Dogs + Tracting = Zero Fun

There was this one night, in my third transfer, with sister King, when she really wanted to go out tracting. And she specifically wanted to go tracting at these really fancy buildings behind the huge Silesian City Center mall. We went there, and quickly found that the buildings had a wall around them, a really tall wall, at least like 20 feet tall. So we walked around and eventually found a gate, with a security guard. We tried to get in, but the guy wouldn't let us. We tried talking to him about the gospel, but he basically told us to get lost 😔 so we had to turn around and leave, and never got to tract those buildings... Well, now we live there! Haha! What makes it extra funny to me is that the sisters told me that when they first went there to check out the apartment, the security guards wouldn't let them in because they thought they were coming there to tract, so the had to call the landlord.

This week was pretty awesome. It's been a little sucky in two ways though, 1 - the weather cannot decide what it wants to be like! I just want it to be fall already, and some days it does too, but then it switches abruptly and gets stupid hot later in the day and I just don't know what to do about it. 2 - We can't buy our monthly bus passes until tomorrow because Kato's transportation system is stupid and if we buy it now it would still be 150 zlots and would only be useful until tomorrow... so we've been having to walk everywhere and now that we live behind the Mall we live far away from everywhere...

Other that that everything has been great. Last week after emailing we went to a great house in a tiny village. It was crazy, there were billions and billions of antlers all over the walls, the decorations were really pretty too. Elder Summers and I kept commenting that we felt like we were wandering around in a level from a video game. It was so cool. And they gave us these dumb booties to wear over our shoes, but they were super fun because they made us slide on the floors, so we were basically ice skating all over the house.

I got to see my old Kato English class again. A lot of the same people were there, unfortunately Wacek wasn't there. I've been told he still comes regularly, but he couldn't make it this week. Sad 😢

Thursday we had a district finding activity. We set up a free table with lots of books and pamphlets. It was really good. We had the banners with it though, and they will turn into a sail with the slightest bit of wind, so we had to have the people at the table holding the banners still. One of the times when I was holding the banner next the the table. Elder Park came over to tell me what he'd learned from asking a Pole a language question we had, when an old, possibly drunk guy came up to the table. He was talking to Elder Park asking him about the stuff on the table. So Elder Park picked up one of the Book of Mormons and was just about to talk about it when the man said "nie!" and slowly pushed the book back down onto the table. He then kept asking Elder Park questions, all of which could be answered by the Book of Mormon. So Elder Park kept picking it up again, only to have the guy push it down. It was so funny, after a while Elder Park just kept picking up the book simply because he knew the guy would push it down again, he just liked messing with him. The guy did end up taking a pamphlet though, and even though he wouldn't even let Elder Park hold the Book of Mormon, he was still pretty courteous.

Some time since I left Kato the YSA room has managed to acquire several more crazy puzzles. 1500 piece puzzles that look so fun! So we borrowed one, warmed ourselves up by doing my 100 piece princess puzzle first, and then started on the beast. The picture is of a yellow Lamborghini speeding down a street. It's awesome, I did the entire car first, it's massive, we expect the whole puzzle with probably cover our kitchen table.

On Saturday we had sport Saturday. We played soccer, so I was able to try an improve what little soccer skills I have. We got two teenage boys who were sharing the field with us to play too. They were insanely good. One of the boys could have probably beaten us all by himself. I've found that when I play soccer, or futbal, I do best when I decide to just sacrifice my body for the game, so there were multiple times when I just charged people and tried to kick the ball out from under them. Thankfully, because of kung fu, my shins don't bruise easily.

That night, after playing soccer, we went to drop off a ton of tracting letters. 200 to be precise. And at domki, which meant that we were doing a lot of walking all over little neighborhoods with cobblestone streets and dogs, everywhere. I love dogs... but not when I'm tracting, then they are the worst. So many times we'd be walking toward a house, ready to drop the letter in their letter box and we'd heard a deep, loud, bark... that's always the best sound when tracting, because then you know that it will quickly be followed by a solid 5 minutes of barking... dogs man... We did see one Yorkie though that was just the cutest, sweetest little thing in the whole world. It didn't bark at all, it was just excited to see us, so we got to pet him. He was so little he could have easily slipped through the bars in the fence, but he was well trained enough that he didn't.

