27 Nov 2014

This is going to be a very short posting today.  Wayne and I want to wish everyone a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING today.  We will be eating with the missionaries.

Saturday was our 45th wedding anniversary.  We had to go into the office for a few minutes on Saturday and this is what we found.  The APs are so thoughtful.

Well, our experience of running the mission kind of went kaput on Sunday.  At 4:00 pm, one of the elders called us with very bad pains in his lower abdomen and couldn't stay out of the bathroom. And that he was bleeding.  So we went to pick him up and took him to the hospital.  (I had just started a batch of cinnamon rolls - they were rising and also a french toast casserole for FHE) 
The hospital did some preliminary exams and said they needed to keep him in the hospital overnight.  I walked home while Wayne stayed at the hospital with the elder and his companion.  I called the mission president and told him what was happening.  Of course he wanted to know why they were keeping him and all I could say was that he had a bacterial infection in the lower intestines but they did see something else on the ultra sound.  (The rolls were over-flowing the bowl by now)  We had the APs come and pick up the companion and Wayne came home.  It was about 11:30 when we finally got to bed.

Also, the president said he would be flying back to Poland on Monday.  YEAH!!!!!!!!  No Sister Edgren though. 

We went into see our sick missionary early in the morning and they told us that they would be doing a colonoscopy later on that day.  I tried to ask them for all the test results (finally got through to them what we needed).  We came back to the office and sent the test results to Germany.  We also learned that President's plane was delayed for 5 hours in SLC.  So we won't see him now until Wednesday. 
We went back over to the hospital at 2:30 to stay with our elder and wait for him to come back to his room after his procedure.  About 5:00 pm the doctor finally came in and told us that they find anything, but they would put him on antibiotics for the infection.  I don't know why they didn't do that in the first place.  During the short time we were at the office, I received three other calls about missionaries going to see a doctor.  This is really no fun!

Last night, we made four pies and bought a turkey breast.  We will cook those in the morning.  Then when we got to the office today.  Our internet wasn't working.  We waited until 11:30 am to get it fixed and it was a short fix.  Thank heaven.  So here I sit at the office doing this blog. And I am done.  Gota get abck to work.

Once again, have a great day.  Love you and miss you all.

20 Nov 2014

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN AND GARRISON

Megan will be 9 and Garrison will be 12.  He will be ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday, the 30th of November.  We love both of you very much.

As I said last week, it was Zone Conference on Thursday.  A sister from the branch helped with the food.  Her name is Lisa Kosanovich.  She was one of our speakers at the YSA conference this past summer also.  Anyway, I wouldn't have been able to do it without here.  Here we are.

I cooked 8 packages of ground meat for the elder to put on their tacos and we ran out.  I felt really bad.  But everyone got at least one.  They just filled up with the cheese, tomatoes and olives.  

With President Edgren gone, we were wondering how the AP's would do.  They did a fantastic job and the spirit during the meeting was wonderful.  

Here they are trying to get everyone together for the picture.  It gets really crazy.

And here's the outcome.  

The sisters thought they were cute!  So we have starting from the left - Patty Dabrowska (visiting - she's preparing to go on a mission), Sisters Montesinos, Woodward, Kuchar, Poklinkowska, Benson, Tobler, Moncur and Smith.  Then the second row - Elders Hon, Blom, Summers, Larsen, Solmes, Campora, Wolfley, Garrett, Owens, Retallick, Taylor.  Top row:  Elders Swicegood, Park, Pieper, Berlin, Waskiewicz, Garcia, Hardy, White, Boyce, Wride, Jaeger, Wright, Torres, Guthrie, Jourdan and Fotu.  Pretty awesome bunch.

During the afternoon meeting the elders pictured below sang "Come Thou Fount".  They sang wonderfully.

Elders Retallick, Hon, Garrett, Jourdan.

 Here's pictures of the other zones.  We only have 66 missionaries right now.  Sure hope we get some more soon.

Katowice Zone:  Sisters Petersen, Slagowska, Holden, Bak, Lillywhite and King.  Elders (2nd row): Swicegood (AP), Weggersen, Allen, Jones, Gibby, Meherg, Fotu (AP).  And the back row:  Elders Coutu, Wilcox, Richens, Wynne, Remy and Lanterman.

