if they know it then we send it to warsaw and the senior sisters look up as much as they can about their family and send it back to us! Then we get to go visit them in their homes and give them all the stuff we've found on their families! It's genius! Polish people love their heritage and love to talk about it! I"m so excited to talk about it with people on the streets! The day before zone conference was pretty humbling we were teaching Zoya the temple prep lessons so she can go through, and all she needed was permisison from her husband, but he won't give it, so she showed up to our lesson and bawled for 2 hours. She has more faith than any other person I know, so I know it will work out for her. Then that night our YW Karolina was bawling because things had happened at home too and so we were with her for awhile too. Anyway so after all that I was so drained. We were out of kleenexes and I know longer had a handkerchief! But it was amazing because that night I decided to call Krzystof, our less active in Krakow who is my Polish dad basically. Instantly when I called I felt an amazing love for the people, and I felt so happy! It was a simple conversation, but I was so grateful for that tender mercy. These people are so amazing and they go through so much and do so much for us! It's incredible!Anyways, Love yall lots.Sio Tamp.s. we were running to catch the bus to go to church and it took off so we slowed down under a tree and a bird pooped on my head! It made my day, it was so funny! A lady at the bus stop gave us some toilet paper from her bag, but it was hilarious!