April 7, 2008..a visit to the zoo; a baptism and davage fast Sunday!

Hey family jak idzie? hopefully well > > I just want to start this, another davage email, off by wishing a happy birthday to Alysia Daly.. my example and dear sister who helps our parents overlook my imperfections and shortfallings because she makes up for them four fold with her incredible demeanor, good looks, academic pwnage.. the all around epitome of perfection :-) Happy birthday lysh.. the big 21.. now your legit .. i wrote you a letter but none of your postcards have your address on it so if you could send me ur address so i can send it next week? will you get it or will you be gone by then? i love you sister > > Another week huh.. hey by the way i went through the whole month of march without hearing a single whisper of a word about march madness.. this saddens me greatly.. is it over? This last week was a lot of hard work and a lot of fun as well. While i was in Wroclaw we went to the zoo on pday and ended up staying the night on monday because our train would have arrived in gdynia at like 1 in the morning. So it was basically the best pday of my life because i was back with my old district and with my papa elder duty. We went to the zoo. oh the zoo... haha. the zoos in Poland are come of the most magical places in this world. I dont know what all this junk is about your dreams coming true at Disney land is about... i never had a dream come true at disney land.. just paid $60 to get scared to tears by some evil witch they call tinker bell.. but at the wroclaw zoo.. anything is possible.. anything... > > we paid $5 to get in and immediately entering the gates being guarded by a smoking larry with no teeth.. i felt something different. One of the highlights was ofcourse the monkeys. Half of them had leprosy sores of some sort all over them and one of them had found a broken piece of beer bottle and he was fighting with the other moneys. he was big dog. We saw lions, tigers, bears... zebras! Over sized rats that the zoo claimed to be beavers... and perhaps the highlight .. the giraffe. Elder barrowes was trying to lure the giraffe with some leaves but he couldnt get it to come over. (there arent any cages, just a 5 foot fence and a moat) So i take a branch and attach some leaves onto it.. elder guinn (in my mtc group) did the same and we were bother waving our leaves back and forth simultaneously while making giraffe noises.. yes i know what a giraffe sounds like.. and he trots over, gives us a skeptical look, then leans down and goes for the leaves! So i touch the head of a giraffe.. life goal #74, complete.. it was an incredible day. We worked later that night and taught a bunch of lessons because the people in wroclaw are the best in poland. > > Back in Gdynia we had a few set ups but they both flaked. Some ive still yet to teach a sit down in Gdynia.. weve got some this week though so im feeling good about it. Errington and I spent a good 2 hours the other night calling all our formers and cleaning up the area book a little bit. So hopefully the work picks up this week, we could really use the lessons. Im not going to lie I dont see Gdynia staying open much longer. Maybe another transfer at the most... its just too far from Gdansk.. and its not very prone to missionary work.. theres so much work to be done in Gdansk, i bet they move the gdynia elders to gdansk next transfer, we'll see though. So yeah this week was just filled with a lot of contacting, got some potentials that we set up with that we are excited about... hopefully they go through. > > We had Pres Engbjerg over this weekend because that guy Piotr i was telling you about got baptized! First baptism in Gdansk in a long time, cant remember exactly how long.. but long haha probably a few years atleast. It was an awesome day all around. That night we watched the morning session of conference in our quaint little hotel room with our district, president, ap's, and piotr (he speaks english too) so we got to watch it in english naturally... it was incredible, no? I was all about that Johnson guy.. i was picking up what he was putting down. Reminded me of conference time back home, minus the basketball shorts and food, real american food mmm. I was great though i hope you all enjoyed it as well. It was 8 pm when the morning session ended so thats all we got to catch.