December birthdays and Christmas

Jola and I have birthdays christmas week so we celebrated together. she can't speak any English and my Polish is pathetic but we love each other and we were glad to celebrate together at YSA and Institute.

We went to the Healeys for cchristmas Eve dinner. We picked up S. Sheahan, S. Leppanen and a member from the Branch, Bozena Skowronska. Bozena went to the market on Thursday and bought a live Carp which she brought back to her apartment and kept alive until Christmas Eve day when she killed it, cooked it and brought it for our meal. That is a tradition even though most people don't like Carp.

Bozena is making Beet salad with the beets left over from the Beet soup which is a huge tradition here. It was really good.

Kate Healey is puttingg tthe finishing touches on a few other dishes.

Max and Richard Healey are keeping me entertained for the moment.



Ross and Bozena are discussing the Carp. Her husband died several years ago and she said he used to do all the Carp killing, cleaning, and cooking.

Time to eat. The big Brown bowl is a cabbage, mushroom, onion dish which tastes like saurkraut. It's good!
Kate and Sean opt for the sofa as there is no more room at the table. By the way, Kate is expecting a baby the first of February.

S. Sheahan had no room at the table either.

Elder Rogers and Richard. E. Rogers got some cool pajamas from his mom. Little did we know he had them under his suit pants.

The Elders and Sisters came over for food, Chrroistmas DVD and a little hang out time on Christmas day. They were excited as their families were going to call them and wish them a Merry Christmas.

So, Merry Christmas everybody.

YSA Christmas White Elephant exchange and Branch Christmas dinner

It is Thursday night, the 15th of December and the YSAs and guests are gearing up for the White Elephant present exchange.

The big box that S. Sheahan has is a bottle of Tymbark apple and watermelon juice turned out to be the most coveted gift and made the rounds between different people.

Elder Buckner got a small bottle of Bug spray, just in case he decides to go hiking in the woods.


Lidia got a pair of arm warmers to wear under her jacket and kept them out of sight so noone would want them.

Marta got a clock that crows like a rooster when the alarm goes off. We ended up with that and may bring that home from Poland.

We are getting ready for our Christmas dinner at the Branch. It will be all Polish food except for the fruit salad that I brought. Grzegorz, one of our only 2 YSAs helped set things up along with the Missionaries.

Elder Rogers, Elder Buckner, Sister Leppanen, Sister Sheahan and Grzegorz.

Here we are, the intrepid six missionaries in Poznan, Poland.

Maciej and Elder Rogers. Maciej loves Elder Rogers, Elder buckner and Harry Potter.

Jolanta, Grzegorz, Natalie's parents, Michael and Gosha, Mark Bannatyne and standing are Regina and Grazyna.



Jolanta and me. We spent a half hour with the Polish dictionary trying to carry on a conversation and we crack each other up. she speaks no English and my Polish is pathetic.

We had some wonderful Polish food. Pirogies stuffed with cabbage and mushrooms, cabbage and carrot salad, Bigocsz which is cabbage, sausage, and mushrooms cooked in a spicy sauce. Did I mention that we had cabbage? There were, of
course, potatoes and a couple fish dishes and Borscz, beet soup. One was like pickled herring in sour cream. The other one was a carrot,fish and potato dish. We had several desserts but the desserts are not as sweet as we eat in America and the Polish people don't make pies.

The Missionary choir plus Grzegorz sang a Christmas hymn and then we had caroling with everyone. The Polish Chriatmas carols are different then ours, other than Silent Night which must be universal.

Christmas Zone conference

Before Christmas Zone conference, Ross decided he better get a haircut from Gosia. she speaks great English and is a real cutie.

Our Zone conference consisted of good food and a great meeting. Before we ate we were able to watch the Christmas Devotional which made us all realize again that the true meaning is centered on the birth of Jesus Christ.

Our dinner was Bread Bowls of hot homemade Potato soup, salad, and cake. At this table from the right are President and Sister Nielson, E. Ball, E. Hillyard, Ross, me, E. Tanner, E. Kennedy, E. Dabrowski,S. Leppanen, and S. Sheahan.

At this table from left to right are; E. Vreeken, E. Lundin, E. Buckner, E. Rogers, S. McAdams, E. and S. Simons, S. Steadman, E. fletcher, E. Berry, E. Waits.

After eating, the Missionaries braved the cold and went out Christmas caroling.

When we returned, Prresident and Sister Nielson gave each missionary a Polish key chain and a Mormon Tabernacle CD. the best gift, however, was a new copy of tthe Book of Mormon and marking pencils and a challenge to read the whole book by April 30tth. We did this last year also and it was a remarkable experience.

Our Zone picture; front left to right; E. and S. Simons, S. and President Nielson, us,
2nd row; E. Buckner, Fletcher, S. Leppanen, Sheahan, McAdams, Steadman,

Back row;E. Tanner, Vreeken, Lundin, Wakits, Rogwers,Ball, Berry, and Kennedy in the very back


Our cute Sister missionaries, S. Leppanen, S. Sheahan, S. McAdams, S. Steadman

All December birthdays. I was the only one so the group sang Happy Birthday in Polish and I got a bag of M&M cookies.
















Elder Hillyard is a crackup.

Elders, Waits, Buckner,Tanner, Vreeken, Lundin, Kennedy, Rogers, Ball, Berry. A great group of Elders.

Random Sampling

Our Christmas tree at our apartment. I have a picture of our tree at the end of the blog also but the background is different. this background has our grandchildren, Ayden, Adisyn, Maggie, Shaun, and Aleck. Our grandchildren are so dear to our hearts.

We had an Open House at the Chapel and Jolanta manned the cookie and juice table in the YSA room. I love Jola, she and I can't understand much of what we say to each other but always find something to laugh at.

Natalie Chwirut's parents came to our Open House. They are very involved in Archery and have even been in competitions.
They aren't members of the Church but are 100% supportive.

How cute are these girls, Sister Leppanen, Sister Sheahan and our YSA Marta Antkowiak. They put up a white board outside the Chapel advertizing our Open House.

It's FHE time and refreshments are forthcoming. homemade hot chocolate and cookiees.

Our decorated Christmas tree at the Branch.

Sister Sheahan and Maciej are putting their special touches on the tree.

I have wondered what the balls of leaves were on so many of the trees here in Poznan. When the trees had leaves on them, they looked like they could be nests of some kind and then when the leaves were gone, I could tell that they were some kind of a plant attached to the tree. I was curious as to why they were still there. That is mistletoe, it is an individual plant that grows on certain trees. some trees are covered with these plants and some have just a few.

We just had District meeting and there were some Christmas boxes for the Elders in Szczecin. They couldn't wait until they returned to Szczecin to open them and as you can probably tell Santa Claus hats were in one of the boxes.
















Ross has decided to get up on the scaffolding to clean our Church sign.

One final shot of our tree at the apartment. and pictures of our sons, Matt, Austen his son, Kent and Colin.