Another week rockin' the boat

Hello all, I hope this electronic mail finds you well. I am happy to report back on the happenings of the week.

I finished reading Jesus, the Christ by Talmage, along with my Book of Mormon studies. That was a great read, Talmage really does an amazing job at expounding on the biblical and historical life of Christ, and the events surrounding the Atonement. I think you really begin to gain a deeper understanding of what he went through and how it applies to us as you read that book and he clarifies a lot of the more abstract ideas of the bible. So that was a very enjoyable read.

You will be happy to know that I got the list of family names from Grandma Masza, I copied them and gave a copy to R (our branch mission leader, and close personal friend). He is helping to look through some archives to find as much information as he can. He also gave a copy to a woman in the branch who does a lot of written church translations into Polish. We will see what comes of that research. I am going to Radegast today so hopefully I will find some names in the transport lists...

Brother & Sister T are leaving us for the states, and a new senior couple will be moving in. They were greatly appreciated, they gave us a Sunday dinner every week and took us out to eat on multiple occasions, they gave us rides and anything we needed pretty much. They will be missed here in the Łódź branch..

The other Elders in Łódź have a baptism this week for R, a blind 20 something year old man. He is really cool. He sings and plays the flute or bongos in a band comprised of handicap young people with anything from blindness to sever mental difficulties. They help raise support here in Łódź and R is the bomb. He took right to the gospel when Elders T and N were here and he has an unwavering testimony already.

I am beginning to be able to converse more in Polish, I am understanding quite a bit, sometimes it is hard because you understand the words they are saying but you miss the meaning of what they said because they phrase things so differently. I am still weak in the talking department and all of the grammar that I know gets thrown out the window when I try to talk to people.

Here in Poland, we have a hard time using the title "brother" and "sister" and someone's last name because in Polish culture, once someone tells you their first name, you are in their "circle of trust" and you should call them by their first name. If you don't know their first name then you call them Pan (sir) or Pani (misses) and refer to them in 3rd person. And whenever you give a command to someone in Pan or Pani form, you always say niech and soften the command which means "let the sir/misses do ____." for instance, the command "stand up" is "stań" and if you are saying it to a pan or pani it is "niech pan/pani sta". Very confusing, but cool nonetheless.

We were tracting out an apartment the other day. We ran into a guy who immediately let us in without even asking who we were. His grandma just passed away days ago and he is living with his grandpa (not an uncommon thing here in Poland), and he wants to find some spiritual help. I figure there is no better place than the church of Jesus Christ. So we set up with him to go back tomorrow and teach him.

Congrats to Alison on here little baby boy.

I have to go to write the Pres... I hope you are all doing well, I am glad to hear that work at grandma and grandpa's house is progressing, I hope that that moves along quickly and as painlessly as possible. I love you all, make sure Erik checks his email. I have to go, bye!!!

p.s. I may mail home a couple of SD cards, not sure yet, I have it all backed up on hard drives so it is very safe. I am hoping to get a package off this month by boat which may not be there till January for all I know. wish it luck...