No Letters?!!

Just kidding :P :P :P That probably wasn't nice at all. It's Elder McRae's fault, he jokes about EVERYTHING! Fam, I got all your letters and they were amazing :) Per us(ual) :) You all sound so darn gooooood it makes me smile so much. I way appreciate the little updates about home - it makes me feel connected for sure. I love that the Payne's moved back. I sometimes worry that Murrieta will be wierd when I get back, but now it'll feel even more normal then when I left :) Sarah, you sound like you are just rockin that soccer field's trash! I can only imagine, you fighter, you. And P.S., when you were talking about playing capture the flag and you did that cool thing, I knew EXACTLY what you were talking about. Psha. ;) Love you sister :) Annie I love you soooo much too!! Thank you so much for the shout out. SPencer I love you kid. I know you're busy- don't sweat it, you've been faithful as could be, and I appreciate it so much :) Just keep me posted kolego :) I love you Spence. Parents, thank you so much for the insight. I was eating those scriptures and stories up. I really do love em- it's always nice to get some outside gospel influence. Refreshing :) This week has been an amazing one. I cannot complain. At all. Major events that happened in the week are as follows (considering I never really go in chronological order in my letters...I figure I'll just give you the big happenings and then I'll go to the little stories and such). - Zone P-Day on Tuesdaywas funny. Because half of the zone kind of ditched us to go to Hard Rock Cafe and Adam's (the Tie store). Lol so the people who are normally in Warsaw all played bastketball and capture the flag lol. It was good stuff :) - Zone Conference on Wednesday (also the day our water just stopped working) was inspiring. We learned that the number of Elder's coming in the mission would be cut by 24. Which is like an entire Zone. And there's only 4 zones in Poland as it is, so that is crazy stuff. Our P-Day is GETTING CHANGED TO TUESDAY PERMANANTLY. Which means that this is the last day that I get to e-mail you all on a Monday. The plus side to this is that everything is closed on Monday, museums, gyms, everything cool like that, so now we'll get to go do those things, which will be way nice :) But remember, TUESDAY=P-DAY! lol. We got a new and refined stop smoking program that is 85% effective in getting people to stop smoking in one week. ONE WEEK. Amazing. We've been using it, and we've had some amazing conversations thus far. Smoking is bad news- people realize that when they're smoking 3 packs a day and would rather smoke than eat. And then they want to quit. And then we help them!-Exchanges with Elder Daly on Thursdaywas spoko (rad), to say the least. He is one cool cat and we get along so darn well. The exchange started actually the night after Zone Conference- we went down to deep Praga to visit a member and to teach her non-member sons - Sergiusz and Pawel. We had a way good meeting and had a way good chat the whole way there. As we were leaving, this HUGE dog stuck it's head over this fence and started barking at us, and then it stuck it's PAWS over the fence, and turns out, this dog was THE BEAST from Sandlot!!! E.Daly and I took three steps back and looked at eachother in fear. And then we stood in fear as it barked at us. And then we ran for our lives, literally screaming at the thought of that BEAST jumping the fence and eating us alive. We made it safely, and laughed :) The next day we went out to visit this man who lives out in the flipping shire lol. He had made us lunch - he lives in this mansion house by himself and has a bunch of animals to keep him company. He didint' seem crazy interested at first, but we taught him about the Book of Mormon and ate his rich man food, and I think he actually listened to what we had to say. Other great things happened, that I don't have tiem to write, but it was an amazing exchange and there is no awkardness at all. Now that is something I would have loved to know 6 months ago :PIn other news- our water just turned off the night before Zone Conference- the only water that barely worked was the FREEZING kitchen water. In the morning, I refused to leave the house without showering. (that is why i am in Europe) So we heated up some water in the chinique, poured freezing water in some bowls and made it luke-freezing with the water from the chinque, took it all in the shower and did it Pioneer style. It was an experience to say the least lol. But I was clean :) We made biscuits, mama McRae style, and Gravy for 8 missionaries. And filled them all up! Yah baby. Betty Crocker, watch out cus here I come! Sorry for the random stuff, but it helps you understand missionary life more lol. We continued our district work-out challenge, the Britney Spears work out. 700 cruches, every single day. Lol we did it for the entire week, and it felt good, but there is NO WAY that Britney Spears does that trash! lol. Now we're just doing it every other day. We searched out some former investigators and found some really promising people, but they didn't have any phone numbers. They were all in Praga (the district across teh Wisla, the