February 4, 2008...love those trains!

Co slychacccc!? I included some pictures.. it takes like 10 minutes to upload one picture so i apologize that there arent very many... i might just have to get them developed and just mail them home. One of them is a little sketchy i apologize.. The Babylon one.. i thought it was hilarious and ironic. This was taken in Katowice.. The chapel there is one floor above an "adult club" called Babylon. O Babylon, O Babylon..> > This past week was a shorty and not a whole lot of actual missionary work went down because we had Zone and District Conferences in Krakow and Katowice from thurs-sun. At the beginning of the week we had a couple of good lessons though. Krystyna our Bapt. date flaked us .. dangot... basically both her and Grazyna's baptisimal dates will probably be dropped by the end of this week if we don't meet with them. We haven't met with either our rastas or Michal just because of the short week, but we have set-ups with both this week. We met with two older women on Monday evening and taught a first. I'm exactly sure why they are interested, they seem to be nonetheless so we'll see what happens with that. Then when Duty and I were tracting.. sometime last week i really can't remember... we had walked up 17 flights of stairs, knocking each door.. it had been a day full of trials and tribulations comparable to those of Paul.. we had been spitten on, smitten on even and we were about to turn back.. I told Duty that we had to do the last floor and then motivated him by singing a stellar rendition of Eye of the Tiger.. so we pressed forward to the 18th floor.> > Actually it really was the last door, but it was on the first floor and she was the only person to give us the time of day. She was busy that night though so we made a return on her door on tuesday i believe. She was there and let us in and we taught a pretty rad by my standards first lesson to her. It was probably the first time in a lesson where i really branched out from what i usually say and bore a stronger and more unique than usual testimony and shared a personal story. So yeah 3 new investigators this week.. rock on.> > On Thursday we took a 4 hour train ride up to Krakow for Zone Conference. Krakow is straight up unreal. The rynek was hugenormous.. i have one or 2 pics i think of the rynek.. hard to capture it all. Also there is a picture of Vavel.. which is this pretty rad castle there. It was closed though so we didnt get to go inside. Zone Conference was davage. Great to meet all these missionaries that i hear stories about but dont have a face to put with them. Umm yeah President Engbjerg spoke along with his wife. Elder Wondra from the Central Europe Presidency spoke.. he's an interesting guy. I'll leave it at that. All of the dying missionaries bore their testimonies. That was probably my favorite part. I could see in each of them that they had really grown to love Poland and its people and that their mission meant the world to them. It was great motivation for me to make sure I'm making each day mean something. Then all of us took a train down to Katowice. Train ride was way good times actually. We were all sitting on the Peron.. or like platform deal waiting for our train to come (about 40 missionaries) we all chilled and chatted for like 30 mins waiting. Then when our train pulls up we realize we are on the wrong peron. So about 40 missionaries and some leaders with all of our baggage were booking up and down stairs in the Krakow dworzec (trainstation) trying not to miss our train. Haha it was good times.. we all made it on.. this time. Next time we wouldnt be so lucky. We had Zone P-day on Saturday which was essential to my sanity. We played football and soccer.. it jammed pretty hard I was quite happy. Elder Boyack (ZL) completely layed out a sister missionary during one of the football games. Pretty intense game to say the least. Then the elders had district priesthood meeting, then there were a couple of other meetings that night.. usual stuff. Sunday was Conference.. it was long but nice to get spiritually fed a little bit. Sang in the choir, it was all good times. I loved Katowice. I hope i get to serve there sometime. It's the dirtiest city in Poland and the pollution in the air is at 198% .. I'm pretty sure it's officially unsafe for humans to be living there. But it's just way davage the people are hardcore awesome.. we got to work a little around the city and everyone stopped to talk. There are also more missionaries in that area (slask) than in any area of the mission, except Warsaw ofcourse. So yeah, im a fan.> > We were told that we would be spending Sunday night in Kato.. because President doesnt like missionaries traveling on Sunday. However we were told at the last minute that he wanted us home Sunday night. So we had to book it to the dworzec and get some tickets. Unfortunately Elder burt and urling in our district were visiting a new member in Kato while this was all going down. So we phoned them and kindly shared with them the urgency of the situation and how they had to kick it to the dworzec pretty quick because our train was leaving in 20 minutes. I'm sure you can see where this is going.. they literally started running up the stairs of the peron while our train was taking off. It was about 5 pm.... next train was at 8... so we chilled at the dworzec for a few hours in the warm winter weather of kato. Got into wroclaw about 11 pm last night.. didnt get to sleep till midnight.. so im pretty tired today to be honest. And its not pday today b/c we had zone pday on saturday.. so after this ive got a sweet bonus day of work ahead. woot sauce! > > I have a package waiting for me at the Poczta here in wroclaw so hopefully ill finally get one! :-) im pretty sure the other was is still in bytom.. im not sure if sending packages through dearelder is going to work very well. Your best bet is always to send it to the mission home.. Ill get it for sure that way.. just probably not in a timely manner, but i will get it. I havent had the chance to write letters so ill see if i can get some off later in the week... > > thanks for the love :-) have a great week I love you all> > elder daly