Last Letter Home w/Many Pictures of Life on the Road

Elder Fotu and I on a bus

Dear Mom,

Yeah, this is my last emailing P-Day.  I will be getting ready to leave. I think the Edgrens are going to take me out to dinner. It's going to be fun and special.

Yeah, it's going to be fun to have the Edgrens so close. (They are from Danville -- just an hour away from our home).

That's cool that the Youth Conference thing went well.

Yeah, I know all of those people at Elder Wolfley's homecoming.  MAN, Elder Finch's hair is crazy!! haha

A lot of missionaries go home and keep their hair all Euro style and stuff.

It's fun having this hair sometimes.

but... i miss my old hair! -- hahaha

I certainly want to grow it out when I get home -- haha

It's more fun having it long. Having short hair is kind of boring.

It's weird.  Right now I am in Bydgoszcz. We just got here like an hour ago by train from Poznań. It was great getting to go to Poznań. I got to see Darek and Bożena and Maciej. I gave a talk in church. It was so surreal to go back there. It felt like I had been gone for so long. But at the same time, it felt like I was just there.

Now, being in Bydgoszcz is even weirder. It was my first area. I still remember my first days here.

So coming back here for the first time... it's really trippy

It feels like I am walking in a dream. And my trainee transfer seems SOOO long ago. It feels like forever ago that I was here.

When I walked into the chapel... it felt like it was so long ago that I was there. Really weird.

Strange stuff.

Hey do you know when my flight home is? I think I have the intinerary. but do you know when I am coming in?

That would probably be important that you know that... haha

who will be at the airport?

Mom, thank you so much for being such a support for me while I have been here on my mission. With all the letters, emails, and packages. You've helped a lot. Thank you.

I love you, Mom.

I'll see you soon!

Love,

Drake  

Lublin -- I went on exchanges with Elder Owens at the far right

With Elder Garcia after being out in a snow storm
 -- my hair is all wet

Kielce missionaries

Teaching Polish to the missionaries in Katowice
(as only Starszy Allen can; he has an amazing gift for teaching and for learning languages)

Katowice missionaries

Wroclaw Missionaries

Łódż missionaries

Szczecin missionaries
(There's a shortage of senior missionaries in Poland,
so this is nice to see that Szczecin has a senior couple).

Back with Elder Wilcox and the elders in Poznań

Bożena in Poznań

The Dynamic Duo

Warsaw Missionaries
Elder Jones (bottom right right) went on exchanges with Elder Fotu 
I went on exchanges with Elder Garrett (bottom right, on the left)
Elder Campora (bottom left on the right) was roommates with Will Sutherland at BYU
(Will is one of Drake's very best friends from Redding; I just happened to be in Utah last April when Will opened his mission call and I asked all the boys in the room where they were going on their missions.  When Dominik Campora said "Poland," I just about fell over and spent a good 5 minutes just talking to him all excitedly about it before I moved on to the next boy :) )