Well, as usual, a lot has happened this past week. I have a lot I want to type up so sorry if details are lacking.
On Wednesday we finally made it to District Meeting! We are in a Warsaw District...which is 2.5 hours away, so we can usually only go to district meeting 1 time a month, instead of every week. It was a good meeting and our entire district was there :) I think we are the biggest district in the mission right now. Talked about a lot of normal district stuff, but then we played a pretty fun game that one of the Sisters came up with :) Everyone has 3 pieces of paper, on the first they have to write what their name would be if they could change it. On the second is what fruit would you be, and on the third you had to pick something you wish you could be the best at. Then we put them all into a basket and went around drawing them out one at a time. When one was drawn it would be read aloud and everyone would go around the circle and guess who wrote that. It was a lot of fun and quite interesting.
We did a ton of traveling this week...probably the most out of any week on my mission thus far. On thursday we traveled to Puławy to meet with Irena Żak, our blind member. She is such a wonderful person and dedicated member of the church. She was telling us how much she loves the church and how much prayer has helped her in her life, she started tearing up, it was a very touching and humbling experience.
We had also planned on visiting another member that lives in Puławy that just had open heart surgery. But she cancelled on the bus ride there. Not all was lost though, not 2 seconds after she cancelled on us, our investigator Mariusz called us and set up in the exact same time slot! It was quite a little mini miracle for us. We had to really hoof it back to Lublin from Puławy though, make a 2 hour trip in 1.5 hours! Somehow we made it and had a great meeting with Mariusz, who will be getting baptized on the 24!!!!
That same night we also went to a members house in Lublin, she has back problems right now and can't make it to church right now. We had an awesome lesson in English with her son, who is a non member. He speaks wonderful English though, he had met with missionaries before, but I kinda think we may have sparked something in our conversation with him. His poor mom was sitting there the whole time, doesn't speak any English, but she was so happy that we were talking to him :D
On Friday, I was traveling yet again...to Warsaw to go on exchanges with the Assisstant Presidents. I spent the day with Elder Rushton, who is an amazing Polish speaker and an absolutely fantastic missionary. One of the first things we did after I got there was go tracting for my first time!!!! I finally got my picture of my first door knocked in Poland :D It was a great experience and I wasn't even that nervous ^_^ Later, for lunch we went to this place called...The Spotted Beaver!!! How weird is that?! They did have one of the best soups I have ever had in my life though. A cheese soup...mmmm...my mouth is watering thinking about it :D The rest of the meal wasn't anything great, I don't like pork much so... After that though we had another couple meetings that all went quite well. There was one in particular with an investigator name Marek, who is having some difficulty with little things, instead of focusing on the big picture and the fact that the Book of Mormon is true. Elder Rushton lead a very spiritual lesson with him, and I really think he felt touched. He was not yet ready to set up a baptismal date though, just needs more time. Following the meeting I had to hurry off to the Dworzec to catch my train home to Lublin.
Saturday, we had the goal to get a bunch of errands for the Branch done, the only problem was that half of the stores we needed to go to happened to be closed, which was a real bummer after walking there... We also heard about the plane crash...in whispers and rumors first, we thought we were misunderstanding what they were saying in Polish. But it turns out that it did indeed happen and the President of Poland and many other high up officials died in a Plane crash that day. It is diffucult as missionaries because we don't really have a news outlet, so we don't have much information, other that what we can gather from people we talk to. We have discovered that the Plane did crash in Russia, and that it was headed for a memorial for the Katyń massacre that the USSR committed near the end of WWII. Over 20,000 leaders and military personnel were taken and eventually killed and burried in mass graves somewhere in Russia. It was denied by Russia that this event ever even happened, right up until the mass graves were discovered a few years ago. As I said, the plane was headed for a memorial service (as far as I know) and crashed rather near the sight where Katyń was. So it does seem rather fishy. The plane crashed due to a pilot error, from what I have heard. It is a terrible thing that has happened, but the country is really coming together. I have never seen this many polish flags out since I have been here. They all have a small black ribbon attatched to them, which I am sure has some significance. Hopefully we will be able to help people find peace again after such a tragedy.
