Tłusty czwartek or Fat Thursday

Today is Fat Thursday in Poland. The Thursday before Lent begins. And they make donuts, delicious, fresh, tasty donuts all over the city. And I want is a warm pączek (pronounced pon-check) with raspberry filling. (Not a rose filled one, I feel like I'm eating perfume.) Or maybe a chocolate one. My last year in Poland we ran into the elders at the best donut place in town. You can tell we were really happy:

And that is the only photo documentation I have of Tłusty czwartek. Half open eyes, half my companion's face, chocolate covered lips but big smiles. It was a GOOD donut. That place was so good. So good in fact that I just had to get a picture out in front before I went home:

Gosh I look dorky... But what I wouldn't give for a hot pączek or hot drożdżowa from Drożdżowa Chata. Mmm!

There's no crying at work

Embarrassing moment confession of the week. Or rather of LAST week.

Last Friday was a really quiet day in the office. I was sitting at my desk reading blogs and Whitney posted a video that made me cry. I was crying so much in fact that I had to keep stopping, pausing the video and collecting myself. But finally I decided that I just needed to finish watching the video (it is good, I promise). So I watched it longer than usual, stopping only because I had tears rolling down my cheeks. (I know, I know, I'm a huge cry baby.)

Right as I try to collect myself-- knowing that my cheeks are probably a little tear stained, and I know my skin is probably blotchy red (because it does that when I cry), and my eyes were still definitely watery-- the really really good looking intern in my office walks up to my desk to ask me a few questions. All I wanted to do was laugh and explain (because I'm an over explainer like my mother) but he left as soon as the questions were answered and vacated the vicinity of my desk. Oops! That's what I get for taking a break from work and procrastinating!

It also reminds me of a time from my mission when we all went around the circle saying what we liked about a missionary who was leaving and I started crying because I was going to miss her. When we were all done going around the room one of the elders said to me, "Wow Sister Richey, you look like you just got dumped!" (He was really tactful... nope.) But, I ran to the mirror to see great mascara streaks all the way down my face. (Luckily there was no mascara with the intern incident.)

Three Years Ago

On this day, three years ago I got on an airplane to return home from my mission. April 20, 2007.

Tomorrow, April 21, 2010, Jess returns from hers!

P-day

When I got onto the Metro this morning at L'Enfant Plaza I found a seat on the train. It was quickly vacated when I saw three sister missionaries and two elders get on. It was P-day and they were off to Arlington Cemetary to say good-bye to the "dying missionaries" (i.e. the missionaries who were going home).

And since today is sister Jess' P-day and I got a lovely email from her, I started thinking about my mission and P-days and all that jazz (because duh, we know I think about my mission).

Here is a quick note from her email:

I forgot to tell you last time about the deaf and mute guy that I contacted on the bus a couple weeks ago who's turned out to be awesome. I saw him with a huge smile when I got on the bus, which isn't that abnormal because a white girl with super curly light colored hair in the midst of a bus/city/country/region of the world completely filled with Asian people who range from super white skinned Chinese, to really dark Indians and East Indonesians, is always a sight for everyone to see... actually I'm knid of getting sick of it, especially at the bus terminal where everyone stares at us and sometimes make really inappropriate comments to us. The latest thing I've discovered is that all the men who work for the buses have a nickname for me: "rambut" which means, "hair" in Malay. Wow. Anyways, so this guy I sit next to him and he immediately turns away which is weird considering he was just smiling insanely, and then i start to talk to him, but he turns back and motions that he can't hear or speak, so I act out writing and he can, so we started writing back and forth and he wanted to meet again! So we met him at the church that week and had a lesson on the white board basically, watched the Joseph Smith video and he loved it so much. Lessons with him are awesome, becasue he takes notes and what we write on the board/half act out, and he tries really really hard to understand what we're teaching him, and you can literally SEE when he really gets something which is awesome.

And since I was thinking of my own P-days and wishing for one. Here are some lovely pictures from those lovely days.

(click to enlarge)

First row: Katowice-snow hike with branch; Krakow; Auschwitz
Second row: Warsaw-Majdanek; Lunch with sisters; bowling
Third row: Bydgoszcz-Baltic sea; Torun; Gdansk

I wish I could just take a P-day now! Oh wait, those don't happen in real life. Well, then, how about a sick day?

PS-I put the label nostalgia on this one, but I'm not really wishing to go back on my mission. I don't hardly think I wished to go back the minute I walked off that plane. Perhaps the nostalgia is for Poland and simpler times. Perhaps it's to go back and have the camaraderie of being on a mission. Perhaps it's missing all my mission friends, Americans and Poles. Who knows, but the nostalgia is not me wishing to go back and have grueling days of rejection.

