Fanny-Flippin'-Tastic!

This week started out with an Exchange with sister Bąk, my third exchange with her, she's so fun! The first thing we did when she got into Kato was go and get Pizza hut, it was great because I haven't eaten at Pizza Hut in almost 2 transfers! The next day we had a fun finding activity with the elders in a sketchy little city called Sosnowiec. We went to a park there and did a chalk talk. Me and Elder Garrison (who was here on exchange from Kielce) each picked an end of the park and started drawing/writing stuff in chalk on the ground. It's our new favorite kind of finding activity. I did one for the Book of Mormon, and he did one for English class, and then when I finished mine I went to a different spot in the park and did another one for English. I like chalk talks because I get to draw and occasionally people come right up and talk to me as I'm drawing and then I can use the drawing as I'm talking. While I was working on the English one a couple of old guys on rollerblades came over near where I was and started playing rollerblade basketball. One guy was really good, he could make a basket over his shoulder while zipping by on his blades. The other guy talked to me for a while about English classes and what I was doing in Poland, his name was Dzisław, which is a hilarious name because it's pronounced like "G-suave".

Later that day we had Coordination meeting with our Branch Mission leader, Łukasz. The meeting went on really long, and Sister Allowitz fell asleep during the meeting, so I made sure to take some pictures. After the meeting was over we, stayed at the chapel for a few minutes to get some art supplies that I need for the legit English poster I'm making, when there was a ring at the Domophone. Sis Bąk answered it and said there was a girl here to see the church. So we let her up. She told us she had seen the JWs near the Dworzec and thought they were us. When she asked them if they were Mormons they proceeded to bad-mouth us and she didn't think that was very Christ-like so she decided to come meet us for herself. While we were showing her around the chapel we asked if she'd like to meet with us and she said yes. Her name is Agata and she's super cool. She works as a security guard and she has a crazy schedule so we've only been able to meet with her a couple of times and had a few meetings fall through, we also have no idea how she's going to be able to get to church but she's super prepared and awesome! She also has a sister who was either a former investigator or a member in Poznań.

We met with Anna, I'm not sure I've mentioned too much about her, she just recently joined the church a few months ago. She's really funny, we go over to her house once a week to finish up the lessons with her again. She had a talk this week, and it was her birthday on Thursday... we think. Sister Johnston said Anna told her and Sister Slagowska that the day she got confirmed was her birthday too, so we're not sure if one of them is her birthday and the other is her name day, or if she has decided that since she's 59 she can celebrate her birthday whenever she dang well pleases! I made banana bread with chocolate chips for her to celebrate and we basically went over, helped her with her talk a little, and had a tea party. It was really fun, the best part though was at the end when she served us home-made Jello. As soon as I got mine I looked down, saw that it was green with fruit floating in it and thought "Oh, yeah, she's a Mormon alright." The Jello hadn't turned out quite right though, as we were eating it Anna pointed out how it hadn't quite set right, she told us that it could just be "do picia" (for drinking). Mine however, was solid on the bottom, so solid that I lifted it up and it was a huge bowl-shaped hunk of rubber. Everyone stopped, looked at mine in shock and confusion and I said "Och, nie do picia!" (oh, not for drinking) we all just died laughing! It was a really fun party, Anna cracks me up, I can't always understand when she says, because she mumbles, but she will frequently say something and then bust out laughing. It makes her seem like she's totally batty, but she's actually really clever. She gave her talk on Sunday and she was so nervous she was visibly shaking, but it went so well!

On Friday we accidentally wandered into a dance recital that was going on at the Rynek. We had a little bit of time before our lesson, so we decided to stay and watch a few numbers. It was so cool, I recorded a lot of it. They had some dances from all around the world, a Russian dance, the Can Can, some Spanish dances, Irish, a traditional Polish one, and when we first walked up they were dancing to Footloose which we assumed was America's dance number.