Church on Sunday was good, at the beginning of Sunday School, we had a 2 minute nationwide moment of silence for those lost in the plane crash. After church I was able to have a decent length conversation with Mariusz, in Polish!!! He said that my Polish was a lot better than the first time we met :D He is such a cool guy, and only about a month and a half older than me too! Later on in the Evening we went out tracting for my first time in my city :D We tracted the whole building and got let in only one time, by an Athiest too. lol. He was a super nice guy and had one of the nicest apartments I have seen in Poland.
Monday we of course had more financial work to do...and this time it took 2 hours on the computers to get everything sorted out. It is such a bummer having to do that as missionaries, but it is our responsibility since my companion is also the Branch President.
Well, thats pretty much it :D We aren't going to be traveling much this week, which is really nice because we really need to work on finding new people to teach. It is just so hard, because you get rejected (odrzucany) over and over again... But it is all worth it when you find the ones who will listen, i'm just still looking for one lol. Your prayers are greatly appreciated I know that the only way the work will get done is if we do it in Heavenly Father's appointed manner.
I love you all! Thanks for reading :D
Starszy Taylor
PS sorry if there are ever spelling errors...these computers are in polish, so they don't have an english spell check, and nearly every word I type is underlined in red....lol
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
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
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
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Week 10
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
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
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Week 9 (Transfers)
Well made it another week! This past week had a lot in it. I guess that is a pretty common theme out here. We received the transfer list this morning. I will be staying in Lublin, but Elder Beaty will be going to Katowice as Zone Leader. My new companion will be Elder Thomson. He has been in the office for a very long time...I am sure he is excited to get out and do some normal missionary work!
On Wednesday we decided to go contacting in Old Town. During this excursion a group a young kids starting picking on us...lol. They were making fun of Elder Beaty's last name, because in Poland it sounds like a girls name. It was pretty funny. We also had a meeting with Nina, she was devestated to hear that Elder Beaty would be leaving and demanded that she have pictures lol. So she went and got this huge camera from her room and took like 5 pictures of him. It was pretty funny. Then after our meeting with Nina we had English class. Again, Elder Beaty taught the advanced class (1 guy) while I was left to fend for myself with the beginners class. Which consists of 3 of our members here in Lublin. It just so happens that they are all a little slow, just not quite all there. But it was fun because they help me with my Polish too. The class went way over, but I talked a lot in Polish trying to explain how to say "th" and "r" in Polish. I made one of them, Mariusz, say Grrrrrrrr like 20 times lol. It is really funny. They mostly just copy down words and I help them pronounce them, so its not too bad.
Thursday we went to Warsaw for my very first district meeting. I guess they usually have them once a week...but our whole district is in Warsaw except us out here in Lublin, so we never go. (2.5 hour train ride...) It was fun, they made me do the Spiritual Thought... It was short but not to bad I don't think....I hope. After district meeting we went to visit the first church meeting house in Poland. Nowy Świat (New world) because Elder Beaty had never been there, and the Elders we were with had a meeting there anyways. We were just going to chill in the basement until their meeting was finished, because we didn't want to interrupt it. Then, to our great surprise...a member walked into the building and wanted to meet with the missionaries...So he met with us lol. Wasn't expecting that at all. It was kinda weird, because we had no idea why we were meeting. After we finished the meeting we were told by the other missionaries that he spoke perfect english..........now they tell us.....After that fiasco we headed back to Lublin for the night.