I got another mission story for you...

My sister Jess gets home from her mission April 14th and I get to go out to Oregon for a couple days after she gets back with my parents from Malaysia! Hooray! I'm so excited I keep thinking it's already March and have to stop and realize it's still February! (Luckily it's a short month!) Anyway, in Jess' letter this week she talks about Elder Nelson coming to East Malaysia where she's serving. She got to go down to the first city she served in where the conference was being held. This brought back a memory of Elder Holland coming to my mission in Poland.

I was serving in Warsaw at the time which meant that I got to go to both the meeting for the missionaries with Elder Holland, but if I had an investigator come, we got to go to the member meeting too. Two of our favorite investigators came: Kasia and Zbyszek (though two Elders asked if they could sit with us and our investigators since their investigator didn't come but they wanted to stay for the meeting and they didn't want to get in trouble for being there without an investigator, so they "borrowed" one of ours and I agreed because I felt bad for them).

Anyway, Zbyszek really liked us. He loved having us over. We always got fruit tea or some kind of compote when we visited. We had met him because I wanted to tract the street the American Branch President lived on in hopes that we could get to know them and maybe they would invite us in for dinner or something fantastic like that. (Oh the things you do when you never get dinner appointments or invitations to visit by members.) Actually, I really liked the name of the street: ul. Truskawska, or as I liked to call it by it's English name for some reason- actually, I probably thought it was funny- Strawberry Street. Well, we didn't know where the Branch President lived and if they had been home and we had found them, we never would have met Zbyszek. After ringing his gate bell and yelling from the street to the door (we were separated by a short brick wall, a gate and a small yard), Zbyszek realized that we weren't "JDubbs" and he talked to us for a while, still from door to sidewalk, but asked us back the next day.

Fast forward a few weeks Elder Holland is coming, Zbyszek has been making progress. We invite him to come and tell him it's a big deal. Zbyszek shows up all the way up in North Warsaw from his house down in South Warsaw (it was probably a pretty long drive, I know it took about an hour by public transportation so it was probably about 45 min for him). He wore a sport coat that was a too small to fit over his big belly. He joked about how long it had been since he wore it and that he had definitely gotten fat.

So today, as I read Jess' letter about Elder Nelson coming to visit, I couldn't help think of Zbyszek standing outside the chapel in Warsaw wearing his navy sport jacket with the gold buttons that was clearly tight on him, and remember the overwhelming happiness I felt seeing him there and seeing him in his jacket and knowing he took what we said seriously.

And clearly Poland missionaries get excited about the simplest things!

(PS: I know I already posted the picture HERE. Zbyszek is one of my favorite people I met in Poland. And, an unfortunate side note about him, I was transferred to Bydgoszcz and he stopped meeting with the missionaries shortly after. He didn't like the idea of paying tithing...)

Deal breaker

"Sister missionaries talk about their missions way more than elders."
-Whispered the good-looking guy in front of me in during sacrament meeting while a sister who just got home from her mission described an experience she had had

I know I'm biased.

I know I talk about my mission a lot.

I can't help it! I have two sisters out! I get their emails twice a week. I email them the night before their P-day too. I'm thinking about "my missionaries" four out of seven days a week. I can't help it.

Really.

I read a funny blog post about deal-breakers today. And was asked by a friend what a deal-breaker for me would be.

A Lauren Kay Deal-breaker:
Someone who generalizes sister missionaries in a negative way.
Or, "sister-haters".
Or, someone who thinks girls shouldn't serve missions.

For me, that's a BIG time deal breaker. And practically unforgivable.

You know why? Because I love my mission. I didn't always have the fondest feelings for it, but I love my mission and I realize I always have. It means a lot to me and I don't want to feel belittled or demeaned because I gave up that time in my life to do something I truly believe in.

And, I can tell you now that I probably will not be friends with the cute boy who sat in front of me during church.
(Even if he did have glasses and attractive scruff and a nice colored gray suit.)
It's still a deal-breaker and left a bad impression.

Some moments I'd like to relive

While Facebook stalking today I saw pictures posted of someone's sibling's recent return home from a mission. It made me realize I think I'd like to relive that moment too. So, here are some exciting moments in my life I would like to relive (and in no particular order).

1. Opening my mission call. It was excitement, fear and extreme emotion all wrapped into one. We waited about 30 minutes for my dad to finish up surgery and get home so that he could see me open it in person. I cried when I saw Poland Warsaw after saying incredulously, "Oh. my. gosh."
2. Getting home from my mission. My family had a banner, saying "Welcome Home Lauren!" spread out across the entrance into the Eugene Airport. Since I was the first one off the plane I ran through it like I was finishing a race. My mom hugged me so tight. And I'm pretty sure my dad cried.
   
