Kraków -- Rynek, Easter Festival, and nearby Salt Mines

Me in the Kraków Panorama

Rynek Panorama (click to see full size)

Dinner to celebrate Easter just before
at a restaurant like Ratatouille!

Dear Mom,

Sorry that I have like no time to write today! Yesterday was a holiday and so we didn't get to email. 

My new companion that I'm training is  Elder Remy.  He's from from Plain City, Utah . . . which is near Ogden.  I took a 3 hour train by myslef to Warsaw to meet him (while Elder Taylor rode to Lodz).  Then Elder Remy and I rode back together.

On Elder Remy's first day in Kraków, we met a young man while contacting with the white board (Amazing -- his FIRST DAY!) who agreed to meet with us.   He's excited and eager to learn the gospel and has already set a baptism date for May.  

I've got to go, but I'll send some pictures! From the Saltmines! and from the Rynek.

Love,
Drake

Together for Culture Night

Our district just before the transfer

Elder Remy and I

Easter Festival

With traditionally dressed Polish ladies

“Wieliczka” Salt Mine

Deep in the Salt Mine 
We went down 56 half stair cases to get to the bottom.  At the end, they SHOT us up a shaft to get to the top -- we could see the walls WHIZ by as we rocketed up super fast -- it was crazy!

The walls in the salt mine taste like . . . yep, salt!

Everything is sculpted out of salt

In front of the nativity sculpture (detail below)

There are dozens of statues carved out of salt

There are 3 chapels carved out of salt

And there's an entire cathedral carved out of salt -- all carved by miners hundreds of years ago.  The wood beams are 500 years old and are in perfect condition because the salt has preserved it.

P.S. from Renee -- There is a legend about the salt mine -- copied from Wikipedia:

There is a legend about Princess Kinga, associated with the Wieliczka mine. The Hungarian noblewoman was about to be married to Bolesław V the Chaste, the Prince of Kraków. As part of her dowry, she asked her father for a lump of salt, since salt was prizeworthy in Poland. Her father King Béla took her to a salt mine in Máramaros. She threw her engagement ring from Bolesław in one of the shafts before leaving for Poland. On arriving in Kraków, she asked the miners to dig a deep pit until they come upon a rock. The people found a lump of salt in there and when they split it in two, discovered the princess's ring. Kinga had thus become the patron saint of salt miners in and around the Polish capital.

Exciting Transfer!

On the streets of Kraków

Dear Mom & Dad,

You have already heard about my transfer call, I assume. But I talk about it in my voice recording this week too.

I am training!!! :) I am staying in Kraków as District Leader and training! :) I've trained for the 2nd part before, but never the first training.  I am so excited! I got a new calling as well! I am going to be the District Leader here in Kraków and I am going to be a trainer! which means that I will have a brand new greenie! I am so excited for that! I go up to Warsaw to the mission home on Wednesday to be assigned to my trainee and then I bring him back down to Kraków on a train. He's in the MTC right now. He'll be flying over from Utah tomorrow I think.   I haven't been to the mission home since I first arrived in Poland!  That was such an exciting time.  This is  the best transfer call I have gotten yet! haha :)

Did I not tell you about President Uchtdorf 
coming? hmm... I thought I did! Whoops!

Yeah, he is coming in the middle of June. And it's going to be a Mission Conference.
So ALL of the missionaries will be going to Warsaw for the conference as well as ALL of the members in Poland. So it's kind of like a giant Stake Conference for the entire country of Poland. It's going to be so awesome. I will get to see missionaries that I haven't seen in forever. Like I haven't seen my MTC companion Elder Blom since we've been in Poland. I will also get to see Elder Harris and that will be fun because he is going home like a couple days after the conference. All the missionaries in his group are. Also, I will get to see members from the branches that I served in, like Maciej who got baptized in Poznań! I really hope he comes. I have been emailing him about it.

So during General Conference, President Eyring was talking about how children who are brought up in the church will always remember the songs they sang in church. I started to cry because suddenly I remembered something very special to me.
When I was little, we would sit in the second row of the chapel in the McKinleyville Ward building. Before I was able to read, when we would sing the hymns in Sacrament Meeting, dad, you would whisper into my ear the words of each line of the song before each line so that I could sing the songs too. I still remember that, Dad. And that's a special memory to me. I am blessed to have the best Dad ever, who raised me in the church and helped me to grow. I want to be a Dad like you are to me.

Me

This is the new group of missionaries who arrived in Warsaw from Utah on Tuesday.  I wonder which will be Drake's companion. I only know it's not the one in the middle, because his mom posted this on FB and said her son is going to Lodz.  I'm sure Drake will tell us on Monday!

Today, for Elder Taylor's last P-Day in Kraków, we are going to the Wieliczka Salt Mines.

I'll take pictures.

