Last week in Warsaw..Kraków here I go

I couldn't have asked for a better last week to finish off the transfer and my time in Warsaw. I'll miss being around the likes of Alvarez, Beem and Bebel but I'm looking forward to spending summer in Kraków. You can't not find history in Poland, but Kraków is pouring with it. I was in Kraków a long time ago, maybe even 6 years ago on a school trip. I remember the teachers gave us a help sheet with phrases and words on it..we all thought it was hilarious that the word for yes is 'tak'. I remember we would walk around saying that non-stop. I never thought I would be here in the future with a knowledge of this language, it's quite incredible to think about really. The word 'tak' came in handy my first few weeks in the country haha.

Tuesday we had our English class down at the university which was boss. Adriano and I were late as we had to get through the Warsaw traffic, something I won't miss at all. We got there and joined in with the joint advanced/intermediate class that the sisters were doing. Sister Beem looked at me and said 'ok Ashworth, you have the question of the day for us', I had to think of something on the spot, 'I ended up asking what your dream sandwich would be', creative I know. Anyway, we had some terrible answers, people just have weird desires when it comes to their favourite sandwich, black bread, fish, and onion on one, peanuts and peanut butter on another..one guy answered and said 'I've never had a dream about a sandwich', he had us all in hysterics, hilarious. After the class we chilled for some time chatting with the students and took pictures, we also arranged to go out for food with them all on saturday.

Wednesay night we went to theatre to see a show about an old rich lady that comes back to a small town and takes over. We were invited by a friend of ours who works there as a costume designer. It was a legit show, so many old people, we turned up in our suits and looked the part. Cool experience. 

Thursday I spent most of the day with Elder Alvarez as Elder Musgrave was being run through things in the office. We went to tesco to buy a new chair for his apartment. Ended up buying an outside garden chair you'd find around a little table, it was cheap and does its job. We had our English class in the evening that we have every Wednesday and Thursday at 18, Saturday at 14, ul Nowy Świat 38/1. We didn't teach though as we hadn't eaten all day and someone brought a long board that we messed about on for a bit. Alvarez and I went for Kebabs in the center before heading back for a sweet meeting with Maczek.

On saturday we had sports in the morning. The night before we had 6 elders at our place. We were making the most of the remaining time we had together before transfers. Sport was lit! I smashed in a few more goals past Einfeldt, a half volley on the left foot and a sweet edge of the box strike in to the top corner. It was the last time I would see some of the brothers too so we stopped behind for a bit afterwards chatting and kicking the ball about. We did some service at a members house. Painting and cleaning and sanding, all the tools came out. There were about 9 missionaries there, so a full house, and even a few members came which was nice to see. From there we quickly got ourselves home to change for the chill night with all our friends. We ate at Toto, there was about 22 of us and we filled the whole back part of the restaurant. We went to the park close by afterwards and took some pictures and said goodbyes to some of them we wouldn't see again after transfers. 

Sunday we just had church, a small turnout because of the long weekend but it was nice. After church we had a linger longer, got to take some pictures with members and chat with them. The food was good too, someone prepared a nice pasta tuna salad which I had a few bowls of. Sunday night Alvarez and I ended up sleeping at the assistants place to make the logistics easier in the morning. We didn't get there till late as I had to pack all my stuff up which took a while, then we had to grab the big transporter and find parking down at their place. I brought all the food I had and started cooking as I hadn't eaten since the tuna pasta thing. I just fried a huge 600g polish sausage and ate it with rice. Another good night chatting and having a laugh with some good mates, time that as you know I value a lot. I didn't leave Warsaw till a bit later on in the day so that I could see the sisters from my MTC group who were finishing their missions and going home.  We went out for some food and it was nice to see them all together for the first time in 18 months.

Elder Hadfield is my new comp.  He's from Orem in Utah.  He's in his 3rd transfer and I'm his 2nd companion.  He's been in Kraków for 4 months.  Our apartment isn't too far away from the train station.  Just a 5 minute tram ride and a bit of a walk.  It's about 4 tram stops from the old town too, we drove past it today on the way to the library.  It has a completely different feeling to Warsaw being here.  Church is held in a big apartment rented by the church somewhere not far from the other Elders place.  

