"Witam, witam, witam!" --my favorite homeless guy in Katowice. "Witam" means "welcome."
Welcome to this email! It's been a great week. We did lots of area book (meaning, calling and texting people who used to be interested) and I called this really nice babcia who wants us to come visit, so that will be really fun. I called her, and we just talked like old friends for a while.
Our doorknob fell off a couple weeks ago. We would just stick it back on whenever we needed to go in and out of our apartment, but then we realized that we could get stuck inside. So Elder Womack came and fixed it for us. Perks to having a senior couple. :)
Wednesday was Aliah's birthday. HAPPY BDAY SISTA!!!
Thursday for English we had a good turnout. For one of the activities, we split into pairs and had everyone come up with a good cause they would fight for if they had $1 million. One pair decided they would buy land and turn it into national parks. Another decided to buy a bike for everyone so they could bike to Mars. Sis Baldwin and I decided to campaign to save the albino rats.
We talk to a lot of people. Sometimes they're nice, sometimes they're mean. Sometimes the rejections are pretty entertaining.
The other day, we were passing out ulotki (fliers) to our free English class as we traveled somewhere. As we walked down the street, an older lady watched us get closer and closer. When we got to her, she held out her hand expectantly, and so we gave her one. Without saying a word, and without breaking eye contact, she slowly raised her ulotki in the air and crushed it in her fist. She crushed our idea of getting her to English class, but if she was trying to crush our souls, it didn't really work....on the contrary, it was pretty funny. It just really makes me wonder about what goes on in everybody's brains....
OLA CAME TO POZNAŃ!!! She is my good friend from Katowice, and she and her grandma were coming up north on vacation, and so they stopped in Poznań for a little bit. So much fun, really the highlight of my week.
Saturday we went and served at the soup kitchen again! Probably my favorite service I have done so far. It even beats giving out sandwiches in Katowice. I just felt so accepted there and felt like we could serve without people worrying about how we might try to convert them. The other volunteers are so close and they just welcomed us right in. It felt like a happy family. I cannot speak highly enough of this group.
After the service on Saturday we went and visited Marta, a member. I am just so impressed with the members here and their faith and strength. Especially the YSA age ones, because they often don't have much support. And of course we missionaries try to be their support and our little branch is doing the best we can. But it is pretty dang hard to be a member here. Gotta have a lot of committment and a rock-solid testimony. And that rock solid testimony comes from choosing to do all the things we're supposed to every day--prayer, scriptures, service, going to church.
On Sunday we took a 5 1/2 hour train ride to Katowice for...legal work! Yay!!!!! But I talked to another guy on the train for a bit about what we believe, cleared up some stuff. There was a film made here years ago about Amish people, but the narrator said "Mormons" the whole time, so people think we don't use technology and live 1800's style. But the guy was really nice. He will meet the missionaries again.
While in Kato, we got to hang out with the sisters there, Sisters Berrett (my first companion!!) and Sisters Hadley. And after 6 hours waiting in the government office, they and my friend Elżbieta brought us food and we all ate it together. It was so fun to see Elżbieta again. She is amazing, she loves serving, and she is so classy. She's been a very good influence on my life. So it made me really happy that Sisters Berrett and Hadley are good friends with her too :)
I am becoming more European. I drank a liter of carbonated water on the train ride home without even gagging. (I accidentally bought gazowana and not niegazowana). I also love public transportation. It's fun to people watch.
This Saturday we are participating in Temple Night, which is a night where participating churches have their doors open and people can come and see. Please pray that we can get everything done in time and that people will come!
Siostra Eberting
Pictures:
1. A cool mural. Not sure what it means.
2. OLA!!!
3. ELŻBIETA!!!