After we were done tracting, our legs were sore from soccer, and our feet were sore from walking. And we got to the bus stop, only to find that we had been wrong about the bus schedule, and that instead of there being a bus at 20:30, like we though, which would get us to our house only a few minutes late, there wasn't going to be a bus until 21:30... and we were way to far from home and sore to even consider walking. We had to call the elders and get them to go to the chapel and use Google maps to help us get to a different bus stop, because we were far enough away from kato that our maps didn't have that area on it. It was a crazy adventure, but we managed to find our way home by around 21:25, only 25 minutes late. It was kind of fun though, while we waited for the elders to get to the chapel, sis Allowitz and I played Uno at the bus stop. Such a great game, uno, I never leave the house without it 😉

Yesterday was Sunday, so I got to see all the members again. A lot of them remembered me, which was cool because I didn't really talk much last time I was here so I didn't really think I'd made an impression on any of them. It was fun too because Prez Urban didn't make Elder Garret or I get up and say anything in sacrament meeting, because we have both served here before, but he did make sis Allowitz say something, haha! Dodged a bullet!

That's basically it for this week, hot dang how the time flies!

Kocham was!

Kato Calling... Again

That's right, transfers came and went and I'm back in Katowice! Woo! This time though, We're in a different apartment, a very nice apartment, which is great, and I'm in a threesome with Sis Allowitz and Sis Johnston. We've only had one day of the transfer so far but it's been pretty fun. Our district is huge. There's me and sis Allowitz and sis Johnston and then elders Summers, Garcia, Garret, and Park. We're a pretty massive group. But we all get along pretty great.

As for this past week. It's kind of a blur. It started out soooo long. On Tuesday sis Carlson and I were complaining that the day we never going to end! Tuesday was hilarious though. It was another one of those days were Sis Carlson had nightmares all night and was super jumpy in the morning. So we, well I, was just chilling, studying, and then sis Carlson was like "We need to leave the apartment!" so we had to leave at like 9:00 and figured we'd just finish studies at the chapel before district meeting. The Elders had been bugging us about how hot is was in their apartment though and had asked if we could bring them one of our 3 fans. So we had to bring the fan with us. I carried it, in two pieces the whole way, and it was like our useless third companion. It just sat there getting dust all over me and attracting tons of attention. People were staring at me more with the fan, than they normally do with just my badge. And people, like, didn't sit near me on the tram, it was weird. At one point I literally had a circle of empty chairs around me like I had a force field or something. Anyway, we named the fan Debbie, because of Spongebob.

On the way to the chapel the Elders called us and asked if we would go to Alma (a grocery store in Renoma mall) and buy peanut butter for district meeting. We didn't want to because it was way out of the way, but we decided we would because we were already out. When we got to the store I wanted to wait outside with Debbie, but this security guard kept walking slowly by me, eyeing me suspiciously like he thought I might just freak out and start bludgeoning people with the fan or something. So I just gave in and brought Debbie in with me.

Then, after we had bought the peanut butter and were on the way back to the chapel we got reversed bench contacted by some old JW ladies. It was super weird because we were just walking by, carrying Debbie and they suddenly just scooted to the end of their seats, brandishing pamphlets at us and shouting something about the name of God. We were like "What is happening!? Debbie!" and we like ran away, it was hilarious.

Then later that day we had a whiteboard and we had one of our fancy posters up, it was the one that has a bunch of pictures of Jesus from the bible videos on it. Elder Connelly was holding up the banner (because if there isn't someone near it on a windy day it might just turn into a sail and fly away) This old man came up pushing along a scooter. He stopped in front of the banner pointed at the picture of Jesus and asked Elder Connelly - Old Man - "Czy to nasz Bóg?" (is that our god?) Connelly - "To Jezus" (that's Jesus) Old Man - "Czy on jest Bogiem?" (is he God?) Connelly - "On jest synem Boga" (He's the son of God) Old Man - "Och, dziękuję!" (Oh, Thank you) And then he just abruptly hopped on his scooter and rode happily away. Elder Connelly was like "Wait! Do you want to talk about that more?" It was so funny.

