Hellooooo! This has officially taken the lead for the craziest weak of my life. But I am doing SO GOOD and am very happy! I LOVE POLAND! Before I go any further, Happy Birthday to the greatest Mom in the world!!!! I hope you had a great one, Mama. :) I love you! Keep your eye out for a Polish something headed your way!
My first area is WARSAW, which I am really excited about. I live in a nice little apartment with a washing machine
and a dishwasher--luxuries in Poland. My trainer's name is Siostra Howells, from Arlington, TX. It's her last transfer and she is THE BEST! I've already learned so much from her and know that I'll continue to do so. She's very familiar with the area, knows all the members, knows how to work hard, and knows how to train well. We've set some high goals for the transfer.
When I first arrived, we spent the first two days at the mission home with Pres. and Siostra Edgren. They fed us some great meals and helped us get situated. We did contacting, visited Ogrod Saski (where Poland was dedicated for missionary work by Pres. Kimball), and had a BBQ with our trainers on Wesnesday night. President Edgren has an incredible vision for this mission, and I'm really excited to get working on some new ideas. He's all about creativity and using our talents in any way possible. It's gonna be good!
On Thursday, I had a nice welcoming experience at the train station as we were dropping off a sister (Sister Barth from my BYU ward... it was fun to see her!) who was being transferred. I was standing there rather hopelessly, trying to figure out what was going on around me, when a very tall bald man approached me, held out his hand, and started speaking rapid Polish to me. I could hardly understand anything he was saying, so I responded with an English "uh, WHAT?" He then started speaking in broken English... he said, "Come with me, I want to show you something." When I refused, he said, "Please, you'll be back in two minutes!" I said, "No thank you, I'm ok." He said, "Yes, I know you're ok..." ... Ah! My companion pulled some of our Elders over to greet the cunning man, and then we booked it. But before we did, I caught a picture (attached). I think Heavenly Father knew I needed a little laugh that day... it was a little frightening, but mostly hilarious. Welcome to Poland, Siostra Tobler.
I've had several contacting experiences already. It's a little scary... I feel like I can speak ok, but then it's really hard for me to understand what they're saying when they answer my questions. But I'm working hard to understand Polish and am trying to train my ear as fast as possible. I'll be honest--contacting is hard here because few people seem want to listen. But we're working to come up with some new contacting ideas. This week I made a big green poster to advertise for our English class that we teach every Saturday. We also bought lots of bright paper to start printing flyers and invitations on. I'm a huge believer that advertising and marketing plays a major role, so we've started making things a little more appealing to those passing by.
All the members definitely remember Grandpa! In fact, our branch president (Pres. Jagard) was one of Grandpa's missionaries when he was here! Funny story... yesterday I was sitting in sacrament meeting, trying to understand what Pres. Jagard was saying as he was conducting. I picked out the words Siostra Tobler and swiadectwo (testimony), and got a sick feeling in my stomach... yes. He had told the congregation that Sister Tobler would love to bear her testimony before we listened to the talks. So I headed on up and shared what was in my heart with all my soon-to-be friends. (And hopefully that was enough, because I know for a fact that it wasn't all cased right!) It actually turned out ok, and many members complimented me on my Polish afterwards. That's always nice to hear when you're constantly working on it and feeling like it's not good enough! Joanna Stalska said (in Polish), "That's the gift of tongues.. you could learn Chinese if you wanted to!" Haha. I love these people already.
It's certainly been a week of adjustment and learning... I never thought I could learn so much in a few short days! I'm really looking forward to this next week, now that I have an idea of how things work and what is expected of me.
I miss and love you all! I appreciate your letters and emails, as well as your prayers. I can definitely feel them and know that they are helping. Thanks again for all you do! I'll write again soon!
XO times a million,
Siostra Tobler
Look at the "Creeper" behind Cassie... Ever seen
the movie "Taken"?.... Glad missionaries always have
companions!!
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