A Saturday at Lazienki Park and a Barbeque

I am standing at the entrance of Lazienki Park,(there should be a funky


l at the beginning of the word but my computer won't do that) and the park is pronounced Washenky. This park is beautiful and is the largest park in Warsaw. It was designed in the 17th century.





Ther are paths and walking trails all over the park and the greenery is lush.

The Palace on the Water which you see part of here was built in the 17th century. During the summer months there are concerts here every Sunday afternoon for free. This park is actually Chopin's park so the concerts are all music by Chopin.

This is the front of the Palace.
The Palace housed royalty for

years. It was the residence of King Stanislaw Poniatowski.

It sits on an artificial island in the middle of Lake Lazienki. It is connected to the rest of the park by 2 arcades.

This is the front yard of the Palace. This beautiful lake is manmade and you can ride a gondola, (for a price) and enjoy seeing the whole lake.

Peacocks abound and are so used to people that they come right up to you hoping for a treat.

This peacock was tired off standing around and decided to leave his audience.

You can see one of the arcades to the left.

This is the stage where cultural events were held.

At the top of the seating area are sculptures
of the famous poets and scholars of the day.

The Peacocks make a really loud noise
when they want you to back off and I'm not sure why they choose to spread out their tail feathers or not, but they are truly beautiful.

Here is the sign at the entrance of the park with information about the concerts.
We didn't spend as much time at the park as we wanted as we had to get to the Chapel for a YSA Sports Saturday and cookout and it was beeginning to rain.











Every other Saturday, the Young Single Adults have a Sports Saturday and play volley ball, football, whether rain and shine andd they got both this Saturday. We had all the food, hamburgers, chips, watermelon, strawberries which you caan find on every street corner and we had hungrey missionaries there as well.

We also have a new CES missionary couple by the names of Floyd and Marilyn Simons. They were able to meet all the YSAs and the missionaries.

Here are Kamilla, Marta and Aleks enjoying the food and the socializing.

















Elder Sheridian, on the left, and Elder

Curtis on the right leaning back and an
Investigator. The investigators love coming, free food but also grreat company and FUN!!

Here is the cook, without which none of the food would have been possible.

In spite of the humidity and occasional
rain showers he got the job done and all had plenty of meat and all the trimmings.
We left finally and made our way home at the eend of yet another busy day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wolska Chapel Commemoration and Institute Graduation

Saturday was an eventful day as we had Institute/Seminary Graduation and 20 year commemoration of the Wolska Chapel which is the only Chapel in all of Poland. Our Institute and Seminary program is small here in Warsaw those that are in the program are dedicated. Our four who completed the program are Solongo Unursaihan ( she is not there as she was sick), Marta Wisniewska, Katarzyna, and Dominik Lyzwinski. Kasia (Katarzyna) has taken all four years so she also got a Graduation Certificate.

Ater the graduation, there was a Commemoration Celebration with speakers telling the history of the Church here in Poland and the dedication of the Chapel 20 years ago. After the ceremony, I visited with two of my YSAs Aleksandra Modzelewska and Marta Wisiniewska while people were waiting for the cookout to begin.



Anna Kulinicz and Jackie Pickett a transplant from Texas ( husband mark works for maraathon Oil here) are sharing a few thoughts about the Church here in Poland.
As you can see in the pictures below, the kitchen crew is busy getting food ready to go outside to the barbecue and picnic tables. As always there is a lot of meat, sausage and hamburgers are best sellers.

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Krzyszlof Jarosz is the man of the hour and grilled an enormous amount of sausage and hamburgers. He was still cooking when we left. He is the Mission's right hand man. I don't think thee mission could rrun wwithout him. He finds all the apartments for the missionaries, maintains goodd relations with all the landlords, makes repairs and the list goes on. He and his wife (Iwona) have a great daughter at BYU and another one at home still in school.

