Week 16

Holy smokes....this past week was full of tons of travel, again, but even more than usual...

On Wednesday we headed to Warsaw for District meeting, which we have permission to travel to once a month. Had a great meeting, always tons of fun and uplifting. I had the show and tell this week, so naturally I decided to show everyone the coin that I carry around with me all the time, and why. It is a really cool double sided coin that my Dad also carries with him all the time, it helps us to remember each other and to always do our best to be like the 2000 Sons of Helaman. They all thought it was pretty cool, which it is :D Then at the end Elder Thomson had been assigned the game, so he took the game "Tower of Flour" and warped it...into something else... He kinda combined it with Simon Says... He had a plate full of flower, and had buried a gummy bear somewhere in it. Who ever lost at Simon Says had to get the gummy bear without hands. It was fun, we all had a lot of flower on our faces after that! Then we had some scurrying about to get food, then we headed home. As we were approaching the door my companion started reaching for his keys...then the next pocket.......another pocket.............only to come to the terrible realization that he didn't have them... We thought maybe they fell out of his pocket on the Bus, so we hurried to catch a bus to the station and find that bus. On the way there we called everyone we rode with, and found that the keys were in the Assisstant Presidents car... in Warsaw... We were looking at about 5 hours of travel to go there and get the keys again... not a good plan. So I suggested we call the land lord and maybe he could let us in. It worked! We got in and spent the night, got up the next morning at 4:30 to catch a super early train to Kielce where we had set up with the land lord there to finish my legal work. But as soon as we locked the door, and slipped the key into the mailbox, my comp realized he had forgotten the phone on the table... so now we are without a phone and going to be traveling all over south Poland today. Got to Kielce, had a great grill with the Elders there for lunch before our meeting with the land lord. We got all we could done with my legal work, but apparently we will have to return, yet again, in order to pick up my card. Ugh. Then it was off to Warsaw from there to pick up the lost keys. After our 3 hour train ride there we headed for the Chapel because we figured that would be the best place to find someone. We found everyone lol, they were all there for institute. But no one could give us a ride to the Office to pick up the keys until way later. Eventually that happened, I was able to play some badminton with the members and investigators for a while though, tons of fun. After we finally had the keys we headed for the Dworzec to check train and bus times. After we got there we soon came to the heart wrenching discovery that the last train was at 9:20 and the last bus at 10:00 it was 10:10.... UGH. And of course we have no phone... so we go to the Holiday inn right next to us and ask to use their phone to call the ZL's. We spent the night with them.

Friday Morning we got home and crashed. We were so exhausted from all that travel and stress... Later that day we had a meeting with Beata Gładun, great meeting where we talked about inactive members and who is safe to try and reactivate. The Gładuns are also having some trouble with one of there boys, who seems to have no goals or ambitions in life. We tried to give them advise but lets face it... we aren't parents... so we told them to pray about it :) like good missionaries!

Saturday morning we had finally set up a meeting with investigator Mariusz, who we haven't been able to meet with for about a month. We got to the chapel around 12:00, when we told him we would be there. He hadn't set up a solid time with us yet, but said he would text or call, which he always does. We waited there for about 4 hours... he never called, and wouldn't respond to our calls or texts, we think his phone is broken again, we were really hoping to meet with him then. After that we headed out to meet with a member who can't come to church due to back problems. Gave her the Sacrament and I practiced a short version of my talk for her. It was on Sabbath Day Observance and the Armor of God. I thought it was pretty good :D

Sunday I had to give the whole talk in Sacrament meeting! I was so nervous, it was my first full length talk in all Polish. I quoted True to the Faith a couple times and 3 scriptures. I got lots of compliments on my Polish afterwards and everyone seemed to like the talk so thats good :) Afterwards, my companion gave a great Sunday School lesson on the Christlike attributes found in "Preach my Gospel" the members all really liked it.

Monday we had finances as usual... Then for Family Home Evening we decided to try and teach our members how to sing. It was a very interesting experience... One of the two people that came showed up an hour late... We tried to teach them how to sing High on a Mountain Top. We sang it a couple times, then Basia, the one who was late, started asking all these questions about the music... We tried to teach her, but she is a really simple person and didn't quite get it. Then she wanted to know how to conduct, so we tried to teach her that too, but it was difficult again. She ended up being able to kind of conduct 2/2 time but not really. It was funny because she would always pause on the longer notes, she didn't understand that the conducter always keeps going and that the music follows the conducter, not the other way around. It was a funny night and really tested my companions patience with her. I thought it was really funny, she is always so curious about everything.

Then today (i'm writing this a lot later than usual) we were able to go with the rest of the Warsaw Zone to Kazimierz Dolny, a small town about an hour away from Lublin. Elder Thain is here with his family right now and so they were with us as well. The city is absolutely gorgeous! I have lots of pictures that I hope to get uploaded soon. (I can't do it right now because the computer doesn't have the program I need and I can't instal anything...) It was really cool and the weather was so beautiful! We were all sweating in the humidity and sunshine! It was great! I am so happy that the weather is nice here now :)

Well, that is pretty much it for the week. We are in a super big hurry right now to get to the English class! We are definitely going to be late, but hopefully we don't miss the whole thing!

-Starszy Taylor