On Saturday we had to leave our apartment really early so we could open the chapel for the members who clean it. After we had opened the chapel we were passing by the Rynek to go home, and saw that there was a big apple festival going on, so we decided to stop in and see if we could get any free apples. They had a tent up with free samples of various apple dishes out. I ended up trying some kind of apple cobbler/cake thing, apple and chicken liver, and apple and śledź, which is pickled herring. They also had a big concert going on with a dance floor and they were inviting people to come dance to Shakira. Unfortunately, it was only 10:00 in the morning, so the only people on the dance floor were two girls who worked for the festival and whose job was clearly to dance so others would join in, and two very drunk Larrys. Sis Allowitz took video of them dancing to Shakira's Africa, it was awesome! I'm going to try and get those videos from her.

Saturday was a pretty packed day. After the apple festival, we ate lunch at some food trucks set up by the Spodek, which is the stadium here, and watched them tear down a building nearby. Then we had a free-table with the elders that got broken up because we had to literally pack everything up as quickly as we could and run from the political un-rest going on about 30 feet from us. They were setting off what I'm 99% sure were totally fake explosives, though they sounded pretty freaky either way. And there were thousands of Hoolies dressed in black, swearing and basically inches from rioting. It was nie dobry. We're pretty sure it was something to do with keeping Muslims out or something, we're not sure, we got out of there super fast.

After that we went to get food for Elder Garrett's birthday. It was on Thursday, but we hadn't had time to celebrate then, so we planned it for Saturday. He really wanted to try out this Vietnamese place he'd heard good things about... and no joke, it's called "A Dong"... Yes, we are all five 😁 The food was really good though, it was a little expensive though and I'm so out of MSF it's not even funny, I'm sure dad has noticed the many many purchases from my card. So I just got soup, it was good though.

Then that night we stopped by this new store in the mall, called Tiger. It's one of those stores that just has a ton of random things that no one really needs, for really cheap. We bought fanny packs... because they had them there, for 15 zlots and they were cute... a teck deck (mini skateboard), and 11 foam swords, because today we are going to go to a castle to play capture the flag and we thought it would be a billion times more fun if we combined it with LARPing. It's going to be so flippin' fun!

That's basically it for the week.

Kocham was!

... Card Error? What Does That Mean?!

We did end up going to the zoo, which was great, unfortunately I might have lost almost all my pictures from that and this week, and my entire mission... I'm not sure yet, but my camera isn't recognising my card for some reason, it tries to get me to format it every time I turn on my camera. So that's a pretty bad sign... I hope you've been saving my pictures dad 😉

It was still a really fun time at the zoo. Unfortunately the elders insisted that the zoo wasn't a good enough reason to wear non-proselyting clothes, so we had to wear skirts. Which meant that we had to sit and watch while the Elders got to play on the fun interactive dinosaur part of the zoo, while we sisters stood back and took pictures... in our skirts... super lame. We got to see meerkats though, and a kookaburra almost bit Elder Garcia's hand off, and it was lots of fun.

This week was zone conference, and we had a special guest speaker, Elder Kearon, so we all got to go to Warsaw for it, yay! It was so much fun! We got to see everyone from the mission. I saw Elder Sidwell for the second time since coming to the country.

After Zone Conference Sis Johnston, Elder Garcia and Elder Summers had to stay in Warsaw for one more day for an MLC meeting, so Sis Allowitz and I and Elders Park and Garret went back to Kato. The next day, before sis Johnston was supposed to get in Sis Allowitz and i decided we wanted to do something nice for her. She had been planning to make us a pie for a couple of days, and had all the ingredients ready. So we figured we'd make the pie for her so that when she got back there'd be yummy chocolate mousse pie in the fridge. OK, so really Sis Allowitz made the pie, I was working on a poster for English advertising, which is the most legit poster ever... too bad the pictures of it were on my camera *sigh* next week. Anyway, Sis Allowitz made the crust and then started on the pie. I went over to help her with the parts of the recipe that were written for monkeys and people with at least three arms, and then went back to my postering. When she was supposedly finished, however, she called me over to show me that the chocolate filling was still really watery. We weren't sure how it was supposed to look when it was done, but we figured it shouldn't be that watery. So we were too scared to pour it into the crust, potentially ruining it, and instead put it in the fridge to cool for a few minutes, we thought that might help it thicken. About 30 minutes later, sis Allowitz went to look at the filling, she pulled it out of the fridge and it was like Satan just smacked the bottom of the pan, it exploded everywhere! Sis Allowitz was covered, the kitchen floor was covered, about the only thing that wasn't covered was my poster, thank goodness. I took pictures of it... but again, the camera. It was really funny though. We didn't have enough ingredients, or time to make another pie before our whiteboard with the elders, so we just left it, and presented Sis Johnston with the lovely pie crust that she would later fill with delicious chocolate mousse. And what happened to the remaining pie filling, that didn't end up on the floor or sister Allowitz?... I drank it... I drank pie filling, like hot chocolate.

