Prepare to Serve

Monday, October 5, 2015

Conference! Woo!

This week was awesome! Conference! Woo! And it was just packed with lots of really fun little things. And a few sad a crazy things. For one, I am no longer in a threesome. Sis Johnston is now in Kraków with sis Herrera. It's just me and sis Allowitz now. Sis Bąk who was in Kraków is now in Wrocław with sis Slagowska and sis McCleary. We were really sad to say goodbye to sis Johnston, and she was really sad to leave Kato, she loves this city, but the transfer will be really good I think.

First of all, for P-day we went to a castle, the same castle at which we had a snowball fight last year, and we climbed around it. Then we played capture the flag. We brought foam swords so we could LARP while playing capture the flag, and we did that for a while, but then they started breaking, so we switched and started playing normal capture the flag... Except that we were playing on the edge of the forest with huge rocky hills and junk so it was a billion times better! I spent most of the time being stealthy and sneaking around the forest and climbing over huge rocks and hills. We all came away with some battle scars, but it was so worth it.

The best game was the last one we played. As soon as it started I ran straight for the trees and began sneaking my way around to the other team's jail area so could let out any team mates who got trapped there. I was going through the trees for a few minutes when I suddenly felt like I was being watched. I looked up and saw sis Johnston (on the opposite team) standing about 20 feet away from me, grinning eerily. It was straight up like the scene from the Village when she's walking through the forest and then the camera moves a bit and there's one of the creatures standing right there, watching her, it was so freaky. I ran back out of the trees and found two others from my team, Elder Garret and Elder Garcia. They both ran for the flag which distracted sis Johnston enough that I was able to run right past her and the jail and into the brush behind where the flag was. I then hid, watching for everyone to leave the flag alone, and forget I was there. Eventually Elder Garcia made a run for the flag and it distracted everyone enough that I stood and started to dart out of the brush. However, when I was about 4 feet from the opening, my arm ran into something more solid than just grass and twigs and I realised that what was in front of me was a huge thorn bush. So I stopped, just in time to see Elder Summers charging at me from the other side of the bush. He jumped right into it, stopping about a foot from me. Let me paint you a picture here so you can understand how strong and thick this thorn bush was... Elder Summers in a pretty big guy, a football player, and this bush was literally the only thing that stopped him from bowling me over. When I saw he was stuck I took a hard left and ran through a thinner area of the bush, shouting "sucker!" of course, for good measure. Just as I got out of the bushes I saw that I had distracted Elder Summers just enough that Elder Garcia had gotten the flag. And that's how we won. Elder summers had to surgically remove a few thorns from his legs and arms, but It was still great fun.

Tuesday was a very stressful day, but it ended really well. Sis Johnston had been planning an exchange with Wrocław, but because of the transfer she wasn't sure if it was going to work, so she changed some things around and decided that she'd still be able to do it but that sis Herrera would come to Kato from Kraków, Sis Slagowska would come to Kato from Wrocław, sis Johnston and sis Allowitz would stay in Kato have an exchange with each of them, and then I would go to Wrocław to be with sis Bąk and Sis McCleary. Booyah! Best exchange ever! I got to have another exchange, my 4th exchange, with sis Bąk and an exchange with my very favorite companion, sis McCleary! What more could I want?... well, a single plan for the whole day working out would have been nice! Trying to get people in from their cities, and trying to get me to Wrocław was a disaster. Sis Herrera ended up not having enough money on her person to get to Kato, so they had to go to the Elders' apartment and borrow some money from them, so she missed her bus and didn't get in until about an hour or two later than planned. And I had a moment of temporary idiocy and read the train schedule wrong, for the first time in my entire mission. Which caused me to miss my train, because we were on the wrong peron (platform). Luckily there was another train leaving a few hours later, but I ended up not even getting into Wrocław until after 9:00. I made it though, after a very stressful couple of hours, I made it. It was a really fun exchange too. Sis Bąk is hilarious and it was especially funny having an exchange with her after I had just had one literally the week before. And it was so great to catch up with sis McCleary, it's been so long... I'll admit, there was a lot more talking than sleeping going on during that exchange, but it was so needed!

While I was in Wrocław I, of course, ate at BLT and Flatbreads, jak zawsze. And we did a whiteboard with the elders, which was fun because it meant I got to chat with Elder Owens and Elder Lanterman again. And we taught English, so I got to see a few of my old English students again. It was also just a lot of fun to be able to be in Wrocław again, one last time before I go home.

