Popelka and the Parky

This mission story has been rolling around in my head ever since Mark and I took the girls to see Enchanted the other day. It’s just a funny memory from way back when. Hope you enjoy reading it!! (And Diane, if my memory is totally whacked and I’ve recalled this experience inaccurately, please let me know. This is simply my “interpretation” of what happened that day. And I hope you’re not offended by the “picky eater” comment. I’m sure you’ve grown out of it by now…hee hee. Love ya!!)

Popelka and the Parky (or Cinderella and the Sausages)

It was a cold, winter morning. With no appointments scheduled right off the bat, we set out to tract in the same neighborhood of Paneloky (high-rise apartment buildings) we had been working for the past several weeks. We bundled up and caught the bus outside our own apartment for about a 10 minute ride across town. I was serving with Sister Gerdy in a city called Hradec Kralove (City of Kings). She was my 2nd companion, a follow-up trainer to Sister Dorsey. Sister Gerdy was from Littleton, Colorado and my former roommate from my Freshman year at Ricks College. We had history and were happy to be serving together…it was familiar and we knew we had lots of things to work on and made many goals together. I knew her as “Diane” from Ricks. She was a silly 18-year old girl then, with quirky things about her that I got to know after sharing a bedroom with her in a tiny on-campus apartment. One of those things was that she was kind of a picky eater. She definitely didn’t like just anything and although she wasn’t extremely difficult to please with my own culinary inventions, she definitely had a hard time with the offerings from foreign people in a foreign land. Her stomach just wouldn’t tolerate a lot of the food there. And not only that, but the thought of certain KINDS of food would definitely squelch any appetite she may have had prior to the offering. In this case, it was parky (or sausages). Now I actually like sausage, most kinds really. I like the hot dog variety, the bratwurst variety, smoked sausage, polish kielbasa, and even those lil’ smokies that you sometimes eat on special occasions cooked in a tangy bbq sauce in a crock-pot for a million hours. And I have a pretty strong stomach and have never been a picky eater. I can usually eat pretty much anything and be okay with it. Not Diane. And not with sausages on a cold, winter morning.

We were tracting a building, giving our usual performances. Knock a couple times and then if nobody answers, move to the next. Knock again, if somebody answered, we’d take turns giving a door approach. Usually it consisted of the following, “Hi, I’m Sister Day, and this is my companion, Sister Gerdy. We’re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Have you ever heard of our Church?” And this was usually followed by a rude remark and the slamming of a door, or a polite, no thank you and gentle closing of a door, or some other tirade in the Czech language that I will never be capable of translating (then again, some things don’t really need translating). Anyway, on this particular morning the little birds and squirrels and friendly neighborhood deer must have been nudging us in the direction of this particular door. We knocked on the door of a woman named Popelka, which in Czech means “Cinderella”. She was a pretty, kind middle-aged woman. She was single. She had a bright and tidy little apartment and she invited us in!! We were always thrilled (and sometimes a bit suspicious) when this happened, and so we happily entered her almost fairy tale dwelling. She directed us to the couch, and we took our coats off and opened our backpacks readying ourselves for a first discussion. First, we took a little time to get to know her. Usually after talking for a few minutes, we would know if a person was really interested or just being polite and were really just curious about two young, American women showing up on their doorstep. She seemed interested so we continued. I think we got through the entire discussion. It was great. And it was still early. Her door had been one of the first we had knocked on for the day. I think it was only around 10:30. We were getting ready to ask for a second appointment to follow up with her when she politely asked if we were hungry. This is something most Czechs will do. First they offer tea, and then if they are especially generous, they will offer a small snack. We were instructed by our Mission president to always accept their offerings in order to be polite. We were also instructed to request herbal or fruit tea, and if we weren’t given it to just not drink it. Popelka offered us both. She busied herself in the kitchen as we packed up our things and cleared a space on the coffee table for our tea and snack. Sometimes their snacks would be a slice of babufka (coffee cake), or a small roll with some cheese or fruit. Sometimes they would make these intricately designed “chlebicky” or tiny open-faced sandwiches. The first layer would be potato salad, topped with ham or salami, cheese, and then decorated with sliced peppers, olives, hard-boiled eggs, or other mystery condiments. They were sometimes quite tasty, and other times quite not, especially if the potato salad had a slight crust forming on it from sitting out all day. I have to tell you, the Lord protects His missionaries, and lines their stomachs with lead too!! Popelka returned to the sitting room with two plates for Sister Gerdy and I. On the two plates was a slice of rye bread, a dollop of mustard, and 2 thick, juicy sausages. It sounds kind of good now that I’m writing the words, but for some reason it was not a good thing at the time. I think because it was still early in the morning and the sausages had a thick, crunchy casing and were slightly spicey on the inside, it was not necessarily an appetizing discovery. Normally the host/hostess will sit across from you as you eat and drink and watch, pleasantly engaging you in conversation, but not eating themselves. And that’s exactly what Popelka did. She sat and watched us eat the sausages, or at least try to. I was making progress, trying to take a bite of bread between bites of sausage to cut the spicey, greasy taste. I was okay, so far. I caught a glimpse of Diane out of the corner of my eye and I could tell she was struggling. She was kind of making a mess of ripping her bread apart and kind of dipping it into the mustard to make it look like she was really moving her food around, but she wasn’t coming near those sausages. Popelka got up and left the room for a minute and Diane immediately grabbed my arm. Desperation in her eyes, she pleaded with me, “I can’t do this! Not this morning! Not both of them!” I agreed to take one of her sausages and she flipped it over on my plate before Popelka returned. I started into eating it when Popelka asked how they were. “Great! Wonderful, Thank you” came our replies, ever trying to be the gracious guests and make a good impression on this woman so she’d let us return to teach her again. “Well, then let me get you some more!” She hurried for the kitchen and brought back two more sausages for each of us. AAGH! I knew Diane was already about to lose it after only eating about half of one sausage. I knew I was more than likely going to have to eat the next four after having just finished (choked down) three. That’s a total of seven sausages people!! I don’t know how I did it, but the Spirit must have been with me that day. I left Popelka’s house feeling extremely bloated and a lot sick to my stomach. I knew I’d be burping up sausage the rest of the day. Sister Gerdy, obviously very grateful for my compassion on her, offered whatever I wanted or needed in retribution for the next few days. Luckily, (it must have been those little bunnies whispering in her ear), Popelka agreed to have us return. I can’t remember what happened with her, but I will never forget that experience with Cinderella and the sausages.