On Saturday we had a branch grill, it was super cool. We rented out a fire pit in this big weird museum park. They had log cabins and sheep running all over the place, and a freaking windmill! Needless to day I ran around it playing the windmill song from Zelda on my phone. We took tons of cool pictures, and videos, which I hope can be recovered from my card somehow, cuz they were so cool! Luckily sis Allowitz had her camera too, so I can get some pictures from her. At one point we wandered into the bee hive area, and there were a ton of sheep there, and they were surprisingly friendly, so we got to pet them. One sheep got annoyed with sis Allowitz while she was petting him though and he whipped his head at her, and smacked her in the butt, it was so funny!

That's basically it for last week. Today we went to Aushwitz again. I didn't take anywhere near as many pictures as I did last time, thank goodness, because MY CARD BROKE! So I wouldn't have been able to send them to you guys if I had taken more! Right as I went to take a picture of the outside of the gas chamber because I hadn't gotten a picture of that last time. I blame restless spirits, it's the only explanation. Why they targeted me though, when I only took about 4 pictures, and two of them were of maps, and they didn't target the people with selfy sticks and tripods, I don't know...

I only have two random funny things from this week -

Sis Allowitz, Johnston and I were walking through the mall in front of our house to get to our tram stop. We passed a guy and as we did I saw him drop a key on the ground. He didn't notice he'd dropped it, so I picked it up and ran round a corner after him to give it back. When I was walking back I saw Sis Johnston still walking way far away, and sis Allowitz standing in between the two of us looking really torn on who she should follow. Apparently when she'd seen me run around the corner she'd called out to sis Johnston "Sister! She's making a break for it!"

We were having lunch at the chapel on Wednesday because we didn't have time between lessons to leave, or even have a full lunch hour. We had just sat down in the chapel kitchen to eat when suddenly one of the the guys who works in the building near us wandered in and handed sister Allowitz a package, and then left. It was so bizarre, and what's more, the package was actually for Sis Allowitz, it was from Daniel Freedom Chastity Mountainman Wilson, and it contained Reeses Peanut Butter Cups!

That was basically it for this week. It was really fun and a lot of crazy stuff happened... unfortunately most of those moments were captured on MY CAMERA!!!!!

Kocham was!

Pot De Creme Pie

So the Zoo, didn't happen... it rained so instead we played ping pong and took funny panorama pictures on elder Garcia's ipod and elder Garcia and I played a game of magic, I destroyed him 😈 it was pretty fun. However, we are still going to the zoo! Today! We had planned to go to Auschwitz today, but then around 9:15 last night the elders called asking about the details and we realised we had no details, we didn't know bus Times or prices or anything... so that'll be next week.

We had an exchange this week with Kraków. Sis Johnston went to Kroków and sis Herrera came here with me and sis Allowitz. Sis Allowitz had legal work in Warsaw on Tuesday though, so we had to wake up at 4:00 to get her on a train at 5:45. She went all the way to Warsaw, got her legal work done, and then came back to Katowice, getting here just after District meeting ended at 13:17 It was crazy how fast of a trip it was. Aside from her legal work the only other thing she did in Warsaw was get Chocolate muffins with the office elders, Elder Wilcox and Elder Weiler. Sis Allowitz served with Elder Wilcox and Elder Weiler last transfer. It was funny when she told us about it because she was like "Whenever we go to get food with Elder Weiler he always buys like half the store!" She said she just bought like a muffin or two but Elder Weiler bought a bunch of muffins, a pastry and a lemonade. Lol, that totally sounds like Elder Weiler!

