Drake -- General Conference!

Note from Renee -- Before I post Drake's email, I have to explain about Drake's love for the ukulele.  When he was in 9th grade, he wanted an electric guitar for Christmas.  I didn't want the noise of an electric guitar (too much possibility for HIGH volume) and thought of getting him a regular guitar, but thought he'd just think, "But I wanted an ELECTRIC guitar."  So I thought a ukulele might be different enough that he wouldn't as readily make the connection :).  Little did I know that the ukulele would soon become a part of him wherever he went.  I guess that's to be expected since whatever he's been interested in since he was little, he has dove COMPLETELY into.  He never goes part way.  This is what it was like whenever we went on trips in the car:

We had missionaries in our ward who brought a guitar or ukulele with them on their missions.  Drake loved going with them to teaching appointments and would bring his ukulele and play and sing with them.  He loved it!  After he got his mission call, he wrote to his mission president to see what the mission policy was for musical instruments (it's the mission president's decision from mission to mission).  The reply was that the missionaries could not bring musical instruments to Poland.  *sigh!*  Drake was willing to follow that, but had a hope that his new mission president who would begin in July would have a different view on it.  And he did!!  So Drake was excited to find himself a ukulele or guitar.  

The Kagele's gave him this ukulele last week as a gift since they said their daughter hardly used it (and they knew what kind of smile it put on Drake's face when they let him play it when he came to their house):

And now Drake gets to play it as he sees fit -- which for now is on the streets to help draw attention to their free table.  Wish I could be there to hear it!  But for now, we get pictures.  Enjoy!

So this is a finding activity that we do.   We set up a table with lots of free stuff, like Books of Mormon, pamphlets, etc. And we have a white board that says, "We are giving out free treasures!" -- then the name of the church.  And then sometimes I go play the ukulele to get people to stop!

And Sister Ott plays the violin, and we play hymns and stuff.

Dear Mom,

I am not sick anymore. So that is good.

I got healed by some Polish lady this week at like 9:00 PM...
It was weird... She asked me if I was sick and I told her I had a cold
Then she grabbed my hand, looked into my eyes, and said a prayer to tell me to healed.
Kind of weird
But kind of a fun story
And I feel better now! :) haha

So, as a branch, we got together on Saturday evening to watch the Saturday Morning Conference session live. But then we couldn't get the internet to work, so we had to just watch a recording of session from last year's conference...

Then the next day, they weren't able to record the conference session in Polish, so they watched the Relief Society session instead in Polish.
But, because we have a chinese investigator named Chris who doesn't speak Polish, but speaks English, we were able to watch the Saturday Morning Session with him. Also a member here in Poznań is from France, so he watched it in English too.

And then after church, we went to the Sheley's house and watched the Sunday Morning Session Live!!!
So that means we were watching it at the same time! Isn't that cool?
I thought that was really cool.

In Bydgoszcz we had a whole building as our chapel.  In Poznań, we just have the first floor of this building and upstairs are businesses

So, so far, I was able to watch the Saturday and Sunday Morning Sessions.
I thought it was really sad when President Monson talked about how much he misses his wife. :(
But it was a super good talk.

President Edgren said that we are supposed to be able to watch all the sessions, so we'll keep going over to the Sheley's house until we see all of them!

That is SOOOO cool that James is learning German!!! Tell him to keep it up and not give up!!
When I get home, he will be WAY better than me! Polish has taken over my brain!
Oh, also tell James and Racer that I got 2 holographic Tyranitar cards this week.  So they will each get to have one of their own! :)

Yeah, Polish is pretty crazy... And Elder Vernon is SUPER good at it! He was the one that taught me like TONS of grammar stuff!

I don't know if we will be able to Skype! But I guess we will find out pretty soon.
I hope you guys get my package soon.

We have tons of success on those free tables that we do where we play music.  We are going to do it 3 times this week!



Tomorrow, we have Zone Training in Poznań. So missionaries from Szczecin will be here, as well as the Zone Leaders. That will be fun.

Love,
Elder Drake Allen

P.S. from Renee -- I thought I'd share one of Drake's early videos of him playing the ukulele.  This was about 6 months after he got it.