When I got back to Kato I was a little melancholy, I think because I realised just how little time I have left in my mission. No one was there to pick me up because they were a little late in helping sis Johnston with her stuff. So I walked to the chapel by myself and just stood in the doorway waiting for them. It was a little funny because as I was waiting this huge guy walked up to me, and I wasn't 100% sure what he asked me, he either said "Do you work at a discotek? are you looking for a discotek? or do you want to go to a discotek?" Either way the question was really confusing and I didn't really know how to answer any of those possible questions in a kind and patient manner, so I feigned dumb and told him I don't speak Polish. He told me he was a bouncer for a discotek (I'm not surprised, he was the size of a house), he then stopped read my badge, and realising I was a nun, kind of crossed himself and turned to go, but before he went he looked back and gave me a thumbs up. It was so bizarre, Poland is full of strange moments like that.

A few minutes later though the other missionaries showed up. I was standing in the doorway, waiting, still feeling a bit melancholy, when suddenly sis Allowitz jumped out from behind the doorway and scared the living crap out of me. It was strange though because the moment I saw her my feeling of melancholy disappeared and I felt so happy to be back in Kato. And so happy that my companion had just risked accidentally scaring a random Polish person to play a trick on me which subsequently cheer me up. Something that I've done my entire mission and that has really helped me to feel good about each day is that I like to point out the "cud" or miracle or each day. That was my cud of that day, Sis Allowitz is so much fun!

Friday sis Allowitz and I went with Elders Park and Garret out to a random city I've never been too, but that Elder Garret knew from his previous transfers in Kato. We wanted to do some finding activities and "tag" a few places with chalk drawings for English and church stuff. So we went out there, found a really cute little park, and decided to tag it. But, just as we had split up, and were about to start drawing, a bunch of cute little old dudes showed up and went to go sit on a bench near us. They saw that Elder Garrett had a guitar with him (he loves to have singing whiteboards, so he brings his guitar everywhere) One of the men came up and asked if he was going to play for them, so Elder Garrett decided that would be a fun thing. He left me and Elder Park to draw our ads for English and Mormon.org, and took sis Allowitz with him to sing for a bunch of old guys. They loved it! Elder Garrett and Sis Allowitz just sang a bunch of hymns, and they didn't really sing fancy, but those old dziadeks just soaked it up. In between songs they would chat about what we're doing here, and about how there used to be a branch in that city a few years ago, and they'd try to convince Elder Garrett and Sis Allowitz that they'd be cute together and that they should get married, haha! It was so cute!

Saturday and Sunday was conference! Yay! My third conference on my mission, and the only one not spent in Wrocław. It was really really good though, best conference I've ever seen... probably because I paid more attention than I ever have before. I took so many notes and got so many answers to questions i both did and didn't know I had! Also, there were a few great moments where I felt like I was watching it at home. For example, during the first song, we were just chilling, talking about the choir, then, of course the key change happened. I noticed it, but didn't say anything. But then, Elder Garret goes "and there's the key change" I was like "yes! there's always a key change" and Elder Garrett and I proceeded to talk about the Mack Wilberg formula for conference hymns. It was just like being at home.



Random funny stuff-

Elder Jackson was in Kato on exchange and he brought with him to district meeting, a bottle of peppermint oil (because like half of Poland is totally obsessed with essential oils). He took it out in the middle of the meeting, so everyone wanted a little. We all took a drop, rubbed it on our hands and on our foreheads... And then proceeded to squint at each other for the rest of district meeting, that stuff is super strong and it makes your eyes water like crazy. No one could see anything, but we still carried on with our district business and spiritual thoughts and stuff. Every couple of minutes someone would wipe the tears out of their eyes and say something like "Man that stuff is strong!"

When Elder Park was in the MTC he was there for conference. This was last October. For Priesthood session they had a choir of Elders from the MTC, Elder Park, Elder Jones and Elder Lanterman were in that choir. So When we found this out after the Saturday morning session (which we watched Saturday night) we just had to watch it. we watched all the songs and we found all three Elders, and I realised I vaguely remember seeing Elder Park during Conference last year, because we made fun of him. He was right behind the conductor when they had the congregation sing, and he totally forgot the words, it was so funny. We watched it again on Saturday and we just died!

We have a new game in the district. If you make eye contact with someone and you pretend to shoot a blow-dart at them, they have to freeze, and they can't un-freeze until someone pulls the blow-dart out of their neck. We've been having a lot of fun with it. NP- After district meeting on Tuesday I managed to sneakily get everyone else in the chapel. So I was the only one who was able to move and I exploited it, and waited quite a while before un-freezing everyone else. Another time was on Friday, on the bus back from our chalk-talk with the elders. Elder Park and Elder Garret managed to freeze both me and sis Allowitz, and then to proceeded to call our phones, over and over again so they could hear our ringtones and watch us squirm (obviously not physically), unable to do anything about it. And the last example was after conference ended yesterday. Everyone kept freezing each other, it was straight up out of control. At one point I walked back to the kitchen, out onto the balcony and down to the end so I could look through the window into the YSA room and freeze elder Garcia. It has been a lot of fun.

Well, I think that's everything for this week.

Kocham was!

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