While we were with Sis Herrera I really wanted to see if we could find this magic store that was supposedly really close to our house, so we decided to go contacting around the area and look for it along the way. We found what was supposedly the address but it definitely wasn't the magic store... frankly there was nothing magical about it, it was sketchy as heck! It was some run-down apartment building. We went inside and it was pitch black, save for a little but of light pouring in through the open back door. So, to be sure it wasn't the right place, we decided to walk up the stairs. They were coated in plastic covering that looked like wood and were completely falling apart. I got almost to the top and then saw that the last floor was this creepy attic that had some kind of massive cage in it! It was so sketch! I didn't even finish walking up the stairs, I just turned around shaking my head and was like "Nope, nope, nope! We're leaving!" We did eventually find the place which was cool because while we were there sis Herrera had a Chance to talk to some people there who turned out to be from Hungary, and she has a friend serving in Hungary!

We tried a new restaurant on Wednesday, it's called Jeff's and it's an American restaurant. Sister Johnston had been there before and said it was really great, but I was skeptical on how American it would actually be, seeing that we are in Poland. Oh my gosh, you guys. We walked through the door and above the doorway was an American flag with "Welcome Home" written across the top. We walked inside and there was random crap all over the walls!!! It was so authentic I almost cried! And the food was so good! The only thing that wasn't quite right, wasn't quite American, was that the drinks were tiny. It was still good though, so good that we went back with the elders on Friday!

We had some really fun whiteboards with the elders this week. one of them was a marathon board. The elders started it at 14:30, we joined them and 16:30, and we all ended the whiteboard together at 19:30. We met a lot of cool people, and only had a few weird things happen. Only a couple of drunk guys, one of them basically fell in love with sis Allowitz and we had to pull her away and get the elders to distract him, and then he swiftly fell in love with Elder Garcia and wouldn't stop following him around, and calling out for him. He couldn't always remember his name though so sometimes he called him "Martinez!" or "Gomez!"

We had one totally ridiculous thing happen on one of our awesome whiteboards. Sis Allowitz and I talked to this girl and it was so great. We gave her a book and got her number and she was super interested in meeting with us. When I got her number I tried it right there, to make sure it worked. Her phone rang and she pulled it out and was like "Yep, I have your number now, good" and then, about 20 minutes later she called us and was like "Why did you call me?" and we were like "We just talked to you and you wanted to met with us, remember?" and she was like "I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know how you got my number, don't call me." It was so baffling! I don't even know what happened! Our current theories are that she has short term memory-loss like Dory, she has multiple personalities, or that she looked up something on the Internet and freaking out. Roll my eyes* it was super weird though either way.

Sis Allowitz was sick on Saturday, and me and her were both sicky yesterday. So we spent almost 2 full days inside. I bought a new puzzle, a Wiedźmin (the Witcher) puzzle, on Friday night though, so while we were sick we just worked on the puzzle like the whole time, and talked. It was a lot of fun, but surprisingly the puzzle is only partly done, it's huge! and so cool!

That's basically all we did this week though, the weeks are just flying by! I'll just list some funny stuff now before I end this.

Random funny stuff!:

The other day sis Allowitz went to sleep really hungry. She woke up in the night and was still really hungry, but she told herself that she could make it till the morning because she was too tired to get up and get some food. She went back to sleep and then woke up at like 3 in the morning standing in the kitchen halfway through eating a banana. Haha! She was so confused and annoyed she just threw it down onto the table and climbed back into bed!

a few days ago I woke up in the middle of the night and found myself standing up out of bed and walking into the kitchen. I had no idea why I was awake and standing, I didn't need to go to the bathroom, and I wasn't particularly hungry or thirsty, but I had already made it that far away from my bed that I didn't really want to go back, so I just went and got a drink of water and then went back to sleep.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how we got stuck in our tracting area, and the elders had to bail us out. We'll ever since then they've insisted that they owe us a pie. So Sis Johnston finally made them a pie, a chocolate mousse pie because when she asked them what kind they wanted the only word Elder Summers could frame was CHOCOLATE! The pie turned out so good though that she decided to make one for us too. But the second time she decided to go off recipe, and accidentally made it wrong... well, wrong is a matter of opinion, because she accidentally made Pot de Creme Pie!!!!! Basically. It was so good! And really nice since mom has talked about Pot de Creme in her last two emails and I was starting to crave it.