We got stuck in the chapel elevator for about 10 minutes. It was a ridiculously short time, but it was funny because that elevator is so slow we didn't even realise it wasn't moving for about 5 minutes. After we got out sis Carlson like burst out of the Elevator and was like "We made it you guys! We survived!"

We had another banner on Thursday when the zone leaders and President Edgren came down. We used the Jesus banner again. I had dumped my bag onto the banner to try to keep it from blowing away, but at one point it still took flight a little. it started to fall and just before it hit the ground a tourist walking by in a tour group caught it and said "I saved Jesus!" Sis Carlson just lost it, she died laughing, because it was just so bizarre!

On Friday we went tracting with the Elders. on the tram ride back at the end of the night Elder Connelly decided to try to strike up a conversation with the guy next to him. So he figured he'd just ask him a random question. So Elder Connelly asked the man how deep the river outside was. The guy was totally confused by his question and the first thing he did was ask if Elder Connelly was planning to try and drown himself in it! Haha! Elder Connelly was like"What!? No! I'm just curious!" The girl next to him was shaking with laughter, it was great. It always seems like whenever Elder Connelly asks a Pole a question he ends up having to apologise or they totally misunderstand it, It's not a problem with his Polish, it's just him it's so funny!

On Saturday we got our transfer calls. Sis Carlson and I were expecting to have to wait almost all day for our calls, because that's how it usually goes for me. But no, at 11:13 we got our calls. It was good because we had a little more time to prepare, because we found out we would both be leaving. Sis Carlson is now in Warsaw 2 with Sis Benson. So yeah, we had to pack and finish cleaning the apartment. I had to buy a new suitcase because the wheels were literally sanded flat on my purple bag. Packing was a nightmare too I have too much stuff. I got it all though and I ended up not having quite as much trouble getting my stuff to the dworzec and onto the train as I did when I left Kato.

Sunday was lots of fun. It was sad because we had our last lesson with Lucyna. She's been making so much progress with the no smoking program. She still hasn't quit all the way and she has some trouble doing all the steps, like avoiding temptation. In order to avoid temptation in Poland she would have to not leave her house, and then she wouldn't be able to to do the "keep busy" step at all. So it's pretty tough for her but she's been doing what she can and it's been helping her to slowly weed out the cigarettes, so that's awesome! We had a great lesson with her though, and Sis Carlson gave her a painting she had done of some sunflowers. Lucyna just loved it, and she was so happy and smiley all day, it was great.

We had a great relief society lesson too. It was on following the prophet and we made origami. I messed mine up once, and had to re-start. And then, right as I got to the point where everyone else was I ripped it! It still turned out though, but my horse has one gimpy leg.

That's basically it for the week. I'm back in Kato for my last transfer, it's awesome and Elder Garcia and Elder Garret and going home at the end of this transfer too, so there's three of us dying!

Kocham was!

P.S. Totally random thing - this week I learned what "semper ubi sub ubi" means. I remember hearing it in Nancy drew all the time and I didn't know what it meant. It means "always where under where"

Sto Lat!

Sto lat, sto lat, Niech żyje, żyje nam. Sto lat, sto lat, Niech żyje, żyje nam. Jeszcze raz, jeszcze raz, Niech żyje, żyje nam, Niech żyje nam! Sto lat!

Yay! It was my birthday this week! I am now 25, holy crap, I'm old... but it's OK, because I'm still not the oldest missionary in the mission. Elder Jones is about a month older than me, ha! Suck it Elder Jones!

