Week 49

Okay so I still haven't gotten around to posting those pictures but I should be posting them sometime this week. I have been really busy doing a lot of other stuff in the week and I figured that today I would just write a bunch of the stuff I have done here in the Office :D (Mostly in the past 2 weeks...time is blur here)(And there is no inherant order here either...just as I remembered them)

When I first got this computer it was a mess, and because I am weird...my brain is only as clean as my computer files are...so I have been itching to format this computer and then we suddently got in the mail and installation disk from the church for Windows 7 :D The very next thing I did was ask president if it was okay for me to put windows 7 on my computer he said it was fine and so I backed up any important files and wiped the whole hardrive!!! :D That was the easy part lol. I then proceeded to instal Windows 7 from the CD supplied by the church. The first couple times it got stuck at installing the actual Operating System image... I let it run all night thinking maybe it just took a long time... the day after I learned it only takes about 30 mins lol. So I finally got the Operating System installed and as it was trying to instal all the church programs it got stuck again...so I just figured I could instal those on my own. Which wasn't too much of an issue until I got to Microsoft Office...which needs an activation key... After a couple calls to the Global Service Desk I got it all running and everything was great :D

The way the internet was set up here in the office we had to use some dumb program called Odyssey in order to view and connect to the signal here. Which was fine and didn't cause too many problems...still made no sense to me and I couldn't figure out why it had to be that way. After I had installed Windows 7 on my computer I called Global Service Desk to find out why odyssey wasn't working nicely on Windows 7. Turns out that even if I had been even better at computers than I already am (I'm working on Humility okay...) I still wouldn't have been able to fix it because Odyssey simply isn't compatible with Windows 7... And then I very quickly learned that there is this other way the router can be set up that would let us access the Wifi (LDSAccess) simply using Windows built in interface to connect. When I heard about that I just about flipped out and started asking myself why on earth it was ever set up any other way... The tech guy on the phone agreed with me fully :) we then spent the next 3.5 hours working on rescripting the firewall and setting up the router to broadcast the new network. I also had to move my whole computer to the other room where the router box is due to some very strange ways Polish people design buildings... and I wouldn't be able to unplug the router box in there without going to the floor above to do something...and we don't have a key to there...ya no sense...anyways...I moved my computer :) I have pictures. After lots of working on it we finally got it all working and set up how Salt Lake thought we had it set up (Don't know why it was the other way to begin with...) So now our internet works a lot faster, we have less problems, all computer will be able to connect now when I put Windows 7 on them and the kicker! I was able to finally hook up President's iPad to our wifi here at the office :D He was pretty much ecstatic when I told him I would be able to do that and it scored me major tech points in the office :D So now he officially asks me about all things technical for the most part :)

I have a lot more things to write about but am now out of time for today. I will try and write some things each week about what I did in the Office recently and hopefully we will find time to meet with some investigators soon...it is tough in the office and was impossible over the Holidays... So hopefully soon, but Elder Darowski and I are really working hard to kick this Office into shape since it was recently kind of neglected so that missionary work could thrive more for the office...which is great and all...but the Office kind of needs to work or the whole mission kind of suffers. So we are on a bit of clean up at the moment...

Until next week! Have a Great New Year!!!

-Starszy Taylor

P.S. I posted this a week late...I actaully typed this last week just didn't click the post button...lol

Week 48

Well... it has been a crazy flurry of business in the Office here especially over the holiday weekends. And unfortunately I am totally exhausted right now because we have just spent most of the day driving to and from Białystok to drop off baggage for an Elder out there. So i'm pretty beat.

Christmas was great, especially being able to talk to my family at home :D and between Wegilia (Christmas Eve Dinner) and all the food we ate on Christmas I was absolutely stuffed...as in I ate more food than I ever want to see again. And of course, I have pictures that I should hopefully be posting soon, since last week should have been blog but got offset because it was Christmas Day. So I have a bunch of pictures that need to be uploaded now, including a couple movies from what I recorded last night for Sylwester (New Year's Eve) The movies really say it all...it was quite an event, nothing like I have ever seen before.