Look it up on Wikipedia or something and share it with the family during FHE! :)

Elder Taylor is transferring to Lodz

I have not opened up the Easter Package yet. I am waiting until Easter.
What was in the package that I sent home that you got a few weeks ago? I don't remember.

Mom, we sang that "Home" song by Phillip Phillips. At the same concert where we did the "I Will Wait" song. Do you not remember? I played the banjo and sang the high harmony.  (Note from Renee -- I wrote to Drake and told him that this song came out after he left on his mission and I thought he'd like it -- little did I remember that he played that song with some friends at a talent night just before he left :) )

"Saving Mr. Banks" sounds like maybe that will be a good movie to watch when I get home.

That's cool that you tell friends about my mission. You're a missionary too!

So you befriended Sister Pawlik on Facebook? :) That's awesome! :)

Love,

Elder Drake Allen

P.S. from Renee -- Dieter F. Uchtdorf is one of our family's very favorite church leaders and speakers.  He is from Germany, which first intrigued us because Scott went on his mission to Germany.  He spoke at a conference McKinleyville in January 2008 and impacted all of our lives.  Drake, just barely 14 at the time, went up to meet him and told him that he was learning to speak German (Drake was teaching himself to speak German, quite well, I might add) and President Uchtdorf urged Drake to continue learning the language.  That impacted Drake's love for learning languages and his love for President Uchtdorf.  I'm sure it helped prepare him for his mission.  He will be absolutely thrilled to get to see President Uchtdorf as a missionary over 6 years later).  This is one of my favorite talks by President Uchtdorf:

Cobras

The Pawlik Family + the Kraków missionaries

Dear Mom,

That is so cool that you saw Elder Vernon's mom. Elder Vernon is the coolest. He's probably the missionary in this mission that I look up to the most. He's awesome.

As far as the names, those all look pretty good. Except I don't think the Renata has two t's, and Szable ends with an "e", and Jakub is spelled as "Jakub".

(Note from Renee -- Drake told us our names in Polish last week in the voice recording and I wrote and asked him if I had the spelling correct -- these are the names and pronunciations in parentheses):

Scott -- Szkot (ShkOt)

Renee -- Renata (Renotta)

Cebre -- Szable (Shableh)

Terra -- Ziemia (Zemiah)

Drake -- Kaczor (Kauchor)

Racer -- Wyścigówka or Wyścig (Vishkeegowa or Vishkeeg)
Trace -- ślad (Schlaud)

Lexie  -- Ola or Olka (she loves the latter :) )

James -- Jakub (Yacoobp)

That's so cool that you went to General Conference. I did watch it. And I actually watched the Saturday Morning one live! So I  was seeing you guys live! that's cool.

I still have some more sessions to watch though.

Did you ever get the package I sent from Warsaw?

I got a little package from you. Am I supposed to wait until Easter to open it?

Oh, Transfer calls are this Saturday! So I find out this week if I am staying in Kraków.

I have some pictures to send.

We went to the Pawlik's house on Monday, this P-Day.  Brother Greg Pawlik is a Polish man who has been a member for almost 20 years. He went on a mission to Chicago, speaking Polish and English. He is married to an American woman (Lisa Pawlik, look her up on Facebook!) And they have 4 kids. The kids speak both Polish and English fluently.

They both are doTerra people! They are like missionaries for Essential Oils, so their house smells good.
So that is the part that I think you would like, Mom. And now for what Dad would be interested in...   :)

Love,

Elder Drake Allen

Shelby Cobra factory (where Brother Pawlik works)

Brother Pawlik giving us a tour of the factory

In front of a Jaguar E type

That's Elder Żeleźniak in the background

Photos of Kraków

This used to be part of a giant statue  -- at least, 

that's what the legend says...

I am the same as the statue

Cathedral

Cathedral again to the right

The Rynek (or city square)

Pigeons all around!

See the pigeon flying away?

A few pictures, a few words

Drake didn't write much this month -- just commented on a few photos I sent to him.  But in his voice recording, he said quite a bit!  He said that they had a few days of exchanges wtih Elder Saltmarsh (below) and a Polish/New Zealand/Tongan missionary named Elder Zelezniak. (Hopefully we'll get a photo of him another day).  Elder Zelezniak grew up in New Zealand and other places, but has Polish descent.  Anyway, Drake said that he's an amazing missionary and has been on his mission for over 2 years -- he asked to extend his mission because he loves it so much.  He goes home in a just a few more weeks and Drake feels blessed to be able to get to work with him.  

He loved getting to work with Elder Saltmarsh for a day, as well.  He said that they set up a display with a scripture on the white board, and sang hymns in Polish as people passed by in the park.  I'm sure they both loved it!  

On exchanges with Elder Saltmarsh

A mini-missionary from Poland (Aleksandra) sent this photo with the following  written below:
Believe, Hope, Endure -- AWESOME MISSIONARY!

