A Day in the Life...
Well, I have been posting and reporting on my mission for nearly nine months now...I realize that many, if not most of the people who keep up with me via The Work are not members of the church. I thought I would take a few minutes today to answer a question that many people wonder..."So what do you do all day?"
I roll out of bed about 5:15am every morning. I am a missionary, that means I pray a lot, and it is the first thing I do. After a trip to the bathroom and brushing my teeth, I am sitting in the kitchen reading from the Book of Mormon at 5:30.
Afterward, I make my bed, get dressed and I am ready to exercise at 6:15am. In Szeged that meant my companion and I running laps around the courtyard behind our building for half an hour, but here my poor companion is sick is under doctor's orders to rest. So, I leave my apartment door open and I do a circuit that involves sets of running stairs with a couple of other exercises inbetween right outside the door.
Then it is study time. I use the 15 minutes to russle up some breakfast-then my study hour starts on the hour. After that I get an extra 30 minutes just for the language (yeeeeeeeeeeeay!) and I always use 15 minutes out of the hour left over to get ready for extra studying. I might do more to get ready on my mission than I have in my life, but I don't need more than 45 minutes.
After companionship study (to prepare for our day of teaching) my companion and I are out the door. Generally if I am not a body in motion I am looking for someone to talk to, because that is what missionaries do. We talk to people and let them know who we are and what we are doing here and why we speak such terrible Hungarian. Sometimes, however, especially because we live and work in areas with lots of tourist actractions I am on a bus full of people speaking German, or am pinned into an area surrounded by men. I don't talk to men, because it is pointless-we don't teach men. That is why sisters exist. I generally go for the young girls, introduce myself and tell them who I am, invite them to the free English Class (which we teach) and answer any questions. Then I talk about how we spend our days meeting with people, explaining what we believe in-depending on the reaction I ask if we can exchange numbers so we can meet sometime and talk about it. Sometimes I just smile and give them my number on the back of a small pamphlet with some information about the church.
And then we are out and about, teaching people the basic doctrine of the church. If they like it, great we keep teaching them. If not...well, hey thanks for your time and we would love to see you in church sometime. Most of the time, we visit people we have scheduled with, but we are different. We are sisters. The Elders (boys) often spend large portions of their time tracting. Knocking doors and asking if they can come in and teach them about the church and what we believe. It is rough. I know Elders who have spent entire transfers (six weeks) tracting, day in, day out, all day, every day.
We have a curfew to be back in our aparment at 9pm, unless we are still out teaching then 9:30pm. Sometimes obedience to this rule requires sprinting throught the streets and up 100 meters of stairs from the metro station and arriving on our doorstep panting and dripping with sweat, but we get home on time. We get out of pross (proselyting attire) and plan for our day, usually over a bite to eat because we have not had an opportunity to really do so since we left the apartment nearly 10 hours ago. We call the Disctrict leader and report that we are safe and accounted for and with whatever time is left over, I retreat into my study cove in the back room to record in my journal the day's adventures and if I remember and have time look up the words I wrote down that I didn't understand.
Then, I kneel on my bed for one last prayer before I crash at 10:30pm.
Wash, rinse, repeat...
I have rather gotten to the point that my schedule keeps me running like a machine. It is intense, but I love it. Although...I do see why we are only called to serve for 18 months.
There are other details, as well. Like the fact that the basis of my diet has turned into me cooking a kilo of brown rice at the beginning of the week and eating it throughout. I always need my "little som'n sweet" and I drink at least 3 liters of water a day, which equates to emptying my water bottle four times. I like to get half of it consumed during my study time, it makes it super easy to stay on top of it throughout the day.
Anywho...I hope that sheds a little extra light into the comings and goings of Sister Pollock. I am so glad I have this blog to bring you all along for the ride. I am loving you all very much. :) I had a birthday last Saturday, following this routine. It isn't every day a girl can say she just ended the best year of her life...
posted by Ashley @ 2:55 AM
