Our last days in Poznan Poland

It is 6am in the morning. Can you believe how light is is already. by the end of June it will be light by 4am. We just got to the gym and this is the Tram line which just left and it was stacked to the brim with passengers heading for work, school.

Our gym is located on the bottom floor of the apartment building. It's a good little gym with all the machines and free weights. It keeps us from turning into soft marshmellows. Every morning at 6am except on Sunday, that's where you'll find us.

This is the post office where we have mailed home eight packages home of stuff we have accumulated here in Poland. Little did we know as we get ready to depart how much there was.


















This is our last FHE and Institute class before leaving. What a great group.


















We are going to the mall by Renek for one last time. The mall is ready for Easter as you can tell by the bunnies.

These malls are so great. Those machines by the wall are where you put in your parking ticket to pay to get out of the mall. If you want your car washed and cleaned inside and out while you shop, that is available too.


















Inside the mall are hundreds of Easter bunnies, all purple and white.














There are a few outside too. behind me is a park which will be beautiful when the trees and flowers are in bloom.
















You have to look carefully to see the little girl crouched down by the Easter bunnies while her mom takes a picture.











We are looking down from the food court. I wonder who decided where the purple would be placed. I had the urge to mix them up.












We were ordering a pizza to take home. The pizza at Piccolino is the best ever. It is a bit of a trick to order the right one with our limited Polish.




















Here is the master chef. We told him his pizza was the best. He really worked hard to make sure it was the best.















This is a glassed in open area between the two sections of the mall. The outdoor seating is part of a beautiful resturant.
















This is a resturant on the other side. The cool thing is that in the summer, the glass partitions open and there is a huge veranda open to the outside, overlooking the park.









It was a beautiful morning yesterday, Saturday, and we decided to have our last walk around Lake Malta, which is a block from our apartment. There is still snow on the small ski area. There is much construction going on here right now as all of Poznan and Poland is getting ready for the Euro-cup soccor games in August. Part of it will take place here in Poznan.

They are building a huge slide along with enlarging the ski area itself. they have summer skiing as well with a rubberized slope.

It is a really beautiful walk around the lake. This is a tributary that feeds into the lake.




















There is a big skull race in two weeks and the sculls are out for an early morning practice.















We tried to get a picture of the duck but she was hungrey and reached down for her breakfast just as we took the picture.






























This team member is a little late pushing off.
It's amazing how narrow this skulls are.














As you can see.. their shoes are anchored in so they are stabilized as they row.




















This the grandstand for the races. These are huge here in the summer and attract a huge following.



















The very right of this long building is where the skulls and kayaks are stored. The part off the building closest to us has a spa and an Indian resturant.

Here's our guy trying to catch up with his teammates.

The ski hill already has skiers. there is a ski lift on the left side.

This is an incredible facility. You can see the outdoor waterslides. Inside is a huge lap pool. then you go from there over to a huge wave pool that has a natural beach and palm ttrees. You would think you are at some tropical beach, then next to that are all different natural hot springs with mineral pools. 60 pln for a day at tthe beach.

We are just about back to our apartment. This is the backside of the mall.

On this beautiful morning we have seen, skaters, bikers, runners, walkers, nordic walkers.

One last thing, this is an ice skating rink which is open year round. Only one skater there so far.

This is the outside of the rink.

The skulls do their turn around here.

This is the finish. We are on our way back to our apartment.

This finishes up our walk around this beautiful Lake Malta.

Transfer Week!

This is transfer week and Elder Rrogers and Sister Sheahan will be leaving us. Elder Rogers is going to Lodz and Sister Sheahan is going to Warsaw. We will miss them. We ate at a Polish resturant called Chatka Babuni. It is known for it's perogies and the perogies are fabulous. You can order either 7 or 9 and mix them up. So Ross and I had 3 perogiees with mushrooms and potatoes and cabbage, one was cabbage, potato and cheese and one was curry chicken, cabbage and nuts and pinapple. Oh ,my gosh! They serve them baked or boiled. We like them boiled the best.
The plate with the pickle on it is a flavored lard. It is flavored with meat and seasoning and used to spread on bread. They all love it but I think it's disgusting. Lard is fat. The next picture are the pirogies. Umm, good!!










