Monday, October 20, 2014

Krakow again -- Training again!!

Note from Renee -- I haven't been posting to Drake's blog lately because he's mainly been sending voice recordings and hasn't sent any photos in weeks!  I finally found out why no photos (see in his letter below). In the past few weeks, he's been busy teaching, preaching and training.  Last week, he went to Warsaw last and picked up a brand new to Poland companion, went to Zone training while there (saw Elder Hubbard, which always makes him happy!), went to Auschwitz again with the current missionaries in Krakow (Elder Hon was transferring and wanted to go there before he left), and Drake was sick one week with a cold (which didn't keep him down, but make it a little harder to keep going). All is well though, for sure!  Drake is staying in Krakow for at least another 9 weeks, possibly until the end of his mission in February.

At Zone Training -- photo courtesy of Elder Hubbard's mom :)
Dear Mom,

Bell Choir is super fun! I hope you like it. It's super fun. Yup it is.

I think I did here that you are in the Stake Young Women's  Presidency. Is that fun? Have you done that before?

My new companion is super cool. His name is Elder Benjamin Jones and he is from Wales!!  Super cool, huh? So he has a super interesting accent and says a lot of things differently. Which is fun. This is the craziest part though. He is the same age as CEBRE! haha. He is four years older than me! Which is certainly something new, because all of my trainee companions have always been younger than me. But I am now teaching Elder Jones how to be a missionary and how to speak Polish and he is 24! haha It's pretty interesting.

You haven't heard the "as the crow flies" term?
What the crazy? I thought everyone knew that!! I feel so alone... But dad has heard it that is good.
Has Cebre or Terra?

Here's something weird. Last night I was saying the poem Hey Diddle Diddle
I don't know why... haha
and I got to the part where it says "The little dog laughed to see such sport..."
And Elder Jones was like, "Huh?? Sport? I've always heard it as "to see such FUN"
And I was like, "what...?"
haha
So I don't know if it is different in Wales. Or if there are two versions or what.
Because then I called one of the other Elders in our district and asked him to recite the poem
and he said sport. and he is from Utah. So... I don't know.

So mom. You may be wondering why I haven't sent pictures in a while.
I would!  But I lost my camera charging cord! And so I can't charge my camera and it is dead.
I have tried to find the cord here in Poland, but it is a weird one and I can't find it anywhere

So maybe you can find one on Amazon.uk and get it sent to me so it gets here fast??  Thank you!

Oh, we also have an Elder Weggersen in our district. He is from Norway! He is super cool! And Mom, you know that you have Norwegian ancestry through Grandpa Southwick, right? :) So I have a bit of Norwegian in me as well! :)  

Yeah, I am super happy that I get to stay in Kraków longer! I hope I just stay until the very end! :)

Ok, I hope you like the necklace! :) It's amber!!! Because Poland is very well known for it's amber!

Love,
Drake

P.S. from Renee -- yes, my Grandma Southwick's mother and father were both born in Norway -- why none of us have blonde hair, I'll never know!)

In leiu of lots of pictures, I'm posting a video from our Skype call on Mother's Day -- my apologies if the sound doesn't match the video perfectly.  Starszy Allen singing "I Need Thee Every Hour"