Poland Express: 18 July 2013

Wayne went out with the Elders last Thursday to search for the "Less Actives". Once again, they didn't have any luck. It looks like Pres. Cielinski will be putting quite a few names in the "lost" files of the church. Once Poland joined the EU, everyone was free to travel from country to country and a lot of the people left Poland because of its depressed state. Anyway, we have two baptisms coming up in our branch, so that is GOOD!

Friday, we took off and went to visit a castle.

This is the Zamek (castle) Ksiak

It is the third largest castle in Poland. It was built at the end of the 13th century. The Hochbergs had it for 3 centuries. A part of the castle was reconstructed in the 18th century. That is the pink looking part out front. Here are some pictures of the interior.

The stairs are the original. The walls have been re-marbled.

I can't remember where these stairs led to, but they had all kinds of little corridors running throughtout the castle. It would have been very easy to get lost.

This room was used for receiving guests and great dinner parties. The fireplace is the original. (That's not me in the picture)

This is the ceiling of that room. They took many years to restore the painting.

This fireplace is in the sitting room of the Duchess. They have not done anything to this fireplace. It was made from pink marble and it has a lot of cracks and pieces missing. But they gave the duchess the best, because on the interior of the fireplace are stones which held the heat for a longer period of time.

These next pictures are of the gardens and the back side of the castle.

All I can say is: it was huge. We spent over two hours in the castle and only saw 23 of the rooms. When you entered under the main gate (below) it was almost a mile to the actual castle itself. For as far as the eye could see was castle grounds. During the war, the 3rd Reich confiscated the castle and used it for one of Hitler's headquarters. They removed all of the furnishings and built tunnels underneath which is still a mystery as to why.

Monday morning we went shopping and it's still amazing what we find. I was looking down the milk isle and in the cooler section I saw a small carton that I thought was cream for whipping, so I bought it. But it was cottage cheese. I was shocked. So now I buy one everytime we go to the store, because the container only has two servings in it. Also, we found a huge park here in Wroclaw that we now go and do our exercising in. Wayne walks and I run. On Tuesday we went there for an hour and we didn't even cover the whole park. There are lots of people walking, running, biking and strolling their kids.

We held lessons this past week with the elders and sisters. One was with Roman and the other with Lucyna. They are both of our baptismal candidates. They are both ready, too. Roman has some kind of problem with his feet so the elders are trying to find him some white shoes he can wear. We suggested that he could wear socks, but he said they wouldn't work. It's hard to find a pair of white shoes.

During District meeting, Sis. Ellis (she's only been here for 3 weeks) said that she just didn't feel like she was doing anything and that she didn't have the spirit. Does that sound like the devil was working on her? We all tried to make her feel better. One of the last things that Elder Smith told her was: "it's not you or me, it's WE" Even Wayne and I felt that way after a couple of days. We wondered why we were here and what we were supposed to do. But that passes after you get totally engrossed in the work. And we know it will for her, too.

Well, it's time that we go. Here's a nother couple of gnomes. Have a good week. We love you and miss you all.