Beach in Gdynia

The other day we were coming home from visiting

 a less-active sister in Gdynia, when Elder Gladun

 said that, if we turned at this certain corner we

 would find a nice beach at the end of the street.

 We took 5 minutes of our "dinner time"

and checked out this beach.

It was not our p-day.

Beaches can be tempting when one is wearing his/her

 Sunday best - white shirt and tie/nylons and skirt.

But we are all happy to be serving the Lord.

This is not the world's longest wooden pier.

That one is in Sopot. This one is in Gdynia.

You don't need to pay to walk on this one.

Bydgoszcz zone conference

We had a nice surprise at this zone conference.

Dr. Dahl (one of the mission doctors in Europe) and

his wife were in Poland and came to our Zone Conference.

Dr. and Sister Dahl are our daughter Rita's friends.

Dr. Dahl even delivered Rita's youngest child.

We had a good visit with the Dahls. 

Here's all the missionaries of the Bydgoszcz zone.

And here are the missionaries of the Gdansk district.

Elders Krzyminski, Garrett, Gladun and Gudnason.

And the Zatylnys.

Birthday "girls and boys" with their M&M cookies.

Besides many other talents, Sister Nielson is also

 an expert in baking cookies.

Lunch break.

Monday was a holiday in Poland, so everything was closed.

The zone leaders had to buy all the lunch ingredients on

Saturday. The buns needed to be baked (warmed up) during the

 morning meeting, so I missed President Nielson's message.

After lunch the Elders and Sisters had a "Preach My Gospel chase".

Here's Elders Garrett and Gladun.

And here's our Elders Krzyminski and Gudnason with

the AP's, Elders Hillyard and Eastman. 

And these are the judges - Elder and Sister Simons. the Zatylnys,

Pres. Nabozny and Dr. and Sister Dahl.

Birthday

Some branch members surprised me on my birthday.

See who can make the funniest face while eating cake and icecream.

Brother and Sister Lewis were the organizers of the party.

They had baked two cakes - carrot cake and chocolate cake. 

They also brought enough icecream for an army. 

Bro. Lewis: "What are you doing, Elder Garrett?'

Elder Garrett: (thinking) "I think I'll just ignore him."

Here's two of the four "Anjas" that were at the party.

Here is the youngest Ania (in the middle).

And one more Ania talking with the missionaries.

Darek (next to Elder Gudnason), one of our English students

took close to 50 pictures that evening. Thanks, Darek.

Some people had left early

A day in a missionary's life

After doing all the morning chores and reading the

scriptures together, we headed for the church to help

Elders Garrett and Gladun teach a young investigator.

The appointment was at 11:30, but Patrik had slept in

and said that he would be there at 12:00.

We waited till about 12:15, but then we had to leave.

The Elders stayed to teach Patrick.  

We had an appointment with Maria at 1 pm.  She

lives at the far end Gdynia and it takes us about 45 min

to get there.  Due to all the road construction

it took us an hour to get to her place that day.

Elders Krzyminski and Gudnason went with us.

Maria is less-active.  She is very, very nice.  Interested

in everybody's life.  The Elders gave her a message

on faith from the Book of Mormon.  I gave her a copy

of the visiting teaching message.

By the time we got back to Gdansk, it was around 3 pm.

We stopped to buy some buns with apple filling

 at this booth that is on the way to

the church.  That was our lunch that day.

You can find booths like this one or bakeries that sell buns

all over the country.  It is very common

to see people walking while eating their "breakfast" or "lunch".

At 4 pm we met with Elders Garrett and Gladun to

teach Ania. We really like her a lot.  She is rather

quiet, but very friendly.

The Elders had another meeting lined up at 6 pm,

but it was cancelled.  That gave us time

to go home for a bowl of soup and a sandwich.

 Our last meeting was with Jadwiga,

her son Arek, and Arek's

girlfriend Karolina and her son Kasper. 

 Jadwiga has been a member for 15 years.

Arek wasn't ready at the time (teenager!!), but now

he and Karolina are investigating the church.

After dropping off the Elders we got home around 10 pm.

This was quite a busy day.  Fortunately we have some

slower days too.