Week 101 - Poznan

Elder Hadfield with President Turek - conducting Zone Conference

Matching duck ties for these friends who came to Poland together (Hadfield, Erickson, Dossett)

Elders Dossett, Hadfield, Maslowski, Malachowski (office)

Notes on the photos from Sister Murri (Bialystok):

The first photo— I didn’t know he had this hidden talent.  He practiced until other missionaries showed up.  He had come to Warsaw early, with us.  (They helped us set up.)  He was a much better player than the sister who played for Zone conference.  When I talked to him about that later, he said he asked her to play to let her share her talent and have the growth.  I was impressed.

The second photo is with President Turek.  Your son is conducting Zone conference.  He did a great job!

The third photo is during a teaching session.  He also did a great job at that!  This companion is Elder Maslowski.  That all changed after Zone conference, and our loss will be Poznan’s gain.

The fourth photo—Meeting up with his former companion and the AP’s.  Note the tie.  It is about to change to the duck ties.  I think it is the group that came out together wanted matching ties.  The store couldn’t match them, but they did have a variety of colors with the same duck on them.  These are supposed to be great ties that a former investigator sells.  They have been treated with a stain resistant chemical.  

The fifth photo is with his bros.  Notice they have all changed out for the duck ties.

The last photo is Elder Malachowski telling them of a tender mercy they had received. This senior missionary grew up in England, although his parents were Polish.  His father had to flee for his life, when Russia took over.  I think his father and uncle had worked for the secret service??  Elder Malachowski is here, but he can’t get his legal papers to stay, until he can document his nationality.  One piece of information he needed was his mother’s birth data.  On a preparation day, they went out to the town they thought she had been born in.  They went to the church (where that type of birth information is recorded) but the priest was away.  The clerk there said he would have the priest contact them.  They then walked around the church and took several photos.  They crossed the street and saw a large estate or castle structure behind a gate.  The groundskeeper asked them if they would like to come in and look around the grounds.  Of course they did.  After that, he asked if they would like to go inside?  Yes!  The housekeeper showed them around.  Again, they took several photos.  A bank owns this place now, and they run events and seminars in it.  The end of the story is that when the priest called them back, he had the mother’s information.  She had been baptized in that church and had been born in that castle.  The mother’s names they had been using was correct, but in the wrong order.  They got details they needed and photos for family history.  His mother’s father had been caretaker of the castle.

I think he has one more Zone conference before you get him back.  We are not in his Zone anymore, but he said he will be in Warsaw for his departure on a day our group will be visiting.  One last chance to take a photo for you, and one last chance to say goodbye.  

Our departure date is around June 4th.  I’m not sure how it works for us.  We may fly home to our daughters home in Denver for a visit, before we return to Eden, Utah.  We told him we would take him boating sometime, and we teased him that we would like to approve any girl he becomes serious with!

Sister Libby Murri