We are staying busy here in the Office, I am still helping everyone out with their computer problems and all is well :) It was really sad to say goodbye to the last group of departing missionaries because I have so many friends in that group. Our Mission is sooooo young right now. About 52% of our whole mission is at about 4 months or less in the Country and about 90% at about a year. It is insane. There are only 6 Elders in the whole mission that have been here longer than my group! Crazy huh. Well, I gotta get to uploading those pictures and also to fixing my computer, I am installing Windows 7 on it, but the instal disc is scratched...so I have some things I have to fix...of course :)

Love you all and have a Wonderful New Year!!! Życzę wam szczęśliwego nowego roku!

-Starszy Taylor

Week 45

Whew... you'll never believe what happened to me this past week... I got transferred... ya... AGAIN!!!

On Thursday night I got a phone call from President Nielson and after asking how I was doing, he told me that I had to have my bags packed and be on one of the first trains out of Wrocław on Monday morning... I was in complete shock. He called at like 10:20 and I couldn't fall asleep till like 3:00 it was insane... one of the biggest shocks of my mission, I was totally hoping to stay in Wrocław at least for 2.5 more months! So now the question you are all asking is "Well where is he going to then?" President told me that I would be going to Warsaw to be an Office Elder!!! Which was a shock and also not a shock at the same time. My whole mission people have been predicting the Office in my future because I work really well with computers and can solve lots of problems that come up in the Office. (And in my short couple days here already I have solved plenty of problems and am working on getting everything running and connected right :D ) It makes sense for me to be in the office and I am truly grateful for the opportunity to be around computers again, even if I am just doing mission stuff on them, computers are just that awesome :)

I am currently in a threesome with Elder Torke (he just got told he is going to Poznań in a week) and Elder Darowski (My MTC companion! We are back together about a year after our last time together) We are doing well, we all get along fine, and Elder Torke is almost as excited to get out of the office as I am to come in :) I will also be driving again now! Which is fun. This also means that my second Polish winter will be spent mostly indoors or in a car!!!!!!! Which I will not complain about one tiny bit :D

Being in the office also means that I will be able to get any mail sent to the Mission Office instantly :) which is awesome. Here is the new address for anyone who cares:

Poland Warsaw Mission
Ul. Wiertnicza 135 I Piętro
02-952 Warsaw
Poland

And also the DearElder service still works while we are in Poland, and those all come to the mission office as well :) I am right at the hub of everything right now.

We have a couple people we are teaching right now, and we actually get member referrals here so it should be awesome. I will start to talk about them more after I have actually met them and kinda get my feet set in Warsaw. If I am here as long as normal Office Elders are, I should be here till about May or June. Did I mention I am looking forward to a Winter indoors!!!

I uploaded a couple pictures the other day and they should be on the website if you would like to check them out.

http://picasaweb.google.com/football80

Everything is going good :) Looking forward to Christmas here in a couple weeks, should be great. I hope everyone is happy and having a good time.

Until Next week

-Starszy Taylor

P.S. My P-Day is on Saturday now, only because I am an Office Elder though :) So expect these updates on Saturday now, not on Tuesday :)

Week 44

This week had its upsets but also some great things happen, so lets see if I can get it all typed out before I run out of time again...

We had a meeting somehow set up with Jenny, the one who lives in Legnica, for Wednesday, but when we got out there she had just barely received a call reminding her of a meeting she had to be at right then! Bummer... so we didn't get to meet with her at all, which was too bad cause we had a great lesson planned and were going to extend a baptismal commitment. This next week she is getting married so we will have to wait about 2 weeks before we will be able to meet with her again.

