It's all good?

I realized it might appear from what I write that our mission life is always super awesome, which a lot of the time it is. Truly. But, it's important that you know that there are times that fill the role of opposition.

We don't discover delights without frequent fails.

In the summer of life, you sometimes get a thunderstorm; sometimes lightning strikes too close to home.

Not all bridge selfies captivate the way you envisioned them.

Sometimes you cut things a little too close and barriers are unyielding.

Sometimes you cancel a baptism and four of your most interested people ghost you in one week.

I love this saying, probably not by Winston Churchill, but profound nonetheless:
"If you find yourself going through Hell...keep going."

Marking time

It's kinda exciting that the couple who recently joined the church in our branch had a new baby girl this week. This is a rare blessing since families are not the way most people come into the church. Most people actually have to face stern opposition from family members. Thinking about that little girl growing up knowing what our meetings are like, what FHE is, with a life of knowledge about the restored gospel, it gives us hope for the future. And that little girl will add a solid 10% to our sacrament meeting attendance.

Midnight from our balcony.
You can't see your way walking or driving without a light,
but you can see some light in the sky.

This week in Finland they would have had fun cultural/pagan celebrations around the longest day of the year. We didn't have any all-night parties and people were not out and about in the light, but one person in the neighborhood had firecrackers, or there was a shooting. (kidding!) It was the day to celebrate Mary's ascension to heaven without tasting death, so that was a thing.

The solstices are my favorite times of the year. From this point we know the days will get shorter. Six months from now we know the amount of light will steadily grow. I don't know why I like them except that the marking of the earth's movement around the sun and our place seems clearly defined for that moment. It brings me solace.

Perhaps it reflects our longing for a clear signal of our progression. Jean and I feel we have lost track of our position in the long span of time a little bit because we have lost our regular reminders of eternity that we get in temples. Missing those reminders makes the scriptures that much more precious. The words of humans who really, I mean really, knew where they fit give us hope and a sense of place from how they lived their lives.

Missionaries trying to get into a selfie with the president

We had our last zone conference with our mission president, his wife, and their family. Another marking of change. The missionaries truly love him. As always happens in missionary life, we must say goodbye to people and the known and face a little bit of unknown. What tempers any anxiety is the faith that the Lord knows how all this will work out and He chooses the right people from all the choices and all the times.






We were walking to the chapel one day, not late unusually, through the old part of town and there was, surprisingly, an old church we had not been inside. The variety and number of old churches in this country is quite astounding and I admit that often I am not bored when compelled to look inside. Sometimes while driving we see an old church in a village and take off from the main road to investigate. They're always fascinatingly well cared for. Jean spotted this one as we walked by and noted that it had a bell tower. What added to my excitement was to learn that to climb the narrow circular stairs up the tower we also got to pay! About halfway up they have a "museum" which is really a few 500 year-old clocks in an attic room. They were interesting, but I didn't get why this church had them in their attic. The main tower clock has the longest pendulum mechanism in the world at 31.2 meters (that's right, I know you were wondering where that was, well, it's right here in Gdańsk Poland).

Our self-guided tour (aka, nobody around except to take our fee) led us up to where the bells of the carillon are mounted. Imagine our surprise when one of the largest bells that we were standing under gonged half-past the hour. I'm sure the people on the other side of town that heard it were probably not surprised at all. That gong would've been good information to be warned of by our non-guide, but better that we didn't get there 30 minutes earlier or later, I guess. This brings to mind something from our personal history. I suspect it may be true for many couples, but Jean has for years suggested I don't hear well, or more precisely, I don't hear HER well. It may be true, some of you know our relevant "Christmas badger" story. You also may have heard that those tiny devices in your ears are incredibly expensive. I have also mentioned that medical non-essentials like Lasik, teeth whitening, braces, and whatever else you can think of (haven't checked on liposuction, hmm), are much cheaper here than at home. So, of course when we saw an office that sells them, Jean said "There's a store that sells hearing aids!" then, after the typical non-response from me when spending money might be required, she said "Let's just go see how much they are." To which I said "What?"

Just a picture from a small restaurant in a small town
where we got a big steak for a small price

Your dose of Bridges on a bridge.
This one is in Warsaw at a huge park in the center of the city.
We spent the day in Warsaw for zone conference,
then had some time to kill before catching our train home.

It was Fathers' Day

It was Fathers' Day and it was remembered. For this I'm so happy and I feel blessed!

I've noticed that when I look at photos of groups of people, especially old photos, I might find something interesting in there, like the hairstyles, the clothes styles, the lighting or setup or location, the awkward poses, but I'm really just thinking "Huh, another old family photo." When you look at your family photos you don't look at the things, you look at the faces. You can't stop the image of their face from bringing memories and emotions. I hope you'll look at some old family photos and feel the good in them.

A castle with a bridge

Contrast

Clear sky after a storm.
Late night drive home from Warsaw

It's June now, and that gives us long days of light to enjoy. The rules say missionaries are to be in their apartments by 21:00. A few nights lately we've been out well beyond that curfew.






