Are y'alls ready? Cuz Poland is SUPRISINGLY NOT THAT DIFFERENT FROM AMERICA!
It's just that everyone speaks the most confusing language in existance.
Ok, so we got on the plane in Chicago, and we sat next to a guy who was a memeber, so we didn't have to feel bad about not teaching a lesson. Just studied and stuff. When we landed in Munich, no one really knew what to do, but one of the guys in our district- Elder Einfeldt- took four years of German in school, so he could understand everything, just not speak it, because Polish had won over his mind. So we were able to find our way to the gate where we took a bus to get to the plane where we flew to Poland. Also, no lessons were taught on that plane. German is too silly a language to learn. We landed in Warsaw, which actually had a good amound of smog, where we could see a single smokestack sticking above the cloud... When we landed down, we got lost in the airport until we found the place where luggage should have been, and couldn't find our luggage. Then we tried to ask someone in Polish where our luggage was, but that didn't help because there's so much we didn't learn, but then eventually found it. We then waited for a while seeing if President Edgren would should up at the baggage claim, but he didn't, so we went outside ready to brave the Polish world alone, and found him standing right there for about thirty minutes. Nice. We drove to a mall to get some pictures done for some legal stuff, then to the mission home for food, and recovery, and that night we also went out to teach a little bit! The group I was with went trackting, and I now understand why few people do it anymore. Then we slept.
The next morning, we did some more legal stuff, became residents of Poland, and went to the Warsaw chapel where we would meet our trainers! My companions name is Elder Berlin. He's from Orem, Utah, and is very great! I feel like he's kind of caught the sads that accompany a European mission, especially the Polish one, so I've been trying to put some of the new missionary fire into him. I think it's working pretty well so far, so we'll see what happens. After we met, we had to leave right away, becasue the city I'm in is a city called Szczecin, which is the longest to get to from Warsaw, so I wasn't even able to have a real goodbye with everyone from the MTC. It was a little sad, but I was excited so I didn't care. On the train, we sat next to each other, so there wasn't much chance to talk with people, but we were able to talk with someone. She was nice, but nothing came out of it. We got home, I unpacked, and we went to bed.
The next day, we had district meeting, where I met the four other missionaries in Szczecin, Elder and Sister Cutting, Sister Pierson, and Sister Sloan. They're all fantastic! Sometimes we see each other outside while contacting, and it's really cool! And then, we went out tracking. And let met tell you- looks really, REALLY hurt sometimes. Like, people hate us. WHAT!? I think they all think we're J-dubs. But sometimes we'd try to talk to someone, and then they like, go halfway across the road and give us the nastiest looks i've ever seen. But we continue. The next day, we had Institue, and at one time near the end, I gave a coment (in polish) about the topic, and when I looked around, everyone was looking at me in shock. Apparently, my Polish is REALLY good for how long I've been learning it. But- I can't understand a lick of whatever anyone else is saying, even the missionaries... It's reallly bad. Kind of frustrating, too. Like, I know how to answer these peoples' problems, but I just kant figure out what those problems are!
The next days, we went contacting, and we're getting a lot more lessons on the streets than we used to have, and more poeple are giving us theyre numbers. Maybe we;re breaking through the outer shell of the baguette that is Poland. But the branch itslef is actually stuggling a little bit. My very first lesson was with a less active named jerzy, who (remember I can't understand people speaking Polish) even the Polish people can't understand. He's also a very poetic person, so he'll be off saying things like "let the dead bury the dead" and stuff like that that makes absolutely no sense even If you have the contekts. Context. Maybe. Sorry, Polish is a very phonetic language, so I can't really spell anymore. We also taught another less active named zbyszek, who when we entered his home, lived in really poor conditions, and I realized how tough a lot of the people here have it.
On Sunday, there were 13 people in attendance. Which is about two less than our average. There's only three really strong members that I know of- Jan, Łukasz, and Dagmara (I think that's how you spell it), They're all amazing people, but everyone else is tough... Something needs to change here, and I hope it happens fast. The main goal of the mission president is simply to make Szczecin have a solid foundation in it's branch, and then we can move on to biggering it.
Also, in Polish, instead of saying "Potrzebuję używać łażękę" Which directly means "I need to use the bathroom", you say "Musię korzystać z łażęki" Which means "I must take advantage of the bathroom" So that's neat! Also, when saying "God", you can say "Bóg" or "Boże" The first one is the normal noun, God, but the second one is the adjective version of the word, or "Goddy" Doesn't exist in english, but it's a thing here. AND I went to a real life Milk Bar today! And milk bar "Bar mlescy" literally means "milky bar" As in the adjective! Even Moses has an adjective! EVERYTHING GETS AN ADJECTIVE! Samuelny, Bethi, Maxi, Zachy, Caity, (Sorry, yours is already an adjective), Kenti, and Kaity (sorry, yours, too) AND IT WOULD MAKE SENSE TO THEM! (If it ends in a y or i, its an adjective.) But in the milk bar I had pierogi (Plural, not adjective) And it was amazing. Lets bring that back to America!
Ok, this is how Polish people say goodbye- CZEŚĆ! DO WIDZENIA! NA RASZE! DO ZOBACZENIA! CZEŚĆ! and so on. They take a very long time to say goodbye.
LOVE ALL THE WAY FROM POLAND!!
Starszy Liechty
They have this holiday called All Saints Day where people put candles on the graves for their ancestors in Purgatory. Very nice.
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