For my birthday it was a pretty regular Wednesday except that people kept texting me to wish me a happy birthday, or calling me so they could sing "Sto Lat" (Sister Holden's Sto Lat song came a full two days late 😄)

Some people for some reason kept singing it "niech żyję, żyję nam" which makes zero sense, because then instead of saying "let him/her live for us", it would be saying "let me! live for us!" Sometimes I hear missionaries sing it like that and it makes me cringe 😫

At the end of the day after the flow of birthday greetings had died down from a rushing river (picture Lord of the Rings) to a little stream (I'm totally exaggerating, I got like 5...) We went with the Elders to BLT and Flatbreads and got dinner. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't realise until we were already home and planning, that I had forgotten to make Sister Carlson and Elder Lanterman get me a present! (Elder Connelly had already given me the watch he was no longer using, because mine is about 4 hours and 15 minutes off and broken enough that I can't adjust the time). That was sad and unfortunate, because I didn't have any presents to open on my birthday, but I did have then get me Fallout:New Vegas, for PC on Friday 😀.

The best part of the day was around lunch time. Sis Carlson and I had had a lesson with Lucyna in the chapel, so we just ran to Żabka and picked up lunch there. I decided to get myself a Coke and a birthday present to myself. Coke is doing some kind of promotion that I don't understand, and I don't know whether or not they are doing it in the states too, but most of the Coke bottles have something written on them. I grabbed one that I thought was very appropriate for the day, it said "Królowa Wszytkiego" (Queen of Everything). Later we were in the chapel, eating our food and chatting with the Elders before our meeting with the branch mission leader. Elder Connelly said something sassy (jak zawsze) and I can't remember, for the life of me, what it was, but I responded with something similarly sassy that I also can't remember. Elder Connelly asked "Who made you queen?" And in response I grabbed my Coke bottle and held it out to him. He was so shocked he just looked at it and was like "Of course you would just have that here!"

We also had culture night this week. I finally got to go to the oldest restaurant in Europe. It's on the Rynek, we pass it all the time, I see it so much, yet I have never been there. It's ridiculous when I think that I've served almost my entire mission in this city and I've never gone there... As for how the restaurant was... it was OK. We all agreed after we had received our food that Elder Connelly made the best choice. He got żurek with biały kiełbasa in a bread bowl! so basically awesome soup. I got kotlet, which I can only describe as basically chicken fried pork. Sis Carlson got a slab of fish, and Elder Lanterman got a whole fish, bones, scales, head, and all, lol. It was a lot of fun though. After that we went and got my birthday present, then got ice cream and then went to see the fountain show that I saw in my first and second transfers. It was supposed to play music with the lights and water, but for some reason it didn't. It was still lots of fun though. It was nice and cool in the area, so we just sat and watched the fountain and talked about how much we want to go swimming.

We had an awesome thing happen on Thursday night. We had finished planning, and were getting ready for bed, it was already już czas (in other words, it was past 10:00) when sis Carlson got a call. She thought it was Elder Lanterman because 1, we had just been talking to him, and 2, aside from Elder Lanterman, basically no one calls sis Carlson's phone, she has only had it for about 2 weeks, and no one really has her number yet. It was a number she didn't know though. So she answered it and the guy asked if she was still in Szczecin. She said no, she's in Wrocłąw now, and he was like "I need to contact the missionaries in Szczecin, I have a referral for them from Ireland." So called the Elders and the Sisters in Szczecin (because the guy wanted both of their numbers) and told them that the guy would be calling, and gave them his number in case they didn't hear from him in like a day. So, Elder Jourdan, in Szczecin, contacted the referral on Saturday, found out they were already in Szczecin, and that it is a family,mom and dad, and four kids. So he invited them to church, they came yesterday, met with the missionaries after church, and now the mom and the dad both have baptismal dates! Woo! It's awesome!

We had second church in Legnica again. It was cool because this time a less active who lives far from Wrocław was able to come. At the start of church the whole front row was filled with the various children of the branch. All three Cieleński girls, and three of the Zań boys. Also, Aj Call (because he was passing the sacrament) and Sister Cieleńska (to wrangle the dzieci). At the start of Sis Call's talk they were all still relatively reverent. They had made it through the hymns and the sacrament, and were doing alright. By the end of sis Call's talk, however, the only person left on the front row was Dominik, the second oldest Zań boy, who was sitting reverently, hanging on sis Call's every word. It was super funny, and ridiculous. So many children wandered up to the front with President's Zań and Cieleński, only to trip, bash their head on something, burst into tears, and have to be carried out of the room, it was chaos!

