Random Pictures from my mission in Warsaw, Poland.

Office Elders in the Poland Warsaw Mission

No time again...

No time. Again. ha Sorry about that. This will be the last time though, I promise! hahahaha.

• Exchange this week with the other elders
• Got some of the last changes done on the Poland-wide english system
• had a LEGAL Adventure at midnight this week driving all the way across warsaw and back.
• I'm ready to come home. I feel good about the service I've given, and am just trying my best to finish strong and have no regrets. 
• we're going to all of the zone trainings this week in poznan, warsaw, and kato. We're doing a mini-exchange in Łódź in the middle of that. Then I get home and saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, adn wednesday we're packing with meetings to meet with everyone I can, and to make sure elder mulder knows all of the investigators that he hasn't gotten to meet yet. We don't have a free second, but I LOVE THAT. Missions are good, but they're hard. I love you guys. 
• See you in 11 days..... see you soon.

Only have time for the HIghlights.... Area Authority visit, etc...November 21, 2016

Hi. 

Great things happening. No time. We are so busy, and I have 8 minutes left to email because they're kicking us out of the library. 

Everything is really good. Working like dogs. No time to eat or study usually. It's awesome. Having lots of fun, and getting a ton done. Starting to feel real that I'll ACTUALLY make it home one day. We'll see. I'm still thinking I'll wake up one morning still in my first transfer, and realize that everything was a dream. It's good though. 

Had an exchange. Visiting authority from the 70(President Johnson) who is in the area presidency. Elder Mulder and I got a personal interview with him.

English system going well. We teach all of the mission leaders about it on thursday. 

Exchange with elders ashworth and dooley. Lots of fun. 

As a side note, our meeting with the Area Authority was great. 

He was awesome. He had a lot of really nice things to say. He had spirit strong. It was really cool to see. He just sat me and elder mulder down and told us what a great job we're doing, and how impressed he was with the way we are carrying ourselves. He also complimented our polish and said that he could tell, as well as president turek had mentioned that our polish is really good. It was awesome to meet with him, and to hear him speak to all the missionaries. So cool. The church is true, and President Johnson is getting added to the list of my heroes. 

Finishing strong and having NO REGRETS!!

Another week down. I've been realizing that the fact that we're so busy is actually the answer to my prayers. I've been praying so hard that I would be able to finish my mission strongly and have no regrets and finish the work I needed to do here. We've been so busy that we don't have time to eat, or work out in the mornings, or actually have real p-days haha. We get a few hours today just to let y'all know that I'm still alive and that everything is well, and then it's back to the grind! good things are happening. 

This week was crazy(as before mentioned):

It's a little hard to remember what we actually did, because I'm looking back in my planner and realizing that our plans got shot(as usual hahaha), and we just got done what we needed to do that day, and didn't look back. Good things.

Monday: We went out and saw the national stadium, and went up to the... lookout point...(???) i guess at the top of the stadium. It was super sweet to get to see the whole stadium and be there. Childhood dream *check*.

Tuesday: Fixed a bunch of problems that popped up, and tried to get some studying done, and had district meeting. It was a good day. We met with our Ukranian peeps and taught them english, and about the gospel. They're great. Had dinner at the train station(or rather didn't have dinner), as we picked up Elders Fuhriman and Kriser from Wrocław. We had an exchange with them from Tuesday night until Thursday morning. 

Wednesday: Got up really early and played some soccer with the other elders in the district, and the Wrocław elders. It was super fun. Elder Fuhriman is originally from Ukraine, and balls pretty hard. we had a good time trolling the other elders. We had a good exchange with an english blitz at the college, some studies, a fantastic meeting with Klara at Nowy Świat, and then got flaked on a meeting directly after that. We did a bit of planning for zone trainings this week, and had a lesson with Agnieszka Ilnicka at the chapel, and she taught us how to speak polish. 

Thursday: Got the elders off to their cities, had some lunch, and worked on changing the english system. We had a meeting with Ren... at Nowy Świat, and it went really well. She's awesome, and we're just trying to help her get to church and trust God. Taught english after that, and got home in time for Elders Bebel and Garrison to come in for an exchange from Poznań.They're both bros, so we had a super fun time out on the grind. 

