The weather is slowly getting better and the days are getting longer, so I'm happy!

My mum told me I had to make sure I wrote a blog post for this week.

Hope all is well wherever you are in the world. The weather is slowly getting better and the days are getting longer, so I'm happy. 

On Tuesday we went and got our car washed as it was filthy. We just did a drive through automatic one. We were debating whether to get out or stay in the car, other people were getting out but we decided to stay in as it was cold outside. We made a bad decision and soon enough worked out why everyone got out, it smelt horrible and eggy inside. I got out my spray and was spraying inside the car to cover the smell but it didn't work. Worst 7 minutes of our lives. We chilled on old town with Erickson and Sommerfeldt, which is when I took all the pictures and we had Amrit Kebab for lunch which is the missionary favourite in Poland. KraszKebab in Poznan still wins for me though. Also that night I got a call from Sister Demordaunt, 'Elder, honest question, would you be down to get pedicures next Monday during Pday?', to which I answered 'Heck Yes', Einfeldt on the other hand wasn't as game, so we made a deal, if Einfeldt was to get a pedicure Sister D has to wear white shirt and tie to zone conference, the deal was made..so we'll see what happens. 

EINFELDT PASSED HIS TEST! We just made it on time to the exam too with about 1 minute to spare, it was a tense ride.

We had the Worldwide Missionary Broadcast on Thursday which we all watched with President from the Wolska Chapel. Some cool new changes, well at least to missionaries they're cool. The changes give us more flexibility within our day to adjust if needed. The big change is on Pday, we don't have to study anymore which gives us an extra 3 hours to get things done. Everyone is going mad as we have so much time. Nightly planning has now changed to morning planning which means when we get in at the end of the night we can just eat and chill which is nice. The first night of the changes it was a bit weird, we didn't know what to do with ourselves.  I just ended up going to bed for an hour and then watching some Bible Videos. 

We had our District meeting after the broadcast which was the usual district meeting in which we couldn't  stop laughing. Sister Beam spilt all her chips on the floor too, which happens all the time. We met a guy from Vegas in the mall who stopped us and said that he just got here a few days ago and that he saw us and recognised us as missionaries and wanted to speak with some 'AMERICANS', people are always so shocked when I say I'm from England.

We did a lot of English contacting on the Patelnia this week..the best of the week being when I carried Bebel around on my shoulders as he handed out fliers. A crazy lady came over and started to fight us, she started hitting Bebel and tried to pull him down, I didn't really know what to do so we just laughed, which is the usual response here.

The two Warsaw Branches combine on Sunday, so this past Sunday was the last meeting to be held in the Warsaw 2 building. It's cool to be around for this kind of event which will be spoken about for a while.

Everything is going well. I'm loving it here in Warsaw. Keep praying and doing good!

Manekin!

Manekin with the District. Yes Elder Haskett has some M&M Pancakes

The only plus to driving a Smart Car.

A Picture Paints A Thousand Words

No long email this week but loads of photos.

Old Town with Einfeldt

All Aboard!

yes this is a man dressed as a minotaur

 (the man has a sign which says 'hunt the minotaur' , when I saw him I stopped him and asked if we could get a picture)

English contacting on the 'frying pan' - Elder Barlow did a good job of getting in the photo

 (The frying pan is a place in centrum which feeds the busiest metro line and has the biggest flow of traffic. It's round in shape and in the summer you can fry an egg on the ground it gets that hot. You meet all kinds of people on it).

Christmas Tree is still out - it's HUGE!

Classic Old Town look

A bit blurry - sorry!

Friends

MTC Group Reunion in Warsaw (4 out of 6) 

Welcome all to this weeks instalment of 'what I got up to this week in Warszawa'.

I'm doing this from memory this week but we'll see how it goes.

Tuesday was the day of Zone Training. It was good to see Elders Huffman, Alvarez and Hanson again. One of the most valuable things of a mission, at least something that I value greatly is the friendships you make with others, whether it be other missionaries or members. I hope that I'm friends with my mission pals for the rest of my life. The best bit of zone training involved all the missionaries and president going to the centre of Warsaw for a huge finding activity. We had a tent, tables, lots of pamphlets, banners and cards, the presence was enough to have people come up to us instead of us having to approach people which was a nice change. President showed us how it's done though, chatting away to people. 

We combined our dinner and language study hour at the end of the night and played 'Apples to Apples' which they have in Polish too, it was a fun district activity,

At the moment we're just working solidly with a man named Janek. He's a recent convert who was baptised on Christmas Eve and is one of the humblest and accepting people I've met here. He's so kind and is very grateful for any help and service we give to him. We're currently helping him prepare to take his own family names to the temple to perform baptisms, which is a really nice process to be involved in. 

