Transfer to Warsaw

My new companion

Dear Mom,

Warsaw is pretty cool. There are SO many missionaries. It is CRAZY! I have only ever been in cities with only 4 missionaries. So it's pretty crazy to go to a city with like 24 missionaries!!! and 12 missionaries in my district! I met so many people at the train station coming into Warsaw on transfer day. I had always been out in the Bydgoszcz Zone far out in the West and didn't really ever meet too many missionaries. I heard about lots of missionaries and saw their pictures, but now I am in the Warsaw Zone and will finally meet all of these missionaries that I have heard about for so long. Like, I met Elder Boyce, Elder Brown, Elder Richins, Elder Hubbard, Elder Tingey, Elder Baranowski and others. Sister Missionaries as well.

I got sick before I left Poznań. I like always get sick before the start of a new transfer. I think it must be subconscious stress or something. So I was sick the past few days. But I am starting to feel better now. The bad news is that I passed in off to Elder Peacock before I left and I have now given it to Elder Hubbard. Oops.

Elder Hubbard and I

So, Warsaw is super huge. So it is split up into a bunch of areas for each companionship. It's usually like the name of a district in the city. Ours is called Mokotów. It's not the best contacting area though... it's just a whole bunch of old catholic ladies who don't want to talk to us and crazy drunk homeless people. Pretty cool. Not very cool actually. And you are supposed to stay within your area and do missionary work there "bloom where you are planted" kind of thing. So we like aren't allowed to contact in the middle of the city, where the best contactng areas are with TONS of people. They give all those best areas to the Sister Missionaries. Sigh. So we have Mokotów. Well, actually we share it with another companionship. Elder Tingey and Cieślak. But they live in a different apartment. The chapel is in our area. Yes, we are in the same branch as President Edgren and the Office Elders. 

Elder Vernon is in our district. He is the AP with Elder Wilson. Which is super fun because they were companions together in my district in Bydgoszcz as Zone Leaders! :)

You're going to be a yoga master! That's super! Oh and wow. They rank Polish as being the hardest language to learn in the world? haha... I could see that! :) But they should also rank it as the most fun! :)

So this week, it was my first Sunday in church in the Warsaw 2 branch. All of a sudden, one of the Members of the Branch Presidency came up to me right before Sacrament Meeting and told me that I was going to be translating. So they gave me a little headset with a microphone and a little radio, and I went and sat in the back. And I had to translate all the talks and everything from Polish to English for the American members of the branch. They all wore these little stethoscope-looking headphones. It was SO much fun!!! It was way cool and I hope I get to do it more!

Our view of Warsaw from our apt. 5th floor balcony
(click on photo to see it bigger)

We got to meet with Maciej one last time before I left. That was pretty good. I got to say good bye and everything. I think that he has so much potential to get baptized. When we met with him the Tuesday right before I left (So 2 days after he was in church) he had been reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. He told us that he really felt that there is something there. We just bore simple testimony to him about the Book of Mormon and what it means to us. It was really wonderful. He is making so much much progress and is well on his way to obtaining a testimony of his own.

Oh! I totally forgot to tell you guys about what my birthday was like and how Poles celebrate New Years. So. All new years eve people are lighting off fireworks all over the city and in the streets. And their fireworks are way different.... It seems like in Poland, it isn't the appearance of the firework that makes it cool... but the SOUND! So their fireworks are just pretty much BOMBS!!! And they are SO loud! So all New Year's Eve, it sounded like Poland was being bombed. Like for real. People were just lighting them off right in the street! It was crazy. They would go off right next to you and you would have thought by the sound that a car just exploded. So as the night went on, the explosion got more and more frequent. I went to bed at 10:30. But the sound at midnight woke me up. It sounded like a war zone outside. It was INSANE! It was so loud. It was like crazy loud thunder of a billion giant bombs getting dropped on the city of Poznań and it went on FOREVER! It was crazy. They sure celebrate New Year's quite differently. I think the fireworks they use would most definitely be illegal in America. 

It's fun being with Elder Hubbard. I think it's going to be a super fun transfer. It better be! It is 14 weeks long! Oh, and i did get the Pond's package! Tell them thank you! :)

Love,

Elder Drake Allen

He is an AWESOME companion!

He is super fun and happy and hilarious and we get along so well.  He kind of the same personality of Will Sutherland.

And it's super fun because we both had Elder Harris as our trainer so we are constantly asking thngs like, "Oh hey, did he do this when he was with you too?!" and just cracking up

It's super fun! :)