Then on Thursday we had a pretty much AWESOME Thanksgiving Dinner in Poland :) I have pictures so don't worry. We had tons of food and it was all really good. We even got Szczepan to show up for all the free food lol. He enjoyed it. After all the food and we were totally stuffed we sat down and wrote out things that we were thankful for in the people in our district. It was cool. After that we were suppose to have a meeting with Gosia, our other investigator, but she texted us earlier saying that she didn't have classes the next day so she would be going out to visit her family a day earlier. Bummer... But we still had English class and that went well. I let Elder Sheridan do pretty much all the teaching this time because he always seems like he wants to but even though he prepares tons he seems to get stuck and not know what to do at parts, so normally I just come up with something on the spot to keep things going, and it is always pretty good. But ya, they stopped him midway through teaching some position prepositions and said they would like to first learn how to read english lol. So I suggested he teach the alphabet, but he started going into every vowel sound...which is a joke in English, so I stopped him and suggested we read the Book of Mormon in English, and all the students practically jumped at the Idea. It went well and we were able to give them some polish ones as well because they were curious what they were reading. I thought it went over quite well :)

And then finally the amazing day came of Ania's Baptism. I don't really know what to write other than it was fantastic, everything worked out quite well, nothing terrible happened :) Elder Allred baptized her in a pool that is near the chapel. They got a ride from the Moons (Senior Couple here now) and the rest of us walked from the chapel where we started the meeeting and had the talks. Ania had asked all 4 of us missionaries to split the topic of baptism between all of us, which we did and it worked out alright. We got to the pool and they got all changed and ready. I was asked to be one of the witnesses for the baptism which I had never done before, but it wasn't too stressful lol. All we had to do was make sure everything was done the write way :) And of course it was. Afterwards we went back to the chapel for closing song and prayer. It was a great day and I hope to be able to see more people come unto Christ through baptism while I am here in Poland.

Ania was confirmed the next day in Church and all of us missionaries were able to be part of the ordinance when she received the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is such a great thing to see someone join the church and find the happiness that comes along with it. Later Sunday Evening we had our normal dinner at Sister Kimballs apartment. It was just us missionaries and Ania this time. Sister Kimball made, yet again, awesome food, this time it was some kind of taco soup, it was delicious. After dinner and helping clean up Elder Allred made Cinnamon Roles for all of us :D they were super good, but take so long to make. Ania and I made these things called "Fairy Cakes" while he was doing that. (They are just really small cupcakes) It was a fun night to end a good week.

Well, that is about it for my time now, but at least I got it all out this week :D

Until next week :)

-Starszy Taylor

P.S. My mother is right, I do <3 comments :D

Week 43

Wow... this has been one heck of a crazy week.

We started off with a Zone Conference in Katowice on Wednesday and one of our Area Presidency Members was there, President Kopischke. He was awesome. He told us we couldn't write down anything he said, only what we felt, and had us write down a question we would like answered during the conference and that if we would listen to the spirit our questions would all individually be answered and in different ways. It was a really cool meeting :)

On Thursday before English we had a really great meeting with a girl named Gosia. She comes to english class and is super nice. She is reading the Book of Mormon and seems to enjoy our meetings and she really listens. I asked her if it would be okay if she prayed for us next time and she said she would practice this week lol. She is great. Right before that though we found out that Elder Hillyard was randomly invited to Warsaw for some extra meeting. So we were in a threesome for a while. We also got to teach the intermediate english class which was awesome because I could actually teach something other than helping them simply memorize some words...

So we are in the first threesome of the week...

Then Friday Morning during studies, one of the office elders calls us and tells us that Elder Sheridan does, after all, have to go to England for legal work reasons. Bummer...kinda wrecked our whole day. So now it is just me and Elder Allred. Later that day we were suppose to pick up Elder Liemer our Zone Leader because he was coming in for an exchange and an interview. We waited at the Dworzec for something like an hour and a half, almost 2 hours for him...his train was 80 mins late...ugh. We got home at like 11:30 and crashed. We are now in the second threesome of the weekend.

We spent Saturday with Elder Liemer doing stuff, for lunch we went to a new place called "City Fries" all they do is sell fries, and sauces, but they have one of the coolest little tray/holder things ever, I will take a picture later. Then we also had the interview later which went perfectly fine. Then we had to yet again travel to the Dworzec and drop him off. Then we waited a bit and we were back at the Dworzec to pick up Elder Hillyard who was finally back from his meeting and exchange. He also found another girl on the Train who seems to be extremely interested in the Gospel as well! Her name is Asia and she plays the Cielo(sp?) She is really cool and super nice. So now we are yet again in a threesome, number 3.

