Snow on the ground, enough panczki to go around, a few lost souls found. And that's why I'm taking creative writing when I come back down, yah. :P‏

Dearest Fam :)Another week down- I can't believe it has flown so fast. Lol at least it always seems like that as I write you this letter :P It's been white and beautiful as can be down here. I'd say the prettiest I've seen it all winter for sure. The only real chapel we have here, in North Warsaw, has a big park full of trees, leading into a Cemetery. The entire park is just covered by several inches of snow and I couldn't get enough of it :) Funny to imagine the weather back home lol. I get plenty of sympathy from the Poles here whenever they ask me where I'm from - funny stuff. Life sounds good back at home - I can't believe that ceremony is happening so soon- That is too rad pop :) I do wish I could see it, that is for sure. Please send pictures! Please send pictures in general lol, I love those rectangular pieces of eye-candy. :P Ma, I can only imagine your pushing yourself to the limit, per usual. Whenever I feel like I've pushed myself past the limit, I eat a paczek. Which is like the missionary form of relaxing :P The Lord will always be helping you- the mission is one place where you get used to being "knocked off your kilter" and after it happens a few times, you realize that the fastest way to catch your feet is to ask the Lord for help, to put your head down and be ready to do what he wants (which usually in missionary land involves working hard, doing the best things, even when they may the harder things.) I know you're doing just beautifully ma. You always do :) I do want to see the new hair too, lol. I saw that it was getting a little longer, I thought it was great, lol kind of funny too. Looks great either way :) Pop, I can only imagine how stoked you are for your upcoming ceremony. Enjoy it :) It's so good to hear you have so much more free time. I can only imagine how the siblings love that. I love reading all my buddies e-mails every week because it opens my eyes to how many different problems there are in each individual country. I feel like Troy and I are in the same boat often with our investigators or the random people we talk to and this week I feel the exact same thing in regards to people on the street spitting out the same reply- that the Catholic church is the true church and that is the end of it,...! Those who take the chance to see something else find out that this church, the one that bears his name, is the True Church of Christ. I've been thinking a lot about what I could say to these people to at least give reading the Book of Mormon a chance, but so far my best solution is to talk to as many people as I can until one of them is ready to change, at least a bit :) We've been on the street quite a bit this week - not a whole lot of meetings sadly- our investigators were bailing left and right lol. But yesterday, after a tough week- number wise (we felt like we had truly worked hard and just came short) we found some very ideal investigators. One man in particular, a Polish man who had moved to Australia when he was very young and had come back for business for a couple of months, said that he was proud of us and glad that we were here. He said the Poland needs the gospel, needs a church that is more then simply going to church, and then never thinking about God again until the next Sunday. It was enlightning though- this Polish man had the chance to see something outside of Poland, truly experience how another culture work and was proud of us now and appreciated us and is even going to meet with us. Kind of random, but way cool. :)This transfer is winding down SO FAST! In a mere 6 days, I will have been in POland for an entire half of a year. All in Warsaw lol. Elder Meachem pretty much told me that I'm out of here so I'm kind of getting excited to leave and see somewhere else, but truth be told I will miss this place so dearly. It's home to me here. We had interviews this week- I know you like to hear about em pop :) He's always so complimentary, but so sincere at the same time. How were your interviews with your president pop? Were they more formal or informal, or how? Also i'd love some more of your journal entries from the mish :) President did say as I was walking out the door that he had a "surprise for me" at transfers. President then took us out to lunch for our District Standard of Excellence lunch - some way nice Italian restuarant. It was amazing, and so darn expensive lol. We're still meeting two times a week with Tomek- he decided he didn't want to have a set baptismal date- the man is really knowledge oriented more then feeling, and he doesn;t quite feel ready to be baptized. Doesn't feel qualified enough, which is a bummer. We're trying so hard to help him feel qualified enough and to recieve the kind of answer he wants, but it all comes down to his own desire. Please pray for him. Irina is doing great- her son is quite the trial right now. She didn;t make it to church this last sunday because Artur had lied to her about his grades and homework- turns out he's putting out some smelly grades and she freaked out and stayed and had to talk it out with him. She promises she's coming this week to church. Whenever we call Irina, it's E.McRae and mine's favorite thing to hear her say, without fail "How are you