This ia great resturant and has been in Poznan for many years and the food is all Polish.

Tuesday was Name Day in Poland. Everyone has a Name Day and it was Bozena's name day. Name Day is bigger here than birthdays. All the names are on the official Name Calendar and that determines when your day is. We took some

flowers and Piorgies over to Bozena.

Thursday morning was transfer Day. We picked up the sisters at 6:45am for their train which left at 7:30 am. They lived up 64 stairs which meant hauling suitcases down that many stairs.

Ross is buying a parking ticket about a block away from the station. These little machines are located all over town and you better make sure you have a ticket on your dashboard or you might come back and find a boot on your wheel which renders the car useless.

Notice the graffiti on the side of this train. This is graffiti all over Poland. All older buildings have graffiti and not just a small portion but completely covering sides of buildings, trains, buses.

These policemen were training their police dogs. the dogs were beautiful and notice they all had muzzles on.

Saying goodbye at the train station to Sister Sheahan. By the way her Polish was awesome considering she has only been here for 8 weeks.

Now it's time to say goodbye to Elder Rogers. He is going to be a great addition to the Lodz Branch. We will miss him.

The new missionaries come in. Here is Elder Curtis coming to us from the Mission office eager to get back in the field. Great missionaries go and great missionaries come.

We made four trips to the train station today. this finishes it up.

All Poland Conference

Since we've been here on our mission, I have been teaching English classes. This is my English class in Poznan. From left to right is Pavel from Russia, Veronica, Jacek, Slavic and in the back is Bolok and Marian. I teach an advanced class and they are great. They speak wonderful English so we are able to do some cool things.

Friday, the 2nd of march we headed for Warsaw for an all Poland conference. We stayed at the Pickett's. We were able to go over to the Armstrongs another American family in the Warsaw II Branch for dinner in honor of Aleks Modzelewska who was leaving for the Mission Training Center in Provo. She will be serving a mission in Romania. She is a vibrant, lovely girl and will be a great missionary. We are so excited for her. She's been a member of the Church forr about a year and a half.




This is a group picture of the Armstrong family, the Staples family, the Picketts and us with Aleks. These are three great families. They moved into the Warsaw II Branch when we were there and Ross was the Branch president. Both the Staples and the Armstrongs are connected with the American Embassy in Warsaw and Mark Pickett works for Marathon Oil.

Mark and Jackie with Aleks.

This is a picture of the All Poland conference. Elder D. Todd Christofferson, who was the presiding General authority is from the Quorum of the Twelve. He was there with his wife and our Area President, Elder Kopiche and his wife were also there. It was aa truly wonderful conference and a great experience for the missionaries, members and investigators.

Random pictures!

We finally had our first snow of the winter season in February. Now it has been snowing on and off a little each day. So it now truly feels like winter in Poland. This is the view from our apartment.

Wintewr also brings it's own set of challenges. When our Elders arrived at our Chapel Thursday afternoon, they found that our YSA/Institute/classroom had been destroyed. Apparently 2 floors above had a hot water main break and fotr about three hours early Thursday morning hot water had gushed out and destroyed their insurence office and our room below them.
What a mess! The furniture was ruined. The sofa which looks fine was filled with water, the coffee table had standing water on it and in it. Even our bookcase in the corner of the room was filled with water and all the books, games, and other materials were ruined. The pictures on the walls were filled with water and the room was like a sauna with the smell of mildew already. So after the insurence adjuster and our landlord took a look, reovations began. The ceiling, walls, and floor came out and now there are drying machines running night and day to dry the sheet rock and cement.





Fortunately the Chapel and the kitchen were fine so on Sunday we were able to hold our Church services and have our refreshments afterward. We had cookies, hot chocolate and juice and everyone wanted to see the damage that had been done.








One thing everyone likes to do is stand around, eat and talk. I think that is universal.