5 Feb 2015

Thursday afternoon we had a mission office meeting with President and Sister Edgren, the APs and the office elders.  Before the meeting started, Pres. Edgren took Elder Jaeger into his office and talked to him for about 20 minutes.  After our meeting, Pres. made reference to some changes happening and he would get back to us.  So we learned that Elder Jaeger would be leaving the office and Elder Guthrie would be taking his place.  So now it's going to be more interesting in trying to train someone else, and especially since he hasn't done any legal work for anyone else.  But we will make it work.

Also, on Friday, one of the elders hurt his back, so he had to come into Warsaw for an MRI and Pres. and Sister Edgren were out of town.  Monday, we had a full house at the office.  We had the APs, the office elders, the elder with his back hurting, another elder that came in to get some legal work done and Elder Guthrie trying to learn the office routine.  It really was quite comical.  And I was trying to finish up with my lesson for FHE.  Somehow it all ended positively.

So for FHE, I planned on teaching the Allegory of the Olive Tree.  Jacob 5.  I had everything done to teach them and even had some pictures, so that I could explain it better.  We had 17 people there.  It was awesome!  Most of them went to the room ahead of Wayne and me,  We waited by the front door to make sure that everyone was there.  When I entered the room, everyone stood up. I didn't know what to think.  Then they started singing the Polish birthday song.  I just started to cry.  I can't express enough how much these people have become part of our lives.  They had some gifts for me also.  These people that don't make any significant amount of money did that for me and Wayne.  They are the ones that have taught us how to be more Christlike.  They sacrifice so much for the gospel.  Here is a picture of our little group. 

Sister Kuchar, Zdzislawa, Basha, me, Wayne (front row):  Standing right behind us is Elzbieta, Jadwiga, Dominika, Ewa and Barbara.  Standing behind them is: Sisters Moncur and Pauga, Godfrey (very back), Stanislaw, Iwona, Sister Simkins, Kazia, Stan, and Andrezj.

I tried to teach the lesson, but they just couldn't grasp the symbolism and things are just not the same when you translate from English into Polish.  We struggled through to just after the master had visited his garden for the 2nd time and I called it quits.  I told them we would finish next week, but I don't think so.  We'll have to plan something else.

On Sunday, during Primary, everyone was wound up.  Sister Pogorzelska got through the lesson, but singing time was a disaster.  I did manage to have the twins stand still long enough to take their picture.

Sister Edgren bought these matching dresses for them.  Ewa and Helena.  Cute girls but quite the handful!

We did get some measurable snow last weekend.  This is outside of the chapel.  And of course, by Wednesday it was gone.

This is the front grass area of the chapel. 

 Elder Guthrie has been picking up everything quite well.  We will leave the office in good hands.

I mailed two boxes home with things in it that we have bought for ourselves and people back home.  The first box made it and the second box didn't.   And of course, the second box had most of the gifts in it.  So it's off to the stores to see if we can find what we found before.  The post office here said we could file a claim and get our money back for the shipping, but I didn't insure it, so everything else is just lost!  Oh well.

See you all next week.

We love you and miss you all.