Week 11

Okay here we go again.

So this week with my new companion, we cleaned everything!!! We went through all the stuff lying around our apartment and the chapel. It took up most of our free time this week, but we feel a lot better about everything now :) and we know where everything is too. There was a lot of junk lying around our apartment from missionaries that had just left stuff they didn't want anymore. tons of trash.

I also ordered my first pizza last week, the whole phone call was in Polish too! And I actually managed to order exactly what we wanted, and they were able to get it to the right place! I was quite proud of myself lol. Talking on the phone is nerve racking in Polish. It is so hard to figure out what they are saying...

On Friday, we had quite the adventure to Warsaw, yes I find myself continually going to Warsaw... We got there and headed for food at Złoty Terasy and went to Burger King :) Ended up meeting up with all the other missionaries who were there for this Branch President meeting. It just so happens that all of the new branch presidents have someone from my MTC group as their companion! So it was quite an amazing re-union :) Elder Garrett and his new comp Elder Anderton were also there! So it made for a very special time for me :D The 4 branch presidents grouped up and went to the meeting together leaving us to fend for ourselves :) We ended up going with Elders Garrett and Anderton to do a Whiteboard with them. We met up with the Sister missionaries in Warsaw, Sister Pritchet, and a new missionary Sister Smith. There were a total of 8 missionaries around this white board :) It was a lot of fun. For those who don't know, when missionaries do a whiteboard, we bring a portable white board with us to somewhere with a lot of people. We write a question on it, this time it was "Who is your Hero" and we try to use that as a way to get people to talk to us. They come up and write their answer on the board. It was a lot of fun :) right up until this crazy lady came.... She started freaking out on us...Erased our whiteboard completely...and wrote in Big leters JP II and then some scibbles in illegible Polish underneath it... At which point we discovered that it was the 5 year anniversary of John Paul II's death. The Polish people love him...because he was polish. She started taking our Book of Mormons and opening them up and taking our inserts out, then throwing them on the Ground... :( Then she pushed our whiteboard over, we put it back up and she tried again. She was a very disturbed woman... Elder Anderton was doing his best to keep her calm and the situation under control. Eventually some guy that was apparently with her, dragged her off. We kinda regrouped after that and assessed the situation. We picked a different question in case she came back. The new question was "Where does peace find itself" Weird in english, but that is the question in Polish. We had a lot of good contacts after that, and talked to a lot of great people :D It was a wonderful experience. Near the end of our time there this guy came over with a guitar, well, one of the Elders brought him over from nearby. He was really cool, but I think a little bit crazy. He was playing us a song on the guitart all about Jesus, it was very entertaining. He was staring at Sister Smith the whole time, who is just out of the MTC and Polish is still crazy. She is pretty, which is why I think he was stuck on her....Poor girl. After he was done singing and running away from the guy whose guitar he had borrowed, he walked up to Sister Smith and tried to kiss her!!!! She was quick though, and jerked her head back at which time Elder Anderton wrapped his arm around the guys neck and all us elders walked off with him. Poor Sister Smith... it was really funny though.

Saturday was yet another adventure. We were going to the Gładuns house to help them with some yard work, so we were dressed in P-Day clothes, but were bringing our suits with us to change at the Chapel later. We didn't know if the busses were on the weird Easter schedule yet, so we took the Bus at 10:05 because we needed to be at the Gładuns by 11:00. There was just one problem that we noticed after being on the bus for a while.... Elder Thomson had forgotten his Suit at the Bus stop!!!! It was on a hanger, hanging at the bus stop!!!! We hoped off at the next bus stop and started figuring out the best way to get back to our house. We quickly discovered that the busses were on their normal schedules :D Thank heaven. Somehow we made it back to our bus stop, to find that 4 Babcia's (Grandmas) had been guarding the suit, awaiting our return!!! How hillarious is that! We hopped on the next bus to the Głuadun's house, he kept the suit on his lap so he wouldn't forget again lol. Service was good at their house, it was wet, so it was hard to rake all the stuff into piles. They have this nasty weed that grows here, that is almost as bad as the nemesis weed we have in our backyard back home. They also fed us while we were there :D These awesome sandwhiches with really good cheese :) After that we headed for the chapel to change and get ready to watch a conference session from last year that we have on DVD with anyone that would show up. The only problem was...half way to the bus stop...I realized Elder Thomson didn't have his suit!!!! LOL so we headed back, yet again to the Gładun's to pick it up. The curse of the forgotten suit strikes again!!! We finally made it to the Chapel and got changed, just in time for Basia to show up 2 hours early..... We had just started our surface cleaning of vacuuming and straightening the chairs. She found out we were cleaning, and she set to work...deep cleaning everything is site... We think she might have OCD, which would explain a lot. She is super nice though, I really like her a lot. After the cleaning we finally got her to stop and watch 3 talks with us and talk about them a bit. It was a good experience.

Easter was interesting... First off, there is something that must be explained about Holidays in Poland. The entire country shuts down....for the day, and a couple days surrounding it.... Like EVERYTHING closes... And people, they don't go outside, they stay inside for these days and just sleep.... it is very weird. So, we went to the Gładuns Easter morning where they had tons of food waiting for us. Most of it was really weird food too.... I had to eat, this giant mushroom thing that I thought was a meatball right up until I tried cutting it....almost threw up eating that thing... And I also had to eat....Meat.........in jello.....absolutely disgusting...because yes, it was cold, and yes, it was actually covered in Jello....disgusting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They had really good hot chocolate though :D. They were watching a House marathon...all day... and they wouldn't let us leave...we couldn't come up with an excuse either because we literally had nothing we could go do, and they knew it. So we ended up watching 3 episodes of House before we finally got them to watch the Restoration video. Which we discovered they have seen hundreds of times....because they helped translate it lol...who knew. Then we tried to get them to watch Conference on the computer, only to discover that it was Audio only, and only live... So that didn't work either. Liar Liar came on in Polish and after a while of that we finally came up with an excuse to go, using a bus time as our reason lol. When we got home, we sat...and I slept....I was so tired for some reason, I passed out at 7:00 for the rest of the night too....it was really weird. And that was pretty much my whole Easter.

Monday, everything was still closed, so I still couldn't get the package that had arrived from my parents on Friday... and later in the day, after all our organizing and going through old records and shredding them with scissors..... We also discovered that my favorite Pizza place, that we order from every Monday Night before P-Day was also closed....I was not happy about that. All I had eaten all day was some spaghetti I had made myself for lunch, no breakfast...because I was also out of cereal. It was quite sad, I was so looking forward to that wonderful Pizza, hopefully we will get one tonight :D it is so cheap and soooooooo good. Only costs 24 zł which is like 8$ for a large pizza and dipping sauces!!!! and delivery!!!!!! Best deal ever.

Well I think that pretty much sums it up. We did go pick up my package from home this morning :D I am wearing the new jacket that my parents sent me too :D I like it a lot. Pictures will hopefully be up soon, but might not be up until next week :( sorry.

Thanks for reading!!! And remember to always stay HAPPY!!!!!!

Starszy Taylor