31 Oct 2016

Final pictures of Bydgoszcz

Goodbye Elder Hill, hello Krakow!

Here's some of the Rynek (town square)

Kraków is really great! Don't know if I said this last week, but Kraków hasn't had a baptism for the last two years. The Catholic influence here is BIG. Huge, one could say. For example, the people here who have heard of the Mormon church, know it as "the cancer of the Catholic church" and in the last week we've (our district) has gotten at least two calls to repentance from other people. Granted, this is making it sound quite harsh, but it's really not that bad. Most people just don't see a point in there being anything other than the Catholic church because of Papal authority and whatnot. Most people even accept that there's been a general apostasy as well, but still go to the Catholic church because there just can't be any other thing. It just boggles my mind! 

But speaking of hard-core Catholics, does anyone here remember Jan? He was someone I taught while I was in Szczecin for the second time. He was the one who was studying to become a Priest, decided not to, i tak dalej... (and so on) and with him I learned a TON and my entire view on the way things work and how to go about understanding the people changed. I learned to be a lot more loving and accepting of people of other faiths. Also, he's like one of my best friends now. ANYWAY, he's been meeting with missionaries for the last 8 months, but for the last 4 or so, he's not really been putting effort into anything and we pretty much lost hope there, BUT THEN in the last couple of weeks, he's come back and something opened his eyes, he stopped smoking and drinking, and he's decided to get baptized!!!! If all goes to plan, then it will be happening on the 13 of November! Pray for him PLEASE

Elder Curtis and I get along pretty well.  He and I are working on our teaching, it doesn't flow quite well, and we have a hard time building off of each others' ideas because we've both got our own plans running in our heads - pretty normal when you have different teaching styles and we've only been together for a week!. But we've both noticed it and are working on working in better unity.

We exercise, but not together 😬 I just REALLY don't want to go jogging. Anything but that

There's one other set of Elders here- Elder McPherson (four months left) and Elder Pettit, who's in the same group as Elder Curtis. There's also a senior couple here named the Daltons, they're awesome! Sister Dalton was very grateful that I could play the piano (there it is again, mom, there's been a total of 3 or 4 sacrament meetings that I've been a part in where I didn't play the piano) so we're going to switch off every week. I am district leader again, and I've been given the assignment from President Turek to figure out how the missionaries can better work with the ward leaders... any ideas?

The dynamics of this branch are so odd. Kraków certainly has a ton of tourists (I've already been stopped by two american members) and every Sunday there will be anywhere from 3-20 people from out of town. This last week there were two Poles, only one of which didn't speak English, 4 members who live here but are Americans, 6 missionaries from America, and 15 people from out of town. All from America. So instead of the meetings being held in Polish, and translated to English, it was the other way around, and it was WEIRD. Sacrament meeting in English is not something that I am used to, and listening to the speakers in English was weird, and hearing american english accents was weird AND THEN they asked me and Elder McPherson to bear our testimonies because we are new here, and it was in English! That was the first time in over a year that I've done that in sacrament meeting in english, and it just felt strange. I was free- I could say whatever I wanted! I had no limited vocabulary, no stumbling over grammar principles, no nothing! Going home is going to be weird.

weird.

I love you all and thank you for your prayers and support!

Love,

Elder Liechty