We arrived Tuesday afternoon after an uneventful flight (the best kind). As we left the plane in Warsaw we were both looking at our phones to see if we had a message from the mission office and walked right out of the airport security without our luggage. We tried to find a way back in and while searching we heard the question "Elder Bridge??" and turned to see our mission president and his wife. What a great first impression, right? He figured out who to call and we eventually got our baggage. It's just not the way we envisioned our meeting.
President and Sister Turek are sincerely wonderful. They are barely 40, if that, and have three children aged 7, 10, and 14, so a young family which would be a challenge. They, however, take it all in stride. President Turek is from Poland and Sister Turek is from Germany, a town not far from the Polish border. They were living in Germany when they got the call. The mission covers a large area, but has only 52 missionaries. This makes for a close mission family and everybody knows everybody because they've probably served together. Each city with missionaries has a set of Elders and a set of Sisters or a senior couple with some exceptions. We have been assigned to Gdansk, a famous city from WWII and farthest north in Poland on the Baltic Sea. We are lucky to be with pairs of both great Elders and great Sisters.
When we arrived at our apartment on Thursday the Elders helped us shop for some basic food. Friday the Sisters went with us to secure our temporary residency permit and apply for our long-term residency. Being a government process, this took us all over Gdansk and all that day. They were good sports to stick with it until we got it done. We had heard that "everybody speaks English" and now know that was a lie. ;) OK, they do, and we shouldn't use government paperwork as a measure of one's language skill. Even in English we can't navigate all that. We could not have done it without the Sisters' help, that's what we're saying.
After that we went with the Elders to make a meal for the homeless at one of the many Catholic church buildings. There's one group that we help every Friday and another we help every Saturday. These are great people who really care and who are just pleasant to be around.
Today was our first Sunday at our new branch and it was sweet. With us 6 missionaries there were about 20 people there including 5 non-members, a very good Sunday they tell us. Of course the meeting was all Elder and Sister Bridge, which was good for us, though we know a total of 3 Polish words: Hello and Thank and You. Well, as now we're talking about it, we aren't sure about the Hello, so make that 2 words.
Our Polish training so far is from when we cornered an office Elder for an hour while we were there to teach us the alphabet and pronunciation, which, we are often told, is really easy. Uh-huh. How many ways can you say "sh"?? Really? And what do you do with "drzwi"? (door)
Our plan is to spend time with either the Elders or Sisters weekly and at least get to where we can read, then we'll go from there. We're getting some things slowly and maybe we should wait more than 5 days to judge our progress.
We went with the Sisters to a sweet lady's apartment who's been a member longer than anybody in Poland, probably. She lives on the attic floor of a little old building (see the street picture attached), is 92, and speaks surprisingly good English. We learned of some of her many trials through her life yet has a cute attitude and is so funny. She speaks her mind and likes to laugh and make you laugh. Her apartment is a single small room with a bed and a coffee table she set out with some cookies and herb tea for us and the Sisters. She treated us like we were royalty in her humble home which she pays for with her monthly income of $500, then leaned smiling out her open window for a long while as we walked out of sight down the street.
We love being missionaries.
Our love to you,
Elder and Sister Bridge
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