Woke up Friday morning, and guess what!!!!!!!!!!!! Back to Warsaw I go! Don't ask why I wasn't allowed to stay the night, I don't know... I was now on exchanges with the Zone leaders. But they are in a foursome, so I get to go with lots of people lol. At one point, Elder Garrett and I were left by ourselves to contact! We walked up and down the sidewalk contacting people. It was pretty nerve racking when someone actually stopped to listen, especially if they started to talk! After a bit, we sat down for a sec and formulated a contacting plan! It worked quite well after that and we handed out lots of pamphlets :D Contacting can be fun, I wish we did it more. Later in the day, after some meetings and such, I was out contacting again! Except this time I was with Elder Brown, who is one of the coolest missionaries I know! We contacted a lot of people, not many stopped to talk, and even fewer showed any interest. UNTIL the last person we talked to. She seemed so prepared to hear the gospel! I was amazed. Elder Brown explained the apostasy a little bit and then asked her some questions. He told her that the priesthood authority had been lost, she then said, "Do we have in now?" to which he replied "We do". Then she stated "Well that means that somewhere in between it must have been restored right?" At this point Elder Brown almost fell over! I am sad I won't get to be the one to teach her, but I feel extremely blessed to have been able to be the one to help find her!
On Saturday and Sunday we had District Conference. I was super surprised to see 5 member from our Branch in Lublin there! I was happy to see them, and that they were able to make it. We had some good talks about how to help the church grow in Poland, a real push for member participation, because we can't really do much if the members aren't helping us. Help the missionaries in your wards at home!!!! They need it!!!!!! Trust me...I know now. Elder Lopez from the Quorum of the Seventy spoke to us a couple times, mostly about his conversion and how the church grew in Spain. We stayed with the Office Elders on Saturday night, this time I made sure to steal a couple blankets so I wouldn't be as miserable as the last time on the couch. Sunday night we headed home after having another meeting with some members in Warsaw. They are way awesome, I wish I could speak polish better so I could be more involved in conversations :( Sometimes I think I know what is going on, but I'm not positive so I am scared to say something, that could quite possibly be completely off topic.
Monday involved more financial work, meeting with the Gładuns (coolest member family in Poland in my opinion) They love the missionaries so much :D and they have 2 boys. One is 19, my age, loves computer games :D And the other is 15 I think, also enjoys computer games :D I like them a lot! lol
Well I think that pretty much sums up the interesting points of my week! Finding Marta on the street contacting with Elder Brown was definitely my Highlight of the week!!! I hope to have a lot more expeciences like that in the near future! Hopefully we will be able to find some people like that in Lublin!
Thanks for reading everybody!
On Wednesday we decided to go contacting in Old Town. During this excursion a group a young kids starting picking on us...lol. They were making fun of Elder Beaty's last name, because in Poland it sounds like a girls name. It was pretty funny. We also had a meeting with Nina, she was devestated to hear that Elder Beaty would be leaving and demanded that she have pictures lol. So she went and got this huge camera from her room and took like 5 pictures of him. It was pretty funny. Then after our meeting with Nina we had English class. Again, Elder Beaty taught the advanced class (1 guy) while I was left to fend for myself with the beginners class. Which consists of 3 of our members here in Lublin. It just so happens that they are all a little slow, just not quite all there. But it was fun because they help me with my Polish too. The class went way over, but I talked a lot in Polish trying to explain how to say "th" and "r" in Polish. I made one of them, Mariusz, say Grrrrrrrr like 20 times lol. It is really funny. They mostly just copy down words and I help them pronounce them, so its not too bad.
Thursday we went to Warsaw for my very first district meeting. I guess they usually have them once a week...but our whole district is in Warsaw except us out here in Lublin, so we never go. (2.5 hour train ride...) It was fun, they made me do the Spiritual Thought... It was short but not to bad I don't think....I hope. After district meeting we went to visit the first church meeting house in Poland. Nowy Świat (New world) because Elder Beaty had never been there, and the Elders we were with had a meeting there anyways. We were just going to chill in the basement until their meeting was finished, because we didn't want to interrupt it. Then, to our great surprise...a member walked into the building and wanted to meet with the missionaries...So he met with us lol. Wasn't expecting that at all. It was kinda weird, because we had no idea why we were meeting. After we finished the meeting we were told by the other missionaries that he spoke perfect english..........now they tell us.....After that fiasco we headed back to Lublin for the night.
