At English on Wednesday I noticed Basia (One of our members) was watering the plant in the Branch President Office. I told her that my Mom would thank her for doing that. Then she got all excited and asked what my Mom's name was. I told her, then she said, in the best english I have ever heard her speak "Thank you Barbara Jo"! Somehow she did not roll her "r"s either! I was amazed! :)
On Thursday we went out "contacting" which usually means walking around for a while, because Elder Beaty HATES Contacting. All the older missionaries do, because they use to contact for like 6 hours a day...terrible... but I was determined to actually go out and find people willing to listen today. So I told Elder Beaty that we needed to set a goal of people to contact. He agreed and I asked him what number he thought we should pick. I had a small number in my head, figuring small steps would be good. He said 50.... Fine by me lol. We set out to contact 50 people before arriving home again. Most of the people we talked to showed no interest. But there was one man that we stopped and were able to talk to him for a while and eventually set up a meeting with him for Sunday!!!! I was so happy! That was the first meeting I have been to set up from street contacting! I also got my first Ice Cream cone during this contacting excursion. One of the later girls that Elder Beaty tried to talk to was an interesting incident. He started talking to her and her body just kind of jarred to a halt, she kept looking straight ahead, with these terrified eyes. She must have been saying to herself "why did my body stop?!" I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was in complete shock and terror that she had involuntarily stopped to talk to us... As soon as she regained muscle control of her legs she took off in a super speed walk. It was really funny, she did not want to stop. We only got to 20 people, but that is about 20 more than usually...lol. On our way to pick up Elder Thomson from the Dworzec we walked past a guy who was walking his Ferret!!!! He had it on a leash!!! I thought that was pretty much the coolest thing ever. We decided to walk to the Dworzec because we had some time, would try to contact too (turned out to be no people though...) It is a really long walk to the Dworzec from our apartment. We got there and Elder Thomson arrived from the office in Warsaw. We decided a bus back would be good...lots of baggage lol. The girls who were near us were reading my name tag out loud, but semi under their breath. It is so funny how many people do that here.
Friday we went to Zamość to visit a member out there that can't come to church regularly. She is so nice to us, and always has food for us :D I can notice my Polish getting better :D that consumed pretty much the whole day, except for the evening but when we got back Elder Beaty just started training Elder Thomson on a lot of stuff.
Saturday we got roped into going to a Seventh day adventist church service... Elder Beaty had an investigator he really liked that is a member there and we were going there to return his books he had given Beaty when he have him a Book of Mormon. As we were trying to leave after their Sunday School (Which was pretty good) they informed us that they were having the Sacrament that Sunday, which I guess is a rare thing. So Elder Beaty wanted to stay for it, thinking it would be short like ours. He was wrong.... Longest 2.5 hours of my life... It made me super grateful for how simply we do the Sacrament in our church. They had a big Foot washing event, and a couple long talks. I think there were prayers, but it was all in polish so I was really confused. And then they drew out the actually passing of the sacrament forever. I'm still not sure if they had grape juice or if it was wine, didn't take it. Probably grape juice though, because I'm pretty sure they don't drink in their church. After we finally got out of there we headed home and for the rest of the day there was more training going on.
Church on Sunday was fun. It was the last one for Elder Beaty and it was Fast Sunday. Testimony meeting was great! A ton more people got up to bear their testimonies than last time. After church we had a Break the Fast in the Sunday School room. Everyone had brought something for it. It was really good. One of the dishes tasted extremely similar to a BBQ Chicken Chop Salad from California Pizza Kitchen. I had a lot of that, the Gładuns brought that one I think. The Gładuns are some of my favorite people in Poland, and Sister Gładun pretty much carries the Branch on her back. There are a lot of "not normal" People in the Branch here and she talks to them on the phone a lot and helps them as much as she can. She also talks to investigators. She is amazing, and a super good cook. Basia is so funny, and so nice (and she speaks very clearly which is so nice) she came over to me and started talking about how much my Mother must miss me and how much she knows that my Mom loves me. She is so kind, another one of my favorites :) After all the members had left we had that meeting that we scheduled with the guy from the street. He actually showed up!!!! And with a friend too!!!! How awesome is that! First time I haven't been flaked by a street contact. Elder Thomson and I taught the First lesson on our basic beliefs, and the Great Apostasy and why we needed to have a restoration and not a reformation. We explained to them about Joseph Smith, the first vision and how the Book of Mormon came about. They had a lot of questions because apparently they had found some anit- sites out there (not hard to find, a lot of people hate us for some reason) so we did our best to answer them. Then we gave them both Book of Mormon's and committed them to Read and Pray about it. They said they would call us to set up the next appointment. It was a pretty awesome Sunday for me :D
Monday we took Elder Beaty to the Dworzec and said our goodbye's, it is sad, but he is super excited to go to Katowice and go on exchanges to all the southern cities he has never seen before. We headed to the Chapel after that and cleaned/organized a ton of stuff. Then we had a meeting with the Gładuns. It was essentially just a meeting with Beata (Sister Gładun) Talked a lot with us, and fed us. She gave us these bow tie noodles first with, I think cottage cheese, and something else. It was soooooooo good, super sweet! I should have asked her how to make it. Then we talked a lot and Elder Thomson pretty much got the inside scoop on the Branch and the church in Lublin and surrounding cities. I would occasionally get up and go talk to the boys who were playing computer games in the younger ones room :D I like them a lot lol. The older one is my age and is just about to start his mission papers :D That would be really cool. While talking with Beata I caught about 40% of what was being said! Which is up a lot from the normal 25% :D I am glad I am able to see progression, I need to continue focussing on words each week :) After that we had Branch Night but only Mariusz showed up. Then we headed home and began an organize and clean of our apartment. Elder Beaty left a bunch of junk for us to deal with >[ lol.
Well, that is pretty much my whole week. Today we are going Bowling with Cody and Jasmine (Taiwanese members in the Branch) and also the Gładun boys, hopefully lol. Should be lots of fun :D
Will be back next week :D
Thanks for reading :D
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