Warsaw gave me a good run, I did a lot, saw a lot, laughed a lot, scored a lot of goals, taught a lot..lets hope Kraków brings the same!

Me and Elder Hadfield

Filip Borowski. This man is a legend. He recorded himself reading the entire Book of Mormon for people to listen to. It has Chopin playing in the background too.

Week 77

No long email today sorry.  All is well - I have 3 transfers left - next week being one of them.  I'm enjoying my time in Warsaw.

Sports Saturday in Warsaw

This week has only had ups.

Hello from a beautiful Warsaw, it's been so nice these past few days. This week has only had ups, it's been a pretty solid week. 

Actually, thinking about it, there was one down, happened Saturday morning after we ran to the local żabka for some milk. We got home and I ate some cornflakes, classic breakfast, I drank a protein shake and then I felt awful, I knew I was going to throw up, it was just a matter of when haha, so I said to Adriano 'yo give me 5 I'm just going to go throw up', so yeah that happened, kind of random and gross I know, sorry about that. After stretching we went for a game of footy with the team, still feeling dodgy i got off to a slow start, we even lost our first game..'how is that possible with Ashworth on the team' I know you're all thinking, the second game came though and I was back and ready, I smashed into the back of the net the meanest volley ever witnessed by those watching, it will never be as good as the Paul Scholes volley against Villa in '06, but the crowd went wild! 

So let's talk about my birthday a bit. Thanks to everyone who sent a note, or wished me a happy birthday. I know I'm old, 20 years of my life gone, 20 years worth of experience and moments of growth, the physical growth not coming until I turned 20 haha. Anyway...it was a good day, we had lunch together as missionaries at Manekin of course, I got the normal order of a chicken, cheese and onion Naleśnik with an extra order of Nutella and M&M Pancakes, treated myself. Later on in the day I got to spend some time with my Uncle which was nice, he gave me a bag of chocolate and biscuits from Grandma, you know it's from my Grandma when you get given some Rich Tea finger biscuits. Overall it was a good day. 

Thursday was a day full of adventures. We ran around doing some errands in the morning, taught a lesson and then headed out with the sisters to go and visit a member family who live a decent way away. They invited us over as they don't get to church as much as they would like, so we happily accepted an invitation over. Road trip, sun, food, good music, make a sweet day! The drive was incredible, just like driving through the old roads and countryside of England, it's just flat, more open, so many farms and cherry trees and forests, and you can taste the history. We got there and had a good time, some Mexican food and even met a young lad who the family invited over, he was 16 and interests himself in God and being happy because of being obedient to the commandments. The drive home took a little longer as I took a wrong turn, we decided to stay in the woods for a bit to look around and take some pictures and enjoy the peace and quiet. We were in the middle of nowhere, a lady approached on a bike and so Adriano attempted to talk with her about the gospel, she quickly sped off. We were about to get back in the car and I felt something in my shoe, I thought it was a stone or a bit of bark from the woods or something, but nooooo, I took off my shoe to find this huge bug in my shoe...I shouted 'THERE'S A BUG IN MI SHOE' it sounded proper northern so the sisters and Adriano always quote me now and say it to make fun of my accent. We set off again and drove through a few small villages, just farmers and people working in their plots of land in sight, the way the GPS took us was down this cobble stone road, probably the worst road I've been on, 100% made for tractors and that, this road went on for about 6km, nightmare! we made it out alive though, then a few km down the road we were talking about those horror film moments when you'll be driving down the road and see a car in the distance with its hazards on, the people stop to check it out and then it turns out to be a crazy murderer with a chainsaw or something..those moments...well we saw a car with its hazards on in the distance and everyone in the car lost it,  Beem thought it was the end, it was hilarious..turned out to be a woman who stopped to give water to her dog. The drive home was full of funny moments and singing and that. 

Conference was good at the weekend. We spent all day at the chapel pretty much and got through 3 sessions of conference..with some breaks in between. The weather was beaut too, so in between conference me and Alvarez went outside and threw a frisbee around in the sun, caught the attention of everyone who walked past, don't know whether it was because of our good looks or just the fact that two lads were playing frisbee in suits.The Priesthood session was mint! The talks by Elders Bednar and Uchtdorf had a lot of power behind them.

Week 70 something.

It's been a long time since last Monday, a whole 10 days or something like that. Here's what we've been up to.

