27 Mar 2014

A few things from last week that I forgot to say:

First of all, our grandson Alex was called to the Peru Lima Mission.  He will be leaving July 15th.  And second, our son Robert and his wife Michelle are having a baby boy in July also.  We are excited for both of their families and wish we could be there to celebrate with them.  They are always in our prayers.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIM ON THE 31ST AND TRACY ON THE 1ST.  WE HOPE EACH OF YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!

Last Saturday we had our Poland-wide YSA meeting at the mission home.  There were 19 in attendance and it was a good meeting.  Lots of things got decided and committees were formed to help in preparing the event.  Sister Edgren, Sister Jarosc, Sister Roulstone and I prepared dinner for them.  The meeting lasted from 4:00 to almost 10:00.  It was conducted all in Polish so we lost somethings in translation, but everyone knows their job now and what needs to be done.  Here are a couple of pictures.

Patrycia (on the floor) is the Chairman of the Committee.  And Wojiech is over the institute classes.  In the picture also is Sisters Edgren and Tueller.  This was some pre-planning.

This is almost everyone.  We were discussing the schedule for each day.  

Now they were in their separate committees several things.  It went very well and Wayne and I were very tired.

On Sunday we had a surprise birthday party for Elder Brown.  During the past couple of weeks, we have been telling both Elder Brown and his companion Elder Smith that we needed their help with our computer.  Last Friday, Wayne called them during their planning time and asked if they could come over on Sunday.  So we brought them home from church and Elder Brown was really surprised.  He had no idea.  We had French Toast, bacon, eggs, strawberries and whipped cream.  It was fun.  Wayne had to drive them back to the church though.  No buses on Sunday.

Elder Smith is helping make the French Toast.

Here we are at the table.  We gave Elder Brown some little cars.  He sure is a cute kid.

And we sang "Sto Lat" to him also.  

I think when we get home, I am going to make Wayne take me out every meal for a while so that I don't have to cook!!!!!

Monday night we had a treasure hunt for FHE.  We talked about obedience and how when you are obedient, you are happy.  At the end of the treasure hunt was some ice cream bars, which made everyone happy.  I made some cream of chicken soup, bread and some cake for dessert.

One of the men that come is Stanislaw, who was just baptized in January.  He is a very wonderful person and he works very hard at trying to learn all that he can about the gospel.  Most of the people here in Poland don't have a Bible, so we would bring one with us from the office so that they could read the scriptures that we would use for the lessons.  Wayne and I decided to give Stanislaw the Bible.  After dinner, we had Elder Brown tell him the Bible was his.  He almost started to cry.  It was very touching.  When we were all ready to leave, he came up and hugged me and thanked me.   That took me by surprise, but I actually hugged him back and said "prosze bardzo".  (you are very welcome)  It was a very good night.

We have a new Senior Couple coming in May.  They are the Kowalskis.  His family is originally from Poland, so they are very excited to be coming here. 

I think that's all for this week.  We have Missionary Leadership Council on Thursday.  Another busy day - but at least no cooking!  (I have to complain about something)

We love you all and miss you.

20 Mar 2014

Joshua - Happy 21st Birthday on Monday!

Hope you all had a Happy St. Patrick's Day.  I took some sugar cookies to FHE on Monday.  Wayne made a shamrock pattern out of cardboard and I cut around it on the dough.  Then of course, I frosted them with green frosting.  No one at FHE knew why I made Shamrock cookies.  I had to explain it.  We also had some fun that night.  We talked about "Putting on the Whole Armor of God" and how we need certain things to protect us from the fiery darts of Satan.  So we gave everyone a egg, two plastic cups, two napkins and two rubber bands and told them to make something that would protect their egg if we dropped it from 10 feet.  They really had fun doing it.  But we all kind of made the same thing.  We wrapped the egg in the napkins, stuffed it into one of the cups and then cut the other cup down and stuffed it in the first cup.  We then used the rubber bands to hold it all together.  We each climbed the ladder in the gym, (Wayne had put down a plastic bag in case one really got messy) and dropped our eggs.  My egg broke, but all the other eggs made it through.  But I'm glad one egg broke so we could talk about what I didn't do to protect my egg enough.  I forgot to take pictures.  It was really fun and made the point.

