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!