Tons of Ties and a Turtle

Me with Jan's pet turtle.

Dear Mom,

Ok! This week I actually have some time to email! so here I go! :)

As you know, I am in Kraków. It's a pretty cool city. The branch is pretty small but bigger than Poznań's. The branch president's name is Andrzej Kucia and he has been a member for about maybe 10 years. He is in his 30s, unmarried, and is a dentist! Our newest member of the ward is a 50 year old man named Jan. (Pronounced yawn) He got baptized two days before I got here. So he is the recent convert that we have been working with a lot. We meet with him almost everyday. He is absolutely obsessed with Indians. Like Native Americans. That's what got him so interested in the Book of Mormon in the first place. He is pretty cool. He paints. We went over to his house an there was a turtle walking around on the ground. It is his pet. His room is covered with American Indian stuff and paintings of Indians, that he drew. Last week, he gave us a painting of his of a shipwreck. It is now hanging in our apartment. I will send a picture.

Painting from Jan

We went to Auschwitz a week ago. I sent a voice recording about that and the guy I talked to. It was all very interesting and very surreal. It felt like I was inside a history book or in a documentary.  I think that maybe Grandpa would think that was interesting. 

When I was in Warsaw, there was a member named Marcin Gałecki. I talked about him in a voice recording once. He is the one that loves temples. When he heard that I was going to Kraków, he told me to visit his uncle Marian Lisek, who lives there. So last week, we went to his address, and right when we got there, an old lady (maybe 90 years old) was opening the gate to the driveway. We asked her if Marian lived there. She said he did. I asked her if we could visit him. She said yes and let us in. I asked her if she was Marian's wife. She said yes. We went inside and Marian wasn't home yet. But she had us sit down and made us some raspberry tea and cookies. I asked her about her family and if she had photo albums. So she got out her photo albums and showed me the pictures of her family. Then Marian got home and we talked to him. We talked to them about the Restoration, the Book of Mormon and the Plan of Salvation. They are Catholics, but don't actually believe in it. We asked them if we could come back another time. So we returned a week later, and they were home and let us in. Marian is 90 years old, and is not healthy. He thinks he is going to die soon and doesn't really care about anything anymore. So we shared with them the Plan of Salvation and testified to them of what we know. 

Marian and his wife.

I told him that I know there is a life after death. I told him that my grandma died a year ago and that I miss her so much. But that I know that I will see her again. I asked him if he would want that all to be true. He said, "Anybody would want that. But I just don't believe it." So we testified more. It turned out that they are just so old that they don't care about religion anymore and doesn't really matter to them anymore. Pretty sad. But we offered them service and told them that we may come back soon in the future to help them, check up on them, and see if there is any service we can do for them.

Zone Conference was 2 weeks ago. I got to see Elder Hubbard. That was cool. I was asked to give a special language presentation to the Zone about how to learn Polish. So I did that. Yup.

I bought frozen strawberries from the store today

So yup. That is what is going on right now. Oh! We also have an investigator named Kamil. He has been coming to our English course and he comes to church and institute. We had our first missionary meeting with him last week and taught him the First Lesson (The Restoration). It went well. He said that he will get baptized when he finds out that the Book of Mormon and the church. We committed him to read and pray. At the end of the lesson we knelt down and he said a prayer asking if the Book of Mormon is true. He wasn't in church yesterday because he was out of town. But we have a meeting set up for later this week. I translated for all 3 hours of church yesterday. Haha. After a few hours of translating your brain kind of is melted. haha. But it is really fun.

I think I am going to send a package home soon with some stuff. I have way too much extra weight. It makes transfers really hard. I have like way too many T-Shirts that I don't even wear. Oh, Elder Cieślak and Tingey actually just last week sent a package that I left in Warsaw that I didn't have time to send. So that should come soon. I don't even remember what is in it. But then I might send another package this transfer.

Guess what?  I met a guy on the bus today from Los Gatos!  Weird, right?

Alright. That's all folks! Love you!

Love,

Starszy Drake Allen

P.S. I think you will all like the voice recording today. haha. It's different than most.

Note from Renee -- In Drake's voice recording, he spent the whole time talking about his ties and which one each of us in our family would like best.  (Missionaries wear ties 6-7 days a week, so they get into their ties :) )   It was fun to hear his reasons for why we would like each of them.  And he even sent pictures to show us which he was talking about :)

Dad (his chocolate chip cookie dough tie)

Mom (because I like purple & periwinkle)

Cebre (he calls this his Candy Cane tie)

Terra (because she likes orange, & stripes)

Racer (because he likes blue and it's kind
of like Ravenclaw's tie in Harry Potter)

Lexie (the Strawberry tie)

Lexie (he couldn't decide between the 2)

James (because it looks like his favorite
video game character's shirt -- Ness)