How is it SO obvious?

 How is it so obvious that we speak English?

Sometimes I get it.  We saw this poster a couple weeks ago.  Of course, being illiterate, I took a photo so we could translate it later.

Anybody seeing me taking this photo would undoubtedly know we were not native-speakers of Slovene.  Or that we were very forgetful.

   But it happens, distressingly often, that we walk into a restaurant and a server hurries over to serve us, already carrying English menus.  How did they know?  We have name tags on our clothes, but they are printed in Slovene, and the young missionaries who wear identical tags are supposed to speak in the local language.  It is a mystery.

People under the age of 30 or so almost always have some knowledge of English.  Older people don't, but they often understand German, a remnant of the days when this was part of Austria.  There is a farmers market just up Military Street from our apartment, and most of the farmer/merchants are older.  So, I try to use my small knowledge of German when dealing with them, and now even the ones we haven't dealt with often engage me in that language.  This became noticeable when I tried to buy a few chantrelle mushrooms a few months ago.  One of the merchants had lovely mushrooms in little plastic containers, holding about twice as many as I wanted.  I asked for them at the stall and used hand signals to indicate I wanted a handful. because I didn't have the word for it.  The lady said, "Kilo?"  And I replied, "Nein, ein..."  (No, one...) and I motioned a handful, again.  She replied, "Alles!", meaning I had to buy a whole container.  I asked, disbelievingly, "Ein kilo oder keine?" (One kilo or nothing?)  She nodded, so I walked away.  She was surprised that I walked away so I suppose she expected me to dicker more.  I am not good at that game.  We usually pay whatever they ask at first, and we've found that when we do that, they slip some extra into our bag to make up for it.  Perhaps in pity that we are so simple.  Anyway, that exchange, in poor German, was when most of the other merchants started engaging me in German.  But everywhere else, people speak Slovene or English to us, 

I have a bit of fun when passing people on the siderwalks.  Many people don't say anything as they pass strangers, but we try not to let that happen.  If I'm not thinking, I say, "Hi!."  If I'm thinking about it more, I sometimes say "Dobar dan." (good day), but if I'm in a gleeful mood, I say whatever other language comes to mind.  Buenos dias, Ciao, Guten Tag, O'hio, or Howdy.  I get some glares, some startled looks, and fairly often, a wry smile.  That's the ticket!

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Monday and Tuesday, we had two days of auditor training, using Zoom.  The original plan was to spend three days in Frankfurt for this training session, and we would be able to mingle with auditors and others from all over Europe.  We were so very excited at the prospect of making that little trip!  We also had a temple trip planned.  COVID put all that out of the question, of course.

This is what our auditor training looked like:

(Faces blanked out to protect identities.)

We sat all day, hunched over my tiny desk, staring at the computer screen.  Still, it was a good meeting and we learned a lot of things it was good to know.

  I was asked to give a presentation on how we communicated during our audits.  Naturally, I chose to describe why we used Zoom and how it worked out.  (mostly very well.)  During it, we took the opportunity to share one of our favorite paintings, The Widow's Mite.

I won't bore you with how it ties in to auditing, but trust me, it does.