Everywhere we travel, if it's Sunday, we head to church. Once again, I'll express my gratitude for a church that is the same worldwide. We show up for church, and we know exactly what will happen.
I was especially excited to see this church, because Ethan lived and served in Warsaw for several months. I knew that it was not his favorite place to live, so I worried that I might have some peripheral feelings towards the people because of what he wrote on his mission. However, this ward is a different one from the one where he served, so we were all good :-)
Like many church buildings with smaller populations, it was a couple of rooms within a large apartment building. I was under the assumption that most of the people would be speaking English since a bunch of the State Department people attend, or maybe I assumed it was like our ward in Germany (English with some Germans attending). However, it was definitely a Polish ward with a few English people attending. In fact, it was the Americans who ended up using the headphones to hear the translation of the talks.
I must digress here for a moment. For the few nights I have been in Poland, I have had dreams. Vivid dreams. Frustrating dreams. Dreams where I can't understand what anyone is saying around me. This is basically how I've felt walking around Poland. I don't understand the basic pronunciation rules of the language, so I can't even read a sign. And it takes all the memory I can muster to remember just basic conversation. In fact, I still remember how to say "hello" and "thank you" from our visit back in 2009, but when Ethan taught me how to say "good bye", I had to employ memory techniques. I don't know how to spell it, but it goes "Do" (as in a ball of dough), "V" (as in the letter, and yes, I'll spread out my fingers in a V when I say it), "Zen" (that's the name of Mark's horn), "Yuh" (by the time I say the other three syllables, I can remember the last one). I can seriously be out the door and down the road a mile before I can actually spit it out. I never had this problem with German, or any other language in Europe, so it's proved to be frustrating. Frustrating enough to appear in my dreams. Every night.
I have been amazed to walk around with Ethan and see him speak Polish like a native. And how do I know he sounds like a native when my vocabulary consists of four Polish words? Because I know how the Europeans love to practice their English, and I know that if they sense that you are English-speaking at all, they immediately begin speaking English to you. Guess what? Nobody tries to speak English with Ethan. In fact, we usually end up getting Polish menus at restaurants (versus the translated English ones) because after he gets us seated, they just assume we are ALL Polish.
So the second hour was Sunday School, and one of the missionaries asked Ethan to translate for those of us listening through headphones. And his translation was easy to follow, and basically flawless. In fact, there were times I completely forgot that I had the headphones on, because it was all so smooth. And when one of us made a comment in English? He turned off the microphone for the headphones and spoke the Polish translation loud enough for the Polish members to hear it. I'm sure that somewhere there is an MRI study of people's brains who are processing multiple languages at one time. I would have loved to have seen Ethan's!
As we headed up to Ethan and Rebecca's for lunch, we got in the elevator. Turns out, Baby totally knows when she's in the elevator and finds it very entertaining to see her reflection. So, in the missionary spirit of all the photos Mark took on his mission in reflective elevators, we took one as a family :-) Lunch was quick and fast at Ethan and Rebecca's--leftover pierogies! Then, in the greatest tradition of all Sundays, we all went home and took naps. Long naps. In fact, it was really the first naps we'd taken since arriving. |
| Look at Baby! She's a Baby on the move now! |
That night, we had a wonderful dinner too. Sweet and sour chicken, rice, berries and vegetables. Goodness, after eating out for days, it tasted so good to have some home cooking. And then? We went out under the auspices of taking a walk through Lazienki Park, but really we had other motives.
We have learned something this trip. Buying a SIM card when in a new country lets you still use your phone. And in the case of PokemonGo, this is a very BIG deal.
Yes, PokemonGo has taken over the nation, if not the world, and we are happy to be some of the succors that walk around for hours looking for them.
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| Where the old meets the new :-) |
Yes, we headed out to the park to find Pokemon. And it was so much fun. Miles and miles of
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| So random, and yet so fun! |
A good Sunday all around!
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