So, to begin: our district. Sister Carroll, a member of said district, hails from Boise, Idaho. She reminds me a lot of one of my roommates last year (shout-out to the one and only CLARA WILSON!!!) which is wonderful. She'll burst into song randomly, and although I haven't heard her sing jazz yet, it's probably coming. Last Thursday she and I became companions for a while so we could exercise, and we really enjoyed playing "Guess the Disney song" while we ran. And we sang all of the songs in Annie. And some from Thumbelina too, except I couldn't really remember those. She also plays the violin pretty well, so we're going to try to put a musical number together today.
Sister Emmett is from Tooele, Utah (did I spell that right?). She has Polish heritage, and she has dreamed her whole life of going to Poland on her mission. She is really sweet and really quiet. Our district was talking yesterday about how we probably all got called to Poland because we talk way too much in English--except for her. She's going to be the one who listens really well and knows exactly what the people need.
The Polish is coming, if very slowly :) We have this thing called Basic Core, which is 3 pages of words and phrases, mostly about the Gospel. We were supposed to have it all learned by December 1st, but that was a very lofty goal. My goal now is to have it learned by next P-day. We've started learning the cases of Polish (there are 7 in all), which make a lot of sense. And when we think about all the cases we have to learn, we don't cry even one little bit, because the Finnish district has 15 cases. It is very relieving to finally learn some grammar, because it helps me start to make sense of all the phrases we memorize.
It snowed here too! I'll attach pictures or send them later.
On Tuesday Sis. Carroll was on her iPad. Suddenly she exclaimed "The camera app! It's gone!" So of course we all had to check our iPads to see if our camera apps had disappeared. Luckily my camera app was still there, but over the next half hour, it disappeared, along with 3 or 4 other apps, until basically, only the Gospel Library app was left. Same with everyone else. Apparently someone has ultimate power over our iPads. Rumor has it that the reason the apps disappeared was because some missionaries were abusing the power that is AirDrop. That's the sad thing: if one person grossly abuses a privilege, everyone can lose it. BUT BUT BUT, I guess they decided to trust us in the end, because that night everything appeared again.
Our district has started this thing called a gasp circle, credits of Sis. Lueck. Before every TRC, we stand in a circle, and take turns gasping (pretty self explanatory, even if it doesn't make sense to anyone other than our district).
I have a new favorite hymn: #41, "Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise." Here is my favorite line from verse 2:
"Ye heralds, sound the golden trump
To earth's remotest bound.
Go spread the news from POLE to POLE
In all the nations round"
I am seriously so excited to go share this wonderful news we have with the Poles. We have something that they really need: the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. It can change people's lives if they let it. More specifically, it can change our lives. I've already seen myself become a happier and more peaceful person by trying 24/7 to live the Gospel for these last 3 weeks. But, fun fact: you don't have to be a missionary to live the Gospel!!!! An easy way to live the Gospel is to participate in the Church's #lighttheworld campaign. Another way is to really participate in ministering to others. One thing that I've definitely started to realize, since coming here, is the large amount of missionary work there is to do at home.
Thank you for the wonderful packages. :) I'll send a picture of the tree a little later (it's so cute!). I love you all, and I can't wait to see you all on Christmas!
Love,
Siostra Eberting