After emailing and all that last Monday we went out for some Kebab which didn't really live up to the hype, it just didn't taste that good, so we went round to the local Biedronka for some chocolate. We stood at the side of the road for about 20 mins deciding what to do. We had the squad together, Me, Adriano, Alvarez, Musgrave, Beem and Stahl. We decided to go and find a place for bowling, we thought there'd be a bowling place at Galeria Mokotów but when we got there it turned out there wasn't, classic! So we just chilled at the mall. Hit up the usual shops like Zara and H&M, had a look at all the new gadgets and tech at Saturn, then we came across a Hollister which was pretty funny so of course we went inside. You could actually see where you were going for once, which was pretty unusual. I remember as a young teen trying to pick out a new shirt for the next Huddersfield Stake youth dance, but not being able to tell if the shirt was black or white because it was so dark. We decided to bounce from the mall and go and bounce on some outdoor trampolines by our place. There's a really posh shopping mall and then a park and some trampolines. Sister Beem was jumping away, making a video blog, Adriano took off his shoes for some reason and then Sister Stahl ran straight onto her trampoline which was covered in water, it was like jumping into a pond haha, her feet got soaked. 

Tuesday was a pretty boring day. We had our district meeting a bit later on in the day as we had to drive our cars over to be serviced again and valued at the Hyundai garage which was about an hours drive from our apartment. On the way home from the garage we went the long way home which took us through Praga. we stopped at a red light and out of the corner of my eye I could see this huge brown bear just chilling there, I didn't realise we were right by the zoo. For district meeting I decided it would be good for us to learn from President Eyring and Elder Holland, so we watched that new Face to Face thing they did at the Church history site in Palmyra. It was nice to listen to two Apostles just talk in an environment other than General Conference, much more laid back and they were able just to talk and answer questions. A lot was based on what we can learn from the First Vision, When God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in the grove, what we can learn about scripture study and prayer. 

On Thursday we taught the Intermediate class which was cool, we talked about heroes and what a hero is, we asked the question 'what word comes to mind when you hear the word hero?', we got a lot of solid answers until Adriano throws out 'SPANDEX', there's always one. 

On Saturday we had a huge Sports Saturday, about 20 people showed up so we had to split into 3 teams. The last game we just had everyone playing which turned into a free for all. The turf was pretty slippy too, it was kind of like playing on ice, I fell over so many times and got burns and bruises all over my hands and legs, it was all worth it though. We went home and chilled and studied before heading over to Nowy Świat to teach the advanced class which again was mint! We had a quality game of telephone that got pretty weird in some points, the sentences got so messed up which always made it funny for the last person. 

Saturday night at 17 we had a big Warsaw District dinner as this weekend it was our District Conference weekend. It was good to see some of the members from Lublin again. The talks during the evening session were really good too. President gave a really good and simple talk, again on repentance and prayer. Sunday we had a huge turnout, pretty much all the members from Lublin were there, plus all the missionaries from the other branches too, it was a quality environment and I was able to chat and catch up with old friends. I had a mint opportunity and blessing of ordaining two members of the Lublin branch to the Office of Elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood, with authority from President Turek.  Something I'll remember for a long time, in those situations you can't but help feel that Heavenly Father is helping you through the Spirit, as you speak words you didn't even think you could and give council and guidance through that Priesthood blessing. 

Sunday night as it got really late after a dinner at our place with Alvarez and Musgrave, we decided to have a sleepover. Nights like that are quality, I just enjoy good company and laughs, nothing beats it really, we made some solid food too. 

Yesterday night we had the long anticipated English Class at a university. A friend of the sisters hooked us up with classrooms and about 100 interested students to teach. So much good is going to happen because of this. We walked in and we even had time to stand and talk to them all in this huge auditorium before splitting off into different classes. We met so many young students. There was a cool guy from Zimbabwe that came which was sweet. It's going to be a weekly thing now and loads of people are interested in both English and who we are as missionaries.  We met so many solid people and they're all our age too. I can't wait for next Tuesday! 

I'm happy and well. Still trying to do my bit of good each day. Our Branch Missionary Leader has a 'ponderizer', something for us to think about through the week. This time round it's D&C 82:10, which is funny as it happens to be my Dad's favourite scripture. If you've ever listened to him give a talk, you've 100% heard him share it.

