11 More Days!!!! (Week 7)

So I guess I will start this one out by saying that.... WE GOT OUR TRAVEL PLANS. It was super exciting because usually they come on Fridays, but since we are going to Poland and Poland is the best mission in the world, we got them on Wednesday. I'll go ahead and write them here so you can figure out what times I can call. Tell me next week so that I can make sure we are on the same schedule as far as that goes. (All times are local, so when we are in Germany the time is German time.

My District with our travel plans!!!

LV: SLC 12:08 PM
AR: Chicago O Hare 4:15 PM
LV: Chicago O Hare 5:30 PM
AR: Munich Germany 9:50 AM
LV: Munch Germany 10:55 AM
AR: Warsaw, Poland 12:25 PM

We don't have long lay overs so there is not a ton of time for calling home :(

What's crazy is that the trip is only about 14 hours (i think). That is probably one of the fastest flights to Europe in the history of the MTC. I'm super excited to get to Poland right now.

So we learned something (maybe, not 100% sure) about our missions yesterday. Since Poland is on 9 week transfers and those transfers don't fit into 104 weeks (how long 2 years is) we are actually on a 25 month mission. Or at least our teachers served 25 months. And our little card that says we are allowed to proselyte (cant remember what it's called) says we are allowed to proselyte until April 27, not February 25 like it would normally be. So that's pretty much awesome.

Temple walk selfie

Our teacher told us about some fun Poland facts. The week before Christmas families will go to the market and buy a Carp. A living carp. Then they put it in the bath tub where they will bathe/bathe their children... while the carp is swimming around. Crazy! Then they eat it for Christmas Eve in some kind of savory jello. Ask Piotr Robakowski about this, it seems like it's a legit thing.

He also told us about a holiday in Warsaw that commemorates the Warsaw Uprising. Which, long story short was when the Poles living in Warsaw pushed the Nazis out for about 3 days because the Russians told them they would come and occupy the city if the Poles could push the Nazis out. But basically the Russians retreated after the Poles attacked so the Nazis came back and took the city. Hitler was pretty mad about this so he order the city to be razed. 80% of Warsaw was destroyed because of this, which is why almost all the buildings there are new. You can ask Piotr about this one too because he probably knows the story better than I do. But so every year in August for 1 minute the bomb sirens go off and everyone stops moving. It's pretty cool, look it up on YouTube. Our teacher told us that when he was there nobody told him about it so he got pretty freaked out when everyone stopped moving for a full minute.


We had a cool devotional on Tuesday by Elder Swick. He talked about the atonement, especially the enabling power of it. It is really amazing how the Lord can strengthen us if we just ask him to do so. I don't think that I would be moving half as fast in the language if the Lord wasn't there every step of the way helping me to learn. It is truly amazing.

I decided that I need to step up to the next level on my vocab memorization. I was just sitting at 30 words per day having a dandy time, but yesterday I brought that up to 50 words (i didn't get all of them but im working on it.) Because I know that if we push ourselves beyond where it is possible alone to achieve, that's when we can really feel the Lord helping. I have been learning a lot about faith these last couple of months (isn't that crazy, months being plural) and I know that by expanding our limits we open up room for the Lord to come in and bless us.

Funny story. I should preface this by saying that we had a skype that was amazing last week, we skyped this polish lady who enunciated and used simple language and was super easy to understand. It was amazing. But this week we got on skype and this 25 year old guy is on the other end. He starts talking, and it literally did not even sound like Polish. He was from Lodz and apparently they say vowels differently there so it sounded almost italian. I think I understood 2 words he said the whole time, and my companion probably about the same. He said "Budujemy pociagi" which is "We are building trains" I don't even understand how that fits in the conversations at all but I understood it so it made me happy.

Also funny story. I just came to the computer lab from gym and realized I forgot my tie... oops.

I think that's about everything I wanted to talk about for today, I love you family!

-Starszy Everett

P.S. Mom, Dad, Anna, John, and Lizzie, you should all write me. If you send me a letter now it will get to me in the MTC and I will be able to reply before leaving. After this week you will have to send me mail in Poland.

Poland Warsaw Mission
Swietych w Dniach Ostatnich
UL. Wiertnicza 135, i Pietro
02-952 Warszawa
Poland