Goodbye to Provo, hello to Poland

So this is my last email from the MTC, I have to be up in around 6 hours. It's mad how quickly this day has come, but honestly I can't wait to get to Poland.

So Christmas Day was good.  David A. Bednar and David Archuleta in the same day!  David Archuleta came and did a 2 hour concert thing.  It was so good, he brought a few special guests and things.  As soon as his name popped up on the big screen all the sisters went mental.

I've loved my MTC experience, I've learnt so much, my testimony of this gospel has grown.  I've made so many friends that I hope will be lifelong friends.  There are so many memories that will stay with me forever.

Poland District - December 2015

Flight details

Finally arrived!

Wesołych Świąt

Czesc, Jak sie macie?

Good morning and Merry Christmas eve! Hope everyone is doing well. I do get Pday today, no temple as it's closed so we had an extra hour in bed today, we were still up at 6.30 for 5 mins, but we all had an extra hour afterwards haha. 

So we have a special nativity devotional tonight and then we're watching a film of some sort. Should be a good night.

I've not really been up to much this week. Just been getting ready for leaving. All day yesterday we had our In Field Orientation, a full day focused on helping you practice the main points of missionary work such as finding, working with members, baptism interviews and things like that, it was really enjoyable, even though it was from 8 to half 5. 

It's mad to think that it's Christmas day tomorrow, We're having an Apostle come and see us tomorrow, we think it's Pres. Uchdorf because the musical item being performed is being done in German. So looking forward to that also. 

This Pday has been really good. We had a 2 hour Nerf/Marshmallow war this morning back at the res. 

We taught our investigators for the last time this week, the next investigators we'll teach will be real. Kind of scary to think about but I'm ready for it. 

I got most of my packing done today, just got my suits to put away and things, sort all my food out. The most stressful thing is figuring out how to clean our room. 

We've been having less language lessons and more lessons on the Culture and how to say things other than gospel related.

Enjoy the day, I'm enjoying eating all my food..all the elders think the McCoys and hoola hoops are good! They still think american 'chips' are better though.

Anyway have a good day tomorrow. Love you both. I'll let you know about my Christmas Eve and day in more detail when I speak with you.

Love you and Dobrze Noc x

Forever stealing my camera

And again!

The new Polish Elders. (left to right) me, Elder Dooley, Musgrave, Freeman, Fetzer, Birdwell and then on the bottom Elder Kriser.

Last lesson with Siostra Cheney

Said goodbye to my pal Brat Kimball last night. He's been teaching us for about 5 weeks. He's a really sweet guy. He's coming visiting Poland in June so hopefully I'll get to catch up with him. 

We played a game of what are the odds. Isaac will explain what that is if you don't know. Anyway I lost so I have to wear this for the day. These are PJ bottoms that Buckhoff's Grandma sent him.

Sweater saturday at the res. 

They got my camera again!

Week 8!

Good morning, it's very cold and chilly here.  There's snow everywhere!  It's our last temple trip this morning so we're doing a group session which should be good.  The week has been pretty good. We had a member of the Presidency of the Seventy come and speak to us, President Robbins I think, he gave a good talk about how your mission is preparation for everything in the future. How you deal with your companions is how you'll deal with your future eternal companion. He also stressed about how you need a 'to be' list, on your to be list should be the attributes of Christ, and then your 'to do' list is things that will help you develop those attributes. It was a really good talk. 

So I go to Temple Square tomorrow morning, I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing morning. I'll be going with Elder Smith.  I've met all the new elders, they seem good. Elder Freeman came in early on Tuesday so he sat in one of our Polish classes.  I got to host this week also, I hosted for all the new missionaries coming on, we had around 380 missionaries come in, I didn't see Sister Ensign come in though, I'll have to keep my eye out for her. I think the Italians get taught in our building anyway.

Courtesy of Siostra Kamp

Photos courtesy of Siostra Kamp

The email server went down so here are the photos from the past 8 days and also photos from my trip to Salt Lake.    It was nice to get out of the MTC for a while. We spent longer travelling there and back than we did actually at Temple Square. It was nice to see all the Christmas displays and things though. It was incredibly cold too. They had a lot more snow in Salt Lake than in Provo. So today we got flight plans, I'm so excited to head out to Poland. 

Marcucci and Smith

Sunday Temple walk ft Room 435

All the Elders (before the new Poles came in)

Elder Bartolini.  He speaks Spanish, English, Chinese and is learning Dutch.He left last week, said my last goodbyes.

Elder Smith my companion with his District.

The zone on our last temple trip together.

Elder Cox. I knew of him before my mission, it's been good getting to know him at the MTC. He's serving in Albania. We came in the same time and both leave together.

Decent morning trip up to Salt Lake City

Thought I'd get a bit artsy

The light was shining right through the window so we couldn't see a thing.

The boys

przepraszam, myślałem że, mogłem pokozać mój Polski

przepraszam, myślałem że, mogłem pokozać mój Polski 

I will use English now haha! I said I thought I'd show you my Polish.

So this week has been another good one. Nothing new really. I'm still loving it here, and I take each day as it comes. We had the Young Womens General President come and speak to us for our Tuesday night devotional, it was a nice change having a woman come and speak to us as opposed to a general authority. She taught us a message of how we need to be loving enough to let heavenly father cut us down, you know the 'currant bush' story by D. Todd. Christofferson.

