Siostra Carroll: What's in it, chicken wiggit??/Wrocław got wrecked... (9/16/19)

Cześć!!

Monday everybody seemed to get sick haha! Except me! I have yet to get sick on the mission!! (Knock on wood... trzymaj kciuki!!) Sister Ludlow was laying in bed for a while. So, I cleaned everything, did some emailing, made her some honey-lemon tea, and enjoyed a rare relaxing morning! Also, there was a super great storm this morning. I just LOVE that kind of weather. Super rainy, lots of thunder, lots of lightning... it was great!! Eventually, we went grocery shopping and headed to the chapel to send our group emails. Then all the Elders came. Elder Augenstein is a really good piano player. He's also way good at playing by ear and using chords for songs and stuff like that. So basically he just played a ton of Disney songs and Broadway music. He, Elder Stewart, Elder Theobald, and I had a super fun time singing!! Haha, we even sang "One Day More" from Les Misérables. Which.. of course I was automatically assigned to sing all the girls' parts. (Because Sister Ludlow was skyping. And I'm pretty sure she doesn't really know Les Mis. And she's sick, so yeah. It was my job haha.) But yeah, it was a party!! I really miss just having random jam sessions at home and spontaneous choir performances with friends in our living room. So it was fun to have a bit of that again! After that, we went to this library underneath the road and under the tram line. We all played some games! We played "Ticket to Ride" (which... I creamed!! You'd be proud, Dad.) And we played "Clue"!! It was kinda fun to play "Ticket to Ride", and place the trains, and then hear what sounds like a train going right over our heads. Haha, it was awesome! Then, we went and taught English and right after the Elders went home because Elder Stewart felt sick. So.. we were gonna stick it out for a while for game night. But nobody really seemed to understand how to play Uno, we couldn't think of anything else to play, and Sister Ludlow was feeling sick... and a few other reasons, so we decided to end early haha. Then we went home, found out Sister Ludlow is running a fever, and she went to bed. Aaannnnddd... that was our pday! Still pretty good for me. But overall it just felt like a pretty weird day haha.

Tuesday nothing too exciting happened. My companion was pretty sick all day, so we stayed home. We did our studies and weekly planning. She slept quite a bit. Throughout the day, I got a ton of random things done and I felt so accomplished by the end of the day. I called a bunch of people, worked on the Area Book, baked bread, organized our entire kitchen, and organized the bookshelf as well. Those were FAR past needing to be done, so I'm really glad I had the time to do that. Um... the one human interaction I had today was with our neighbor, Barbara!! I wanted to make bread... but we didn't have any yeast or flour. But Barbara came in clutch and went and bought some from the store and brought it to me! She is officially the BEST neighbor EVER!! And yeah! That pretty much sums up Tuesday!

I made bread!! And organized the bookshelf!! And other things!!

Screenshot of a video I sent my mom. Thought it made a nice picture! (One of our sick days haha).

Wednesday, I woke up with a sore throat and a headache... oh no... We were still recovering from Tuesday a bit. We had District Council and then we did some tracting for a while. And then we came home and did a bunch of Area Book work because that deadline is coming up really soon! So, we had a bit more normal day than we had on Tuesday, but nothing super crazy happened.

Skype District Council (because everyone was getting sick...)

Thursday... well... it hit. I got sick!! Whooo! XD So we spent the day at home and Sister Ludlow did an insane amount of Area Book work which was great! Also, the Elders called and Elder Stewart and Moody were still pretty sick. And it sounded like Elder Theobald was getting sick as well. So basically, we all got sick with the same thing this week. Pretty crazy. I was basically dead all day haha. But I realized that.. Today was my first time ever being sick away from home and without having my mom there. I never realized that. I mean sure, she left me home alone when I was sick, but she was still there at some point in the day and I could call her. It was kind of sad and lonely feeling to realize that she wouldn't be here this time. I didn't realize how much comfort it gave me, even just knowing she was there. It was fine, I just had to play doctor by myself haha. But it just made me even more grateful for her. So thanks Mom! I love you!

