I've never been so cold and wet in my life!

Things we got up to this week. 

We had zone training on Tuesday. The last of this transfer, it was a big one this time round and I'm happy to get it out the way, although it was fun preparing for it and teaching. It was a fairly peaceful day too, we got to the dworzec on time, no running was needed, zone training went smoothly, we had bags of time to get back to the station in centrum, so again...no running was needed. Then we got back to Lublin a bit later than usual, after a nap on the train we went home and had food and went to sleep. 

Thursday we had a bomb Polish lesson with our good friend Magdalena, she's great!

Friday I washed all my clothes, all of them! here in Poland there's no such thing as a drier, so everything is air dried on a rack of sorts. I had to wait all morning for my clothes to dry which meant I was in a towel for the first half of the day haha. 

On Saturday we had a cool day! We had a branch party in the evening, so after studies we went over to the other elders place to prepare 'BOSS MEAL', a meal that was created when we had our exchange with Elders White and McPherson last transfer. If you want the recipe..let me know, it will change your life! Then we were invited to attend another 'Variete' at the Cultural centre, it was another epic show with some solid performances and humour. After that we went to the chapel for the branch party.

Sunday was a cold and wet day! Church was good, a nice service with talks based upon the sabbath day. From 16:30 to 19:00 we went to the end of line #4 and knocked on doors. It was dark and cold, and we were in an area with no street lights, and we had no way of getting home, even if we wanted to as the buses rarely came out here. We made the most of it, trying to keep ourselves motivated. I've never been so cold and wet in my life. I had a race with elder Dooley to keep myself warm and gave him a 30 yard head start, I caught him in no time! So that was my Sunday, not the Sunday I would have had back home. but it was fun I guess.

Take is easy, have a good week. 

My brother Elder Quackenbush

Dworzec Lublin

Dworzec Lublin

Bathroom selfie with DoolMaster 3000

Enos 1:26 - Those who are converted share the Gospel of Christ.

Where to begin, it's been the shortest week of my life for some reason, it's just flown by.

On Monday I treated myself to a new pair of jeans and a black woolly hat. We went to the old town and had a district picture that we'll be printing off and sending home as a Christmas card. So look out for that in the post. 

Tuesday we had a District Meeting which President joined us for. We had no clue he was coming, but it was nice to have him there. It's always good when President Turek is in on your meeting because I always learn something new..this time round I learnt the word 'to float' is ryfować. We weren't expecting anyone, so when the someone called the door it freaked Elder Huffman out, haha. We had a rather frustrating lesson with Bartek, it was good to be there with him and teach and all but the understanding of what we teach isn't quite there. 

Wednesday morning I got a phone call from an unknown number, it was Paweł calling to see if he could meet with us during the day. We met up after studies by Old town, with the snow pouring, and went to a place by the Rynek called 'Szewc' which is the word for 'Cobbler'. They had solid hot chocolate, which was needed as it's pretty cold out now. English class was hilarious, we had a bit of an English language segment and we had a chat, and then came the game..inspired by the video I received from my family of what happened at a family get together. We had to spin around 22 times, focusing on the ceiling, and then try and draw a specific thing on the whiteboard, it was so funny. We were all in stitches, it hurt to laugh and breathe for a short while after. 

Thursday was the day that Elder Sommerfeldt and White came to Lublin for exchanges. It was a bit of an adventure as their train didn't arrive till after 10pm. I guess not very unusual for others, but for missionaries it's so late! We had fun though and a moment where I thought I would have to put my 2 weeks of boxing training from when I was 14 to use, as a man ran up from behind us demanding money. I just talked to him and he soon left as he knew he wasn't going to get his 2zł for beer. 

Friday night we had a movie night at the chapel, a time for people to come and find out more about us as missionaries and as a church. Through the week we handed out over 1000 fliers, and we had 4 people show up. Those 4 people were people we personally invited..sounds about right for Poland. It was a decent night though. 

On Sunday we had a good testimony meeting, we had a lot at church too, there wasn't an empty seat. Myself and Ela took turns with the translating. After Church we went to visit someone in the hospital with Paweł. On the way, something happened that I'm always afraid will happen. A bird took a poop on my head, it was the only bird in the tree and it decided at that moment as I walked under to drop it on me. I was so mad, it embedded itself deep into my hair too. We were far from home, and I had nothing but snow and some tissues to get it out, so I had bird poo in my hair for a good 2 hours. 