We went to the Chopin museum on Friday night with a friend of the Elders.  It was a pretty sweet place.

Looking way back to the days when i was 14. Hollister eventually made it to Poland.

We went on the trampolines by our apartment. Beem said 'high school musical it on 3'. Nailed it! 

Had a lads night on Sunday at our place in preparation for zone training 

Some Pimped out Clubmans

With my favourite Asian person in the world, MICHAEL! He was in town for District Conference 

So Sister Beem decided to draw me. She thought she got it pretty accurate. 'feed me carrots' is all you have to say in order to make her laugh. 

Realised that i've not sent a picture home of two of us yet. Here's Elder Adriano

I'm just a lad from England who kind of speaks Polish.

So on Tuesday the new elders came in! it was so funny just watching them and their facial expressions and just seeing how they were taking everything in. I don't really remember much of my first day and so it just reminded me that I was probably just as dazed as the two new lads that came in. 

We had a cool little meeting with a lad called Maciej on Tuesday night. We met at a little Georgian restaurant and had a good chat about the gospel and book of Mormon over some various flavoured lemonade. Would I pay 12zl again for the same drink? probably not, but it was good. We had to eat out again, so we had McDonalds, just the quickest option as we had to get somewhere, can't remember exactly where, I would have chosen somewhere different if we weren't in a rush.P day came on the Wednesday, Adriano paid 70zl for a haircut and got part of his ear cut off too which was funny.

On Thursday the new elders found out who their new comp would be, Elders Kriser and Baldwin were chosen this time round as trainers, two fine missionaries to have as a companion, so they're both in good hands. We had a huge 15 missionary district meeting which was kind of hectic, so hard to stay focused although we did get sorted what we needed to get sorted. It had the feeling of a zone conference or training.  We went for Manekin again that evening and then I had to make it home in record time, I had to take Kriser and his new comp Jabłoński back to the mission home, I got there pretty quick. 

All the legal work and appointments happened on the Friday, it went pretty smooth. Kind of weird how I'm the legal representative for new missionaries that come in now, I'm just a lad from England who kind of speaks Polish, but walking around those buildings with a briefcase in hand looks pretty cool. We chilled in the mall until we sent the trainees and trainers back home. We had a lesson that night over skype with a newly baptized brother and sister who live in Spain. It's pretty cool chatting and teaching them as they are so grateful for anything we do for them, and it's nice for them to speak with us as they don't have any opportunity to speak Polish with anyone in Spain, plus they don't speak Spanish, they're pretty solid and have changed their lives for the better and they see that. We chatted with them about the Europe area plan that was given us a few years ago, it's really helping us create unity here in Poland and working with members is effective when you have them use the area plan.

We had the morning footy match on Saturday, it absolutely wrecked me, I'm still so sore even now. I scored a load of goals to help drive our team to a win. We played against a bunch of cool lads from Belarus who come to our English class. It was the first time this year we've been able to play without snow. The sun came out too which was so nice, when the sun comes out here in Poland, everyone comes out and it's so much easier to talk with people. People ride bikes everywhere and get round on their rollerblades, I don't know how they're so good at it. I know i'd for sure fall over if my mode of transport was some blades. The warmer it gets the more I think about and am reminded of how good last summer was in Poznan. This week I had contact with some people I met and became friends with in Poznań. One lady sent me a picture and update of her house that we helped paint, the work is finally done and now she has a sweet place for her family to live, so that was nice to see and she invited me round for Fruit Tea if I was ever again in Poznan. And that I had a chat on the phone with a man called Krzysztof. He and his wife are some of the nicest people I've met in Poland. If you remember, it's the couple that we would teach English to at the park and also we would talk about the gospel a lot with them. I'm grateful for these little moments I had this week to chat with and catch up with people who have impacted my life just as much as I may have impacted theirs. 

Sunday was just your average sunday in Warsaw. We had a big attendance at church and then me and Bebel translated for the last hour in primary. Some of the things the kids come out with are hilarious, sometimes even make you think, there's a lot you can learn from young kids.

We headed out for a finding activity at the park as the sun was out and the people of Warsaw were out, I guess they sensed that us missionaries were ready to preach to them the good word. So much nicer being in a park outside centrum where the families are and nobody is in a rush. Bring on summer! 