Woke up Friday morning, and guess what!!!!!!!!!!!! Back to Warsaw I go! Don't ask why I wasn't allowed to stay the night, I don't know... I was now on exchanges with the Zone leaders. But they are in a foursome, so I get to go with lots of people lol. At one point, Elder Garrett and I were left by ourselves to contact! We walked up and down the sidewalk contacting people. It was pretty nerve racking when someone actually stopped to listen, especially if they started to talk! After a bit, we sat down for a sec and formulated a contacting plan! It worked quite well after that and we handed out lots of pamphlets :D Contacting can be fun, I wish we did it more. Later in the day, after some meetings and such, I was out contacting again! Except this time I was with Elder Brown, who is one of the coolest missionaries I know! We contacted a lot of people, not many stopped to talk, and even fewer showed any interest. UNTIL the last person we talked to. She seemed so prepared to hear the gospel! I was amazed. Elder Brown explained the apostasy a little bit and then asked her some questions. He told her that the priesthood authority had been lost, she then said, "Do we have in now?" to which he replied "We do". Then she stated "Well that means that somewhere in between it must have been restored right?" At this point Elder Brown almost fell over! I am sad I won't get to be the one to teach her, but I feel extremely blessed to have been able to be the one to help find her!
On Saturday and Sunday we had District Conference. I was super surprised to see 5 member from our Branch in Lublin there! I was happy to see them, and that they were able to make it. We had some good talks about how to help the church grow in Poland, a real push for member participation, because we can't really do much if the members aren't helping us. Help the missionaries in your wards at home!!!! They need it!!!!!! Trust me...I know now. Elder Lopez from the Quorum of the Seventy spoke to us a couple times, mostly about his conversion and how the church grew in Spain. We stayed with the Office Elders on Saturday night, this time I made sure to steal a couple blankets so I wouldn't be as miserable as the last time on the couch. Sunday night we headed home after having another meeting with some members in Warsaw. They are way awesome, I wish I could speak polish better so I could be more involved in conversations :( Sometimes I think I know what is going on, but I'm not positive so I am scared to say something, that could quite possibly be completely off topic.
Monday involved more financial work, meeting with the Gładuns (coolest member family in Poland in my opinion) They love the missionaries so much :D and they have 2 boys. One is 19, my age, loves computer games :D And the other is 15 I think, also enjoys computer games :D I like them a lot! lol
Well I think that pretty much sums up the interesting points of my week! Finding Marta on the street contacting with Elder Brown was definitely my Highlight of the week!!! I hope to have a lot more expeciences like that in the near future! Hopefully we will be able to find some people like that in Lublin!
Thanks for reading everybody!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Week 8
Well this week I will start with Zone Conference which we had about a week ago now.
Every 6 weeks the Mission has "Zone Conference" when all the missionaries in each zone will get together for some talks and some training. There are 3 zones in Poland, usually 2 zones will be combined for each zone conference because we are a small mission. My least favorite part about zone conference is the fact that we have to sleep over....I may have already mentioned my dislike for sleepovers....but here it is agian...there are never enough beds/blankets. For Example (Na przykład) we stayed at the Office Elders apartment. When it came time for bed, I was still up reading something, thinking they would still be up by the time I finished. Low and behold, they went to sleep early....never happens. So I get ready for bed, planning to just sleep on the couch. I start hunting for a blanket...only to find out that my wonderful companion, Elder Beaty, has stolen EVERY SINGLE BLANKET IN THE WHOLE APARTMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looking back at it now, I should have just stolen them from him... but... being nicer than that, at the time... I just curled up in a ball on the couch and slept there, like that, for the whole night. Not my best night of sleep...At zone conference I got to meet up with the other Elders from my MTC Group, it was super exciting :D I was so happy to see them again! It would we so cool to be able to serve with them sometime. I hope I get the chance.