Bydgoszcz Zone:  Sisters: Owen and Simkins. Elder and Sister Gay, Elder and Sister Shaw, Sisters: Grgich and Wood.  2nd row:  Elders Swicegood, Jeffs, Weiler, Burdick, Kimball, Quackenbush, Taylor, Hubbard, Fotu.  Top row:  Elders Sidwell, Fogg, Caskey, Anderson, Garrision, Platter, and Whiting.

When President and Sister Edgren flew home they didn't want anyone to make a fuss over them and they really didn't want it to be like a reunion.  But that didn't happen.  One of Sister Edgren's friends threw a party for them and had most of the missionaries there.   (Those that have gone home)

So here they all are:

I will have to think of all their names and fill it in later.  But Sister Edgren is doing fine and hopefully, they will be back soon.  Elder Dyches has called us twice just to see how things are going.  No major problems so far.

Wayne taught the Priesthood lesson this week.  He had to have one of the missionaries help him.  But all went well and several of the brethren came up to him and told him he did a wonderful job.  

We went to the office after church and met the Office Elders there.  We had to get all the paperwork complete for legal work.  I fixed dinner for them and took it to the office.  After we got done with everything, we watched "Ephraim's Miracle".  It was a very good movie.  I know I shed a few tears.  

I was in Primary, helping again.  The kids were much better this week.  It's hard when you only have 3 or 4 kids.  And two of them were children of an investigator.  But they listened and seemed to enjoy being there.

We really love it here.  We love the people that come to our FHE and that we see in church each week.  They all are faithful and strong members of the church.   It will be sad to leave them.

So have a good week.  We love you and miss you all.

13 Nov 2014

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY KAYLEE!!!

On Friday, Wayne and I got a call from Elder Timothy Dyches.  He told us that Wayne will have the same authority as President Edgren while he is gone, but if anything major comes up, we need to call him immediately.  He told us that he would call again every week until the president returns.  He said he knew Wayne would be able to handle any situation that may come up and he gave us his blessing.  It was very humbling to hear the council he gave.

We had another baptism on Saturday.  Volodymer from the Ukraine was baptized by Elder Wolfley (our office elder).  It was a wonderful experience.

Here is Elder Jaeger, Volodymer and Elder Wolfley.

During the meeting, three of the elders sang.  They always sing without accompaniment and do a wonderful job.  What a wonderful spirit it adds to the meeting.

Elders Retallick, Jaeger and Jourdan.

Sunday we went over to the Mission Home to meet with the President and the APs.  We talked about Zone Conferences which will be held on the 12th, 13th and 14th.  The APs will be in charge of the whole thing.  We went over everything that will be discussed.  Our APs are awesome.  President told us he feels kind of disconnected right now, even though they haven't left yet.  Sister Edgren had prepared some soup, so we stayed for dinner.  During dinner, she asked Wayne to get 175,00 zlots to Elder Meherg in Wroclaw.  The Edgrens had been in Wroclaw on Wednesday and had taken the missionaries out for breakfast.  While they were eating, the president would take one of the missionaries outside and interview them.  Here in Poland, they don't bring the check to you until you ask for it.  So everyone was sitting at the table for about an hour while the president was with each missionary.  When he got done he came inside and and asked Sister Edgren if she had taken care of everything she needed to.  And she said yes.  So everyone got up from the table and walked out of the restaurant.  President and Sister Edgren got on a train and headed for Poznan.  When they got there, the President asked Sister Edgren if she still had his credit card and she realized right then that they hadn't paid for the meal.  They called Elder Meherg and asked him to go back to the restaurant and pay the bill.  The restaurant had filed a report with the police and they were looking out for our missionaries.  They were very impressed that we would come back and pay for the food.  Sister Edgren was very embarrassed.

We decided to have Tacos for the missionaries on Thursday for Warszawa's Zone Conference.  Wayne and I went to Makro (like Cosco) after FHE and spent $200.00 on food.  We didn't think that was bad.  It figures out to be about $5.00 per missionary.  During FHE we played Pictionary and everyone got way competitive and almost fighting about which team got the points.  I decided to make it a tie game.  No one won and no one lost.  It was really funny to see them get so upset about who yelled out the word first and who should get the points.   

Tuesday was Independence Day here in Poland.  We went into the office till 12:30 pm and came home.  Nothing was going on.  We walked over to the Summer Palace to see what was happening.  There were lights and music and a whole lot of people.  It was kind of neat what they did.  They had a light show on the one side of the palace.  Can't explain how they did it, but it was very cool.