poorer part of Warsaw) and so we dedicated an evening to find them all. I think you all would be blown away with how I can navigate Warsaw. I actually can figure out tramwaj lines and buses and how to get where. I thought I'd never get this stuff down, but whabam. The Lord had other plans ;) So we found this Venezualen family who had not been contacted for four years and we knocked on their door. The man seemed so excited and asked if we could meet on this next Tuesday. I am so stoked to meet this man and hopefully his family eventually. Maybe they are ready now. I do hope so. It's amazing how many Former Investigators we have. It would blow your mind. An entire Area Book, seperate from our own, filled to the brim with Former Investigators. E.McRae and I feel that there is without a doubt a couple of people in there who are now ready to here this Gospel and accept it. And we will find them. There was a baptism this last Saturday, that sadly didn't go as smoothly as possible. We had been helping this lady, Anna....and we ended up having to be late to this Baptism. Out investigator, Tomek (who has a baptismal date and is solid as a rock), sat next to the Zone Leaders. When we finally get to the Chapel and change into our Pros. clothes, we walked into the foyer to see Preszydent Zielonka of the First Branch in a kind of fury, talking to the Elders of that Branch. Apparently, at the end of the Second talk, right before the baptism was to happen, a man, who had recently been baptized this month stood up and said he had something to add. He wasn;t on the program, and no one really knew what to do. HE walked up to the front and proceeded to talk- everyone could tell he was drunk. Pres. Zielonka quickly escorted him out of the room and building, and the baptism went on as normal. Luckily, Tomek wasn';t wierded out by it at all, and neither did the other Investigators, but it's just a bummer that stuff like that happens. Mkaes me sad, but sometimes it just happens. Church was packed - which was way good! We've gotten some less actives to come to church consistently...so they're not really even less active any more! WOO!! ;) We had break the fast as a branch and it was amazing. The Polish people are hilarious when it comes to these kind of things. Everyone, adult and child alike, just dive bomb the food, grabbing what they can. And when they brought out the cake, everyone kinda just reached in and grabbed what they could until an organized line started for actualy pieces of cake. I think dad would have destroyed somebody :P Ok i know, so many stories lol. This one though, was a goody. Yesterday, we traced into the lonliest Babcia I have ever met in my life. Here name is Maria Natalia, and she let us in after three words. We started talking and before long we realized that a) she couldn't hear much of anything we were saying, b) she had very poor memory and c) she really was glad we were there. So we stayed- we talked about her family, all of which have passed away. She showed us the same picture 3 or four times and was so excited just to have someone there. She even invited us to stay there - "I only really need one room...". I kind of looked at E.McRae and wondered why we didn;t leave...but I realized that the Lord would probably have stayed here for at least 30 minutes, talking with this lady, no matter how many times she showed you the same picture and how many times she asked you how far away you lived. She was lonely, and I think that was one of the best forms of service that we could offer. We tried to leave her with a word of prayer...and we thought that we understood that we're going to pray. So E,McRae starts to pray....and she just interupts and asks how far away we live again. lol We tell her and start to pray...and E.McRae prays for her, and she throws in some other names for us to pray for...and he's about to end...right at the very end! And she asks, how far away do you all live? We were both laughing really hard right about then, trying so hard to suppress it. She's a cute nice old lady. We're going back there just to say hi sometime this week- it feels right :) Well that's the week in a nut shell, More like, way longer then you wanted to read lol. But it was a good one. I love you all so much. I love being a missionary. I honestly learn so much about myself, find things I want to improve in, character traits I admire, etc. I love the scriptures so darn much. So so much. They are amazing. They have the power of God bursting from them and every time I read them I know why I'm talking to these people. Thank you so much for the letters. So much for the love and prayers. I feel it everyday. You are the best, fam. Tell the Stratfords how much I love them as well as the Payne's and Mama Grossman too :) . I miss them all like Family. Fam, I'll leave you now- til next week :) - Starszy Michael J. Rushton. Spartacus. p.s. The office elders should be calling or e-mailing you asap about the package. I've been on their backs about it- one of them is My Mission Grandpa so i'm allowed to do that. :) p.p.s Spence and Sarah, check out the band, Fiction Family. E.Daly heard about them and their supposed to be legit! Lemme know!