Siostra Anna Young: 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 ...