Sister Khulan is patiently waiting for the burgers to be done so her little granddaughter can eat. Sister khulan is from Mongolia and Nasa, her daughter is one of our YSAs.

Mirinda Shaha attended with her sweet daughters, Emily and Caroline. Ben, her husband is in the military and here on assignment and this day on assignment in the Balkans. They are leaving in August for the USA and an assignment in Monterey CA. That will be much closer to home for Mirinda who is from Utah.

Below is Urszula Czesak and Teresa Lissowska. Urszula is public relations for the Church and was instrumental in putting the commemoration together from start to finish. Teresa spoke at the commemoration. She and I have an important thing in common. She loves dogs and showed me pictures of her 4 dogs, all rescue and I talked about mine.

Below is three generations: from right to left are Aleksandra (daughter who just graduated from BYU) her mother Malgorzata and grandmother Rzeczycki. I love Gosia (Malgorzata) and her husband. they had us over for a Polish Christmas eve which was so wonderful.

These are two of our YSAs; Aleks and Marta.

I was able to get a picture of Dougie Nabozny (who usually goes 90 miles an hour)and his mom Asha(Joanna Maria). Her husband Richard is taking them with him to Hungary for 1-4 years as he goes to school there. He is from Arizona and served a mission here several years ago.

Here are the intrepid four from Las Vegas. We were actually able to get together for a quick picture. that doesn't happen very often. The Mission President and his wife have a busy schedule and are usually on the go but we happened to be at the same place at the same time.

At the end of a busy day, I cleaned some fresh strawberries to eat with strawberry ice cream. There are strawberry stands on every corner and they are truley delicious. By the way, the ice cream here is to die for.

Warsaw II Branch and It's New Leaders

These pictures should have been in 2 weeks ago but I forgot the camera so I made up for that today.

Ross was called as the new Branch President in the Warsaw II Branch. It was quite a Sunday for us. The Branch President before us was Elder Harding from Soda Springs ID and he and his wife were returning home. Ross had felt this coming before it happened as so often is the case in the Church. Because this Church is a lay Church, we all have callings(responsibilities) in the Church ranging from Branch President to a Nursery leader, all equally important in the Lord's eyes. No calling is random and we usually have it confirmed to us that this is where the Lord wants us to serve. We were called on to bear our testimonies in Sacrament meeting. I had memorized my heart-felt testimony in Polish and as I walked up to the podium and began to speak, I was filled with gratitude and sureness that we were right where we were supposed to be and Ross was supposed to be the Branch President. I was able to say my testimony in Polish forgeting that I had memorized it in Polish. We are so happy to be serving a mission here. One of the prerequisites was that we still are able to be with our Young single Adults. They are so awesome and we love them.

Ross will be a wonderful Branch President. He has a great love for the people in the Branch and is one of the truly kindest people I know. He is grateful as am I for the opportunity to serve in this capacity.

Members of the Branch Presidency from left to right: Emanuel Neto, Malgorzata (Goshia)Neto ( awesome Gospel doctrine teacher), Ross and me, Jackie and Mark Pickett( who are here for three years, he works for Marathon Oil out of Houstan, TX)

Ross spends a lot of time here in the Branch President's office.

The picture right below is a picture of the Chapel, today we had 75-80 people here. We are the largest Branch in Poland. It is considered a international branch as we have so many from other countries.

These are three of our YSAs, Tiffany Smith, Dominik Lyzwinski, and Ellie Hoyland. Tiffany is teaching english/nannying for a family in Warsaw and comes via New York, Ellis is teaching at the English school here and is from England. Dominik is a student in school and pointing toward a mission.

This is their mode of transportation to and from Church. Dominik will head for public transportation and the girls will bike it. The most common mode for everyone is public transportation.

By the way this is the outside of our Churrch building. It is an apartment complex, five stories high.

Our 2 sweet missionaries, sister Bailey on the right and sister Leppanen on the left with Ellie and Tiffany.