I have attached a map of our branch boundaries. It would take four hours to traverse it east to west and two hours to go north to south. The dots show where we have members living.
Yesterday we drove the young sister missionaries to the town of Kobylnica about 90 minutes away from Gdańsk. The larger pointer with the white dot was where we went. We were visiting one of the branch members, Elžbieta Chlubnová,
This was the first time I’ve driven the little red mission car so I was a little nervous. Fortunately Sister Dil navigated for me and we made it there and back safely. I only made one terrible error. I attempted to get on the freeway using an off-ramp. Fortunately there were no other cars on the road and I quickly backed up and got in the correct lane. Crisis averted.
We found our branch member, Sister Chlubnová, to be in fair spirits. She is a tiny woman and very soft spoken. I think I loved her the minute I saw her. She lives in a sanatorium with a lot of mentally ill people. (In order for our car to enter they had to open a large automated electric gate.) She is in her right mind but has tremors. Her head moves back and forth. She told us in Polish that she was originally from the Czech Republic and that two of her four children (her sons) live there now. Her ex-husband also lives in the Czech Republic. One of her daughters lives in Germany and I don’t remember where the other lives but it is far away. She says very few people visit her. That made me sad. This poor sister was admitted seven years ago into a place where she will never be able to leave. None of her family visits her. In order for us to visit her we need the sister missionaries to translate. Their schedule is very full and we can only come about once a month.
This visit reminds me how blessed I am. I am surrounded by people who care about me. I can move about the world and make choices of where I live. Why am I so fortunate?