3. The moment Ewa said she would be baptized. I could hardly believe that what I was hearing was true. I think I asked a couple times to make sure I wasn't getting my Polish mixed up. After she left the chapel my companion and I hugged and kind of jumped up and down. There was probably a bit a squealing in there.
4. Seeing the Pyramids for the first time*.I teared up. Everyone on the bus was screaming because they were RIGHT THERE. I have never wanted to see anything so bad my whole life. (Perhaps when I make it to Greece and the other places I posted in the previous post I'll have the same reaction.)
5. Finishing my very last paper in college. It was a mixture of sadness and extreme happiness as I walked out of the JFSB on BYU's campus knowing that I would never be an undergrad again and at the same time wishing I had a whole 'nother semester. (Maybe because I wanted to take Bookbinding yet again.)
6. Walking into the Celestial Room at the Portland Oregon Temple for the first time. Both sets of grandparents and my parents were in there waiting for me with big smiles. It was akin to coming home after being gone for a long time.
7. Holding our new puppy all the way home from her breeders. When we got Lizzie (our first dog, who passed away a few years ago), we picked her up on Christmas Eve because she was a surprise for my youngest sister Rachel. I got to hold Lizzie the whole way home. She was so cute and little. I remember asking my mom for a dog in Kindergarten. We didn't finally get one until 14 years later when I was already in college, but I was still really excited.
8. Standing at the top of Nevada Falls and realizing I did it. Last summer my mom, Rachel and I hiked Nevada Falls at Yosemite. I didn't want to do it but my mom talked us into going on that part of the hike instead of going half way up to just Vernal Falls. I wasn't totally physically up to the hike but I was glad I did it because it was really pretty.
9. Impromptu talent show at our grandparent's house in Orem. My uncle apparently had a bright pink cape (made by my grandma), a flamboyant suit, top hat and sunglasses that he wore to a church dance once and performed to Shining Star. He redid the dance for us and no one has ever seen it since. (Not even his kids who weren't there.) The grandkids sang, danced and played musical instruments too, but Uncle Craig's Shining Star dance surpassed everything and has now just become a legend.
10. Passing around treats in the car. I love treats. I think most people that know me know that. My family loves treats. We share them. And by sharing them that means we will buy anywhere from one to ten treats and pass them around the car, each person taking a bite and passing. Maybe you're a germ-a-phobe and this grosses you out. Well, we're obviously not, and we want to try all the treats. It's perfect.
    

In an effort to keep this post from being 20 pages long, I'm going to keep it at ten...for now. These are a few moments that I thought of this morning while I kept myself busy at work.

*Thanks to Peter I actually have some documentation of that. Not the crying, but the excitement. Go HERE. (I hope you can see it!)

Burrr!

Our house is really cold. Our heat isn't working-- well, it's heated in some strange way that I don't totally understand, something having to do with oil. But what I do understand is that I'M COLD! And I have to sleep with socks on. And I don't like sleeping with socks. And, I'll have to sleep with a sweatshirt on and I don't like how it gets twisted around when I sleep.

I took a loooong hot shower this evening after work to warm myself up. It was heaven. You would have thought I had the water on really hot by the amount of steam in the room but it was just normal, the bathroom is just really cold!

We baked cookies tonight with all of us kind of crowded around the oven, and Katie putting her hands as close to the door every time it was opened. And then after they were all made, we left the oven on and open for a while. It warmed up the kitchen. But that soon went away after the oven was turned off.

My nose is cold. But, we can't see our breath yet.

I'm glad we still have hot water. My first weekend in Poland we had no hot water. We boiled water to wash our hair.

It's supposed to get fixed tomorrow. Wish us all luck!

AGAIN??

Here we go, another thought about my mission. I understand you're sick of it by now, but I'm going to post anyway.

I think about my mission a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I wonder if it's abnormal. I don't remember thinking/talking about it as much as I do when I was at BYU, but for some reason it's always at the front of my mind. I think it's probably because I have two sisters on missions and I'm so proud of them and think of them often. But today I was on Facebook and up on my Newsfeed popped an album update from a girl who just got back from Poland. I met her before she left. She knew my sister's roommate's brother and we were invited over for dinner to talk about Poland and get her excited about serving a mission there. Today as I looked through her pictures I had an overwhelming sense of jealousy when I saw all the pictures with missionaries.