> > Fast sunday the next day was davage.. to a whole new meaning of the word, if it even has meaning. It was Elder Erringtons and Sis McGary's last fast sunday in poland (they both die may 5th) they both bore their testimonies along with piotr and half the branch.. I translated for Sis Regen the senior couple sister... went way well. About half way through the meeting this big larry looking guy (inactive member) that Marcin (member, 24ish, former pol-war missionary, speaks english, awesome) had invited back to church got up. It wasnt really a testimony.. he basically bore his testimony of Marcin and ho wmuch he loved him and how its been hard not being in church for these past 5 years. It was slightly irreverent and the strong spirit that was in the meeting before was now hanging on by its finger tips to the door frame of our hotel room.. the guy sat down and the spirit came back in for a moment.. a couple more people bore their testimonies.. then the man decided to get up again and add more to his testimony. He said basically the same thing as before.. and i could tell Pres Engbjerg was getting a little uneasy on the stand.. me and elder derrick were doing all we could to help each other not laugh. After another 5 minute praising soliloquy of Marcin he sat down again and one of our older sister members got up and bore a 25 minute testimony on something that i was pretty sure was false doctrine. Something about how the Mayan people were the jaredites.. im not sure where she got her facts.. hey it might be true.. i felt uneasy translating it to Sis Regen, felt like i was preaching false doctrine myself. Anyways it was like 20 past the hour and she was still talking .. pres engbjerg finally slipped her a note on the podeum that im sure said something like wrap it up. But i guess he forgot we were in Poland because he wrote it in english i think and she didnt understand it. So she kept on. Finally one of the Ap's sitting up next to President told her in POlish she had to finish it up. As soon as she sat down the big larry guy tried to get up again, Marcin basically tackled him and sat him back down. President got up there and looked a little flustered, but ended the meeting to my and the rest of the branch's relief. Boy howdy it was something else.> > Pres Engbjerg re-organized the branch. Elder Regen (senior mish guy) was called to be the new BP (nope, doesnt speak a lick of polish) Marcin is 1st counsellor, elder Gray (my older brother, trained by duty first)is 2nd counsellor and elder tucker his comp is exec sec. > > Worked a little bit on sunday.. then had a get together at the senior couples place for elder grays birthday. We made him a cake.. i didnt realize there was a difference between baking soda and baking powder, long story short, the cake was incredible nonetheless, just a little liquidy... > > that night heading home from their place elder errington had just missed our train so we had to wait on the platform for like 30 mins.. and this totally smashed guy (not really a larry) comes and starts talking to us.. he was hilarious hahaha...he followed us all the way to gdynia when finally we had to break it to him that we really needed to go. We taught him though, not sure he understood alot of it. check that, any of it. I felt bad i was kinda mean to him. While we were standing on the train riding back, i would be talking to him and teaching a little bit.. and i would kind of start leaning one way while he was listening to me and he would do the same and then kind of fall and hit the wall of the train hahaha it was great.. sorry thats really bad isnt it, it was really funny though. > > > ill answer some questions you had mom.. > > i havent been sick, im superman! snicker bar a day keeps diseases away.. im actually off chocolate for this month because my comp doesnt think i have self control.. psh, ill show him. one week down... > > we actually dont teach english, we just help the other elders get people there.. they teach it in gdansk so its too far for us to travel, and they dont exactly have a lot of ppl coming. this one guy i talked to on the street is still coming though, woot. > > I promise im sending a tape haha, no worries.. this computer once again doesnt work with my camera.. i never get to use the good computers they have in this place because all the polish 20 yr old guys are LAN-ing and playing Call of Duty and CounterStrike.. i should just play them a round for the computer, id feel bad beating them though with my missionary tag on. So maybe ill just develop my 250 pics and send them home haha.. i dunno, i want to get them on a disc but i need a good computer to do it.. maybe if i send my memory card home? and you guys can send me some new ones? i dunno lemme know if that is at all possible.. By the way can you guys send my a picture of our family? it would really help when i teach ppl about families out here.. and mom dont use dearelder and dont send it to my place in gdynia.. i promise that if you just send a package to the mission home that ill get it haha we get mail once a month from them at zone conference.. if you send it to the mission home, ill get it 100 sto pRocent. kk maybbe 99 percent > > cant remember if i had anything else to say, hmm.. oh i love you all! hope life is swell, if its not just listen to some Motion City Soundtrack.. or some Mo tab.. cant believe my 6 month mark comes up in a couple weeks "its like i said, life moves pretty fast.. if you dont look around every once in a while.. you could miss it." > > > name that movie.> > z miłością > > elder sean> > hey it rhymes