Church on Sunday was great, President Nielson showed up rather unexptectedly for church and that was great, we had 2 investigators in church so that was good for them to hear President Nielson.

And now, as always I am out of time, but at least I was able to sum up all the threesomes I was in this weekend...it was crazy like I said. Hopefully that doesn't ever happen to us again, kinda interrupted everything. Oh well, the work goes on.

Until next week!

-Starszy Taylor

P.S. Happy Birthday Allie!!!! 12 years old!!! Woot!

Week 43

Wow, Hump Day is on Thursday! And we have a Zone Conference on Wednesday. Ja nie mogę wierzyć jak szybko czas może lecieć! Ale wszystko jest w porządku tu, mieliśmy kilka spotkań ostatnio i kilka nowych zainteresowanych. Mam nadzieje że będziecie dowiedzieli się o Google Translator żebyście tłumaczyli to. Poniważ nie miałem dużo czas ostatny tydzień, pisałem karteczką niektóry rzeczy robiliśmy.

Okay, so this is a really long story about 2 of our investigators, and frankly I just don't have time to tell the whole thing, so here it is in a nutshell. This older man named Goerge Contacted the missionaries on a tramwaj, in english lol, he later came to church and we found out he was an investigator from a long time ago and that he lives in a city an hour or so outside of Wrocław called Legnica. After many calls we finally were able to set up a concrete time to meet with him out there. We got out there and met up with him. We had been planning on like a little hour long lesson with him or something, but he had other things in mind. He had like a whole day planned out for us, and so to be nice we just kinda went along with it. His first plan was to take us to meet his fiance Jenny. We headed to her work at a library where she is the librarian and she was really nice and interested in us. We tried to talk to her a bit whenever George was in a different room because whenever she would try to speak to us in Polish he would cut her off and tell her to speak REALLY slow because "they don't understand ANYTHING" which was really funny cause I understand her better than him in polish lol. Anyways, we eventually went back to their house for a dinner they prepared which was really good. After Dinner we got talking, I was talking with George (Aka, keeping him distracted long enough for Elder Sheridan to have a convo with Jenny) He was really upset that the church could put missionaries in a city and then build the church later to pull the missionaries out to watch the church kinda stop functioning there. It took a while to explain to him but I think I got through in the end. Jenny essentially said that it was a miracle that we came when we did and that it was a sign from god that she needs to listen to us because of a lot of things that have been happening lately for her. She said we were always welcome in her home. It was pretty awesome. Later about a week later we went back and had the opportunity to speak to just Jenny, and she told us about a dream she had where her late husband and her parents came to her dressed in white and were about to tell her something very important that they needed from her here on earth, then a text woke her up. We were awe struck it was crazy, we taught her the plan of salvation after that, it was great. Unfortunately we can't meet again until early december because they are super busy with the wedding and stuff, we have to ask president if we can skype with her or not, that would be great. She really likes us a lot and is so grateful and kind, she even said we were like drops of honey to her heart :) which is a really nice thing to say in polish. Well, yet again I am running out of time... and I had like a bajillion more things planned to talk about, I will have to type them up later I guess :)

I will leave a short list of them here if you just want to know what we have been up to :)

Lunches with Szczepan
English party
Sports in the Rain
Wrocław Lacrosse game
Darek
17 points flyers
Museum w/ Ania and Green Way
Allred going to Katowice for Training
Independance Day on the Rynek here
Tracting and lesson with Jacek
Hours with call kids on sunday
Legal work and (Sheridan has to go to England now)

Well thats it for now :) leave in comments anything else you would like me to expound upon :)

Laters

-Starszy Taylor

Week 42

Well lots has happened this week, and my Dad will be so happy to hear the I finally got around to writing most of it down in my Journal. Which is great but also means that I have wiped my brain of it since I know it is written down X_x.. so we'll see

And...now I am out of time....sooooo... I think I will go to writing in the blog every other week so I can plan it out a bit better and get some really good information each post :D

Thanks

-Starszy Taylor