Monday, October 1, 2012

Weekly Email - October 1st

This week was good last P-day I wasn't feeling very good so we just walked around Manufactura all day. Today I am doing a Jewish history day at Radagaszcz train station and the Jewish cemetery. What names do I need to know? Anyone from Łodz?

We met up with a couple of cool people on the streets, one was named A, he was sitting on a park bench about 100 yards from a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall, he was very interested in our church and was interested in the Book of Mormon. Most people in Poland have no problem accepting that the Book of Mormon could be divinely inspired. Polish people seem to be fine with it if they are searching for something outside of the catholic religion.

G was the other guy. He came up to us and asked what the book we had was. We gave him one and talked to him about it. He was unfortunately half-Polish and half-mexican born and raised in Mexico, he is here to visit his Grandma.

I am going on exchanges this afternoon, I am taking a train to Warsaw, and staying through until Wednesday morning when I head back to Łódź. I will be working with Elder Bokinsky. I'm looking forward to it.

Still haven't had a good chance to cook anything. I am going to try to make Swedish pancakes soon. We are trying to keep all of our meals around 4 zł a person or less. A lot of packaged food like pierogi are only like 2 zł per person per meal. We do some pasta, some cereal, some breads, some żurek soup, and rice a lot of the time. We save enough to eat out about once or twice a week. We do KFC and Manekin which are surprisingly expensive for being food in Poland. KFC costs us around 12 zł for a big burger, which is cheap for America, but 12 zł will get you a nice sit-down restaurant here. I think they just have standard international prices so it makes it hard for a lot of Poles to afford it. Please don't send me any expensive packages, I can buy anything I need here and most things are cheaper. It would be better if you just stuck money in my account and told me how much I could spend... I actually need to send a package home soon which will cost about 30 bucks or more...

As for the language, I am understood more than I understand in most cases. It is interesting, some people read that you don't speak Polish well, and they make themselves easy to understand, those people I can converse with on a 3 year old level. Others talk like a whirlwind and I get nothing. When 2 people are talking and I am not involved in the conversation I understand a lot more. Poles are pretty good at understanding broken Polish. I still have a hard time with long or explained gospel conversations, but I can order food or go shopping just fine. I was able to talk to a Nike store guy, I was buying a side bag and had seen the one I was going to buy with a darkened logo, so I was able to ask if they had any of those and then I was able to tell him that I will just buy the one he was showing me, etc. He spoke clearly and simply, a lot of people slur when they speak.

The Poles are 98% catholic, 1.5% JW, and the rest are atheist. That's why the members here are so amazing. There is a 12 year old girl in Poznań that was baptized, her parents were OK with it, they were almost baptized as well. She goes around and always carries missionary flyers with her (we call them ulotki in Polish). She is constantly finding people for the missionaries there to teach, and she is 12! A is amazing as well. The members have to be the strongest people in Europe.

I have to run, love you all! The church is true!

No comments:

Post a Comment