Week 68 - I'm not a good singer

(just a few snippets this week, it's a busy life working in the office!)

I'm doing good, it's been a decent week.  Church was good yesterday, we had about 70 or maybe 80 there and had a few missing which was really noticeable.  President Peterson asked the Missionaries to sing a musical number, for some reason I think people assume that missionaries can sing just because they're missionaries.  I mean I can hold a note and I'm not tone deaf but I'm not a good singer. We sang an arrangement of Be still my soul and Where can I turn for peace. It was pretty confusing, Elders Haskett, Einfeldt and myself sang the tenor part and it was so high - bad choice! Elder Bebel played the piano.

We had an 8 man sleepover this week which was mint! Hansen, Barlow, Dickson and Sister Beem all had legal appointments in Warsaw so we had Einfeldt, Me, Huffman, Hansen, Haskett, Barlow, Michael from Lublin who is serving a mini mission and Dickson all in the same apartment onTuesday night. It was so cramped, even in our mansion apartment, but it was sweet having all the elders round, some good friends too. 

On valentine's day we had a district dinner, plus Elder Dickson and Bart. We went to that Toto place. It was a solid night.  And after legal work this week we all went to Manekin.  We've eaten out so much this transfer and it's 'eaten' my money. So I didn't buy anything this time, but kindly Dickson and Beem gave me some left over peanut m&m pancakes which were so good! 

Today we're going to Adam's ties, the guy that sells ties all across Poland but his warehouse is here in Warsaw and he sells them for dirt cheap to missionaries. Getting some food and I might buy a Legia scarf. 

Week 67 - A trip out to Białystok

Markus is in Warsaw.  It was mint seeing him on Sunday.

snow

We had more snow! - this park is right by the chapel.

Białystok - Old Town - it was a 3 hour drive - President told us
to drive out there to visit a referral and some members.  We were
the first missionaries in that city for 2 years.  Just me and Elder Einfeldt went.

Białystok - Old Town

God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove.

Quack

Oreo pancakes from Manekin.  It tasted as good as it looks.

Wanted to get a picture in front of this since I saw it.

This book cracks me up.

The others crossed without us.  Sister D. felt really awkward. lol.

Białystok 

We had a talent show on Saturday.  Elder Jones' talent involved all the elders, of course.
he played a joke on us.  We had to roll our ties up and then have a race to see who could
unroll it the fastest, he would count down from 3 but always go early.  Elder Jones is hilarious.

I think it's Pope John Paul II - I'm not entirely sure what the writing means.
It's like Thank God and quench of the spirit - something like that.

Warsawa Branch - courtesy of Bro. Szabo

Branicki Palace

Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland - we took a trip here on Saturday.

12 Missionaries in one branch is pretty crazy!

Things that happened this week.

Monday we went to a trampoline park, it was sweet. We had an hour there and went as a district in the transporter driven by Elder Einfeldt. The 4 in the back were all so car sick by the time we got there. We had a good time there, jumping around and attempting back-flips into the foam pit. We also had a few games of knockout basketball, the net was so high but it felt mint getting up there and dunking it. 

Tuesday we had a boring day in the Urząd (legal office), we had a 5-hour wait, so we left after 2 hours of waiting to do some jobs, but timed our trip back perfectly as our number was called as we walked through the door. We picked a number when we got there and got B187, it was on B38, that was a whole lot of people to go before us. I hate that place. 

On Thursday we went to Janek's home for some dinner and to chat and have some time with him. It was a decent 45 min drive out to his house which was nice, we got to see some countryside and more to Warsaw than just the city. 

A few weeks back someone in our English class said that I speak as if I have potatoes in my mouth, maybe I already mentioned that, I guess that's what you get for being from England. 

One night this week I fell asleep in my normal clothes. Elder Einfeldt woke me up as he went to bed and said I probably should get changed, I agreed with him but then instantly fell back asleep. I woke up at 2.30 and changed, and also put my clothes on the drying rack. It was a weird night. 

Elder Alvarez was in town this week on an exchange with Bebel and Musgrave so it was good seeing him. 

MLC was on Wednesday and so we had to make sure that everyone got in fine and that they all had their packages and resources from the office. A bonus of this is that we get free food when we go there, so this time we took a whole pizza. 

Saturday nobody came to play footy in the morning. We got there and started kicking this frozen solid ball about, it hurt so much to kick it. After that we dipped and went to McDonalds. we had vouchers and so I got 4 bacon and egg McMuffin's for pretty cheap. Should probably cut out the McDonalds haha. 

Then came the big day on Sunday. We finally combined and had our first meeting as the Warsaw Branch. So many days spent moving and shifting furniture and supplies and materials from the other chapel to the big chapel on Wolska. It was a good day though. Many new callings, one being President Peterson as the new Branch President. We had a huge turnout, so many new faces to meet and 12 missionaries in one branch is pretty crazy. 

Peace, Elder Ashworth

Manekin again with the District,  I had OREO pancakes they were bomb!

Car ride with the squad.

At Janek's place, he had this huge fireplace and shotgun - made for a good photo.

Sweet Chinese restaurant that we went to #TOTO

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