That's my week. Here's a scripture for you. 

Enos 1:26 - Those who are converted share the Gospel of Christ.  We have zone training tomorrow.  This is the big one about family history and the area plan that we had the Seventy come down and speak to us about.  The zone is doing really well.  We have so many baptismal dates as a mission though, more than I've ever seen.  


Keep praying for me and I'll keep praying for you.

This is Boris, the Siberian Huskey - he belongs to Pawel.

the boys! Elder Summerfeldt and Elder White - they make me look like a kid

making pizza with Pawel and Elder Dooley

Three Nights in Warsaw

This week has been a strange week as we've not been in Lublin for most of it. From Tuesday night to Friday afternoon we were in Warsaw, getting up to all sorts of things with Elders Quakenbush and Mulder, zone conference, MLC and a wild 5:30AM footy match.

Wednesday morning we were up early, as I mentioned before for the football. We had 8 lads there, we just had a kick about in the darkness. It woke us all up for sure. Walking back I was doing some kick-ups and kicked the ball into a big ditch, some work was being done by the side of the road, so I jumped in before anyone noticed and grabbed it. Definitely a 'laugh at myself' moment. Shout out to Elder Mulder for a solid breakfast. At 9:30 we headed back out for an English Blitz by the University.  I've never seen so many students!  Something we'll start doing here in Lublin for sure. We went back home for studies, can never go a day without studies.   The morning of football wrecked us though, as we all at some point had one of those 30 minute long 'prayers' haha. We had a finding activity with Elders White and Sommerfeldt, Quakenbush and Mulder on Nowy Świat, it's all nicely decorated with Christmas lights and it was full of people.

Thursday, Day 2 in Warsaw and the day of zone conference. We left the apartment around 9:30, Elder Quakenbush and I took the car, as we had to give Sisters Dekker and Andersen a lift to the chapel, they both have broken feet, or something like that. It felt so strange being in a car. I miss driving and having that freedom you know. We had a few assignments to make sure it ran smoothly, but that was it for us. Elder Dooley conducted the meeting. Elder Paul V. Johnson presided at the meeting, and of course, we had President and Sister Turek there with us. The theme of the conference was missionary work. We studied 3 Nephi 11, and a few chapters in Alma, no surprises there. It was a solid conference, followed by a huge Thanksgiving, KFC style lunch. 40 chicken breasts, 80 wings, a whole load of mashed potato, gravy, stuffing, and cakes. After Zone training we headed out as a force of missionaries to the centre of the city where we had a finding activity. 

That night we had 6 lads at the APs place. Bebel and Garrison joined us for the evening as we had MLC the next day at 9am. We got up to all sorts of responsible and safe things. 

Friday was MLC. Present were all the Leaders in the mission, President and Sister Turek, Elder and Sister Johnson. We were also joined by some representatives from 'Family Search', members of the church, from Germany, who spoke to us and taught us about family history. The reason being is that there's going to be a huge push with family history work being part of the missionary work here. There are also going to be new courses introduced to the mission and changes to the way we do English. It's certainly inspired and is going to change the mission.

Sunday was a good day. I had to conduct the meeting at church, which took me back a few transfers to Poznań when I had Sundays on my mind 100% of the time. That experience shows me how much work and effort and love all the Bishops and Branch Presidents put into their service. 

Tracting nights. Human interaction is rare, we speak to a phone most of the time 

Zone Conference

Elder White - 6'8"

I'm there at the back somewhere

Mieliśmy wymianę z asystentami - we took the car out for a spin

Amazing view of Warsaw from Ewa's apartment

Cześć wam.

Cześć wam. Hope all is well. Everything is good here..we've had an eventful week here in the small city of Lublin. 

