Sharing the gospel

Todau was the first chance I had to extensively talk about the gospel with people here at the ICA (the place where I am staying).  It's always an interesting experience, particularly with Europeans given the generally non-religious attitude that exists these days in Europe.  It came up in a funny way.  Tonight I was pretty much out of non-professional clothes, and the only shirt I had to wear was my red Poland jersey.  Now, if you know European men they typically do not wear bright colors like red or yellow, so a red shirt, particularly a shirt with Poland on it, and you are bound to get comments.  Later a kid who was drunk (why are they always so open about stuff?) asked me why I was in Poland, and I told him that I was a missionary for my church, and he knew about the missionaries!  Apparently he had had dinner before with them when he was in school.  So then someone asked me what we believe.  Ummm.....that's kind of like saying: "Name one thing that you think is important in the world."  It's also difficult because you really have to gauge the mood of people.  Generally I think people are curious, but they don't want you to be preaching to them.  They just want to hear about it.  So you have to formulate it all in such a way that helps them to understand while not feeling awkward.  So I told the basic ideas of the Restoration and talked about Joseph Smith.  People were pretty receptive to it and we had a good discussion.  I even ended up showing them how I would contact someone at the door if I was a missionary tracting, which they thought was cool!  I must admit, it's trickier in English because I haven't done it much at all :-)   I don't think much will come of it.  However, I am grateful that I was able to share my beliefs with people, and that they were able to respect them.