Kato Calling

Wooooooo! This week's letter will probably be shorter because I spent most of it on an exchange! In Katowice! Woooooo!

Tuesday morning, Siostra Whiteley got me all packed up and took me to the train station, loaded me on a train and stood outside the window of my cabin until I left. I felt like a little kid going an a big trip by myself. I saw a little girl getting on the train with her mom, and she was wearing a Dora the explorer backpack and I felt a kinship with that little girl. Whiteley had to be picked up at the train station by the white elders and she was super annoyed because she said it felt like she was a prisoner, being escorted to the chapel while she waits for Siostra Owen to come into town. She told me she really didn't want to have to be escorted to pick up Siostra Owen either, so I told her to make a run for it... I found out later that she did. When Owen called to say she was in Wrocław the White elders were like, "OK, we'll take you there." So she just full on booked it out of the building. Literally like 30 seconds later, the elders look out of the office window to see her running down the street like a hundred yards away. Hilarious!

Anyway, Katowice was really fun, I got to see Starszy Johnson, which was really fun. We taught a few lessons to some cool people, made friends with an Egyptian guy at a Kebab stand ended up walking like 10 miles in one day! Kato is really fun, but it's no where near as pretty as Wrocław. I missed Wrocław so much! I don't know how I'm going to leave it when I get transferred out of here.

The night I got back Siostra Whiteley was filling me in on what I missed while I was gone, and we were planning for the next day when she suddenly says "We should dye your hair tomorrow!" So of course I answer with... "OK!" So yeah, we dyed my hair... it's brown now, it actually turned out really good. Siostra Whiteley wanted it to blend with my roots so as I grow out my hair more it will look natural. It actually ended up blending really really well! I'm going to try and send a picture of it too.

Oh, also, an update on Anya. She won't be able to come back into town for church until September, she has a financial situation at the moment, and just doesn't have the funds for it. I'm going to see if we can go out and visit her soon though, also, we are trying to find out if we can work out a carpool situation with a member who lives in the same town as her, but I've never met this person before, so I'm not sure. Anyway, we are still keeping in regular contact with her, we text her to see how she's doing and if she's reading. She read the entire Liahona that we gave her and she's 3 chapters into the Księga Momona. She is awesome, seriously guys, keep praying for her, we'll need some extra divine help to get this one figured out.

I finally made my first stupidly hilarious language mistake. Every missionary learning a language has to make some ridiculously embarrassing mistake at some point and I did it yesterday! So, we were singing on he rynek and this super drunk guy eating a kebab came over. He picked up an Ewangelia pamphlet and stumbled right up to me, ignoring everyone else around me, because of course he would! Whiteley and Stumpf, who are both fluent in Polish, just stood there, right next to me, and watched this all go down. The guy started trying to as me questions. I could not understand him for the life of me, so I kept looking to Whiteley and Stumpf to tell me if I should respond with yes or no. They couldn' understand all of it either. At one point I looked at Stumpf and he had his confused face on, he just said "I don't even know what he's trying to say right now" and Whiteley was just like shaking her head, basically like, when in doubt, just say no. Eventually the guy was getting so annoying, and he kept trying to stand like right in front of me,swaying dangerously. And I was frankly sick of the sight of him, so I decided to tell him to go away so I said "chodź" Which I thought was the command form for "go" Siostra Whiteley busts out laughing, and the guy just looks kinda confused and doesn't move. So I say it again. Eventually, he decided to start arguing with Elder Owens about whether or not Obama is gay, so I was free of him. Then Siostra Whiteley informs me that if I want to get a creepy drunk guy to leave me alone I need to say "idź stąd" because what I was actually saying was the command form for "come". So yeah, that was embarrassing, luckily the guy was so blackout drunk he definitely wont remember it. It's kinda hilarious too, it's not awkward guys! it's only awkward if you make it awkward, lol.

Oh, yeah! Siostra Whiteley had another, mostly hilarious freakout on saturday. As it's getting closer to when she goes home she has to start thinking about how she is going to get all hr stuff home. She was throwing huge clumps of clothes out of her closet and yelling about how she hates all of it, and it's not coming home with her. It was hilarious! I realise that this is definitely one of the reasons why we are companions at this time. Whenever Whiteley gets like this, I basically just approach everything with a calm positive attitude and help her see that things aren't so bad. My positive attitude in the face of pretty much all negativity has been a real asset to me and my companion so far. I definitely have a testimony of staying positive. Remember that family. I know sometimes things can be crappy, and sometimes stuff just doesn't work out the way you want it to, but if you can just brush it off and look forward with a positive attitude, everything just gets better!

Well, that's basically it for the week. Sorry this is kind of a shorter letter than usual.

Also, the picture of my hair is not fantastic, the light is a little dim in the chapel and it's getting cloudy and rainy outside, but I'm sure we will take many more pictures in the coming weeks.

Kocham cię

P.S. Shazi! I'm so sorry I haven't written you back, I keep meaning to but then I run out of time! I think of you often though, and I frequently sing "Miss New Booty" in your honour!