Another prep. day

It was a nice sunny day when we left Gdansk for a drive to norrth coast.

When we got to the coast and got out of the car to see this light house,

it was snowing.  It rained most of the time while we were there.

This road of cobble stones was many kilometers long.

Can you imagine the work that went into laying all those stones.

We didn't see much.  Just a couple of houses with very decorative stuccoing.

We'll have to take another drive up there in the summer time.

Then we can walk on the beach and pretend we're tourists.

Gdansk missionaries

These are our hard-working elders.

left to right:  Elders Siebert, Tanner, Plumb and Gladun

A couple of pictures of hard-working men's......

clothes and......

shoes.

"I need to buy this shoe polish!!!!"

A hug for mom and dad.

Prep-day, March 21

Yesterday (Mar 21) we went for a drive to a city called Krynica Morska.

It is on a narrow peninsula east of Gdansk towards the Russian border.

We set the GPS and took off.

When we got to this point on the road the GPS told us to go

"12 km straight ahead".  Our car does not float, so we decided

to go on the road that paralelled  the river. 

It was a nice drive.  We saw many single family homes and not many

apartments.  Some homes were fairly new or just being built.  Some

were so old that I didn't think anybody lived in them.  But

when I saw laundry hanging on the clothesline, I knew that some

clean people lived in the house.

We crossed the river further south.

To the south of the peninsula we could see the Baltic Sea, but

on the north the forest was too heavy to see through it.  I

suggested that maybe we should go for a walk to see the

north shore, but when we stopped the car.....

...and this guy greeted us, I decided that maybe the north

shore wasn't that interesting after all. 

On the way home we stopped where the forest to the north

wasn't so thick and took a picture.  I'm not sure if I saw the

ocean or just the sky, but there was some snow. 

I also got a good picture of "muuntaja" or a transformer.

March 17 (19), 2011

Gdansk Relief Society sisters.

BR. Sister Nielson, Sister Zatylny, Magda, Halina

FR.  Marzena, Karolina, Jadwiga, Marinela, Wioletta and Klaudia

The theme for our March 17 celebration was

"Relief Society - Worldwide Sisterhood"

We had received greetings from sisters all over the world.

We displayed their pictures on a map of the world.

The bottom row shows sisters in their various activities.

Our table seats only 12 people and we had 21 people attend.

So we had to set up a card table, sacrament table and also our

display table from the front foyer.

And here are the pictures of our guests. 

Here you see Elder Zatylny in the back enjoying his dinner

at the display table that we brought in from the foyer.

Our missionary elders ate around the sacrament table

After the dinner we checked our guests' knowledge of Relief Society

and also of the flags of the ten countries that we had received greetings from.

The evening ended with games like ping-pong, darts and Jenga.

Everybody went home smiling. 

International Women's Day

This is Andrzej Henkel.  He is one of our English students.

The first time we met him, he told us that he was the

smartest man after Einstein.  He is writing a book and

when that book is published he will get a Nobel prize

for it.  He does not believe in God.  He only believes

in things that science can prove.  One day he asked me

if I would believe him, if he told me that he was Messiah.

When I told him that I knew he was not Messiah, he asked

how I knew it.  I told him that if he was Messiah, I would feel

his love and I didn't feel that kind of love from him.

On women's day he brought me three tulips.  Maybe he

hopes that I now believe that he is Messiah.  (haha)

Here's the tulips I got.

Something else we saw

These windmills are close to a city called Slupsk.

The first time I saw these two, I thought it was a six-winged windmill.

Coming down the highway, that's how it looked.  As we got

closer we could tell that it was two windmills lined up exactly.

I was surprised to see these buildings along the way.

I don't think I've seen one since I was a little girl in Finland.

I don't remember seeing them in Finland during my several

visits there in the past 40+ years.  I have to

check if they still have them, when we go there at

the end of our mission.  In Finland we call them "muuntaja"

According to Clarence they are called transformers in English.

Sorry about the dirty windshield.  Carwashes were too busy

the day before we left.

Colorful buildings

Yesterday (March 10) we went to Szczecin.

I think we were in Gdynia when our GPS told us that

we had 360 km/6 hrs to destination.  If we could drive 100 km/60miles/hr

we could get there in 3 hrs, but with all the small (and bigger) towns on the

way, it usually takes us 5 hrs.  During the tourist season 

it will take us longer.  So, with all that time in the car and slowing

down in towns, I decided to take some pictures of colorful

buildings on the way.  Most of them were taken out the window

while the car was moving.  There are plenty of grey buildings

in Poland, so these ones are kind of nice to see.  Unfortunately I missed

some pretty colors, like peach and pink and bright blue.  The car was going too fast.  

Self potraits.

Elder Plumb

Elder Siebert

"Fat Thursday"

Today (March 3) is "Fat Thursday" in Poland.

I'm not sure if it's always the first Thursday in March.

I have also heard that it is the start of lent, which means

that it would be so many weeks before Easter.

On this day people eat donuts all day long - starting

at breakfast ending at bedtime.  Here we are eating our

lunchtime donuts.

This is my first and only one. 

Elder Plumb had three for breakfast and one for lunch.

Last year he ate 20-25.

Elder Siebert ate 5 for breakfast, three for lunch and

left our apartment with three in a bag.

The story is that one elder last year ate 45 and felt sick for a couple of days.