Weekly Email - February 12th

Hello,

Today is Sunday February 10^th. So let me tell you about our week. We just finished our weekly report calls.

Monday we didn’t do anything big. We went shopping and that was it. On Tuesday we went to zone training at Katowice. We met up with the Kielce Elders and took a bus together to Katowice. It was fun to visit with them on the way over. The zone training went really good. The APs were there and they presented and so did our zone leader. They all did a really good job and we talked about contacting and using a different way for the initial approach. It will be fun! Then after that we returned back to Krakow. As soon as we got back we went to the Chapel to help one of the sisters in the branch. It was fun, and only took us about 20 minutes. After that we went to Ws house for an appointment. His grandpa was there too. We had a nice visit.

On Wednesday we went to help W. In the afternoon we had English class. J was there and we had a good English class. I was so sad because J has been going to school here in Krakow and he has decided to return back to his home. I was able to give him 2 Books of Mormon’s one in English and one in Polish so that he can translate back and forth. We invited him to institute for the next evening and he came. M was out of town so we missed him. We also met with S and taught him about tithing and fast offering. I struggled with the language through our lesson with him.

Thursday was awesome because it was fat Thursday. So on fat Thursday you buy donuts and eat as many as you can because it is the day before lent starts. So you just pack on the pounds. Elder S ate 15 donuts on fat Thursday; we figured that we could meet that record. So in the morning we bout 15 fruit filled donuts each. We ate a few in the morning went contacting had a few more for lunch, did some more contacting and then ate some more and then we finished them after institute. We had a great lesson and J was there. Brother U was really impressed with J. I’m sad that J is leaving. Institute is New Testament this year.

Friday

We had weekly planning and then we went to a place and had New Zealand style burgers. It was the best burger I’ve had. They put beets and stuff in their burgers. After that we did contacting for 3 hours. Elder S stopped a man who said he would be happy to listen to us. He was catholic, but has an open mind. We set up an appointment with him for next Saturday. He was really cool. After that we started walking and someone behinds starts speaking English to us saying “you are Mormon’s aren’t you”. This woman was in awe that she found some Mormon missionaries. She was just amazed. She said that her mother-in-law is Mormon. It was out funny experience of the day.

Another cool thing that happened is we watched this couple starting to build a snowman, we were actually planning on helping them, but we didn’t have time. We thought they would just build a regular snowman. When we got back there what they made was a gummy bear looking snowman. I’m sending along a picture. It is way cool.

Today is also the day after fat Thursday. I didn’t gain too much weight and nothing bad happened to me.

Saturday we had to be at the chapel to let T in to the chapel. We had brought a sack lunch to eat at the chapel. We spent some time talking to him and he was really nice. He was there to clean the chapel. He also told us some places we should go and visit. Then we walked him to his tram. We then went contacting.

Today we went to church and I talked at church. I gave the talk in both Polish and English at the same time. We had 2 investigators at church today. After church we had a lesson with S. President K sat in on the lesson. President K answered a lot of questions S had and they moved the baptismal date to February 23^rd. It will be after transfers so we don’t know if we will be here. That is kind of sad because I would love to be here for the baptisms. After that we had dinner with the Us. Their little boy is hilarious. He is just learning to talk, but he was talking up a storm. We shared a spiritual thought

3 Nephi 12:15-16

 15 Behold, do men light a candle and put it under a bushel? Nay, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house;

 16 Therefore let your light so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

We thanked the U’s for being such great examples to those around them. They really are great examples in the branch and to us.

My talk to day was about free agency. It’s hard because I have to dumb it down because of my language skills. It is not very common that they have the missionaries’ talk, so Krakow may be my only opportunity to speak at church. We don’t have a lot of resources other than the scriptures and the Liahona.

It’s been a pretty good week. It was really good to have some time with J this week. S is doing really good. I’m excited for his baptism. I’m taking my vitamins everyday, except I stopped taking garlic, vitamin B and vitamin C because one of them was making me sick. So I left those behind in Lodz. I take the other ones though because they don’t make me sick. I try to drink enough water; I always have chapped lips, thanks for getting me so much Chap Stick. If I forget one day my lips are all chapped the next day. It’s been snowing every day this week.

I hope you had great birthdays. Oh, I forgot to tell you, they are filming a movie rights outside our apartment. We can see it from our window. They have replaced the signs in front of a store across the street. They stopped us the other day as we were on our way back to the apartment. They said we couldn’t be there and we told them we live right here. So we had to wait 15 minutes before they would let us enter our apartment. They left all kinds of stuff there so I’m sure they will be back.

Next Sunday is transfer calls. So I may or may not be leaving Krakow next week.

I love you all. Have a great week. Have a great Valentines Day. Give heart, and candy. On Tuesday is Ostatki “pancake Tuesday” and then on Thursday is Valentine’s day!

Love you all and I will talk to you later,

Brian

 Here is our weekly picture of Elder Godwin with Anja.

This makes me sick, but he actually ate 15 of these in 1 day. He claims he didn't get sick. I'll have to believe him.

 He looks happy and proud of himself for embarking on this Polish tradition.

 Here is the snowcat that a couple made right by their apartment.

 Here they are ready to enjoy their New Zealand burger. I will have to read up on these. They look delicious.

 Here is a picture from the apartment of the film crew. I wonder what movie they are filming.