Monday, September 23, 2013 8:41 AM Well. This is fun.

So. Our emailing place closed early. Fun, right? Wrong. Because that means we have to wander the city, looking for computers. BOO. However, I'm on a computer now, I'm doing my emailing, and things are good. No worries, children.

Fun Story! I was just chilling yesterday, napping during lunch, and I heard Sister Wendel on the phone. And I was like, "Who's she on the phone with? Eh. No matter." And then I heard her say something about someone's first trip to Lodz and how they'd like it, and I was like, "What? Who's coming to Lodz? Eh. Whatever." And then I got up and went and talked to Sister Wendel and she was like, "So guess what?" And I was like, "What?" (note that I've just woken up, so I'm still a little groggy), and she's like, "We're going on exchanges!" And I was like, "Hm?" And she was like, "Yeah! You're going to Warsaw tomorrow and Sister Howells is coming here." And I was like, "Huh?" Yeah. This is great. I'm REALLY starting to get sick of the Sunday night phone calls for Monday trips to Warsaw. So yep. I'm going to Warsaw tonight, and I'll be returning on Wednesday. I'm a little apprehensive because it's going to be me with a little Baby Missionary, and she's brand new in the country. And what if I kill her? I don't want to kill the baby! I am NOT to be trusted with babies! I'm still basically a baby myself! What is this? Who's idea was this? I tell you. I would like to have a word or two with the AP's about all this ... No, not really. In real life, I would not have a word with the AP's about this. I'd just be like, "Um, Warsaw? Oh. Well, alright then ... I'd like it to be made clear I won't be held liable for any injuries and/or death caused by this exchange ..." That's where we're at here.

And ANOTHER fun story! What? Two?! I know. It's okay.. Keep it together. So. We have these investigators. Their names are Neil and Ashley. Wow. These names sound crazy American, right? Right. But guess what? They aren't American! And they aren't Polish! They're CHINESE! Yeah! Straight up out of China Chinese! And they're SUPER cool. They're so awesome. Man. But it's really strange to be teaching people who don't have Christian backgrounds. As you can imagine, this isn't a problem we run into very often in Poland. But yep. Here we are. So we had a lesson with them and talked about how God is our Heavenly Father and explained who Jesus is and the Atonement (briefly). It was super awesome! And the Spirit was so there! And then we were like, "Do you guys have any questions?" and Ashley was like, "Yeah. Will you teach us how to pray?" Will we teach you how to pray? Um, I think YES! So we taught them how to pray and then Neil sayed the prayer at the end of the lesson, and it was super awesome! And THEN, even MORE awesome, he was at church yesterday (Ashley was sick), and he said the prayer in Sunday School! Isn't he AWESOME? Ah man! I love Neil and Ashley! They're so cool!

Mom - Would you be a dear and send me the recipes for Peach Cake and Zucchini Cupcakes? I would be MOST appreciative!

We now have texting bacck in the mission, and we're all PRETTY darn excited! Honestly, you have NO IDEA how awesome texting is. It's so useful! And we've already set up a few lessons thanks to texting! It's so much less pressure than a phone call (both for us and the investigators or members). It's awesome. Except I'm out of practice now, so I'm not a very fast texter. Particularly when I'm texting in Polish. And using predictive text with Polish - WHAT an experience! Woo! I love Polish. I love this ridiculous language.

I would like to say STO LAT to my PRECIOUS little siblings Babs and J-Man!

Babs - 16? Good heavens! That blows my mind! You're so old! And so gorgeous! It's just ridiculous. I look at your pictures, and I'm just like, "Um, what?! That's my baby sister?" It's crazy. But I hope you have the best birthday ever, and it's awesome! I love you so much!!!!

J-Man - You're going to be a TEENAGER! I can't believe it! How the heck did this happen? You're going to be a teenager. It's ridiculous. You're SO awesome! I love you SO SO much, J! "Believe me, it was FAR from amusing." (I have that Post-It note hanging over my desk - I love it!) Love you, Bud!!!