After zone conference we headed back to Lublin. I love sleeping in my own bed, nothing like it. One day, can't remember which, we were waiting at the bus stop and I looked up and there were like 5 kids on the bus just waving at me through the window!!! So of course, I waved back! They were so excited :D It made my day, They had an adult with them, she looked happy too :D I love happy people.
We also went shopping this week and I found something remarakable! I found.....a snickers bar.........for........................ .40$!!!!!!!!!!!! How crazy is that!? Ya, I have never seen a candy bar for that cheap, it was amazing.
Since my companion here is Branch President, we have to do lots of financial stuff...not fun. My least favorite thing to do as a missionary, pay bills. Especially since we have to spend half a day doing it all. Not fun, seems like such a waste of time for missionaries, so much else we could be doing. It is amazing how reliant the church is on missionaries in countries with very few members.
On Saturday we went to Puławy again to visit with Irina Żak, a blind member who lives out there and can't make it to church. She was really nice, and I think the first blind person I have ever talked to, not sure though. I don't remember having ever met a blind person before though. She had food for us which is always nice. I find it so odd here that they don't usually have anything to drink with their meals... Which makes it difficult sometimes when you eat dry food...
Sunday, after church my companion asked one of the members, Mariusz, if he would stay for a 20 min lesson. Then he so kindly told me that I had to teach the while thing...he wasn't kidding....He didn't say a word..... I did the whole thing. It would have been okay except for the fact that every single time I would ask him a question he would give me a one word answer...I was looking for like 5 min answers.... I shared my favorite scripture with him, then asked if he had a favorite scripture. Of course I assume I will get a break here and he will talk for a while....nope. He said he doesn't have a favorite scripture....ugh. So I told him my Hero in the Book of Mormon is Captain Moroni. Then I asked who his favorite hero was. You'll never believe what he said..."Nie mam" I don't have one...So then jokingly I asked if he even reads the Book of Mormon. lol I know he does, he knows a lot. I can't figure out why he wouldn't have any favorites, it was weird. But it did make me talk a lot more, and somehow I survived.
On Monday, while doing more financial work, we went to the library to send the e-mail record to Frankfurt, Germany where all the financial stuff is taken care of for Poland. We discovered upon arrival that the library had updated its computers operating systems to Windows 7!!!!!!!! I was really excited because I have heard great things about it, but left before it was really released. I like it a lot and am happy the library has it now.
I also feel I should mention that I have been totally addicted to Milka bars with Hazelnuts in them......they are soooo goood.
Anyways! Thanks for reading again :D I will be back again next week, with yet another update!
Until then :D
Every 6 weeks the Mission has "Zone Conference" when all the missionaries in each zone will get together for some talks and some training. There are 3 zones in Poland, usually 2 zones will be combined for each zone conference because we are a small mission. My least favorite part about zone conference is the fact that we have to sleep over....I may have already mentioned my dislike for sleepovers....but here it is agian...there are never enough beds/blankets. For Example (Na przykład) we stayed at the Office Elders apartment. When it came time for bed, I was still up reading something, thinking they would still be up by the time I finished. Low and behold, they went to sleep early....never happens. So I get ready for bed, planning to just sleep on the couch. I start hunting for a blanket...only to find out that my wonderful companion, Elder Beaty, has stolen EVERY SINGLE BLANKET IN THE WHOLE APARTMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looking back at it now, I should have just stolen them from him... but... being nicer than that, at the time... I just curled up in a ball on the couch and slept there, like that, for the whole night. Not my best night of sleep...At zone conference I got to meet up with the other Elders from my MTC Group, it was super exciting :D I was so happy to see them again! It would we so cool to be able to serve with them sometime. I hope I get the chance.
After zone conference we headed back to Lublin. I love sleeping in my own bed, nothing like it. One day, can't remember which, we were waiting at the bus stop and I looked up and there were like 5 kids on the bus just waving at me through the window!!! So of course, I waved back! They were so excited :D It made my day, They had an adult with them, she looked happy too :D I love happy people.
