Week 7

Wow...Okay so this has been a really busy week, so I may have to finish updating this post a little later... Also details may be a bit short because of time limit today... Hope you enjoy :D

So in English last week on Wednesday, I was told to teach the beginning class... 2 of our members came to English and that was all. I just find it hilarious that Polish people, and most other countries for that matter have the hardest time trying to pronounce our "th" sound and also a hard "r" sound. They always do "s" for "th" and they roll their "r"s...I think it is so funny lol

Also earlier that day, we got Audited.......all kinds of fun. Elder Beaty, my companion, is also the Branch President in Lublin so we have to deal with a lot of Financial stuff. He was terribly trained by the last missionary Branch President and so was kinda worried about this Audit. Not really stressing out though because he did all he knew how to. President Hapgood did the Audit and he was very nice about it and helped Elder Beaty learn exactly what he was suppose to do. It was not a terrible experience after all :D

We also had excellent weather at the end of last week! It was so warm that almost all of the snow melted!!!! However......Wednesday night....as we were just about to leave for English class......we looked outside......and the largest snowflakes I have ever seen were falling from the sky covering the ground....! After such nice weather too....We walked to the chapel in this snow. We took pictures when we got there....we were plastered in snow. I will post the pictures soon. Then the next couple of days it snowed more, not a lot though, just enough to blanket the ground. Most of it is melted again, and hopefully spring is right around the corner!

We have some girls that we teach that are from Ukraine. We have met a couple times before, I think I have already explained the situation with them earlier, if not, someone tell me. We were getting ready to drop them because we haven't seen much progression, but then at the end of the meeting they asked when we would we would be coming back, and also that they had read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet we gave them. They seem more open than before, so we will continue to meet with them for now :D One time we walked in and asked why thier Polish roommates were so scared of us. Then Nina, the main one we teach told us that is was because "you are very powerful" I thought that was such a cool statement, for many more reasons than I think she meant it to be. People are so afraid to learn the truth and be happy, I think it is so odd. I think it is mostly that we ask people to change so much of their lives, and it is really hard for people to change.

Friday Night we were walking home from a contacting Scavenger Hunt we did and we walked past this group of young adults and one of them told us as we walked by, in Polish "Drop Dead" :( So many people don't like us :( all we ever do is try to help people be happier...is that such a bad thing?

One of the nights, I think it may have been Friday night, we started calling all the people in the Area Books that we had just finished sorting through. Elder Beaty did most of the calls, we got 2 meetings set up, and we were suppose to call a couple people back when they had a calendar in front of them :D A lot of people just didn't pick up :( and a few people answered, and when they found out who we were, magically disappeared!!! Some people are sooooo excited when they find out it is us though :D Which is a really nice refresher! A lot of the records were really old too so many of the phone numbers were no longer correct. We plan on going out to visit some of the people with wrong numbers, that will be an adventure!
Elder Beaty also made me make my first phone calls....in Polish.... The first one....I called, was suppose to be a girl, but a guy answered, I asked if it was the girl I was looking for and he told me wrong number :( go figure.... The second one I called though...screamed for joy into the phone when she found out who we were!!! I asked if she remembered us, "Czy pamiętasz nas" she said "Na Pewno!!" which means like "for certain" or "Certainly". She was so excited that we had called her, but somehow wasn't exactly interested in setting up a meeting....we will try back later I guess, it was an odd phone call lol.

On Saturday morning we headed out for Warsaw for a fireside that evening. The fireside was for the actor who plays Jesus in "The Testaments" and "Finding Faith in Christ". He spoke english perfectly, no accent, I was amazed because he is Danish, usually have pretty thick accents...He also is an amazing singer. In part of his talk he sang a couple songs, they were amazing! He is apparently one of the best singers in all of Denmark. During his talk he talked a lot about Les Miserables too!!! I was so excited because I really really like that musical! He said that he had just finished being the main character in it for a huge production in Denmark. He told us something that President Kimbal once said about Les Mis, he said that President Kimbal said "That musical is an inspired work, second only to Scripture!" I thought that was sooooo cool. He related Jean Val Jean to Jesus Christ as he is going to the Barricades. I love that musical. As his closing song, he sang "Bring Him Home" which is one of the songs in Les Mis that Jean Val Jean sings as he is saving Marius. It was amazing.

We went home for church the next morning, seeing as we have the only keys to the building...and we do everything... This week I: Led the Music (Aka sang soloes...) Blessed the Sacrament, Translated for the Taiwanese speaking English, Bore my Testimony (in Polish), and said the Closing Prayer..............holy smokes.... Then in Sunday School I had to translate again...It is tough...but helps my Polish A LOT! I am learning a lot more and can kinda hold a conversation sometimes.

Monday we had an apartment inspection. They said our apartment was one of the cleanest in the Mission :D Mom would be proud of how sparkly clean I got out bathroom! I cleaned every inch of it! The Hardings did our ispection and later took us out to eat :D We ordered nice food at a nice resteraunt! It was really nice of them :D I learned a lot about them, they are very cool people, and very kind. Elder Harding was a Judge and has done lots of work in Washington DC! They told us the story of how they got married...three time....lol The plan was to get married in the chapel because sister harding hadn't been a member for a year yet, so they would get sealed later. But he didn't have time to get the license where they were living so they went to a neighboring state and had a really small wedding very quickly. But the invitations to the one at the Chapel were already out! So they got special permission from SLC to have a mock wedding!!!!! How crazy is that, and then they were later sealed in the temple! I thought that was such a crazy story :D
His brother once had a copy of a First Edition Book of Mormon!!!!!!!! But he gave it to JFK while he was president for the first edition library in the White House! Elder Harding is still upset about it lol. He also said he was about 30' away from JFK As he gave his famous speech!!!
As we were driving with the Hardings to Warsaw to stay the night before Zone Conference we were stopped at a stop light. There was a car in front of us and a car to our right slightly behind us. The guy to our right got out of his car. Walked in front of ours, to the car in front of us. Openned that car door, pulled the man out (The man he pulled out was bigger than him....) and they started pushing. It got heated and they started throwing fists at each other!!!! The bigger guy practically tackled the other guy into the hood of out car!!! Elder Harding at that point took off between the cars lol, he said he wanted to stay and watch the fight but didn't want a window to get broken lol. It was quite an experience! First real fight I have ever seen!

Well I am pretty much out of time now, but I got a lot in :D I will just start next week at Zone conference :D That will do just fine :D

Thanks for reading and remember to stay happy and enjoy life :D You only get one!

-Starszy Taylor