Now, I loved my mission-- (You all know that.) I loved the members. I loved the missionaries. I loved my companions. Oh how I loved my wonderful companions. All of them. I didn't get a single bad one. Really. I have to be the single most luckiest person alive. That and both Heavenly Father and the mission president knew I'd be a terribly depressed/bad worker if I had bad companions-- But, a few weeks ago in church I looked at the sister missionaries with their long skirts, faded button up shirts, dorky looking blazers, nylons and ugly shoes and thought, "I am so glad I'm not a missionary anymore."

But today as I looked through the pictures from this girl's mission I wanted to go back. I wanted to go back to P-days spent figuring out what we were going to do that day in a crowded internet cafe. I wanted to go back to shopping at Tesco and discovering new flavors of yogurt or good cereal combinations. I wanted to go back to P-days spent watching Disney movies at the chapel and hanging out with the district at the elders' apartment with pizza. I wanted to go back to Zone Conference "Buki Breaks" and Sister Sleepovers. I wanted to go back to P-day trips to Krakow, Concentration Camps, castles, walled cities and the sea. I wanted to go back to a time where I had a strong spiritual connection with all my friends.

I'm glad I'm not on a mission right now. I have new things to experience and love, but for those moments, I wanted to be back on my mission.

(And to Marie, I'm sorry for posting a picture of the sea, but I'm glad you went there so I don't feel too bad about it. Love you girl!)

Four years ago

Now I realize I talk about my mission a lot. If it bothers you, I apologize. I think it's because I have two sisters on missions right now that I think and talk about it a lot. But I really do think about my mission a lot. I remember hearing a talk in the MTC by Elder Holland saying that he thought about his mission everyday. I remember thinking that I hoped I didn't think about my mission everyday because that would be living too much in the past!

(Zbyszek and his wife Ewa, investigators in Warsaw)

There are probably some days that I don't really think about my mission, but most days it seems like I have some little Poland thought or other. I might think of a funny experience or a friend there (usually Ewa or Karolina). I read my sister's letters about their struggles and triumphs and can't believe how similar Cami's Finnish mission is to mine.

(Karolina and her cat Mu)

But today, this day, four years ago, I started my mission. I didn't know what to expect. It was exciting, it was hard, it was stressful but it was mostly worth it.

(About to go into the MTC. I'm with my Grandparents, aunt and cousin. Picture scanned on my work scanner. Not that great.)

I had a hard time after my mission feeling like the service I had done was "good enough". I spent a year in counseling in the free BYU counseling center. I lamented telling my Mission President that I had done my "best" during my go-home-interview because I felt like I had lied. I hadn't really felt like I had done my "best" but told him, "Yes" because I knew that was the right answer.

Over a year after my mission I finally realized I had done a good job and that God had accepted it and was happy. And I was happy too.

Mowi Siostra Richey

I recorded my personal greeting for my work phone today. I tried to “wing it” when I heard the tone but made myself stop, write it out and read it as I recorded.

You have reached Lauren Richey in Bureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you and have a good day.

As I read the recording I was reminded of making phone calls for the first time on my mission. My trainer lovingly wrote out an entire dialogue for me. I remember reading slowly and presumably roughly something along the lines of this:

Hello! This is Sister Richey from the Church of Jesus Christ. We would like to meet with you. Would tomorrow at (penciled in time) work for you ma’am? Thank you. We look forward to meeting with you then.

(Dzien dobry! Mowi Siostra Richey z Kosciola Jezusa Chrystusa. Chcialybysmy spotykac sie z Panem/Pania. Czy jutro pasuja Pan/Pani? Dzienkuje. Dozobaczymy!*)

I was so nervous. I remember turning our cell phone onto speaker so my trainer could listen in. The first couple phone calls were a cinch. (No answers.) Finally someone answered. I had no idea what they said past hello. I followed my script. Tomorrow did not work for them. I threw the phone to my trainer.

Fast forward one year. I’m the trainer. I write out the script for my companion. I left the slot for her name blank so she could reuse the script when she was a trainer someday. We placed the phone between us, speaker phone on, script accessible and she called. The first phone call went something like this:

Companion: Hello! This is Sister Richey from the Church of Jesus Christ.

Me (whispering loudly): Clinger! You’re Sister Clinger!

C: Excuse me! This is Sister Clinger from the Church of Jesus Christ. We would like to meet with you. Would tomorrow at (penciled in time) work for you ma’am? Thank you. We’ll see you then!

Hang up. Laughing. The best part about her introducing herself as me was that it was as if a weed was planted. She continued to make that mistake not only on the phone but when introducing herself on the street as well. I guess she heard me do it too many times!

*Please forgive my atrocious Polish spelling!