We were fortunate to attend another baptism, this one in Warsaw. Warsaw has the only church meetinghouse in Poland and the chapel was full of people (about 60). It felt comforting to have such a large group of saints together. I found myself wishing we could bring our branch members to experience a sacrament meeting there.



We had planned with our district, the Elders, the Sisters and us, to spend a p-day in a town on the Baltic called Hel. We got to do that this week and it was a lot of fun to be with them and a couple of young adult investigators. There are too many jokes that Jean won't allow here, so we'll focus on the name's meaning from the Greek, which is "light," like the sun. Sigh, we'll have to leave it at that...

(you can private message me for more pics of that)

No swimming for missionaries.
Wading? OK.

I know what you're thinking, but no,
that's not Elder Bridge

After a beautiful, SUNNY (hot) day in "that place" we got back to the chapel for our branch FHE. One of our missionaries was not feeling well at FHE, and eventually got very sick from the heat.

We ended up following an ambulance to the hospital ER. After a priesthood blessing and the IV fluids, it was like night and day and the missionary was up and about and ready to go. We learned a little about "free healthcare for all" that night.

There are no staff to tell you where to go or what to do, only other patients who are waiting and will make sure you don't get in the queue ahead of any of them. You don't need to speak the language to understand that look. Wait outside one closed door in the hopes that it will eventually open, and when it does push your way to find out what's next. Then wait outside another door and go through the same ritual. Then another. And another. Then wait until somebody says you can leave. I thought of a more appropriate descriptor: health-nowedont-care. We exited the hospital at 2:30 AM, to see the sun rising on another beautiful day. Thankfully, all was well and still is.

(As I write this I realize our ER experiences at home have not been much different)

A bridge.
The "infinity pool" effect from 300 years ago

Tunnel of lindens

Another similar experience was when we took our dear sister to the dentist for a toothache. During our 4 hours of waiting, again in what looked like an abandoned building with only other patients, we heard many stories from her life, some we had not heard before. She is 92, so if you do the math you can see that she was born before the war, the same age our mothers would be. She told of when children were selected to work in the factories during the war. Her older sister was required to go, but because she was sickly, Halina went as her sister. She packed her suitcase with her carefully ironed clothes and personal belongings for the trip. When they arrived they took from them their clothes and everything, even every stitch they were wearing---boys, girls, men, women. They were all together in a large room. They were then herded to another building where there was a pile of old clothes and shoes from which they had to scramble to get something they could wear.

Storyteller Halina

From time to time we hear people refer to life during the communist era. They tell us that stores had two things: vinegar and mustard. For one man, his memory is the empty meat hooks. Some people we able to barter services for eggs or produce from farmers. I'm struck that this was not anciently or during the great depression, but at the same time Jean and I were "struggling" in school to make it with our young family.

This month there are several activities happening in Gdańsk celebrating 1989, the year of the first free elections. This marks the end of communism (and our James's birthday).

We're always happy when we see a 127 to take us home

The shipyards in Gdańsk are a symbol of Solidarity as that is where the strikes and worker negotiations started in the early 80's. In 1989, with a free market, immediately the only customer that every business had had, the Soviet government, was gone. When they no longer took the ships, the coal, the buses, these companies had to compete on the global market and they were years behind in technology. The idle shipyards are now only a monument to that time. Farmers had no means to get their products to market and infrastructure was very dilapidated. We still see highways that are old and deeply rutted, but that is changing rapidly. The new government at the time decided to implement two-years of no business tax and thus everybody started a business. This got them through the initial struggles of capitalism and today there's no product we can't get.



Some missionaries have had trouble getting their residency (visa) to stay legally in Poland. You have 90 days to secure your residency. One group of missionaries, about 5, didn't meet the deadline and were deported from Poland and reassigned to Chicago. That was obviously very emotional for them and this has caused a lot of worry. Thus, we were sure to file our paperwork on our first day in Gdańsk. The elusive goal is to get a certain stamp in your passport which means you're legally in the country. We were a little stressed because the first available appointment was 93 days after our entry. Of course, you can get no information on the status of your application because they are flooded with applicants. We have spent full days at the immigration office ourselves and with other missionaries. Friday we went to the office again, this time for our scheduled appointment. The lady brought out our files, which was a relief that they had them, a stack of about 40 pages. She had us correct a few pages and stamped EVERYthing. She had 5 stamps that she pounded on several pages at a time---bam, bam, bam, bam, bam---usually three stamps per page, then signed each stamp. I was watching the stamps she reached for, noticing there was a large red one she never used. I thought, that must be "the stamp" we want in our passport. Every time she touched our passports, I held my breath, waiting for her to reach for that stamp, then was disappointed when she only looked at some bit of information in them. We created 30 more pages during the interview for her to pound with different stamps and sign. After just 2 hours, she took Jean's passport, reached under her desk and pulled out this HUGE stamp and BAM! We're legal!

The moment of legality