Gold Baby

Dearest Fam ;)So good to hear from you all per usual- It always adds that boost to my week ; ) Ma, I'm so sorry you're letter got deleted. I love to hear from you everyweek, and that smaller e-mail was perfect as can be ;) I always love the Long ones, but don't worry. I know how frustrating that is. I'l just look forward a bit extra to hearing about everyone next week :) I can't believe, Pa and Spence, you guys are going to The Grand canyon! I am so darn jealous lol. We have to do all these things when I come back! I demand it lol :P I write to you from Torun today. After a bunch of confusing and difficult circumstances, E.Hughes rode on a train this morning to Gdansk for Exchanges, and I rode by the means of an autobus to Torun to spend P-day here with the rest of the Bydgoszcz District. We went on top of the clock tower again, it really is one of the prettiest sites I've ever seen. We are most definitely going there. This week was amazing. I feel like it went by pretty fast for some reason. I'll try to pick out the highlights and throw in a good story or two lol.We've been really focusing on finding younger people who will build the Gospel here, who will by the Kingdom builders of Poland. For some reason we;ve been talking about other missions lately- E. Hughes served for 6 months in this city called Zgorzelec, which is on the German Border- he was part of a Berlin, Germany Mission district and what not, so he had lots of insight to the difference between our two missions- either way, this mission here in Poland has a different set of difficulties, because it is so relatively new . It's only been here since 1989 I think, and since several Kingdom builders - youngish people who know this is true and are committed to it, helping missionaries all the time etc.- have been added to the church and it is in large because of these people that the Church is growing. And the church is growing here, steadily, but the way to get it to grow faster, is to find more of these Kingdom builders. More complete branches that have people of all ages in them, that feel like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bydgoszcz has such a solid foundation with members like Tomek and Karolina, and a couple big families, we just need to find more people to get these already solid people excited and pumped up. SO......that has been our focus. And it's been going good :) lol. We have some really promising people. Maybe I'll talk about them in a sec if I have time :)I went to Szczecin this last Thursday on exchanges. Szczecin was opened when i started my mission in July of last year and as of now has 1 really strong member. It is very young lol. The missionary force up there right now though is Ridiculous with a capital R if you did not notice lol- E.Daly is the Branch President, and his companion is E.Guthrie, who is pretty fresh. But the other two companionships are Old as dirt, and are dying in the next 4 months, and they are really doing some amazing things. The exchange was way strange- I was with E.Daly half the time, which was rockin, and then with E.Bean half the time. Also rockin. The day I got there, I taught a lesson with E.Daly, contacted an hour with E.Bean, taught English with E.Daly and then went with E.Bean to conduct two Baptismal interviews. I was a tad terrfied to conduct such an interview, but it went so well. The first candidate, Agnieszka, is sincerely one of the most prepared investigators i have ever met. She has such a powerful testimony as an investigator and is prepared to help the church grow here in Szczecin, and I have no doubt she will do an amazing job. She's very personable and let's say she's good-enough looking that E.Bean is having to talk himself of coming back to Poland to marry her. That's a joke lol but she' really is solid as can be. The other candidate is amazing too. Lol not as ridiculously cool as Agnieszka but ready nonetheless. He is a cop and he had just got shot in the arm the week before. He showed me the bullet. lol. And he likes to talk in English, but doesn't know when to use "the' in conjunction with names. So he wold always say, 'the Bean taught me lots of good stuff. Yah, the Bean'll tell me more about that. The Bean is a really good guy." It was hard for me not to laugh :PWe stayed at E.Daly's apartment that night- the place is a mansion. The next day I took the 4 hour train ride back to Bydgoszcz- got to teach a student girl a first lesson which was very cool. Hopefully she get s in touch with the Szczecin Elders. We've met a lot of people who stick out in my mind. A couple, because they are amazing, like this Couple. Romiliusz- which is Romulus in English (I couldn't stop thinking about Sufjan Stevens right about then) and his wife and their baby, Romiliusz Jr. We're meeting with them tommorrow. Very normal amazing people, who if they catch fire of the Gospel, will be kingdom builders! Other people we met stick out in my mind because of how strange they are. We stopped one man and asked him if he believed in God. He said yes and asked us what we thought about abortion. We told him what we thought. He asked what we thought about eating eggs. We said they were tasty. He asked if that was not abortion. We said of course not! He then proceeded to tell us how it is just as horrible of an offence to eat an omlet (didn't even want to ask him about a ham omlet...he might of lost it) as it is to perform a human abortion. Crazy - sauce lol. E.HUghes and I chuckled a bit lol.We visited Fabian yesterday and taught him about the Priesthood. He is so darn amazing. He's like my brother. He is doing so well and we were blessed with some beautiful weather. I will never ever get bored of that Lake-side teaching scenario. It's too perfect. :)The 3 hour bus ride home was beautiful as can be. I love the Polish country side. It;s got a real natural feel to it, like it's never ever been touched. This road just curves and rolls with the hills and the forests look just thick as could be. I would love to play capture the flag out there with the siblings and buddies. Marek is doing good. He has some strange ideas, and we're working with him. Sometimes I feel he's not all there, that he doesn't completely understand the beauty of it all. But he'll get there. I'll give a better update on him next week.Natalia is our most promising investigaor right now. She is so rad. A young student who would also be a kindgdom builder. We had a lesson with Ewa, another amazing young member(one of the cooles) and it was brilliant. Hopefully she gets a solid answer soon ;) r Running out of time!Jus twant to let you know that I love you all. And I'm so sorry your letter was deleted mama, but I loved the one you sent so much :) You, my family are amazing. Have a brilliant week! I'll be praying for you and i ask the same :) The Gospel is the way to happiness, I know we've seen it and will only continue to see it; love you so much :) !