Friday: It was independence day, so centrum wasn't safe at all... which means that we spent a ton of the day out on the streets away from the center of the city, looking for people to teach. It's been cold as flip the last weeks, and it snowed almost every day, so that was pretty tough, but Elder Bebel and I got it done, and had a good time while doing it. Found a Browning store(biggest surprise of my mission), and taught a cool lady on the street who told us essentially had the gift of divination or discernment or something. Didn't know what to think, but she was open and pretty cool, so that was great. I conducted Bart's baptismal interview over at the Warsaw II chapel. He was ready, and the Spirit was there strongly, and that went well. Then I went out with Elder Garrison and we had a meeting with Andrz... and An.... They're so ADHD it's awesome haha. I love them, and we just have to work really hard to keep them focused. They gave us this nasty drink from Belarus that Elder Garrison was having trouble finishing(haha). He also wasn't smart about the speed at which he was eating this roll thing we were given, so he got another one, and was trying to make them give me another one too so that I would suffer with him. I won :) We read an awesome chapter out of the Book of Mormon, and it was a good meeting. Came home, and sat out in the cold because the other elders took the bus the wrong way and didn't realize until they were all the way at the end of the line... and they had the house keys. So that was fun. We had a good talk though. I love that guy. 

Saturday: The elders got themselves off to the train station, and Elder Mulder and I had a meeting with Jan... He was the investigator from Szczecin from my first mission that had a baptismal date while I was there. He just walked into English, and invited us over. We met with him and his friend, and they are coming to play soccer with us early saturday morning. It's a great opportunity to talk about the gospel and not scare them away. Then we went to english class and had a good time. We were waiting to hear back from our investigator that we were going to be having a meeting with, so we stopped in and got some warm food on the road while we could eat lunch that day, and ended up getting flaked... but while there, we english contacted two girls about coming to english class, and ended up having a super long conversation over lunch. They asked us out to a museum afterwards, and I realized that the whole "missionary" term hadn't made it very far with them. But maybe they'll come to english class and hear the gospel and give it a chance. We're just going to keep our distance haha. Came home and god some studies that we weren't going to get, and then went and taught our Ukrainians. It's interesting. We felt like we really really  needed to teach them english, and sometimes I wonder if it was just the Lord giving us an opportunity to try out our english system on them before we put it into practice next Thursday with all of the district leaders, zone leaders, and sister training leaders. We've been working on it non-stop... but there's still SO much to do, and we have every second of the next week completely filled already... which means that we might not get much of a pday next week as well, as we try to finish up everything monday night until wednesday morning. Pray for us. It's a big project, and we've gotten so much of it done, it all just needs to come together now. We need a miracle or two or three or four. (P90X joke).

Sunday: Church went really well. Mar... came to church, and finally set up to meet with us on Wednesday(elder mulder will be with someone else at the meeting, because we have another exchange this week). We also had Józ.... at church, and he wants to learn about family history and genealogy, so we set up a meeting for wednesday in a week and a half. Miracles. Hopefully he wants to learn about the gospel as well. Met with President late that night and worked through ideas about the english system, and zone trainings, and mlc(mission leadership council) stuff. It was fun, and good to see the Turek's. 

Today we got groceries for the sisters because Sister A broke her foot and Sister Dekker dropped a drawer on her toe... so they're about as homebound as you can get. They're great, and have just had the worst luck in the world the past few weeks. Pray for them! Then we got together with the other elders and practiced a song because we're going to be singing in sacrament meeting on sunday. We get a few hours here to relax, and then we meet with the ukranians, and then go pick up elders ashworth and dooley for our exchange this week. After the exchange, there's a zone training on Thursday, and an MLC with President Johnson from the european area presidency. That'll be good. 

Pray that we don't get sick(ain't nobody got time for that), and that we'll get everything done with this english project, as well as the next upcoming projects. We'll need it! Praying for y'all! Love you!

Elder Q

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!