I bought myself some boots. And it's a good thing too - we've been getting a LOT of rain recently. Which I love. It's great. I'd much rather have all the rain than the searing heat and blinding sunshine of the summer here. Honestly. That's the WORST. So, let's here it for boots! I actually bought two pairs ... Because I wanted a black one and a brown one. How does one survive with only one pair of boots? No way! So anyways. I'm lovin' the boots.

Well, family, time for me to hit the bricks. I've got a train to catch. To Warsaw. Again. (What IS this? Enough of Warsaw already! I know, I know. I need an attitude adjustment. I'll try to be happy, I promise.) LOVE YOU ALL!

Siostra Young

Tuesday, September 17, 2013 5:58 AM Hello, Family Mine!

Hey guys! SO sorry I couldn't email yesterday! I hope you weren't too worried. Unfortunately, I had a surprise trip to Warsaw to get my Karta Pobytu (Yay! I'm now legal in Poland!), so that put a bit of a damper on things P-day wise. Basically, we didn't have any P-day at all. Luckily we get to do everything today, so it's not too big of a deal. Just a little inconvenient.

Things are SUPER fall-y now in Poland! I love it SO much! It's absolutely gorgeous. Yesterday on my train ride I saw my first red leaves of the fall, and I was SO excited! I wanted to get a picture, but alas. That was not possible. Those trains move a little too fast for that. (Speaking of - when my mountains turn red and orange, PLEASE take a picture for me and send it. I miss my mountains. Poland is quite flat.) We've been getting a bit of rain recently, and that's fun! Luckily I invested in some boots last week, so my feet aren't soaked and gross. And can I just say, the person who invented boots and I are going to BEST FRIENDS in heaven. I love 'em. And guess what? With boots, I get to wear SOCKS. Straight up socks. EVERY day. I'm livin' the dream. Seriously. You don't have any idea how awesome socks are until you go 6 months without wearing them.

So. Best news ever. I can now listen to soundtracks. And classical music. And Christmas mucis. But SOUNDTRACKS. It's like, the best thinge ever. It makes me want to cry tears of joy. I love music. And I love MoTab - I do. But listening to them, and them only, day in and day out, for six months - it takes a toll on a person. Seriously. It's rough.

Last week I was a wee bit sick, so that was unfortunate. I slept for almost 17 hours straight. And then I was STILL tired. How does that work? I don't even get it. You'd think after sleeping for that long, you'd be like, "Well, alright! Enough of that! Let's be awake!" Nope. Not so. I was just like, "What? Only 17 hours? Nope. Still tired. Sun - go away." However. That's not exactly wolno.. So I got up. And I'm feeling a lot better now, so that's good!

We had a game night with some YSA's and our investigators and all the missionaries (you hear that? They do actual BRANCH ACTIVITIES in Lodz! This is UNHEARD of! Activities! I almost cried, I was so excited), and it was SO awesome. And SO fun. And our investigators are the coolest. Unfortunately, one just left on a two week vacation to Ireland. So that's unfortunate. However, she's super solid, and she'll be back in no time, and we'll just teach her and be happy and life will be good.

So there's this thing, called Polish. And it's the best language ever. Because guess what? Word order? Not even a problem. I can say any sentence any way I want to and throw that word order around, and it's totally fine. It rocks. And now, my English is getting a little bit messed up, because I love that no word order thing. It's makes for some awkward conversations. And then sometimes I think weird Polish things, or I use weird Polish words when I'm talking in English, and not gonna lie, I kinda love it. Oh Polish. How I love thee. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's the most ridiculous language on the planet. But it's very interesting, and comlicated, and fun. And I just love it. At church the other week, one of the members was talking about how if ANYONE can speak Polish - missionary or actual Pole - it's gotta be a gift from God, because this is one crazy langauge. And I was just like, "Dude, skadzam sie.." Except I said it more Polish-y and politely. Don't worry. I've never referred to anyone as "dude" here in Poland.