This lad was from the Ukraine also doing his own preaching.  Notice the fire dancers in the background.

Zone conference a few weeks back - so good seeing these brothers!

A week of laughs, rain, snow, freaky devil man, style points and good byes

Hello everyone, sorry it's been a few weeks since I've blessed you with the opportunity to read about my week. It's good to be back. 

We can start with last Monday. As it was the last Pday before transfers we had a shopping list of things to buy. We took the transporter too so we could fit everyone in, we had to clean it too. On the list were Ties from Adam's Ties, Scarfs from the Legia store and Lapel Pins from the Uprising museum. After emailing we went for lunch, we just settled for some Mcdonalds, which is always a good choice until after eating it. We went to pick the rest of the district up from a metro stop, whilst waiting we were blasting music and going over transfers with eachother..we were shown the transfer board that morning whilst emailing..so from that point we had all the knowledge that everyone else wants, I liked it but then didn't as you know what people want, but then you also know exactly what is happening with them. We took that privilege a bit far by shouting our districts transfer calls at them as they were approaching the car, we had music on and they couldn't hear us but it was funny, we continued to do that all throughout the week. we managed to check off the scarfs and ties from the list, but we didn't make it to the gift shop of the museum in time. Picked up some pretty nice ties, so I was happy. Trips in the car this transfer have always been a blast when we're all together, whether because of Einfeldt and his sketchy driving or because of us making a music video or whatever, they've all been quality. Favourite song of ours at the minute is Hallelujah done by Pentatonix, we listened to it 6 times in a row one time and many more times after that. 

We had a district meeting on Tuesday, the last of the transfer..a lot of 'lasts' happened this week. Haskett asked us all to share testimony after his bit, which was a nice end to the meeting. 

Elder Adriano came in on Wednesday. We went to pick him up from the Dworzec and then had a meeting at the office with President and the Jones' and the Assistants about transfers. More of a coordination meeting, figure out how everything was going to go down. We met the rest of the district at Nowy Świat before heading out to do some finding on the Patelnia...Oto Freaky Devil Man story. It was raining and I had no coat on as it had been warm, so I took Elder Barlow with me into a Rossman where I could buy an umbrella, done this so many times, they're cheap and I must have about 10 of them across Poland that I'd bought just for that day because it started raining. Anyway..so the others had walked on so it was just the two of us. We were on a really busy street in town and we walked past this guy who then from behind us shouted "Oi do you read the Bible", I didn't think he was talking to me but I turned around anyway to see him approaching us..he again asked us "do you read the Bible?", I answered and said 'Yeah I read the Bible do you Sir?', even though he spoke to me in English he didn't understand my English...story of my life...so we started again in Polish, we got to the same point, yeah I read the bible, do you..and all that and then he starts talking about all these problems he's having, that he doesn't know God, that he feels bad, that he feels as though we can never know him, that he's abandoned us, that he's punishing him. Just as I'm about to start talking again he just yells and starts swearing in English, every bad word under the sun, Barlow looked at me as if to say 'is this guy alright', I start talking to him again and then all of a sudden he starts saying the word 'Where', for whatever reason this was his new favourite word. He started off quietly saying this word before gradually getting louder and louder, his eyes were legit yellow and he was spitting everywhere and foaming at the mouth, he was screaming the word 'where' and when you thought he couldn't get any louder he got louder, it sounded like some crazy wolf monster. Everyone around us was looking at us like 'what the heck is going on', I was lost for words until I told him to shut up, that made him made and he came right up to my face, I thought he was going to swing or something. After a few giggles we left the scene..all that over a question about the Bible. 

On Friday we took Culture night. We spent 1 hour walking to the bowling alley in the pouring rain and snow and it was so windy. Sister D almost passed out a few times. Bowling was fun though, after that we went to Toto again for food. 

It's been really good weather for the most part this week. This past Monday  it was 14.5 degrees. I was driving round with the windows down and everything.

Saying goodbye to Sister D

Fat Thursday

@ Adam's Ties - never seen so many ties in one place

Last Sunday photo shoot with Elder Barlow,  I'll miss this guy, hope he is enjoying himself in Bydgoszcz.

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Saying our farewells to Sister D on Monday - side note..I'm not swearing, I'm doing the American one.