We also went shopping this week and I found something remarakable! I found.....a snickers bar.........for........................ .40$!!!!!!!!!!!! How crazy is that!? Ya, I have never seen a candy bar for that cheap, it was amazing.
Since my companion here is Branch President, we have to do lots of financial stuff...not fun. My least favorite thing to do as a missionary, pay bills. Especially since we have to spend half a day doing it all. Not fun, seems like such a waste of time for missionaries, so much else we could be doing. It is amazing how reliant the church is on missionaries in countries with very few members.
On Saturday we went to Puławy again to visit with Irina Żak, a blind member who lives out there and can't make it to church. She was really nice, and I think the first blind person I have ever talked to, not sure though. I don't remember having ever met a blind person before though. She had food for us which is always nice. I find it so odd here that they don't usually have anything to drink with their meals... Which makes it difficult sometimes when you eat dry food...
Sunday, after church my companion asked one of the members, Mariusz, if he would stay for a 20 min lesson. Then he so kindly told me that I had to teach the while thing...he wasn't kidding....He didn't say a word..... I did the whole thing. It would have been okay except for the fact that every single time I would ask him a question he would give me a one word answer...I was looking for like 5 min answers.... I shared my favorite scripture with him, then asked if he had a favorite scripture. Of course I assume I will get a break here and he will talk for a while....nope. He said he doesn't have a favorite scripture....ugh. So I told him my Hero in the Book of Mormon is Captain Moroni. Then I asked who his favorite hero was. You'll never believe what he said..."Nie mam" I don't have one...So then jokingly I asked if he even reads the Book of Mormon. lol I know he does, he knows a lot. I can't figure out why he wouldn't have any favorites, it was weird. But it did make me talk a lot more, and somehow I survived.
On Monday, while doing more financial work, we went to the library to send the e-mail record to Frankfurt, Germany where all the financial stuff is taken care of for Poland. We discovered upon arrival that the library had updated its computers operating systems to Windows 7!!!!!!!! I was really excited because I have heard great things about it, but left before it was really released. I like it a lot and am happy the library has it now.
I also feel I should mention that I have been totally addicted to Milka bars with Hazelnuts in them......they are soooo goood.
Anyways! Thanks for reading again :D I will be back again next week, with yet another update!
Until then :D
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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
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
Monday, March 1, 2010
Week 6
Well another week down, I can't believe I have only been in Lublin for a week and a half!!! We have done so much! Well here are the things I made note of in the week:
On Wednesday we had exchanges :D I went up to Warsaw to be with Elders Garrett, Brown and Tanner. Elder Mathews came down here. Yes, they do have a 4 person companionship up there....very weird. It was a fun exchange, when I got to warsaw Elder Garrett was waiting for me and picked me up. It was great to talk to someone from my MTC group again, especially Elder Garrett. We went to the Chapel and taught English, me and and Elder Garrett had to teach the beginning class by ourselves... there was only one guy... We did pretty well I thought :D he seemed to learn some stuff, and we were able to read a scripture at the end so that was awesome. After that we went back to their apartment for the night. It was fun being with them :D In the morning after studies I went with Elder Tanner, we were headed to the outside parts of warsaw to meet with an inactive member. It took a while to get there, but eventually we found it. He was a way cool guy, and totally wants to come back to church. He has noticed his life not go as well since he stopped going to church. It is hard though because it is pretty far away and he is pretty busy. He has a daughter who was there while we met, she was funny. Later after we got back into the main part of Warsaw we had lunch at Elder Tanners favorite Milk Bar. My first, it is essentially a place where they have home cooked stuff, you pick what you want, they put on a plate and then you pay for it and eat it. It was really good. Elder Tanner is way awesome! He is a great guy, and missionary. After eating we headed to the old chapel (the church still leases it, they use it for meeting with investigators) to teach a recent convert. He is from Mexico and is very smart, he had a way cool conversion story and has a lot of great insights into the Gospel, it was a privilage being able to talk with and meet him. We headed to the Dworzec after that, I had a train to catch. I had a great time up in Warsaw on the exchange :D It is so nice seeing people accept the Gospel and then see how much their lives improve because of it!!!