Anyways. I've gotta run. But I love you all SO SO much, and I PINKY PROMISE I'll put up some pictures next week! You guys are the best!

Love, Siostra Young

September 09, 2013 6:34 AM Greetings from Łódź

Sorry. My computer doesn't type Polish stuff. So just pretend everying in Polish is correctly typed, and we'll all be just fine.

So. Yeah. I'm here. It's PRETTY crazy. And can I just express my intense dislike for transfers? Getting my three gigantic suitcases to the train station in the trams, and then around the train staion from peron to peron, onto the train (with help from Elder Zelezniak, thankfully), and then off the train to Lodz - WHAT a nightmare! I have GOT to downsize. My advice for all preparing missionaries? Don't bring ANYTHING you aren't going to need every single day of your life. It's ridiculous. I just have too much junk.

So far I like Lodz. Everyone told me how ugly it is here.. (Seriously. I'd say I was going to Lodz, and they'd be like, "Oh ... I'm sorry." Thanks for that.) But really, it's not bad. It's not Krakow, certainly. But it's not bad! It has it's own charm. It's nice. And the branch is GIGANTIC. I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting, watching people come in, thinking, "Holy cow! There are three gagillion members in this branch!" And then later Sister Wendel and Sister Lloyd (she's the Sister half of our senior couple here) were saying, "Where was everyone today?" And I was like, "WHAT?!" So yeah. Apparently it's even huger than I think it is. Our apartment is basically a palace. There's a room, and it's only function is to house my clothes. Yes. I have a dressing room. What IS this place?! And I have an oven! And a TOASTER! I swear, I'm in heaven. It's crazy. It's SUPER fun to be back with Sister Wendel! I'd forgotten how much I love her! She's super awesome! Lodz is very different from Krakow, but I really think I'm going to like it. I'm really happy so far.

Sister Hemming and I got to meet with Anna one more time - the night before we left. That was REALLY awesome, and I was SO grateful to meet with her one more time! (Until I'm transferred back to Krakow, of course). It was so great! So she asked us to convince her to get baptized. She said she REALLY wanted to, but she was scard, and she wasn't sure how her family would react and what it would be like to be a Mormon in a Catholic family and country. So we just talked to her about it and about how the Gospel has blessed our lives and our families, and we bore our testimonies, and then at the end, she was like, "I just wanted to tell you guys, I wasn't sure before, but now I'm positive. I really want to get baptized. I'm for sure getting baptized. Thank you both so much!" She basically cried the whole lesson. She's so sweet! And then she wrote us both notes and gave us chocolate. She is SO awesome! I can't BELIEVE I'm missing her baptism. It breaks my heart. But I'm so glad she's getting baptized, and I know it'll all be okay. She's so cool! If you guys can remember her in your prayers, that would be awesome.

Okay. Sorry. I know this is a shorty, but I gotta run. I'll write a longer one next week! (Besides, there wasn't a WHOLE lot to report, since things have been so crazy with transfers and all that jazz.)

LOVE YOU ALL!

Monday, September 02, 2013 6:28 AM Well. So long, Kraków.

I miss my city already. And I'm currently sitting in a library in said city. Ugh. NOT happy. I know. I need to be happy. And embrace the change. It's great. God wants me somewhere else. But how do you just pick up and move when your heart is stuck in Kraków? It's fine. It'll be fine. I'm going to Łódź. I would like to alert you people to the fact that that word is almost as difficult to type as it is to sound out. Now work with me. We'll say it togther. "Ł" makes a "w" sound. "Ó" makes an "oo" sound. "Dź" makes a "j" sound as in James or jam. So.. Wooj. Yes. That's where I'm going. I'm going to be reunited with Sister Wendel, so that'll be fun! And honestly, it's going to be great. I'm sure. I'm just not a fan of change. Never have been. But there you go. It's fine. It'll be fine. I'll just take a lot of tissues with me ... Ugh! Sister Young! Keep it together, you! Sorry. This is a ridiculous email.