doing?" In this way funny, but identical way, every single time lol. So good :) She really is doing just find though. She has a visiting teacher who is on the ball. Money :) This last friday, we visited this couple who E.McRae had visited when he was a greenie here in North Warsaw (we're in South now). They absolutely love the Missionaries - they are not memebers, but right when the church was started, this couple, Stanislaw and Emilia, would clean the missionaries apartments, do their laundry and cook for them! South America status! So darn kind. When we went over there, they just welcomed us in with so much energy andf excitement. Emilia reminds me of Joni, mama Grossman :) SO much energy and love for life and just so friendly. (Love you mama grossman, I'll write you soon, I promise!) She was just so funny though- she's 70 years old as well as her husband, and they had played in this band together all over Chicago and Europe with their family. Emilia busted out the pictures immediately and we had a great time. She made us this amazing Polish dish with some beef stew thing with potatoes and veggies and mmmmmmmmmm! And then Stanislaw played piano for us. I decided to start praying that I can play the Piano as well as stanislaw does when I am 70 years old. The mans fingers fly like hummingbirds wings over those keys! I played for him, my Glory song and a rendition of We THank thee o God for a Prophet. He thought my Glory song was a "hit American song! You must keep writing!!!" :P Definitely a smile-sparker. They asked E.McRae to pray before we ate, and then before we left, Stanislaw prayed for us, such a beautiful prayer. And Emilia made sure that he prayed for us to return to their home soon :) Way sweet. It was good to feel so much love :)The Herman family continues to do so well. We can only stay at their house for an hour and Alicija gets so frustrated when we have to leave so soon- Brat Herman understands our schedule, the rest of the fam not so much, but we have a master plan to get them all to church very shortly, I hope it works :) All the missionaries made cookies for the members- each companionship made around 100 cookies each. We wrapped them up all nice on Saturday and distributed them on Sunday and the members were so happy :) I don't know if members in the States would trust missionary cooking but they loved it so much here- we're just trying to build solid relationships with all the members, trying to meet with them so that we can become more acquainted and they don't feel bad when we tell them how they can be most effective with us on a lesson...( some members feel the need to throw down some intense Heavenly Mother status doctrine in the first lesson lol). Way sucessful though. We got let in twice again this week because we had to use the bathroom. Lol it feels kind of lame using the excuse that we really gotta go to get into someone's house, but sometimes people who would listen are a little put off by the knocking on door tactic. Some really good conversations though :) Hmm..ok Polish lol. The language is ridiculously hard! A man gave a talk yesterday- actually the same Mongolian man who drove us while I played piano in his van - and he's lived here for like 10 years and STILL he made a couple of grammar errors that I caught. Crazyness! I honestly think i'm getting along pretty darn well though. People always are saying their are amazed that i've only been here for 5 months and know so many words and how the endings work and all. Half the time I think their just being kind lol. But i understand so much more now- newspaper articles are still pretty tough, but i can get a good gist of what's going on- road signs, random signs ads, whatnot i'm getting pretty good at. I understand PMG pretty much fluently, only missing a word here and there. I love the language to death. I can roll my R's like a native chilean :P E.McRae told me that i speak at least 3 times as good as he did when he was my age. That was a major compliment from E.McRae. He doesn;t throw those bones too often lol. Speaking of Newspaper - Kielce, the city McRae opened, just published an awesome, majorly pro Article about our church! So rad! I think that is the latest in mission news :) OOO!! Last thing. This last thursday, was Tluszczy Czwartek. Fat Thursday! It's the day before lent, and everyone eats as many Paczki as they can! People everyone are selling them for dirt cheap lol. (I wonder if Jimmy has had a paczek?) E.McRae and I, who are trying to obtain figures of manliness that the Hoolies here would be afraid of, ate a mere three paczek a piece. One sister ate 20! Yes, she is still a live. Ok that is the news :) All is so good here. We're working hard so that the Lord will bless us with some solid new investigators and I feel that he has. We hope to have some new and promising investigators before this transfer ends. I'm sorry these things are long as can be, but a lot happens up here in the Eastern Side of Europe lol. Everyday i gain more of a testimony that this work is God's. Don't be afraid to have faith, about anything. The Lord blesses those who have righteous desires and follow his commandments. Especially in missionary work, the Lord acts through Faith. True story :) I love you fam so much. Have fun at that ceremony, I'll be thinking about you all :) - Starszy Rushton, Michael, your son and brother.