We've been using the no smoking program with our investigator Lucyna, and it's been really helping, she still hasn't been able to completely kick the habit, but she is slowly smoking less and less, and we're hoping she will be able to get baptised sometime in the next couple of weeks, woo! Pray for her!

Beyond that there wasn't a whole lot else that happened this week, just some little funny things. It was a pretty chill birthday week. I'll list some of the cool/funny things though -

Sis Carlson bought a Cactus from Biedronka. We painstakingly pulled it out of it's pot and switched it into another pot in the store so she could have the specific cactus she wanted in the specific pot she wanted, which was a purple pot that was not broken. We got only a few battle scars. I came away from Biedronka with a spine stuck in my hand, but now Chang is sitting happily on our windowsill, enjoying the sun... Yes His name is Chang, sis Carlson named him after Professor Chang in Community because of the Arizona quote - "Arizona! Arizona backwards is still Arizona! It's a palomino!" I quote it to her all the time.

We saw a fox! It was running alongside our train from Legnica, it was so cute! And fast!

I had a guy call asking if he could change his religion so he could go to America, then he kept asking me why Obama doesn't want him to go to America, lol, I was like "I don't know, I don't represent Obama!" I gave his number to the Elders in Lublin, I'm not sure how that will go, but it was fun because it gave me an excuse to call Elder Sidwell (If you don't remember, he was one of my MTC Elders)

On Our way to the Dworzec yesterday, for second church we had just walked by this park where we had once seen rats running around, chasing at each other, and were talking about how crazy that was. Then we were walking toward this Larry sitting in front of a bunch of construction, when all of a sudden the rat just runs out or the construction toward the Larry. He saw it and yelled out in shock, so the rat got scared and ran back. Sis Carlson and I just looked at the Larry, he looked back at us and we were all like "What just happened!" I learned the word for Rat from that, because the Larry said it too us "Szczur". He said something to the effect of "Did you just see that rat?! holy crap!" Only his language was more colourful.

Also, I ate a jogurt that turned out to have mold growing all over the lid, ugh, super annoying. Sis Carlson thought it was hilarious, and it only got funnier when I opened the other container of jogurt I had bought only to find that it also had mold on it... in the exact same spot... I am cursed...😒

This coming Monday is transfers! 😲 I start my last transfer next week!!!! However, because transfer day is on Monday the 24th, P-day will be on Tuesday the 25th next week. So you can expect my next email then, and not on Monday, OK? Good!

Kocham was!

Klingon Face

The name of this email is "Klingon Face" because on Wednesday morning I found a zit on the bridge of my nose, directly between my eyes. It bugged me, so I tried popping it, but it was too deep, so I just had to deal with it. As the day went on it continued to bug me, and slowly got bigger. By the end of the day, I could actually kind of see the bump on my nose from the corner of my eye. It continued to bug me all night and I tried to get rid of it some more, but to no avail... The next morning, I looked in the mirror and it was so swollen it had actually changed the shape of my face. I looked like a rubber-forehead alien. My eyes were farther apart and my forehead changed smoothly to nose, it was ridiculous... The day after that it was, if possible, even bigger, and my right eye was so swollen I could see my lower lid. Sis Carlson kept joking that we were going to have to go to Warsaw for it... Thankfully it's been slowly getting better. I never managed to pop it, and it's still kind of there, an odd bump on my nose, but I look like me again. Truth be told I reminded myself more of a Bajoran, but I thought Bajoran Face sounded kind of lame...

So, this week there were lots more funny/cool things that happened.

We went to the zoo! It was so much fun, it was blazing hot though, by the end of it we were practically running to the nearest żabka for some water. We got to see tons of fish, and hippos and lions and a whole family of Lynx's which was super cute. Unfortunately I didn't realise until after we had left that we barely even saw any monkeys! We mean to go see then, but we had trouble finding them, and eventually forgot. I did get to see a couple lounging around though, and we saw lemurs, which are close. It was cool though.

