Biggest week of our lives....and it's only half over!

So we've got a little extra time this week to email before we go out and get some kebabs with the office elders in celebration of us surviving this week, which is why I have time to explain my week a little bit. 

Elder Cowley and I had our last half-week last week. We spent the whole time meeting with investigators and less-actives, and taking pictures and such. It was really busy, and went by really fast. Then Elder Cowley shipped out to Germany to finish his mission on the border of Poland and Germany. Elder Connelly came to me to finish his mission away from the office, and to be my companion so I could stay in my area and not have to sit in the office for the weekend. We had a great time. Elder Connelly is a bro, and we had a lot of good talks and times as his mission was coming to a close. We went to church in Warsaw II this week so that he could give his departing testimony, and I was able to spend some time with the members there. i sure do miss them. I also got to help President with transfer calls again, so I got to talk to a bunch of missionaries this weekend as well. We had a last hooray with the district during a meal hour, and ate at a milk bar, and then said our goodbyes. I'm going to be staying in my same area in Warsaw, and finishing it out until the end(watch out... 7 weeks. Crazy)

Then Monday morning, elder Mulder, my new companion, got here. That morning, I spent getting all of the departing missionaries picked up from the airport, and getting all of their baggage to the transporter. Elder Mulder and I dropped off his bags real quick while they were getting lunch, and then we helped the departing group get the things done they needed to on their last day. We got back to the mission home, and helped with dinner, then ate, then cleaned it up for a pretty long time, then we all went to bed. I was laying there trying to sleep, and got a prompting to check the transporter that we were going to be needing to use the next morning. Turns out, it wasn't where we left it... it was at the office-elders apartment. So we flew out of bed and went and got the transporter back, and dropped them back off at their house(good times.... it's fun working with those guys). Got home at like 11, and then tried to get some sleep while the other elders were still up and about, excited to go home. 

Tuesday morning, we woke up at 2 AM to get them to the airport for their flights. It was weird seeing them go. It means I'm officially one of the oldest missionaries in the mission. It was hard seeing some of my buddies go, but I'll see them soon. We got back in time to get just a few hours of precious sleep, before we were back up again picking up the new missionaries at the airport. There were TEN of them, so baggage was crazy, and getting everything done. We had lots of "AP Adventures" as we call them. Things always go wrong, and need to be fixed. We got all of their pictures taken(had to do two groups between president interviews and office legal work), and then took them out contacting for their first time. I was with Elder Dickson(weird, right??) and he's a STUD. All of them are, but I was really really impressed. I love working with the new missionaries. Stayed overnight at the mission home. 

Wednesday morning, we were up early again, getting the missionaries to the urząd to get legal work done. We had to leave the mission home at 7, so it wasn't THAT terribly bad. After, we helped clean up the mission home, and loaded the transporter with luggage to get ot the Wiktorska chapel for the trainers meetings. Taught the trainees a language segment during the first meeting for an hour, then had the second combined meeting, and we had a 15 minute segment about the "First 12 weeks" pamphlet, as well as the "Adjusting to Missionary Life" pamphlet. It went well. Everything in polish. I wonder if it'll ever get easy to speak in front of a bit group of people in polish. Then we had to fix some problems, and get luggage to a sister that had left it upstairs in the mission home, while still getting home in time to teach our favorite Ukrainians english. We talked with them, and they agreed to let us teach about Jesus Christ at the end of all of our lessons. They are very Spiritual, and Christian, and I feel the Spirit every time we're there. I think good things are going to happen. 

Tomorrow is MLC, so all of the mission leaders are coming into Warsaw to have a counsel. I'm really excited for it. We have time Saturday and Sunday to meet with people, and then next tuesday, we have zone conferences. First on Tuesday in Wawa, then Wednesday in Poznań, then Friday in Katowice. It's going to be awesome. Elder Mulder and I are taking a road trip to get to Poznań and Kato, because President will be in another country for a mission president meeting of some sort. It's oging to be epic. I'm really excited to see all the elders and sisters!

That was our week. So many miracles happened where we got saved from trouble, or something worked out PERFECTLY so that everything fell into place. A really cool miracle was that I felt randomely like we needed to pray again before we headed home at one point this last week. It was weird, adn I didn't know why, but we just did it. Then, on the freeway, we came around the corner, and just a few seconds earlier, someone had crashed in the merge lane right ahead of us. If we hadn't said that short prayer, that could have been us. God is taking care of us!