I have also noticed my laguage skills coming along, I can understand parts of what people say and I can say a lot, and a lot more when no one is around me that speaks english. I continue to learn words everyday and read tons of signs.
We had a meeting with an investigator named Nina this week too. We go over to her apartment and meet with here and some friends. She has some very tainted views of the church, her Polish roommates absolutely hate us for some reason, they are scared to be in the same room with us (I may have wrote about this last week...) Everytime we meet with Nina we try to teach Gospel topics but she usually steers the conversation very far from it. She has been getting better though. But still is not very open, I think she just likes talking to us in English... We will see how the next meeting goes, but if she is not willing to listen and learn then we may have to discontinue meeting with her.
We have done TONS AND TONS of area book work this week.... For anyone who doesn't know, an area book is where all the records of investigators are kept. We went through ALL the old records and read them all.... and sorted them. We split the ones that were pretty open to the church but needed time from the ones who won't answer when we call, or have told us never to call them again... :( We have done sooooo much area book work, this next week we will be working on calling all the people we have gone through, hopefully someone will be ready to be taught the Gospel :D
On Saturday it was Raining!!!! Not Snowing!!!!! It is so much warmer now!!! I love it, it is between 40-50 each day! All the snow is melting. I have found out Grass actually does exist here. I am so happy it is getting warmer, and the sun is Shining :D It helps me be happy :D We also went to the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Saturday. We have an investigator who keeps inviting us. Probably last time though, they think they are trying to convert us...
Then later on Saturday we had a meeting set up with a member, but she never showed up x_x ugh... so we went home and did........MORE AREA BOOK WORK!!!! Surprise right.... We finished sorting and started calling a few. Most people just don't answer :(
On Sunday we had church. It is usually pretty short because we only have 1 speaker each week, and then sunday school or priesthood/relief society. Not both each week, because the Branch is still small. We also almost ran out of Sacrament cups! We need more...we used everyone one this week and I had to pass on the water...lol whew...
After church we had a meeting with the investigator who is a Seventh Day Adventist. He brought a small book of something or other with scriptures in it to try and prove our church wrong? We weren't exactly bashing, it was a calm discussion but we showed him clarification scriptures for all the ones he presented from his book. We still think he is just trying to convert us... We may have to stop meeting with him if he isn't progressing soon.
Monday we did lots of Financial stuff again, I would not like being Branch President just because of all the extra financial stuff you would have to do....yikes.... We also had a kind of thing similar to Family Home Evening but for anyone in the Branch who wants to come, it went fine.
Today we had a meeting with Mariusz, we talked to him about the Word of Wisdom and he was fine with it and has been living it since starting talking with us again :D We also were able to set a Baptismal Date!!!! My first one!!!! April 24, 2010!!! It is kinda far away but hopefully he will stick to it! He is a really awesome guy in his 20s I think. Would be a great member here in Lublin :D I am really excited for him!!!