Anyways. Sister Allen is staying in Kraków and training again, and Sister Hemming is opening Kielce, which is pretty awesome. There's never been sisters in Kielce before, so she's going to be one of the first! Woot woot! I have the coolest comps. I love them. What am I going to do without Sister Allen's craziness and Sister Hemming laughing at me when I'm not that funny? Good grief. It's going to be hard. This change thing! Ugh! What the!? Ugh. Not a fan. I don't like leaving my peeps. And my city. Boo.

In other news. We got the Standard this week! Woot woot! It was HARD. Like, SO HARD. We were running all over this city. And there were about 3 gazillion miracles that made it possible. For those of you not up on the lingo, the Standard is a set of key indicators (goals, if you will) that we want to shoot for. However, they are basically impossible (because if they were easy, we wouldn't be shooting for them. It makes sense). Well, not impossible. Just really really difficult. Which is great. That's how it should be. Anyways. We got it! Yay! And when I say "we got it", that means that basically we held on for the ride well God did all the work. I mean, we worked hard. Yeah. But without all the crazy miracles we saw along the way, it would NOT have been possible. We had lessons just fall into our laps. Literally. It was crazy. God is the coolest.

And. Even MORE exciting. We have THREE baptismal dates! Three! Can you believe it?! And they're all awesome, SOLID baptismal dates! One is Anna - our Miracle Girl. She's one of my favorite investigators of all time. She's the coolest. I love her SO much! And then we have this guy named Michał and this girl named Magda - and they're both SUPER crazy awesome too! Oh man, I love them so much! They're the coolest people! And this branch in Kraków is just going to explode! We just had two families move into the branch. It's so crazy! At church yesterday, there were 28 people! That is crazy! I've never seen that many people in church before! Dang it, I love Kraków.

Last week for a finding activity, we decided to sing in Planty (it's like, this park area surrounding the rynek - and it's SUPER pretty). So we did that. But there weren't enough people so we moved over so we were RIGHT outside the rynek. And then, after we'd been there for, like, 20 or 30 minutes, the security people told us we had to leave and that we weren't allowed to proselyte or contact in Planty (which is ridiculous, because we do that ALL the time and it's never been a problem before), so we had to move over to Teatr Bagatela. So yeah. That was quite an adventure. We didn't have a whole lot of success, but we think it's got potential. It wasn't planned out as well as it could be, and we think that with a little work, we could make it something great. So. I guess I'll be taking that idea with me to Łódź. (Honestly, every time I have to type that word, it's an adventure! Sheesh! You see, I have to "shift" and "alt" for the L, then just "alt" for the o, then a normal d, then an "alt" "x" for the ź. Seriously. It is a STRUGGLE. Polish is harder to type than to speak.)

I had my six month anniversary on Tuesday. THAT was pretty weird. 6 months. Right now I'm shaking my head in disbelief. Do we realize that is a third? One third of my whole mission? Freaky weird. I know I'm not supposed to think about time and all that jazz (which is great, I get it), but still. I can't help thinking about it. (I've learned I'm a time addict. It's something to work on.) It's SO weird. I mean. Ugh. Weird. But I've got a whole year left and I'm going to rock the socks off Poland (well, God will do that. But I'll be here, watching it go down in wonder and amazement).

Well. I love you all. A LOT a lot a lot. And again, thanks for the prayers and support and love and emails and everything. It's REALLY appreciated. And I'm sorry if my emails don't reflect that better.

Also. Sorry I'm being a little bit of a baby. I just don't want to leave Kraków. Understandably. But I'm going to try really hard to love Łódź, and it's all going to be fine. Łódź will be my new town. And hey, I think every time I attempt to type it, it gets a little easier! That's a good sign, right? I'll have to think of a new catchy thing to say. You can't "kick it Łódź style". That sounds ridiculous. Or say, "that's how we do in Łódź". Actually, that last one isn't bad. But it's already been taken by Kraków. Hmm. I'm in a pickle. Maybe by next week I'll have thought of something good ...


Siostra Allen, Siostra Young, And Siostra Hemming


The Krakow District