Sacrifice and Success

On Sunday I shared the difficult experience I had after my mission of feeling like I had truly done my best. (If you want the full story you can ask me all about it.) But the short story is that I basically gave myself such high expectations that I knew I would never ever be able to reach them no matter how perfect I attempted to be. When I had my exit interview with the mission president I was asked, "Did you do your best?" (He had already prepped us in various conferences telling us that when he asked that question and we answered "yes" it would help us transition back to non-missionary life.) When I answered my "yes", because I knew that that was the expected answer, I felt like I was lying because I was in my mind thinking of all the ways I could have done better. I could have talked to more people on the street everyday; I could have contacted men more; I could have talked to more people on the bus/trams; I could have worked on "P-days"; I could have been more bold; or not been discouraged; or happy to come in at night. Actually, I could go on and on about how I could have been better. It later took me over a year to finally feel like I had served a good mission and that God was happy with me.

When I checked my email Sunday night I had an email from our former Stake President and Area Authority Seventy that is now working in the Single's Ward. He sent me a talk called On Sacrifice and Success which was given by John Tanner, the chair of the BYU English Department for the Humanities Convocation address in 2003. Here are my favorite parts:

So while I hope you succeed in your righteous desires, I also hope you won't measure yourself exclusively by your successes and failures. God's words to Oliver Granger remind us that we are more than our résumés, GPAs, salaries, and scholarships. What endears us to heaven is our sincere sacrifice; our sincere efforts to love God and our neighbor are sacred. The Almighty does not require success, but he does require sacrifice.

Consider Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: They knew God had the power to save them from the fiery furnace. They also knew the outcome was in his hands. Their concern was for righteousness, not its results. Hence, they defied King Nebuchadnezzar with bold indifference to the consequences: "If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace. . . . But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image" (Dan. 3:17–18). Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were spared martyrdom. But they stand in the same position before God as Abinadi, who was not spared a fiery death. From an eternal perspective, the outcome is irrelevant. What is sacred is the readiness, not the result; the sacrifice, not the success.

I don't know if I would have listened to the advice when coming to terms with my mission, but I definitely think it can help me feel good about other church service or other new projects I tackle in my life.

Nostalgia

I'm feeling nostalgic today.
I had a mission reunion last night.

It made me think a lot about my mission.
I've been thinking a lot about just my life lately.
I am so happy with all the things I have been able to do.
I wouldn't exchange any of my experiences for something else.

April and a pathetic attempt at an apology

April seems to be a life changing month for me. Two years ago I was finishing my mission and coming home. Coming home to two sisters in college, one about to graduate from high school, and a third who was no longer a little girl. Now two of those sisters are on their own missions, another is getting ready to follow in my footsteps of multiple study abroads, and the third will be finishing her sophomore year of high school soon. I'm finishing up college this month with graduation in 22 days and attempting to get my life sorted out.

A few days ago I was thinking about my mission. (I think about it a lot because Cami and Jess are gone on theirs.) I was realizing that the highlight of my mission was two days and two years ago. Ewa's baptism. As I was thinking about this I was thinking about how God does not make worthwhile things easy for us. (That's why I haven't had some fabulous revelation telling me what to do with my life.) I wanted so badly for Ewa to get a knowledge that the church was true but I obviously couldn't make that decision for her. But when she did make that decision, I have never felt happier and I don't think I've been that happy since. It doesn't seem like it was as long ago as it was but I thought I'd share a couple pictures of Ewa and the wonderful person she is:

These pictures are from her baptismal day (duh); our last lesson; and saying goodbye at the train station.
And yes, the polaroid-esque pictures make it seem like my mission was in the 70s or something. I told you I'd been home for a long time!

Ewa is great. She is the kindest person I know (even if she says she isn't, she really is). She is so thoughtful. She sent Jess a package in the MTC and I know she's already planning a summer trip up to Finland to visit Cami (even though Cami will be in the MTC until June 9th. Yep, she still has two months just down the street in Provo). She's like our sister, and I know she thinks of us as her family too. I am a bad sister. She wants to skype with me. I didn't send her a birthday present and so for her birthday present from me she wanted to skype. I never responded to the email. Yep I know, me, jerk. I can't speak Polish. I've been home for two years. And now a note for her: Ewa, I have a confession. I'm proud. (My dad lets me know all the time.) And I'm embarrassed of my Polish. I'm embarrassed that I don't always understand the conversation. I don't like feeling stupid. (Pride) I know you wouldn't want me to feel dumb, but I do. I feel terrible. So Ewa, this is my pathetic attempt to apologize for no birthday present and to let you know that I still love you and think of you often. I hope you are having a wonderful day and that all is going well. Love, Lauren