Last Saturday the two branches in Warsaw got together and celebrated the Relief Society Birthday.  We really had a lot of fun.  Lunch was excellent and they had a little program also.  Then we made little rabbits out of a wash cloths.  Here are some pictures of that. It was a long day for Sister Roulstone and me.  At 8:00 am, Wayne and I were picking up Sisters Tobler and Mikalauska to take Sister Tobler back to another doctor's appointment.   (We had taken her Friday night also and spent about 2 hours at the doctor's office)  Sister Tobler was doing chin-ups on a bar in the door frame of her apartment and it fell.  She landed on her head and has been having headaches and numbing on her left side.  On Saturday, all they needed to do was to do a blood test.  Then on Monday, Sister Edgren had to take her to another place to get an MRI.  Meanwhile, Sister Roulstone went to the church at 10:00 am to play the piano for a meeting that was being held by our Area Authority - Elder Adler.  After we took Sister Tobler to the doctor's, Wayne drove me over to the chapel so that Sister Roulstone and I could prepare part of the luncheon for the Adler's and others attending the meeting.  Sister Edgren had prepared everything, so all we had to do was serve it.  For the Relief Society celebration, the 1st branch was in charge of bring salads, so I made a raspberry jello with cream cheese and whipped cream and everyone really enjoyed it.

Here's the flowers that were put throughout the room.  Poland has beautiful flowers and there are flower stands on every corner.

And here's everyone that came.

Here are some of the sisters enjoying the meal.

Here is our branch president's wife - Sister Jagard, Agnieska (can't remember her last name) and Sister Dresler (she's over the history center in our chapel)

Here's the cake they ordered for the birthday.  It was beautiful, but very bland.

And here we are - Sister Roulstone and me with our cut little bunnies we made.

We really had a fun time.  Wayne and I had to bring Sister Edgren home because President Edgren had taken Elder Adler and his wife over to the Marriott and Radison Hotels so he could choose which place the "all-Poland Saints" meeting would be held when President Uchtdorf comes in June.  After we got home at 4:30, we rushed over to the store to buy some things for the week and then back over to the office to help the AP's with some work they had to do.  I think we got home about 8:30 and once again we were dead tired.  

Since we have been in the office, President Edgren has brought paperwork over from 4 people who want their names taken off the records of the church.  I then send a letter to them that states that there will be no action taken for 30 days.  If within that time, they change their minds, they can let us know.  I have sent the paperwork for 2 of the people to Salt Lake City already.  They will be removed from the records of the church.  That's one of the sad parts of working in the office.  

By the way, Sister Tobler found out that she had a couple of discs in her neck that were out of "whack".  But the doctor said it wasn't from her fall.  The doctor told her that it happened some time ago and that the fall just aggravated it enough that it caused the headaches and numbness.  She has to go to physical therapy for a while.  

Well, that's it for the week.  We love you and miss you.

Pa pa (means goodbye)

13 March 2014

Happy Birthday Michelle on Saturday the 15th

Happy First Birthday Anna on Sunday the 16th

Everything was back to normal on Thursday at the mission office.  We did get 2 brand new cars and turned in two of the older ones.  The church won't let any of the cars get over 80,000 miles on them.  So Elder and Sister Jensen got a new car and they gave their car to the AP's.  The AP's car is being sold to one of the sisters in our branch.  All of our cars are the same in this mission.  They are a blue Opal Corsa.  So you can tell when the missionaries are coming.

We also started getting things ready for the new Senior Couple that will be coming in on Tuesday.  We had to buy cell phones and a new GPS.  And then get all of the paperwork ready for them to sign.  They will be assigned to Warsaw II Branch.  Elder and Sister Jensen will be leaving Warsaw and going down to Krakow for the remainder of their mission.  So here is a picture of our new Senior Couple - Elder and Sister Roulstone.  They are from Canada.

By the way, we were able to get some Panchi's so we could show you what they are.  These are the donuts everyone eats on Fat Thursday.  And then we cut one open so you can see what's inside.  

Not a lot of filling.  The decoration on top of the Panchi let's you know what kind of filling there is inside.  

Sunday was a beautiful day here in Poland.  In our branch we had a baby blessing.  This is Bogdan and Yulia Moszczynski with their brand new son, Christian and their twin daughters - Ewa and Oliwia.

He is the Elder's Quorum President and she is part of the Relief Society Presidency.  Wonderful family.  The girls didn't want their picture taken.

They announced in Relief Society that we would be having a celebration on Saturday for the RS Anniversary.  We are going to hold it together with the other branch.  So there should be lots of women there.  

We had a wonderful FHE on Monday.  It lasted for 2 hours.  We showed the DVD - The Lamb of God (in Polish) and then had them look up some scriptures in the Bible about the life of Jesus Christ and then we talked alot about the resurrection.  I didn't cook dinner, just brought a treat and no one seemed to mind.  So I decided that I would only cook dinner on the first Monday of every month and bring treats the other days.  I think I will be able to handle that arrangement a lot better than cooking most of Sunday afternoon. 

We also learned that our grandson Alex has had his mission paperwork in to the Church for about a week.  We are very anxious to see where he will be sent.  

