Second half of the First week...

Okay, so to finish off my post from last week :D

After we found out where we were going to serve we paid for our bedding and then went and picked it up. Then we kinda dawdled around then finally left for the dworzec (train station). Waited forever in the freezing cold for the train to come x_x then there was a 4 hour train ride to Kraków where we were going to stay the night before going to Kielce. Slept the whole way.... Got to Kraków and spent the night on the floor with just a comforter... Terrible sleep...woke up like every hour...

Friday-
Woke up at like 7:00 after a terrible night... Did all my studying, and got ready, just kept waiting for them to wake up...they finally got up at like 10:00...they did pull an all-nighter the night before so they could come pick us up at the mission office. We caught a train for Kielce around noon. We had the other Elders going to Kielce with us. Elder Handley and Elder Trost are hilarious, I love them lol. We talked about Anime we had watched while we waited for our train in the cold. It was snowing too :( On the Train I talked with Elder Handley for most of the time. We arrived in Kielce and took a taxi to our apartment, and I finally got to unpack!!! We have a really nice apartment :D probably because it is the chapel as well. It is really nice though I really enjoy it. We have the most Ghetto clothes washer though, but at least it works. We had English class later in our apartment our 3 investigators came over and I got to meet them :D they are pretty cool. After they left I went back to more studying, this language is really hard.....but I am getting it, I am really surprised with how much I can understand and how much I can say. That's the power of prayer right there for ya :D Thanks family!!! I went to bed early, because my head was so exhausted from all the polish around me. I didn't even write in my journal until the next morning....

Saturday-
Woke up a little bit late, still working on the schedule here. Did all my studying again, I love having so much time set asside for it. At 1:00 we had Book of Mormon reading with Wojtek, he likes reading with us then asking questions :D We did our best and he seemed satisfied. It is fun talking with Poles, its amazing they can actually speak this language!!! At 2:00 we went grocery Shopping because we had no food. So some things about Poland... No canned soup...how terrible is that... No canned green beans... No shredded cheese... and no normal hamburger, it is always mixed with something else... After shopping the other Elders came over and we talked with them for a while. At 7:00 we met with our landlady, she loves the Elders but not the church... I got to speak some polish with her. A lot of people here speak decent English, some none at all... We had tea with her and this really weird salad... she had very interesting mannerisms and a slight lisp. And these crazy glasses, she would say something funny and then slap her knee, it was funny. Went home after 2 hours of that and crashed....again.......journal in the morning, hope this isn't going to be a habit lol.

Sunday-
Woke up and got ready, the showers here are nice and all the bathrooms have this awesome rack for towels that heats them :D built into the wall :D I'm happy about that. Around 10:30 people start showing up. We had 2 investigators show up :D I was asked to give the opening prayer...I did fine though. Then had sacrament meeting. I accidently left my music on in the background...so you could hear it slightly...I was so embarrased.... I barely understood any of the talk that was given. Then all the new missionaries to the city introduced themselves. Apparently mine was really good, better than the one that the 1 year old missionaries gave...lol During Sunday School I took the kids that had come with their dad and we talked about Book of Mormon stories for "Primary" They spoke perfect english and polish...I was jealous lol, but I love learning from little kids, the oldest was a girl who was 10, they were really smart I was impressed with their knowledge of the Book of Mormon. We had Pierogi for dinner, way good, similar to ravioli but different. Other Elders came over again and we talked about branch stuff. I fell asleep at 8 for 40 mins then woke up and got ready for bed then crashed about 9:00...so tired.

Monday-
Still waking up a bit late...still working on it. Studied for a long time then I went over to the piano we have in the chapel and I learned How Firm a Foundation on the piano :D It made me happy I remembered how to play. Then we did some odd stuff... We went to the Airsoft Store to see if they would replace my comps broken clip for his airsoft gun... then we headed to an internet cafe to turn in the financial report for the branch but the comps didn't have excel, so we had to go somewhere else. Had my first Kebab on our way to the second place. It was way good but hard to describe... My comp jailbroke his iTouch (many missionaries here have them) we spent a long time on the comps there... I wish we could go contacting or tracting but it is sooooooo cold outside, president told us not to stay outside for very long at all. We went home and had FHE with our investigators and 1 member :D We had a good spiritual thought from my comp (Branch President) and then we played Uno, Poles are so funny lol. 2 of them lingered after it was over for a long time.... Other Elders came over and we shared jokes lol, Elder Trost is so funny with his German Accent lol I love it. The Elders from Kraków came over late...and then they stayed up forever.... I went to bed at like 1:00...and then they kept waking me up...for no reason x_x...

Tuesday-
Woke up at about 8:30 :( I am setting goals for this week... They woke up even later because they stayed up so late...I was upset because that was less e-mail time we would have, turns out we ran out of time on tuesday.... Later on we went to Warsaw to stay the night before Zone Conference. Didn't do much for most of the day...just sat at the apartment....not very happy about that.

Wednesday-
Had Zone conference in the morning :D it was enjoyable I really liked it, I think it got my comp and Kraków trainer a bit pumped and willing to work a bit harder this week. We had an awesome lunch with sandwiches and Juice :D chips and salsa and all kinds of cookies :D Later on we were talking to the young women in warsaw, they are kind to the new missionaries that are learning to speak, I was impressed again with how much I understood and how much I could say :D they were way nice to us :D. We ended up having to stay in an unused apartment that was freezing.... I had to sleep in my big coat, my beanie and gloves and had to have 2 pairs of socks on, and my scarf wrapped around my cold toes x_x.