Friday I woke up feeling a lot better... but THAT lasted a whole 15.7 minutes!! I got ready for the day and then I was sneezing like CRAZY!! The big bad wolf doesn't have ANYTHING on how much I was huffin' and puffin' and sneezin' and wheezin'!!! Haha yeah, it was pretty bad. Sister Ludlow told me to lay down in the middle of companionship study and she would just call a bunch of people. So I did... and I slept for probably another 2-ish hours hahaha. Fun times. And then we still went out!! And in the evening, we had our English class. Elder Stewart, Elder Moody, and I all sat at the back of the room in "quarantine." Haha it was awesome. Then, after that, we had our Movie Night!! On Friday the 13th!! Yes.. Spooky, I KNOW!! But we just watched "Meet the Mormons" and halfway through, I went to the other room and laid down because I was SO TIRED! But we had a really good turnout and a lot of people came for the movie! It was awesome!

Saturday morning was the most PERFECT Fall morning EVER!! It was just beautiful!! See, I thought that Fall would feel different here in Europe, but it has the same vibe as in the U.S. and I LOVE it!! It literally felt like I was back home in Idaho. It was so great. Oh and Elder Baer said it even smelled like Fall too. (I still couldn't smell, so I just had to trust him. XD hahaha!) Then, we went and visited Babcia today. She gave us a Women's Magazine and a 2020 planner. It was super nice! Later, I was still feeling pretty out of it, so Sister Ludlow talked to some people in the park while I called more Area Book people and tried not to get anyone sick... We also visited Lucyna and had a good meeting with her. She also came to the movie night on Friday and was so happy!! Both on Friday and at our meeting, she was just so happy and I loved seeing her like that! After that, we went to dinner with Vova and Doni at this Thai restaurant. It's called "Woo Thai" and it was SO GOOD!! You'll have to tell Miumiu that she has great food in her country!! Also, Vova told us that they always treat Americans REALLY well, so he told us to speak English with them. So we did, and asked for a table (most were reserved), and the lady was like, "Yeah, we have one right over here." And she literally took us to a reserved table, took off the sign, and had us sit there. Not 1 minute later, she came back and told us they had a better table for us. So basically we got seated immediately and had the best table in the restaurant. Basically we were VIPs there haha. Kinda crazy. But it was a fun evening!!

Saturday was also my 10 month mark!! WHOOOO!!!!!!!

Sunday after church, we had a meeting with 2 ladies named Gosia and Anna. They were really interested in learning more, both want to read the Book of Mormon, and they want to come to church. So that will be awesome! The meeting went really well! It was nice to end the week with 2 new investigators after being sick for so long!! Later, we went to the park and did Music Contacting! We ran into Kuba which was fun. Then, found some other cool people. And THEN!! Some random guy was just standing by me on the bridge and he said he just wanted to sit and listen to me play, so I was like "Okay, no big deal," right?! But then, he kept getting closer and like.. started trying to show me how I should be playing the violin (even though he does NOT play at all!!). And he grabbed my hand to move it. Then, he came up behind me and tried to position the violin and the bow again. But he was like.. grabbing my arm and stuff. Anyway, it was similar to how in movies when they show a boy showing a girl how to play basketball (High School Musical), shoot a gun (Swiss Family Robinson), etc. Stuff like that.. that's the kind of position I was pinned in. And I was like "BRO NOOOO!!" And stepped away quickly and joined the conversation with my companion instead of playing the violin while he was there. Don't worry Mom, I'm fine. Nothing bad happened, but he was just creepy and I obviously didn't want him touching me. But hey, gotta love these stories huh?? The life of a missionary... XD

On the BRIGHT side though, right after that, there was this super nice couple and their ADORABLE 3 year old son who came on the bridge. The son, Mateusz, really wanted me to play the violin, so I did. And they all loved it! And he applauded me haha! He was so cute!! The couple spoke English and the Mom was actually from Uzbekistan. I had a good time talking to them! :)

So, this week was definitely different from any other week I've had as a missionary, but still good. Got a lot done that has really been needing to get done. And it wouldn't have happened without us getting sick, because I don't think Sister Ludlow sees those things as priorities. But hey, she got sick, so we had no choice HAHA! So they FINALLY got done and I'm a lot less stressed. :)

Love and miss you all!!

Siostra Shaylin Carroll

P.S. About the subject line, I said, "What a chicken nugget..." about some guy who flaked. But Sister Ludlow thought I said, "What's in it, chicken wiggit??" I just thought it was funny that's all.