We got notification last week that one of the elders coming to Poland in February 2015 is a boy from our home Stake.  I sent him his welcome letter and wrote a little note on the side.  He is excited to be coming.  His group will be the last group of missionaries Wayne and I will welcome into the country.

Here's a picture of our office elders working hard.

Elder Wolfley and Jaeger

We got a surprise package in the mail on Monday.  It was from Sister Roulstone.  She sent some vanilla and chocolate chips and zip lock bags for me and some licorice for Wayne.  Very pleasant surprise and much needed.  She knows what you can and can't get here in Poland.  

Came home last night and started cooking for Zone Conference.  I think I bought way too much food.  Oh well, we'll just give it to the missionaries to take home with them.  

Well another week.  All the stores have Christmas things out.  And they are starting to put up the lights on the streets.  We're trying to find some turkey for Thanksgiving.  They have lots of duck, but I don't like that.  We'll see what we can find.

We love and miss you.

6 Nov 2014

Wayne and I bought some little candy bars to pass out just in case some of the kids in our apartment complex came "Trick or Treating".  No one came, so I took them to the office for the elders to eat.

It was "All Saints Day" on the 1st.  This is a big holiday for the Polish people.  This is the time when they all go the cemeteries and decorate the graves.  We walked over to the cemetery close to our apartment.  It was beautiful.  We went during the day and then again at night. Here's some pictures.

This is the part of the cemetery that has the victims of the Uprising during WWII.

Anyway, on that day we got up to go grocery shopping and forgot it was the holiday.  All the stores were closed.  I did have some things at home that would last us through the weekend, but all I could think about is cooking for FHE.  We would have to go early Monday morning and make something before we left for the office.

On Sunday, we left earlier because Wayne had a meeting with the Branch Presidency at 9:00 am and then after church they met, too.  We didn't get home until 3:30 pm.  But our Primary President asked if I would help in Primary.  I got to play the keyboard for music.  All I played was the melody, but they loved it.  And Sisters Poklinkowska and Kuchar taught the songs.

So Monday morning we rushed over to the store to get some potatoes, carrots and hamburger.  I was just going to make meatloaf in the crock pot and put the vegetables in there too.  We went to Carrefour down the street from the office and got everything I needed, except they didn't have any ground meat out yet.  So we ran over to another store and they had some out. I just grabbed six packages and checked out.  We came home and started to put it all together.  Wayne peeled carrots and I peeled the potatoes and then I got the meat and started to form the meatloaf.  Problem - I didn't buy hamburger - it was ground pork.  Good thing it wasn't duck or something like that.  But I made it anyway.  We took the crock pots up to the office with us and plugged them in.  It sure smelled good.  And everyone loved it.  They kept going back for more.  We talked about choices and consequences.  One of them said that the Prophet didn't have the opportunity to make choices because he had to do what the Lord tells him to do.  WOW!!!!!  I don't know where they come up with these ideas, but hopefully, he left with a better understanding.  We had them read scriptures on the blessings we receive when we do make good choices in our lives.

We went over to the mission home on Sunday to take a package over to Sister Edgren.  They invited us in and President asked us what we wanted to do for the last 4 months we are here.  He wanted to know if the office elders could take over some of our responsibilities.  He told us to think about it and let him know.

Tuesday after work, we walked over to the store again to buy some more things that we needed here at the apartment.  While we were there, President Edgren called Wayne and told him that he and Sister Edgren will be going back to the states for a little while.  Sister Edgren needs to have surgery. He told Wayne that "the brethren" asked him which one of his counselors he would be putting in charge.  President Edgren said that he wanted to put Wayne in charge of the mission while he was gone.  (He only has one counselor right now and he was in a car accident and isn't up yet)  Wayne about dropped the phone.  It really is neat though to have President Edgren tell us that he feels very secure in the way the office is being run and has every confidence in Wayne that he can handle things.  He told Wayne that one of the General Authorities would be calling him and probably do a short interview.  They will be leaving Monday morning.  We told him that we would do our best, but he better leave 3 or 4 numbers where we can reach him!

On Wednesday, we had Elder Lanterman come in from Wroclaw to start his legal work.  He had a 7 hour train ride when he left Warszawa.

By the way, last week I finally bought a Nativity Scene.  It's hand carved and painted.  I don't know how I am going to get the manger part of it home.  It's huge!  It will take up one suitcase by itself.

Our dear friends, Elder and Sister Tueller left Tuesday.  It will be very lonely here in Warszawa without them.  But we hope they are enjoying their family once again.

We love you and miss you all.