That's all folks!

Kocham cię

Cursed Tracting Area

This week was great, I bought some new shoes so I had to suffer through the blisters of breaking them in for the first couple of days, but now it's all good, and I can walk again. Tracting was a lot of fun though, we had to take a break to find a żabka and find me some bandages. Then I sat down on a bench and bandaged up my feet like a Larry. It was a proud moment for me, I wish I had pictures, but I didn't think of it at the time.

We had Zone training this week, which meant that we didn't have district meeting, but we totally forgot about that and showed up at the chapel for district meeting on Tuesday. We decided to just have our own district meeting, since we hadn't been able to finish our studies anyway. Sis Allowitz was district Leader. The awkward thing was, the actual district leader, Elder Garrett showed up partway through and decided to stay for the language portion. It was fun though.

So Sis Allowitz's Uncle served a mission here in Poland about 12 years ago, and he served here in Katowice. When he left, he was so sure he'd come back to Kato that he left one of his suitcases with a member here. He did not return to Kato though and so the suitcase was lost to the ages. However, Last Monday Sis Allowitz received an email from her Uncle who told her Prez Urban had contacted him and told him that they found his suitcase. Sis Allowitz quickly volunteered to take it home for him, and called prez Urban to set up the exchange. Actually getting the suitcase turned out to be more of a hassle than we imagined. Prez Urban told sis Allowitz that he needed to explain something about the suitcase before she could get it. So in the days leading up to it we were totally wrapped up in the mystery of the thing, wondering what Prez Urban had to say about it and if Sis Allowitz's Uncle was a spy and all that... it turned out it was just that some of the stuff was missing, like some gloves and a scarf that Elder Remy had taken when the weather got cold, but it was still a fun mystery, and it's still a really cool coincidence.

We started tracting at this new location last week, and every time we've gone out there we end up having some kind of trouble. The first time we almost couldn't get a bus to take us home and would have been out way way late. The second time my feet were so damaged from blisters that I couldn't walk, and the third time sis Johnston had to go to the bathroom so badly that we had to pause our tracting to go find one. We are all convinced that the next time we go out there to tract something horrible is going to happen to sis Allowitz... she is terrified :) Anyway, we walked all over the place looking for a public restroom, or at least a McDonalds or somewhere she could pay to use or something. We were walking for like a half our and sis Johnston was starting too look at the bushes as the best option when sis Allowitz suddenly stopped this Pan (a Sir) and asked "Gdzie jest łazienki?" (where is the watercloset?) The Pan looked super confused, shook his head and walked away. We sadly turned and were about to walk across the street when the Pan turned around, one finger in the air, and came back with a look of determined resolution on his face. He came up to us and said "Toaleta, tak?" (the toilet, right?) Then gave us directions to a public toilet just a street away. Sis Johnston was so grateful, and it was a really nice public bathroom, we were all pleasantly surprised.

We had a fun whiteboard with the Elders this week. Elder Garrett is very musical, so he brought a guitar and decided to sing hymns. After a couple of minutes of absent mindedly humming along with him I decided to join him, and eventually Elder Garcia joined us as well. It was a lot of fun. It's funny how comfortable I've gotten with singing in front of people on my mission, it's a cool skill I didn't really expect to develop in Poland, but I'm glad I did.

We went to the Planetarium on Saturday with the branch for a branch activity. It was so cool! They played awesome music, remixes of classical music like the flower duet (I died laughing when it started because all I could think of was The IT Crowd) and Mr Sandman. It was a really cool story, it was about the astronomer Haweliusz and his wife Elżbieta. There were large chunks of it that I didn't understand, and I'm still not totally sure why they showed a big basket of lemons at one point. The whole planetarium was super ghetto though and made me think of Fallout the entire time, it was great!

On Sunday after church we went by a park and saw a war re-enactment. It was so cool! There were explosions all over and fake gunshots! They were driving Nazi motorcycles around and executing people, it was a fun time!

That's basically it for the week, today we are hoping to go to the Zoo, but it all depends on the weather. It was raining like crazy a few minutes ago, but it has since stopped and is now really sunny, so we'll see.

Kocham was!

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!