Thursday-
Came home this morning, took a long time to wake up. We caught a train at like 11:00 it was a long ride too....like 3:30 hours....we got home and had a long walk down the main street to get all the way to our apartment. We got there and dropped our stuff off, then since we had no other plans today we headed to the library to finish our e-mailing from Tuesday. :D We are going to meet with Wojtek a lot this week and see if we can't help him be baptized, he has been investigating for a long time and he knows it is true...just has family issues, they don't approve. That is a major problem in Poland. Hopefully he can get past it.

I love the work out here, I am hoping to be able to get out more as soon as it warms up a bit, right now we are just tyring to have as many meetings as we can.

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts. I'm greatly looking forward to the next 22 months :D

-Starszy Taylor

First Week in Poland

Okay well here we go, this post is essentially going to be my first week in Poland, I have compiled a list of things I did each day. So here we go...

Tuesday-
After Endless flights and crying babies....we arrived in Warsaw, Poland around 11:00 am on Tuesday Morning. We left SLC about 26 hours ago...including time change. We were welcomed at the airport by the two Assisstant Presidents and then a bit later, President Engbjerb. They packed up all our baggage into the big white mission van and took us to the Mission Home. We dropped all our stuff off in the garage on the basement level. Then it was off to the Rynek (Old Town Square) where we would have our first real interaction with the Polish people. We were paired off with a veteran Missionary serving in Warsaw and off we went, using the little polish we actually know. "Excuse me for a moment, I know you're in a hurry and I don't want to interrupt...but have you heard about the Book of Mormon? ...Our Church?" Over and Over.....got 3 phone numbers in 2 hours....not bad I guess. It was really cold... I talked mostly to girls, they are a lot nicer, and kind and will listen out of pity for the poor american boy that barely speaks any polish lol. We ran into some girls that spoke english too!!! I was so excited I started telling them about the Book of Mormon and they set up an appointment right there!!! Only to later find out they were sister missionaries just messing with us x_x....After that experience we went back to the Mission Home and had Pizza for Dinner and then went to the basement and all crashed on our beds....So tired.....

Wednesday-
We woke up in the morning at 6:30 and got ready and went on a short run with the Mission Pres. out is the freezing cold....We went to a catholic church nearby on our run for a bit...it was weird...they had a huge mammoth bone hanging in the back, no idea why. We had an awesome breakfast with cereal and warm bread, cheese and meat when we got back. Then we traveled to the mission office in Warsaw and had our missionary orientation. Then it was back to the Rynek where we watch a short film on the history of Warsaw...quick summary: Warsaw got rocked in WWII, completely wrecked, then rebuilt. There ya go, I kid you not that was the whole film...Then we had lunch at Subway...ya random...in Poland...whatever...they spoke english too...and had english music playing...I hear more english music here than I do Polish music... After lunch we went to visit the only chapel (its own building) in Poland, it was nice. Then it was back to the mission home for Interviews with president and Dinner. I just had a short interview, it was pretty much just me telling him what my parents do then he read the letter the Bishop and the Stake President wrote for me, that was it. We had an amazing dinner from Sister Engbjerb and then a wonderful testimony meeting. I went first after President and his Wife just to get that one off my chest lol. And then it was off to bed.

Thursday-
So Thursday morning was a bit odd....Morning rolled around and somehow none of us heard any of the alarms that went off...so we all woke up when president was yelling down stairs asking if we were ready....we all scrambled to get up fast and get ready. This run, I would describe as śmierć...or death in english....I just about died... Running is not my thing.... running in a foot of fresh snow is my hell....my ankles hurt sooo bad by the end of it, somehow I lived...no idea....angels I swear. After and eternity of running through that crap we finally made it back to the mission home for another wonderful breakfast :D We got our stuff all packed up and then stuffed into the van and we headed off to the Mission office to meet our trainers and find out our first area. President took his sweet time (On purpose) talking about anything that would come to mind to delay him telling us what we were dying to find out. Finally he ran out of time and had to tell us who our trainer would be and where we would server first. I was paired to be Elder Anderton serving in the city of KIELCE!!!

....yikes...well I guess I am out of time, Will see if I can't write more sometime during the week. I love you guys. More info to come later :D

Starszy Taylor

Beginning of my Mission in Poland

Well, I arrived in Polska about 7 days ago after 2 months in the Missionary Training Center (MTC). While there we learned the basics of Polish among learning Gospel principles and how to teach them in Polish. Also had a lot of time to study the Scriptures which was so much fun reading it all at once so many things all came together. The Book of Mormon is such an amazing book I absolutely love reading it now.

Well I must say it is absolutely FREEZING in Poland....no surprise there though right..... kinda expected that. But man, it is really cold here.... at least our apartment is warm. Our apartment happens to be the chapel too because we only have like 7 members or something so It is one of the nicer apartments from what I hear, but they are all nice. The food isn't that much different that something you might get in america other than the fact that there is no canned soup.....I was upset....how can you just not have canned soup? I mean isn't that like a must...its so cheap and only requires water.....why not have canned soup everywhere....Oh ya and there are no dryers here...just washers...I thought that was pretty odd. I am enjoying my time here so far, don't do much tracting or contacting because of the freezing weather but we still have occasional meetings and such. My companion is Elder Anderton, he is way chill and we get along just fine :D whew.

This is where I will be doing my weekly updates so if you want to keep posted just check back every so often, if you want to respond please e-mail me at football80@gmail.com Thank you :D

I love you all and look forward to doing the Lord's work here in Poland :D

-Starszy Taylor