Well thanks a ton for reading :D I will do my best to keep updating each week :D
-Starszy Taylor
On Wednesday we had exchanges :D I went up to Warsaw to be with Elders Garrett, Brown and Tanner. Elder Mathews came down here. Yes, they do have a 4 person companionship up there....very weird. It was a fun exchange, when I got to warsaw Elder Garrett was waiting for me and picked me up. It was great to talk to someone from my MTC group again, especially Elder Garrett. We went to the Chapel and taught English, me and and Elder Garrett had to teach the beginning class by ourselves... there was only one guy... We did pretty well I thought :D he seemed to learn some stuff, and we were able to read a scripture at the end so that was awesome. After that we went back to their apartment for the night. It was fun being with them :D In the morning after studies I went with Elder Tanner, we were headed to the outside parts of warsaw to meet with an inactive member. It took a while to get there, but eventually we found it. He was a way cool guy, and totally wants to come back to church. He has noticed his life not go as well since he stopped going to church. It is hard though because it is pretty far away and he is pretty busy. He has a daughter who was there while we met, she was funny. Later after we got back into the main part of Warsaw we had lunch at Elder Tanners favorite Milk Bar. My first, it is essentially a place where they have home cooked stuff, you pick what you want, they put on a plate and then you pay for it and eat it. It was really good. Elder Tanner is way awesome! He is a great guy, and missionary. After eating we headed to the old chapel (the church still leases it, they use it for meeting with investigators) to teach a recent convert. He is from Mexico and is very smart, he had a way cool conversion story and has a lot of great insights into the Gospel, it was a privilage being able to talk with and meet him. We headed to the Dworzec after that, I had a train to catch. I had a great time up in Warsaw on the exchange :D It is so nice seeing people accept the Gospel and then see how much their lives improve because of it!!!
I have also noticed my laguage skills coming along, I can understand parts of what people say and I can say a lot, and a lot more when no one is around me that speaks english. I continue to learn words everyday and read tons of signs.
We had a meeting with an investigator named Nina this week too. We go over to her apartment and meet with here and some friends. She has some very tainted views of the church, her Polish roommates absolutely hate us for some reason, they are scared to be in the same room with us (I may have wrote about this last week...) Everytime we meet with Nina we try to teach Gospel topics but she usually steers the conversation very far from it. She has been getting better though. But still is not very open, I think she just likes talking to us in English... We will see how the next meeting goes, but if she is not willing to listen and learn then we may have to discontinue meeting with her.
We have done TONS AND TONS of area book work this week.... For anyone who doesn't know, an area book is where all the records of investigators are kept. We went through ALL the old records and read them all.... and sorted them. We split the ones that were pretty open to the church but needed time from the ones who won't answer when we call, or have told us never to call them again... :( We have done sooooo much area book work, this next week we will be working on calling all the people we have gone through, hopefully someone will be ready to be taught the Gospel :D
On Saturday it was Raining!!!! Not Snowing!!!!! It is so much warmer now!!! I love it, it is between 40-50 each day! All the snow is melting. I have found out Grass actually does exist here. I am so happy it is getting warmer, and the sun is Shining :D It helps me be happy :D We also went to the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Saturday. We have an investigator who keeps inviting us. Probably last time though, they think they are trying to convert us...
Then later on Saturday we had a meeting set up with a member, but she never showed up x_x ugh... so we went home and did........MORE AREA BOOK WORK!!!! Surprise right.... We finished sorting and started calling a few. Most people just don't answer :(
On Sunday we had church. It is usually pretty short because we only have 1 speaker each week, and then sunday school or priesthood/relief society. Not both each week, because the Branch is still small. We also almost ran out of Sacrament cups! We need more...we used everyone one this week and I had to pass on the water...lol whew...
After church we had a meeting with the investigator who is a Seventh Day Adventist. He brought a small book of something or other with scriptures in it to try and prove our church wrong? We weren't exactly bashing, it was a calm discussion but we showed him clarification scriptures for all the ones he presented from his book. We still think he is just trying to convert us... We may have to stop meeting with him if he isn't progressing soon.
Monday we did lots of Financial stuff again, I would not like being Branch President just because of all the extra financial stuff you would have to do....yikes.... We also had a kind of thing similar to Family Home Evening but for anyone in the Branch who wants to come, it went fine.
Today we had a meeting with Mariusz, we talked to him about the Word of Wisdom and he was fine with it and has been living it since starting talking with us again :D We also were able to set a Baptismal Date!!!! My first one!!!! April 24, 2010!!! It is kinda far away but hopefully he will stick to it! He is a really awesome guy in his 20s I think. Would be a great member here in Lublin :D I am really excited for him!!!
Well thanks a ton for reading :D I will do my best to keep updating each week :D
-Starszy Taylor
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