February 25, 2008...first transfer!

Jak leci family?! > > Before I get into my week which wasn't all that eventful, President sent out transfers which are going down on Thursday. Elder Duty is staying in Wroclaw for his last 2 months and i thought for sure I'd be staying with him, but I'm going way up North to Gdansk with Elder Errington who is also in Duty's group so I'll still be killing off someone. I'm freaking stoked, just looking at the Distirct I'm going to.. it's going to be rock something harddcore!! Im a little sad I won't be serving with any of the noobies coming in, but Gdansk is stilll going to kick. I've heard it's one of the nicest areas in the mission and it's right on the beach. It's going to be kinda cruddy though because at the same time I have all of my legal work here and it's not going to be done for a while. So i'm going to have to come back down to wroclaw on Pdays to finish it all up. Pretty long train ride im thinking.> > Well nothing incredible went down this week. Sorry my last two e-mails have been rushed, last p-day we got up in the morning and tried to travel to the Skull Chapel about 90 mins away by train. We ended up getting lost and found ourselves in this sweet bonus town called Klodzko (Kwodsko).. found out from some Poles that the skull chapel was still an hour away and closed on mondays so we just kinda chilaxed and spent the afternoon in the city. It was incredible, the city was rad and Duty and I got to hit up this castle there, I've got some pictures i might attach on this email if i have time. Anyways by the time we got back we had just a few minutes to email before we had to go to a dinner appointment. The dinner was more than worth it though, we got the hook-ups. Poles are the most hospitable people once youre in their home. It's just getting into the home that can be kinda difficult. This week i went on exchanges with Elder Urling and Barrowes in my district, learned some Polish, had some food.. it was good times. We have a new invesitgator with a baptisimal date! We didn't really do anything to get him to that point. His name is Mirek and the sisters contacted and taught him the first two lessons .. then they decided to give him to us because he was hugging them after the lessons. He's a way solid guy though, loves the book of mormon.. hard to tell if he's all there up top. Krystyna is getting a new baptisimal date hopefully sometime this week. Good things are happening, unfortunately i won't be here for them. I've heard the work in Gdansk is on fire though, see what i can do to add to that. > > This week was super-catholic week as far as contacting. Duty and i count two different types of lessons for our daily goals. There are lessons, then there are condemnations. This week we had twice as many condemnations as lessons. We did a white board the other day and I'm pretty sure every person i talked to was a practicing catholic. Which is weird because usually 90 percent of the people i contact say they are catholic but arent practicing so it's easier to teach them. I enjoyed teaching the practicing catholics though, even though i probably shouldnt because all it turns into is me making them look retarded which really should never be our goal as missionaries. But they really don't have a leg to stand on as far as doctrine. Any person with common sense and a decent konwledge of the gospel of Christ versus Catholic doctrine can rip apart the catholic church doctrine by doctrine. I told this one guy who was on his way to mass if he's ever prayed to know the Catholic Church is true. He said no so i encouraged him to pray about and that God would give him an answer if his prayer was sincere. He replied while walking away, "Im going to pray for you because your soul is lost" .. frustration... no, its not all that bad i just wish they were more open to trying new things. If all youve eaten is vanilla ice cream youre whole life.. why not try a banana split? you might like it 100 times more.. hey if not, proszę bardzo, go back to your vanilla and ill keep enjoying my split. Sorry haha im venting, i promise i have more patience than these emails probably make it seem, just feels good to write get my thoughts out.> > I decided something the other day. This is most definitely a different experience than i thought it would be. I'm sure Poland is probably a little different than most missions, and they all have their distinct challenges and blessings. I've found that the Poland Warsaw mission is a mission of little miracles. Baptisms and golden investigators are rare for sure. But little things like making a Pole smile, hearing an investigator pray, hearing myself speak this seemingly impossible language, interacting with the rock solid members here, hearing their testimonies, seeing how my testimony has changed.. Little miracles during the day that keep me going are really what it's all about. They say your first transfer is usually the hardest. New place, language, weather, schedule, companion, jetlagged, yadda yadda.. and it has been pretty tough. I've never had my testimony hanging by such thin threads and at other times ive never been so sure that this is the Church that Christ calls His own. Phew, 4 months.> > trzymajcie się > > elder daly> > ps we are going golfing for pday today.. heckkkk yeah babiesss!