The Polish is coming on good. For TRC this week, we had it on Wednesday, we taught a native over skype. It was so nerve-racking, and she spoke so quickly so I could barely understand, but it was really enjoyable. Also we had some practice at teaching a less active member, the investigator played by Brat Kimball, our new teacher. The person we skyped was a mid 20's recently baptized member. She lived in the north, I can't remember the place, but she knows Brat Fotu, one of my teachers, which was good. Skype was okay, the sound was bad so I couldn't really hear, and that doesn't help the fact she's speaking a language that I can just about understand when my teacher is talking. Other than that, it was fun. 

Am I ready to go to Poland?  I don’t really know. I would say I can't wait to get there, but teaching the Polish lady over skype yesterday hit me as to how much I will learn when I'm out there. The MTC is just a small piece of what I'll learn and experience. There's a policy at the MTC of SYL (speak your language), and it helps a lot. We read scriptures in Polish as a class each day, but it's hard to follow because of all the cases used and things.

Can't wait for next week, hopefully I'll have more info about flights and if I can call or not. Also I get to go to Salt Lake next week, not to the temple, just to walk around temple square and things, so should be good.    I'm excited for Christmas, it should be really good, we have p day Christmas eve and then Christmas day is a very chill day too! Something else exciting, we should get our flight tomorrow I think! Oh and also, the branch Presidency said we probably can call home on Christmas, so I'll let you know more about that when I know! 

My best bit of the week, probably taking a 40 min shower today haha. The week is all good, lots of good lessons, lots of good opportunities nauczać , uczyliśmy kapłaństwa lekcji again, to jest fun nauczenie the priesthood lesson. 

The sisters are all still great! To jest dobrze być z nimi. Lubię im służyć i są bardzo śmieszne!

It is good to be with them. I like serving them, and they are all very funny!  The new zone leaders are 2 Czech elders, Chadwick and Pickett.

Elder Wilkey from Bournemouth

my new companion Elder Smith from Arizona

when you need to get space from the sisters haha

Elder Sperry and Elder Brown they left for Bulgaria on Tuesday morning

The last of the Bulgarian district to leave, I spent the morning as Elder Halverson's companion just before he hopped on the shuttle to the airport.

Elder Renauld on the left and Elder Seibach left for Bulgaria on Tuesday morning.

Elder Seibach is a big, friendly giant. Love this guy.

Thanksgiving, Christmas Lights & Snow.

I’ve just got finished teaching two lessons at TRC, I always come out of it feeling so happy and confident, the volunteers at TRC are pretty cool, our first teacher Brat Jensen came tonight with his wife so that was good to see him and I got to teach them. 

So this week has been good, a lot of the same really, the only difference was celebrating thanksgiving. we were visited by Elder Oaks in the morning which was cool, we all sat down and were wandering who the apostle was going to be, and then we just saw Elder Oaks right in front of us talking to people. We always get front row seats to the devotionals and didn't even realise he was stood right in front of us. The devotional was good, he had all his family come and they're very musical, one of his daughters Jenny Oakes Baker was there and apparently she's quite a famous violinist. He just spoke about America and God bless America and all that, I wasn’t expecting anything different from a thanksgiving devotional, the music was good though.

I found out this week that I’ll be getting a new companion when the next group come in. There's a new Elder coming in going to Slovenia and he will also be a solo so they want me be to be his companion and to train him in the arts of being a solo, so that's something to look forward to. He'll be joining us in our room, so there'll be six of us!  A big bunch of the zone are flying out on Monday and Tuesday.

Sister Yochim had to go home, the sisters are sad but they've dealt with it well. The Polish is coming on okay, still slow but I enjoy it. I'm okay with teaching on my own too, I’ve got used to it.  I’m honestly doing great. I love mostly every minute I have here, just the classes can drag sometimes, but I love learning new things. I would say the experience of being out here is enough to strengthen your testimony alone, the constant study and learning helps a lot though. I wouldn't say my doctrinal knowledge has increased massively, just I’m more confident to share things than I would be at home, I’m more confident to teach. 

The language is coming good, I know a lot more than I think I do. It's amazing how much leaves your memory though when you get into a teaching situation. I can understand the majority of what the teacher is saying in class, which is a miracle in itself really, to think I knew nothing and could understand nothing before my mission just shows that. You don’t need to worry about me though, I’m loving it here! I feel as ready as I’ve prepared myself to be, I feel as though I need to do more but I’m already tired as it is. I'm excited to get to Poland, it's quite daunting though, I’ll be out in the real world teaching real people, scary thought.

The best bit of the week was probably this morning. We did an endowment session at the temple as a zone which was pretty cool. Other than that probably being spoke to by an apostle. Just the feeling of him being in the room with us was special. 

They turned the Christmas lights on!!

Always getting photos with Marcucci

Room 435

I found Elder Walsh, he's doing great!

I can't remember this Elder's name so I just call him Elder Van Der Van Der Van Der, he lived in Hull for 5 years.

Temple walk in the snow.

Last Temple trip together this morning, some elders are leaving on Monday and Tuesday.