30 May 2013

Wayne and I decided to do some sightseeing on Friday (24th), but before we left we had to do a few repairs at the elders and sisters apartments.  Both of their showers leaked and trying to get the landlord to fix something is very difficult.  So we went and bought the tubing and decided to fix it ourselves.  Here is Wayne fixing the elder's shower.

So about 9:00 am we left for Swidnicy to go see the Kosciot Pokoju (oldest all wooden church in Poland).  We put the address in our trusty GPS and headed south.  It was a beautiful church.  It was started in August of 1656 and the first service was held in June of 1657.  It is built completely of wood, sand, clay and straw.  Here are some pictures. 

 

The church can hold up to 7500 people, 3000 of whom can sit

This is me, sitting all by myself.  Wayne was shaking because it was really cold in there.

 

Here is the altar where the priest conducts the service from.

 

Here is one of the three organs they have

 

This is one of the paintings they have on the ceiling.  It is of God and Jesus Christ.

 

Here is the baptismal font.

 

The pegs that you see are the actual wooden nails they used

 

 

All around the outside of the church is a cemetary.  Most of the headstones were down on the ground or broken.  It needs a lot of work before the grounds look nice.  We walked through some parts of the cemetary and found a headstone that had the same name as our Elder Stumpf, so we took a picture for him.

 

 

On Saturday, we had the baptism of Cynthia Call.  Since she was 11 years old, they count it as a convert baptism.  Almost everyone in the branch came.  It was awesome!

 

 

Here is Sisters Bezdjian and Blake, Cynthia Call and Brat Kotlinski.  They had to rent the whole swimming pool for an hour.

 

A little side note.  Wroclaw is known as the city of gnomes.  They are all over the place.  We will have to start taking pictures of them and put them on the blog every once in a while.  Anyway, here are quite a few of them in front of one of the government offices.  They usually aren't all together like this, but this one is fun

 

They even had some in the swimming pool area.  Here is one fishing and one swimming under the water.

 

So President Nielson comes to all of the baptisms in the mission and of course, he was at this one.  While Cynthia was getting changed, Pres. Nielson asked Wayne and I to come talk to him.  First thing that ran through our mind, was he was going to transfer us to Katowice, because the couple that is there right now will be going home at the end August.  So he just wanted to prepare us.  But that was not the case.  He assigned us to be over next year's YSA conference which will be held in Poland.  This year it is being held in Slovakia at the end of July.  So he is sending Wayne and I there to be observers.  He will put another couple on our committe to help us and then the other 4 countries will add YSA's to our committee.  So the other countries besides Poland and Slovakia are the Ukraine, Czech Republic and Hungary.  He is giving us a year to plan the week long conference.  We are very excited and scared.  What a wonderful opportunity the church gives to these YSA.

 

On P-day, we went bowling with the elders.  The sisters chose to rent some bikes and went over to Catholic Island.  Anyway,  here I am.  I'm sure I just threw a strike!

 

 

 And here is Elder Smith.  He just threw a gutter ball.  He didn't do too good.  I think his best score was 45.  But on Tuesday all of us had aching arms and legs.

 

In the same place as the bowling alley, they had a children's play area.  This horse was out front of the place and of course, boys will by boys.  Here is Elder Stumpf proclaiming the gospel on his white steed!

 

Tuesday, the Sisters asked us to meet them at the chapel to help with a discussion.  It was a "No Show".   So Wayne went on home and I went with the sisters to a couple of less active members apartments.  We met the sweetest woman and her husband.  She doesn't come because she has diabetes, her apartment is on the 6th floor and there is no elevator in the building.  And let me tell you, I wouldn't walk up and down those stairs either, if I didn't have to.  Very old and scary.  But they fed us some soup and we will probably go back and visit this Friday.  We went to another apartment to talk with Thomasc, but he wasn't home.  His son let us in to wait for him and the sisters taught him the first lesson and even got him to kneel with us and he said the prayer.  I was amazed!

 

Wednesday was our English class.  The sisters had to catch a train to Katowice for training and didn't think they would have time after English to make it to the train station, so they asked us for a ride in the car.  Normally, we walk to the chapel which is about a mile away.  We left the apartment at 4:30 pm.  Class starts at 5:00 pm.  It took us 45 mins to get to the chapel.  Traffic was horrible.  I now know why we walk alot.

 

It's been rainy and cold this week.  Not the spring weather I was thinking we would have.  I missed going to Manti, to place flowers on my parents graves.  And also Provo, for Wayne's parents.  But Jeremy and Heather went down and so did my two brothers.  Here's a picture of Manti cemetary and my awesome brothers.

 

 

And one last thing.  I thought our car was small!

 

Miss you all.  I can't believe it's June!