On Tuesday Sis Malinowska had invited all us missionaries over to her house for dinner. She fed us so much! Gołąbki, potatoes, gulasz, some kind of carrot dish, and then for desert, watermelon, and ice cream. It was all really yummy. Elder Lanterman struggled though, he doesn't eat very much so he wasn't able to finish his food. He didn't even come close, sis Carlson and I put him to shame with how much we ate. It was so funny though because sis Carlson hates Carrots, and part of the meal was basically just carrots with some pineapple and almonds in it. Every time sis Carlson would finish the carrots on her plate (just wanting to get rid of them) Sis Malinowska would come by and heap more spoon-fulls of carrots on her plate, it was so funny! We were all so full by the time she brought us ice cream, we weren't even sure we wanted any. But then, we tasted it, Creme Brulee ice cream, hot dang! It was so good, we all had an appetite again, even Elder Lanterman. She brought out a liter of ice cream, and we ate the whole thing! It was so much...

We went tracting in Legnica on Thursday, and we came to one door where the lady said she had guests, but she invited us to come backon Saturday. We were hopeful, but we didn't have our hopes too high because people tell us to come back a lot of the time, and then when we do they often tell us they're not interested. But we went back and she was there, and she invited us around to the back of her house and we had a lesson. It went so well! Her name was Maria, we gave her a book and taught her a first. At first I think she was a little worried that we were just going to argue with her and try to convince her and stuff, but I told her outright "We aren't here to try and convince anyone, we are just here to invite people to read this book, and take it to God, ask him if what we're saying is true". She said she'd pray about it, and that if she felt like God was telling her to go down a specific path, she would go there. We invited her to church in Legnica and we're hopeful that she will come, it was really cool though.

We had a really funny thing happen while tracting. Sis Carlson was at the door of this house, and I had been shutting the gate (it was a domek so it was a small home with a gate and a little yard). Sis Carlson asks "What does this say?" I look and her finger is hovering above the doorbell, and there's a note there that says something to the effect of, "don't ring the doorbell, please knock". So I'm reading this, and just as I'm about to tell Sis Carlson not to ring the doorbell, she (still looking at me, with her finger over the ringer) just presses the button. The doorbell rang and it was loud! And it was dying slightly, so the sound was super creepy. As the doorbell was giving its accursed wail, I managed to say "No! It said not to ring it!" Sis Carlson got the most horrified expression on her face (exactly like this - )and then just started running. I was like "Are we really doing this?" And then she was outtie, running down the street. So naturally I ran too. We each booked it down opposite sides of the street and didn't stop until we were far enough from the house that if they looked out, they wouldn't see us... it was ridiculous! That's right, we ding dong ditched a place!

I had another talk this week. I've given more talks on my mission in Wrocław than at any other time in my life. I threw this one together really fast, and mostly ended up reading stuff from a talk and from the scriptures, I basically brought the entire gospel library with me up to the pulpit. It went really well though, and this time I didn't forget a page.

You know what's really nice, when someone approaches us and they don't say "you guys are Jehovah's witnesses, right?" Yesterday while we were tracting we were approached by a guy who actually said "You guys are Mormons, right?" It was cool. He studies religion and asked if he could get a copy of the D&C and Pearl of Great Price in Polish, because he has it in English but thinks it would be easier to really understand it in Polish, so we're bringing him that tonight. Pretty cool, pretty cool.

Random funny moment. Sis Carlson was going to eat an egg salad sandwich for lunch, so she went through all the trouble of getting it ready. Then, just as she finished peeling off the last bit of the shell she stopped, looked at the egg, then looked at me and said "I don't want this..." So I ate it... It was ridiculous.

There was some kind of anime convention going on, so there were people walking around in full costumes all over the place, and there were Bronies, meaning guys who like My Little Pony, more than any human being should. We saw many a guy dressed like ponies with oddly coloured hair and tails... it was strange...

I've basically been living off of frosting this whole week. I bought this chocolate spread at the beginning of the week, and I sometimes put it on pretzels or cookies, but mostly I've just been eating it straight out of the container. It's so good, but every time I do it I picture Goldie Hawn in Death Becomes her and I get a little freaked out...