Another week gone.  The AP's are helping President with our next transfer, which will be on the 16th of April.  We will be loosing 5 Elders and getting 5 new Elders on the 15th.  One of the Elders going home is from Australia.  It is fun listening to him speak with his accent and the polish words.

Anyway, we love you all.  We miss you.  We love being here in Poland and serving the Lord.  We love being among these young missionaries and watching them teach these people about the gospel.  It is true!

06 Mar 2014

HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY, SARA!

Hope you have a wonderful day on Saturday

Thursday was FAT THURSDAY in Poland.  It is always the Thursday before Lent.  Anyway, this is the day that everyone eats "Panchis".  They are a filled doughnut.  They are about the sized of an orange.  We tried to get a picture of one, but everyone was sold out.  So the missionaries try to beat the record in the mission which is 37.  You have to eat them in a 12 hour period.  This year one set of missionaries woke up at midnight and started eating them.  They would eat 3 of them at once and then rest for about 45 mins.  One of them ate 38 panchis.  It was Elder Anderson.  He is one of the skinniest missionaries we have.  His companion got sick after about 20 of them and stopped.  Now Elder Anderson can go home and tell everyone that he is the king of Fat Thursday.

Friday when we got to the office, our Zone Leader called me and asked if I had heard about the changes to the zones.  I said I hadn't so he started to tell me the changes.  The President wanted to make some of the districts smaller.  So he split the Warszawa Zone into 2 Zones and made 3 more districts.  So all of the work I had done last week, I had to do over.  (President and Sister Edgren came into the office at about 3:00 in the afternoon and Sister Edgren said the president told her on Thursday afternoon that he thought Sister Durrant didn't have enough to do.  HA HA!)  And then the ZL told me that I would need to plan the food for Zone Conference which would be held on Wednesday.  After the changes in the Zones and Districts, I was the only Senior Couple for our Zone.  All of the others have 2 or 3.

So Saturday it was off to the Renik - I needed to buy our youngest granddaughter Anna a present - and then over to Makro to buy some food for the Zone Conference.  While we were on the Renik, they were just beginning a bike race.  We don't know how long the race was, but there were quite a few people there to race.  We tried to get a picture of most of them.

We pass by this statue every time we go to the Renik.  And we finally got a picture.  This is Poland's Lady Liberty.  This statue is a monument to the heroes of Warszawa from 1939 - 1945.  

So after shopping at Makro, we did our weekly shopping.  I decided to just have sandwiches for FHE on Monday, because I knew I would be cooking all night on Tuesday.  I made a carrot cake on Sunday to take to FHE also.  It tasted pretty good.  

So now comes Monday and I get a call from Sister Jensen who was in the Warszawa Zone with me, but now she's in one of the other zones.  She tells me that the President made some more changes in Lodz and that there are 2 more districts.  So Monday was spent making more changes.  I think I'm done till next transfer.

Tuesday night I started by making some homemade rolls.  I can only make one batch at a time because I only have one pan I can bake them in.  I put them in the oven and they looked beautiful.  When I took them out and put them on a rack, all of the bottoms were burnt.  I really hate the ovens here!!!!!!  And while they were cooking, I decided to make a jello salad.  It turned out to be like glue and I thought I had ruined it also.

I started to cry and said I didn't want to do this anymore.  I was really feeling sorry for myself.  Especially when I had to cook everything for the 18 missionaries, plus President and Sister Edgren and nothing was working.  After about 20 mins of boohooing, I decided to whip some cream and put in the jello.  It actually turned our pretty good. I put the pork roasts in the oven and baked them.  I know the Lord felt sorry for me and decided I needed some things to work out right.  I guess that was my almost year mark meltdown!

Wednesday's meeting was awesome.  President Edgren is just wonderful and sure knows what these kids need to hear.  Wayne and I were in the kitchen most of the time, but we did get to hear a little part of the conference and the testimonies.  Best part of the whole meeting.  So here are the missionaries in Warszawa I Zone.

In the back row is Elders Garfield, Raines, Fogg, Smith, Brown, Kimball, Garcia and Retallick.

Middle row is Waszkiewicz, Rittmanic, Jesperson, Stumpf, Wolfley and Wilson.

And the awesome Sisters are:  Whiteley, Stratton, Hemming and Owen.

I guess everything turned out alright. And after we cleaned up and sent the missionaries on their way, we held our English class.  Only two people showed up, but we had an enjoyable time.  We played "Bananagrams" after we read our story.  They really had fun playing that game.

It's been a wonderful week, despite everything.  We really do love being part of the Poland Mission.  We still can't believe we're here in Poland sometimes.  

We love you all and miss you.