Elder and Sister Moon's visit

The day after Karlo left a Senior missionary couple, the Moons,

came to Gdansk for a couple of days. They are serving in

Wroclaw, Poland.

We spent the first day of the Moons' visit to Gdansk at the Malbork Castle.

The next day we went to Hel.

Hel is a resort  town on a peninsula east of Gdansk.

Some of the road to Hel is lined with wild roses.

The roses in Hel are bigger than the ones in Alberta, Canada

We have arrived.

Our first stop was at the beach.

Here's Clarence touching the Baltic Sea.

There are some fairly nice restaurants in Hel.

We stopped for dinner at one of them, but we

didn't have halibut, so we couldn't say that we

went to "hel for the hal-i-but"

(Very funny, haha)

This missionary does not seem very happy in Hel.

We saw these two missionaries wanting to thumb their

way out of Hel. We gave them a ride.

The next day, before touring the Old Town, we went to the

historical park where the Upside-down House is.

This park tells us about the life of Kaszubians. They were

taken to Siberia and later returned to Poland.  Many Kaszubians

also moved to eastern Canada.

The Moons sat down for a moment hoping that the

rain would stop, but it didn't.

  

Kaszubians do beautiful, colorful embroidery.

Every color has a meaning for them.  One hue of blue stands for

 ocean, another for lake, yet another for river. etc.etc.

These beams of various colors support the roof/ceiling of

an open-air building in the park. 

I can't remember for sure what these handprints were for.

I think they were of some of the people who have made

donations to the building and upkeep of the park.

  

This is inside the Upside-down House.  See my wet coat.

Boy, was it ever raining.  It rained the last time we were too.

On the way home we stopped at our favorite perogie

restaurant.  Oh, those blueberry perogies were tasty.

Karlo's visit

Old Town - Karlo at theStatue of Neptune

Długa (Long) Street in Old Town.

A Pirate ship in Old Town.

This is the stairway up to the top of St. Mary's church in Gdansk Old Town.

They seem to have St. Mary's church in every city in Poland.

The first part of the stairs were spiral.

The men climbed all 450 stairs to the top of the church.

My sore muscles allowed me to climb only the 160 spiral stairs.

The rest of the stairs were just normal strait stairs, but they went round and round also. 

Coming down was another spiral staircase 130 (I think) and then 30 steps

so steep that Karlo thought I would pass out.  He wanted to get a picture of my horrified look,

but he was too slow.   Clarence kindly went in front of me down the stairs

so I didn't need to look at how steep they were.

We call this the "Anno-building".  It has on it "Anno 1650"  (I'm not sure of the year)

At the solidarity monument.

"King Karlo" at the Malbork castle.

At the Malbork Castle.

They have ipods as "tour guides" in several languages.

 

At Sopot pier with another pirate ship in the back ground.

In this picture you can hopefully see the beach in the back ground.

The longest wooden pier in the world, at least that's what they say.

Karlo at the Baltic Sea.  He got to touch it.

Missionary work? Yes.

Do you call this missionary work?  I do.  One day when we came to the church a neighbour was outside trimming the hedge that's against "our" fence.  She thanked the members for keeping the yard so nice.  She said that before the church "moved in", the yard was a BIG MESS.  The members in our branch are mostly elderly women, so we have sort of taken over the yard care, because we are so young. 

Mini-transfer

On Tuesday  when the Elders were at our apartment for a district meeting, Elder Tanner received a call from President Nielson, telling him that he was to pack and be ready to be transferred to Kielce on Thursday.

Our new Elder arrived in Poland on Tuesday and came to Gdansk on Thursday.  His name is Elder Łapot.  He is from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.  His parents moved from Poland to Canada when Elder Łapot was three years old.  He was in the MTC for three weeks.  He speaks Polish.  He is a convert - 1 1/2 years.  His parents are not members.

Bumpy road

This road is on the way tp church.  It is very typical of streets in Poland.

Ferry crossing

This is one of the ferry crossings that our GPS has taken us to and told us to go "straight 2 km's", but we've turned back and found a different way to get to our destination.

There is no motor, only a cable, that does not move.  The  ferry is moved by the current of the river.

Not my kind of transportation. 

Krakow Old Town (Rynek)

These children in national costumes were just walking down the street with their teachers, I think.  I don't know what the occasion was.

The next day Zbigniew took us to Krakow and showed us the Old Town. 

 Here's a few pictures that we took.

This country is full of statues.

The church at the end of the street is St.Mary's Cathedral.

A couple of pictures of the inside of St. Mary's Cathedral.  It was incredible.

People used to gather at the park across the street from this building to see the pope John Paul II wave to them from the window where his picture is now.  This was his residence when he was the cardinal of Krakow.

Viswa river.

Inside this palace we saw more tapestry than I have ever seen.  Every room had at least two.  Many were from 16th century.  We didn't have a tour guide to explain all of them to us.

Statues of the Twelve Apostles.  I could not fit them all in one picture.

Another priesthood holder (not an apostle) with an accordian player.