Also, it has reached un-freaking-believable levels of hot here. I can't even accurately describe how uncomfortable it is all...the...time! And because of that, every time we go tracting we generally see a lot of people ranging from kind of naked, to super naked... people just answer the door with no clothes on! It baffles me!

And, last, but certainly not least, the Wizard's name is....

Phillip!

The Elders contacted him! He's an opera singer from England and he already has a book of Mormon and has prayed about it, but hasn't really felt like he's gotten an answer yet. He super cool though, and sis Carlson and I were really happy to be able to find out his name... We still think he's a wizard though.

That's basically it for this week. Kocham was!

Is That Chocolate I see in the Sacrament Bread?

Good news! We remembered to change the hymns this week, so for the first time is 3 weeks we didn't sing "Duch Boży Jak Płomień Najświętszy" (The Spirit of God). However, no one remembered to bring bread for the sacrament, but, luckily, a week earlier, as a fun service project for the branch we (the Sisters and the Elders) made a ton of chocolate-chip zucchini bread and brought it to the members and less actives, and there was still some left in the freezer. So for the sacrament yesterday we had chocolate chip zucchini bread. It was hilarious, and super yummy. It was made even funnier too when Sister Zań got up to bear her testimony and started by talking about how after fasting, the sacrament bread tasted like the manna in the desert.

This week was a little scattered but there were a lot of really cool and funny things that happened so I'm just going to basically list them.

We had another lesson with the woman from last week who talked so much that sister Carlson almost lost her mind. This time it went much better, we were able to keep her from going into politics, and keep her from yarning too much. We taught her a first, which she's already had, but the last time she met with missionaries it was with Sister Wood and Sister Whiteley, so it's been a while, and we figured she could use a re-fresher. It went really well, and she wants to keep meeting with us, but shes going out of town for all of August, so, I guess we'll see what happens in future. There was a moment near the end though where it almost looked like she was going to answer our question for a half hour and sis Carlson started to get restless in her chair, ha ha, she can't handle it when people talk too much.

On Wednesday we were riding the tram to the chapel and saw a group of three friends, one girl and two guys. The girl had slightly curly brown hair and she was clearly dating one of the guys. He had red hair and was very tall. And the other guy was thin with black hair and glasses... Yep, we saw Harry, Ron and Hermione! And the best part about it, Ron was actually British... and he was really good looking, which was a bonus! It was hilarious, sis Carlson and I couldn't stop staring at them. And What made it even better was that later that day, as we were getting on our tram to go home we looked back onto the platform and saw... THE WIZARD! If you don't remember the wizard, I talked about him a few weeks ago, he rode back from Legnica with us and was watching old episodes of doctor who and some other strange show. This is the third time we've seen him, and we managed to get a picture of him!

​That's me with the wizard, he's the one in the Tux... not the lady in the flowered top... And he has a BOWTIE!

What was also cool was that we showed the picture to the Elders and Elder Connelly is about 90% sure he has talked to the wizard! It's so cool!

Wednesday afternoon we dropped off letters for tracting at a new place we found. It's got lots of cute domki (houses) and tons of cats, and it's really nice. However, it has tons of bees and butterflies as well, two things that sister Carlson hates. There were multiple times while dropping off letters, and while tracting two days later, when sis Carlson would suddenly start freaking out because a bee or a butterfly was following her. One house had a bunch of bushes so infested with bees that Sis Carlson wouldn't even go near it, and I had to run up to the mail box, drop the letter in, and run away as fast as I could. There were also a lot of spiderwebs stretched across peoples' walkways. So as we made our way up to the door to tract, Sis Carlson was waving her arm straight out in front of her, trying to catch any spiderwebs before they caught her in the face, but mostly it just made it look like she was chanting, it was so funny.

Wednesday was pretty packed with crazy stuff, we also saw a hilariously crazy old Babcia sitting on a bench next to a Larry. The Babcia was holding her arm out to the Larry and making a motion like she was sprinkling salt on her hand, then she would stop and lick her hand, then go back to sprinkling salt on it. What made it extra funny was that the Larry was leaning away from her and looking at her from the corner of his eye, totally freaked out by her. Then she stood up abruptly, followed some people to the bank nearby and stood outside it waiting for them. Then, she suddenly rushed away, toward the crosswalk and started shepherding people, who were already standing about 5 feet from the street, away from the cars in the street. It was so funny, and the whole time the Larry on the bench was looking at her like "What's her deal!?"