Saturday we played football again in the morning, in the snow, and once again it was a mint 90 mins or so. We played world cup, and I played in goal again, it was incredibly slippy this time though as the snow has turned to ice, which made it hilarious. 

I read something this morning that stood out to me. It gave a little boost of energy that helped me get through the morning and gave me a new way to look at things, It was simply this. You can choose to come on a mission, or you can choose to serve a mission.   It was from something called 'the Riciardi letter' and is a series of experiences and stories from a missionary serving in the England Birmingham mission about 20 years ago. He talks about how his trainer changed his life. It's one of the best things I've ever read. you should read it, maybe you've heard of it and read it already

Have a good week.

Back together again Elder Huffman, Ashworth and Hanson

So this week has been a cold one, so so cold!

So this week has been a cold one, so so cold! No matter how well I dressed myself to face the cold, my fingers and toes after a few minutes were freezing.

It's been a busy week in terms of doing random office jobs and chasing around after everyone making sure everyone is happy. 

On the Wednesday after MLC, which I only had to go to this time to drop off packages, we had a huge family history finding activity in the centre of Warsaw with a bunch of missionaries. We had banners and whiteboards and a tent..it's a shame that it was so cold and windy, we tried our best to make the most of it. English was on Wednesday also. It was a warm welcome from both the students and from the heat of the chapel. The students apparently were excited for my arrival, guess being the only English missionary in the mission has some perks. 

Thursday started early with us driving over to the test centre for Elder Einfeldt to take a theory driving test, which he failed by 1 point. It was so funny as he called it and said he would be ticked if he got 67, he came out with the face of a man who just got 67 haha. After that we headed over to Centrum where we met all the missionaries coming in for legal work. We went and got some food and then headed over to the Urząd to help get them legal. It was another incredibly cold day, the wind was sometimes unbearable, it honestly felt as though someone was nibbling on the end of my fingers and toes. I learnt how to say that 'we smashed someone', in like a game of football or something..'Rozwaliliśmy ich'. 

Saturday morning was my favourite morning of my mission so far. Even though it was -17 degrees, we went and played football with some members and other missionaries, it was epic! We played on a turf pitch behind the chapel which was turned into an ice rink of sorts due to the snow, a few inches of solid ice and snow on top of the turf which made the game even more interesting. I went in shorts, because why not right..? I took pants with me but didn't change into them until I decided my legs were red and cold enough. I played in goal too as I couldn't be bothered running around. I took a 45 min shower when I got home, just so I was sufficiently warm enough. 

From exchanges with Quakenbush and Mulder last transfer, I picked up a new meal idea which is just fried Kielbasa and potatoes, but it's so good and does the job. 

Fast Sunday came quickly and seemed to last forever.  My main goal for the day was to not think about food. It was a decent testimony meeting, kind of nice there being no pressure for the missionaries to fill the time. We went out after church to a finding activity, again in the cold, it was so bad!  We bailed early and went home to break our fast, which wasn't as good as it sounds as I didn't have much food in. 

The traffic in Warsaw is the worst I've experienced. It's so dumb.

We have Zone training tomorrow. so should be good seeing Alvarez and Huffman again. 

Have a good week. Take it easy.

Warsaw Old Town

Pizza from De Grasso's after a long cold day 

Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku z Warszawy

So I had to give a talk yesterday in church, just to introduce myself and all that. My topic was 'Feed my Sheep'.  Church was mental, Warsaw 2 is the biggest branch in Poland, with about 80 members, half of them made up of American families. There were kids running about which was weird, and it lasted all 3 hours which was also kind of strange. I've not had 3 hours of church since my last Sunday back in England.  The Branch President is American, but everything is translated that is done in English.  The priesthood class was done in Russian, which was then translated into English, which was then translated into Polish.  There are 6 missionaries in the branch.  Me, Einfeldt, Haskett, Barlow, Sisters Beem and DeMordaunt.  We have a number of recent converts that we work with, and 1 or 2 investigators. 

It takes around 10 mins by car to get to church, so not too far. It's nice being in a car, it was nice to ride bikes around Lublin but having a car is so cool. I drove the meriva for a few days last week.  I don't have to take tests or anything so I'm good to go whenever.  It felt so good to drive again...plus the meriva has a sweet turbo.  We get new cars in Feb of this year so I'll be driving them. 

On New Years Eve we had Elder Haskett and Elder Barlow come to our place and we chilled. We were allowed to stay up till 12. It's a nice apartment, I'll get pics for next week.  

It snowed a bit this morning but it wasn't much.  Sorry for the no long email again.

Just know that I'm well and healthy and loving it here in Warsaw.  

Warsaw 2 Missionaries

Ice skating with the squad

Last Sunday in Lublin

Lublin