We'll start with Tuesday.  We had a solid district meeting, full of the spirit and scripture reading. We read stories from the Book of Mormon and discussed what we can learn about obedience from the verses we read. Obviously, we read about the strippling warriors and how they carried out every order with exact obedience, they didn't fear as they knew they would be spared through their faith and obedience. That's how we've got to be!   We had a short finding activity afterwards in which we didn't see any success, we tried though which is what matters. That day Elder Kapela and I had a train to Warsaw as we had an exchange that week with the Assistants, Elders Quakenbush and Cowley. Solid comfy train ride. We got a text to tell us that they couldn't get us from the train station so we had some directions to follow.  We didn't have much time to get there to be in for 9 but that wasn't a problem. We stopped for cheeseburgers which is a must.  Then we saw Elders McMaster, Connelley, Byrd and Blackwell in the dworzec grabbing a snack. Elders Byrd and Blackwell are new in the country.  Elder Blackwell says.."you sound like an Ozzy. where you from?"..not for the first time has someone asked me if I'm Australian..must just be my Americanised English! We managed to get to the apartment though off Elder Cowley's directions - kind of a miracle really. Chatted for a bit and chilled out.  I love being around other missionaries, especially when you're good friends with them. 

We woke up the next morning and worked out to the sounds of a Warsaw member reading the Księga Mormona. In a way it was motivating. I always eat a 100g packet of rice before working out, Cowley and Quakenbush thought it's a bit strange.  I just tell people 'you don't look as good as me without eating rice at 6am'. We had pancakes made by Elder Quakenbush and then we hit the studies. Elder Cowley and I had a lesson straight after with some cool guys from Ukraine,talked about prayer and the sabbath day. We went home for lunch and had some chicken curry and then had a finding activity at what is known to missionaries as the fish bowl. This place is by a park in centrum, and is an entrance to 3 different underground metro lines.  So many people pass through there so it's a good place to hand things out and talk.  It's kind of round shapes which is why it goes by 'fish bowl'. Both Warsaw districts and us were there so there was a decent number of us.I spent most of the finding activity with Elder White, he's a new trainee.  I got to know him and we had a good chat about things, he's a funny guy. The evening was cool, we went for Kebabs in centrum with a less active Member.  It was a beautiful evening, perfect weather, good vibes. 

Thursday we travelled home, we got home safely with no train problems this time. We didn't have long before we started the next exchange with the Elders here in Lublin. We went home, we had lunch.  I worked out and cleaned, and then we packed new clothes and headed over to the other Elders place. I was so buzzing to be having another exchange. That evening we had a finding activity and just chilled and chatted, spoke about the exchange and what we wanted to achieve. I worked with Elder Huffmann on Friday and we had a blast. We got on a bus and went out pretty far to visit a former investigator.  He lived on a nice plot of land in the countryside in the fields. Polish countryside is so beautiful, just rows of fields and farms, cherry trees and cornfields, they grow just about everything here. We had to sprint back to the bus stop which was a while away as the buses weren't too often and we had other plans. We just about made it though. We went to visit a less active member who lives in a bit of a sketchy part of town. Of course, we had a fun experience which involved a really drunk lady. We got off the bus to see here a lady saying 'proszę pana, proszę pana'..I turned around and saw a lady hanging on to the bus stop with all her strength, now I thought she was blind as she was kind of moving her head around and her eyes were all over the place, turns out she was just hammered but,  too late I'd already gone to see what was up. She grabbed on to me and could barely stand so we walked her a few feet, she wanted us to walk her home but we had no idea where she lived. We told her to sit on the grass but she wouldn't, so we kind of let go of her and helped her slowly fall to the ground. We called her husband and he came for her.  We just looked at each other afterwards in unbelief. Strange experience. The less active person wasn't home so we went back to the chapel for a bit. the best bit of the day happened at the end of the day.  We were walking down the street, it had been a long day, heads down and then all of a sudden, I just heard a bang, Elder Huffman had planted his face into a street sign haha!  It was hilarious and cracked me up so much - we were in stitches. He bruised his nose too. I'll remember that story, hopefully forever. 

On Sunday we didn't have church, there were no church services across Poland as the Temple in Germany was being re-dedicated.  Every current missionary and those returned missionaries will know how long Sunday was without a church service. Just think of having to find an extra 4 hours of activities to fill the day. 

We tracted all night and had no success, just people shouting at us from their windows, we had a guy come down from whatever floor he lived on in this block just to tell us we're not welcome and attempt to throw us off the door step.  Just a taste of what Alma and Amulek and the Sons of Mosiah experienced.  We have a long way to go.

Take care, do some good and I'll speak to you all next week! 

Warsaw