The church is true! I'm so grateful to be a member of this church, and to know what I know. God is so good to me.
I sure love you guys! Have a great week! We'll talk soon!

October 24, 2016....No time today but maybe tomorrow

Hello fam,

Please still send your weekly emails. I would love to read them. However I will not be emailing tomorrow or on tuesday for sure... we'll see if I ever email for sure... but I will definitely read them. So don't worry, I'm still alive and semi-healthy(cold), and we're going to make it through this crazy week in one piece, and I'll let you know later when we survive. I'm serving with Elder Mulder. He's so flippin tall, and he gets here tomorrow. I'm really really excited. 

That's all. Love you

Miracles this week! Oct 17, 2016

Miracles: 

• zone training was awesome.-still all in Polish. The gift of tongues is real. 
• Far... finally met with us(less-active), and opened up and now we know what to work with him on.
• Exchange with E McPherson and E White. I love those guys. Good times
• Culture night-saw a polish ballet. Weirdest thing I've ever seen... good experience to have.
• Ma... is a girl and she's awesome! She lives with Nuns, and actually believes and lives her faith. She invited us to an opera she was singing in the choir for... so we felt good about it, and saw it during our dinner hour. It was SO COOL. (picture included). Europe is awesome.
• Sur... came to church after months and months of prayers and meetings. He is great.
• Mar.... came to church as well! He'll be there next week too.
• Elder cowley and I led a tour of 40-50 people through the chapel on sunday afternoon. There were questions, the Spirit was there, and it went really really well. 
• Someone is coming to church, 17 copies of the book of mormon are going to be read, and miracles are happening. It was so cool. I feel so blessed to be apart of these miracles!

Love y'all! have a great week!

The church with Chopins heart in it! Crazy huh?

Want to enjoy Poland while I can...

Hey fam!

I think these are going to be quick emails from now-on... I'm getting pretty close to the end, and would rather spend my time seeing poland while I can instead of sitting in a library! I'll tell as much as I can when I get home, but I'll just give you the generals. 

MLC this week. All in polish. Pretty awesome. it's more of a counsel... so we just get together with the zone leaders and sister training leaders and talk about the mission and what the missionaries need. The Spirit leading the conversation in those meetings is incredible. 

We had a pass-off meeting with Ania. President asked us mission-wide to let sisters teach women and let elders teach men... which is hard because we have some really cool women who have huge potential. But we had the meeting and it went really really well. 

The Szczecin elders were with us for a quick exchange after MLC. Those Szczecin trains are ridiculously long, so they had to catch a train the next morning. It was really fun to spend some time with Elders Fetzer and Garrison. Unfortuantely we got flaked on all of the meetings that day, but that's okay! haha. 

Ziem... This guy is like 83, but looks and acts like he's 45. He was in the Green Berets.(gift of tongues understanding that one). He is super prepared, has bene reading the book of mormon since we gave it to him last week, and wants to prepare for baptism for the 12th of November. So we're meeting tomorrow again. Miracles. 

We taught english class as usual, as well as had religion course afterwards. It's awesome to be bold with people and invite them to Christ. 

Krz... We felt like we needed to meet with him again, even though he hasn't progressed yet. We ran into him miraculously a bunch, so I'm not surprised that there's things to be done! We felt the spirit strongly, and just went for it. He's a strong catholic, and we felt like we needed to get him thinking. It was so cool, and so amazing to see that we could be really really bold, and talk about really deep subjects with him, and that the Spirit was able to do what it needed to. It was epic, and he definitely saw some holes in his thinking. 

Friday we got flaked twice, but then had 2 really good meetings at the end of the day. Clara was on the lessons with us, and things went so well. Bog and Ana are our genius brothers, and I love them to death. Just trying to help them get to church. 

Bra isn't doing so hot. He feels like he needs to "go another way". He's rebelling against what he's felt and knows. We're going to meet again this week and see what he needs.(other than the Spirit and possibly a good conk in the head) :) love that guy. 

Yesterday we met with a guy from the Middle-East. We're not going to say any names here if you get my drift.... but he was epic. He brought a friend, and we had one of the boldest lessons of my mission. We testified of Jesus Christ, of the restoration, and of the prophet Joseph Smith. The Spirit was there so strongly. It was so cool. The problem was... Elder Cowley and i are just speaking polish 98% of the time... so we were teaching this lesson, and polish just started to come out a few different times and it was super embarassing haha. i'm not going to be 'that guy' when I come home that somehow forgot how to speak English haha. 

That's that. I sure love you guys. Have the best week ever!