June 9, 2008..leave the key under the mat

Alrighty alrighty.. twas a week for the books .. eh not really nothing too exciting went down. I went on exchanges with my mission hero and future partner in anesthesiology (man if i cant even spell it i dunno what im doing trying to become it) ... elder wood. It was a life changing.. step back an reflect -ing exchange. We lit up warsaw. Rather, Wood lit up warsaw and i sat back and beheld his pure mastery of both Polish and Spiritish in a combination that only future General authorities use with such ferocity and gentleness. So it was good, a lot of people listened. We taught english that night and then had a lesson with Andrzej. oh andrzej.. we went into the lesson wanting to kind of go back to the basics a little bit with him and throw in some word of wisdom. It ended up being a 2 hour question answer session with Andrzej drilling elder Wood with all these questions that didnt really have much to do with the big picture. It's just like you said in your email dad he is looking beyond the mark for sure. Wood answered most of his questions but andrzej still had concerns that really nobody can quell or answer. He is still reading the book of mormon though so cant complain there. He came to church yesterday smelling to high heavens of cigarettes. ive had to dry clean both my suits this transfer because i smell like smoke all the time.. speaking of which...we had interviews with pres engbjerg this week and after hugging me i could tell he was a little uneasy then when i pulled out my planner to let him see it, my lighter fell out of my pocket. The rest of the interview we talked about the dangers of addictions and how they effect our ability to teach with the Spirit. Actually it was a way good interview, he really is an amazing man. he builds missionaries up like noone else.

K so we have this room/office thing that we rent out on this street called nowy swiat.. its downtown warsaw and we rent the room as just kind of a place to have meetings with investigators because our chapel is a little out of the way for most people. There are about 20 missionaries in North Warsaw that use the room.. theres only one key. (it opens up like 6 different locks so it costs like $200 to copy) So after Deuel and I had interviews we had a meeting with a potential down there at the nowy swiat room... the elders that were using right before us couldnt hand the key off to us becuase they had to jet to the other side of warsaw for a meeting.. so i was like 'ah just leave it under the rug'

alright alright before you all start jumping to conclusions about my decision making skills .. ill have you know that missionaries leave it under the rug all the time.. also... the room .. hmm how do i explain this.. k so you have just a regular downtown street.. sidewalk and shops all along it... well our room is situated in between a couple stores in kind of an alley..so one must type in a code to open this gate thing that gives you access to the alley. i duno if that makes sense.. hope so

so we show up to nowy swiat.. say hi to this old man that owns the shop that sits adjacent to our room (outside the gated area... on the street) and we pop open our gate.. pull up the rug.. no key... fetch. The old man comes over and types in our code (apparently he has seen missionaries do it so many times that he found it out) he comes up to us and asks what's wrong. We were calling the other misisonaries at the time because we figured they just took it with them and forgot to leave it. But it soon became clear to me that this old polish man thought he was a real jokster and had stolen our key. After some conversation with him he told me he would give us the key back if we bought him a beer. Heck no am i buying a pole a beer. I reason with him a little bit.. offer to buy him a soda.. offered him the gum in my pocket.. no dice. Only beer he says. Conversation and mind games continued for a long while .. I was trying to be nice and reason with him.. but he wasnt a very reasonable man. He told me that in Poland.. if you lose something .. and someone finds it for you.. that you owe that person 10 percent of what you lost. He told me beer was the only real pay back for this key of ours. Sigh.. i was about to just go buy him a freaking beer but Deuel wouldnt do it. Long story short.. like way long .. pretty much our whole day wasted standing by this door.. our investigator never showed .. the zone leaders showed up the the police (bad idea) .. police did nothing we filed a complaint and we were going to take him to court but we dont have any evidence but our word that he stole the key.. so now we have to get new locks and keys for the door.. none of north warsaw can use the room for the next month.. so i feel pretty good about myself haha.. should have just bought the beer.

that along with breaking the freezer in the creamery by means of ice pick.. probably 2 of the dumb things i wish i could take back. dad all those years of telling us kids we have brain damage.. you might be on to something :-)

i love you all have a wspanialy week

thanks for the love in email form.. dad feel better!

starszy seany