Thursday was Zone Conference, it was really good. It was in Kraków though, so we had to get up early to take a bus there. Sis Carlson and I forgot to bring breakfast for the bus ride, but the Elders had remembered. Both of them brought jars of Nutella, and Elder Lanterman brought pretzels. We bummed some pretzels off of Elder Lanterman, and then Elder Connelly gave us the last fourth of his jar of Nutella. After Sis Carlson ate all that sugar, she hit a crazy sugar high and was freaking out for the rest of the ride to Kraków. It was so funny, There were moments where I half expected her to climb out the window in the ceiling above us and try to car-surf.

Totally random but funny thing that happened at Zone Conference. Sister Dalton, One of the senior missionaries in Kraków, bought a Watermelon to serve to us for lunch at Zone Conference, but when she cut it open instead of being Red inside, it was bright Yellow... We don't know why, and it still tasted like regular watermelon, but it was Yellow.

When we tracted that area with all the bees and butterflies we had a pretty funny thing happen.We stopped at this one house which was clearly owned by Catholics, because they had the blessing written above the door frame. We were hopeful anyway, and when we had dropped off letters two days before I had actually seen the woman who lived there come out and get the letter from her mailbox. However, when she came to the door, she opened it and shut it in one swift movement, it was hilarious. As she opened she said "Dzień dobry" (Good Morning) and then saw us, recognition hit, and she quickly changed the direction of her door and said "Do widzenia" (Goodbye).

Saturday we went to Legnica. We dropped off letters to go tracting there too and had an incredibly awkward moment. We reached this one house, that didn't appear to have a mailbox, so Sis Carlson decided to go put it on the person's doorstep. She was creeping up the steps and was just leaning down to drop off the letter when a woman flung the door open and asked her what she was doing. Sis Carlson did not know how to respond. I rushed to help her, but even I felt so caught off guard and awkward that I didn't know how to explain what we were doing. The whole thing ending with the lady not taking our letter and us walking away laughing in the awkward, it was so much.

On the train ride home from Legnica we were all a little slap happy. We had the Elders with us and we were laughing and making jokes and just felt like dorks. At one point we pulled up to a stop and I looked out to see about 6 young boys sitting on the platform. One of them looked at me and made a face, and I, by instinct, made a weird face back. The kid and I and all his friends just immediately lost control and we all died laughing. I think the kid was just super shocked that I had made a face back at him, and I was a little surprised too, it was so funny. We then continued to make faces at each other until the train left the station about a minute later.

It was the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising on Saturday. I've heard that in Warsaw everyone stops no one moves for like a solid minute. It was not so much like that in Legnica. At first we didn't even realise what it was. Suddenly we heard a loud siren, like a bomb raid, going off in the streets. We realised what was happening after a few seconds and so we stopped moving, but it was basically us and an old guy who stopped, everyone else kept walking around. So we felt more patriotic than the actual Polish people around us, but yeah, it was pretty cool.

We had lots of people in church this week, lots of visitors. Sister Edgren and her granddaughter. Sister Smithee, who served here two years ago, and her husband, and three ladies and a guy from France. We also had the Daltons visiting from Kraków. So our chapel was pretty packed and we had a good amount of volume for the hymns which we haven't really had for a couple of weeks.

And, last story for the week, we saw a guy stumbling around the Tram platform, so drunk, that he tried to sit in mid air, and almost fell, then almost got hit by a tram, literally, he was falling backwards onto the tracks as it passed, I don't know how he didn't get hit. Then he eventually found his way to a bench and passed out while trying to read a coupon for Costa Coffee... and people wonder why I don't drink...

Well, that's basically it for this week, on to the next! We are going to the zoo today for p-day. The zoo is celebrating it's 150th anniversary. I'm so excited! MONKEYS!!!!!

Kocham was!