Siatkowka!

This week felt long, it was really fun but so much happened that it just stretched out the whole week. There's a lot that I don't remember, but the thing that sticks out the most in my mind is Volleyball!
We played volleyball almost every day this week, mostly outside at the "beach" volleyball court. It started because the Finns challenged us to a battle, Finns vs. Pols (and Sestra Dubois). It was awesome! even though we didn't keep score we were super competitive about it, though it never stopped being fun, we are all the kind of people who can have fun and be funny while being super competitive, so it was all good. The last point decided the game though and we lost, which was a bummer, if we had actually been keeping score we would have won. Throughout the week we continued to play a lot, against the Bulgarians, against the Finns again, against like, everyone! it was great, I forgot how fun volleyball is!

We teach our investigator, Olek again today (he's actually Brat Tribe pretending to be Olek, but whatever). We were going to teach him yesterday but we had an interesting teaching opportunity sprung on us. We've known for a while that this was coming, from talking to the old Pols, but we didn't know it would happen yesterday. We had a skype visiting teaching sort of experience where we got to teach a lesson to a member of the church in Poland. it was really cool, and kind of terrifying, I have trouble talking to people over skype in English. It went alright though, I could understand a good deal of what he said, when the sound wasn't cutting out and I think he enjoyed our lesson. However, he had a roommate or a family member there who kept bugging him, so he got distracted a lot, trying to tell them that he was talking to us and they needed to leave him alone, it was kind of funny though. We've been told that later we might get a chance to teach a non-member or an inactive member in Poland.

Brat Tribe has been especially hilarious in class lately. We've been telling the others in our zone about him too, and he's become a bit of a celebrity. The other day he was telling us how we shouldn't teach. he said (in Polish) "sometimes Missionaries act like paratroopers, they just fly in, land in the middle of the battle and start firing bullets/the gospel at everyone around them." then he acted it out, putting on his parachute, jumping out a plane, and landing. Then he pulled an invisible gun off his back and started shooting at us all. at one point he pretended to kick open a door, fired at Starszy Sidwell and yelled "chrzezst!" (baptism) He then turned and kicked at Starszy Burdick, his foot was like five inches from his face, it was hilarious.

Then later, he was talking about transferring the polish to our brains using expressive gestures and talking with his hands. Suddenly he starts wriggling his hand around like a tentacle and brakes out of Polish to say "Tentacle of communication" then he sets his hand down on the top of Starszy Jourdan's head. It was completely out of nowhere, no one was quite sure why he did it, but we all just died!

The other thing that happened with our teachers needs a little bit of back story. Lately Brat Tribe has started knighting us with random stuff, the other day he did it with me and Siostra Holden's vocab books after testing us on our words (we got them right, that's why he did it). He also sometimes does it when passing us the Polska stick so we can explain concepts to the class (it's a pointer... for pointing at stuff). The other day Starszy Jourdan took a pencil and some string and turned it into a sword. When Brat Tribe saw it he swung it around like a rapier and then put it in his belt proudly. Brat Jensen held it like a sword for about a minute then flipped it around so that he was pointing at everything with a cross. But Siostra Young's reaction was the best. She saw it, picked it up, rolled her eyes and looked at us all with a look that clearly said "really guys?" Then she tried to use it as a pointer, but she could not focus. She would point, then she would see the handle, sigh and bring it back down to look at it mournfully. She tried that like 6 times before Starszy Johnson said "Skup, Prose!" (focus, please). Siostra young exploded! she yelled "Mnie?! Mnie, Skup!?" (me?! me, focus?!) and then chucked the pointer onto the table. We all just busted up laughing, her included, it was so funny. The next day we bought her a fancy collapsible silver pointer from the bookstore. She loves it. She plays with it all through class, and during her meeting with the Troika (Starszy Johnson, Owens, and Torres) she was using it to point at things on her own desk.

oh yeah, Brat Jensen is back from his vacation in Poland. In his absence we all compensated for his sassyness. So with him back, the sass in the classroom is so thick you can almost feel it. But at least it makes every day really entertaining.

OK, know that I have told you about what has been going on in class, I need to tell you all of the awesomeness of Sunday. On Sunday, we heard from our elders that our fireside that night was going to be really cool. It wasn't going to be broad casted though, so we knew we weren't getting a general authority, because they always broadcast it when we do. We got there super early. we just went straight from choir, and we were the only ones there at first. While we were waiting, the Starszy all got volunteered to be ushers. We sisters were fine, until Sestra Dubois goes "should we be ushers too?" and the guy goes, "sure!" Ugh, I was so annoyed. I watched the ushers every Sunday and Tuesday and made fun of them in my mind, I did not want to do that. The only benefit of being an usher is that you get to sit on the second row. So, the fireside starts and President Nally says "we're going to have a special fireside tonight, we are going to watch..." and for a second my heart leapt, I thought "have my dreams been answered? are we watching Frozen?!" Well obviously no, my prayers were not answered, we were instead watching Elder Bednar's Christmas devotional from two years ago "the character of Christ" admittedly, it is a really great talk, but we all say it on our first week, so we were a little bummed. During the video I noticed some weird stuff going on, a few elders across the isle from us were pulled out into the hall, President Nally got up and left near the end, and some people were re-arranged so that three seats were open in the second row. When it ended, the doors opened, and president Nalley came in, he motioned for us to stand, and President Bendar walked in behind him! It was sooo cool. And because we were Ushers we were right there! I was no longer mad at Sestra Dubois. It was a really experience though, he pretty much just held a discussion and people asked him lots of questions. It was so cool though, i got lots of notes.

Anyway, those were the highlights of the week, and what I can remember from it. I have my journal with me here, but even so I feel like I'm forgetting something. Whatever, if I think of anything else I wanted to tell y'all I'll either send another email later today, or I'll send a handwritten letter.

Kocham cie, and thank you for all your letters!