30 January 2017

kraków smog skyline

Baptism!

Teresa was baptized!!!!!!!

On Saturday, though, not Friday. The schedule changed. Also, I think the fact that there's very few baptisms makes it so that no one really knows how it looks and what to do when it happens, and it's always a little funny because I haven't seen a baptism where something doesn't go a little off, like the person has to the shove the person down because their elbow will just not go under the water. Heh...

Sometimes the feeling of underwhelment is so strange. Like, baptisms are so rare, that they should be a thing to be celebrated SO MUCH by us, but for some reason (and I've asked a lot of missionaries about it) there's always this feeling of "huh..." afterwards, like it was just a normal thing.  I think it's because the entire process before is the thing that makes conversion special. Like, conversion is a process, not just a one time thing that happens when you're baptized. The amazing thing of Teresa's story was not that she was baptized (that's a pretty fantastic part), but that in the months preceding her baptism she changed her lifestyle and started becoming an even more devoted disciple of Christ.

I never really hear much about your conversion. Sometimes I forget that you weren't born a Mormon! You should tell me more about it! Tell me a nice story, or some challenge you had to overcome

Sometimes I think about my children and if they wanted to join another church I would be pretty devastated... I think I'm getting a much more open minded about things than what I had before the mission.

I'm reading through the new testament and the accompaning institute manual, and that takes up most of my time. Also a church history textbook, and the old testament student manual. I'm doing a lot of things. That's why I'm behind on our challenge!

That's about it for this week. Nothing really special. President Turek has given us free reign over the schedule for a couple of weeks, and then half way through feb we'll have a set schedule. For the most part it's pretty much the same, but the flexiblity of it all is nice. Also, the fact that we have 10 hours for P-day is AWESOME

Love you all!

Elder Liechty

24 January 2017

Hey hey hey!

I've already fallen behind on the Book of Mormon challenge. It's time to catch up! I can just use the picture you took for now, while I'm behind, so keep me updated on how you're doing! 

The kids are the Pawliks! They live in a city called Mielec about 2 hours from here, and their family will come in every other week and the other weeks they hold meetings at their house! We've had missionaries there starting this transfer! 

Kraków is beautiful, but the places we go to on a daily basis are pretty much normal city places. So that's why I don't talk about it much. But I really like the city square. It was saved during the second world war, so all the buildings are as close to original as they can be, and it's all really old. There's a church in the town square called St. Mary's church, and it's like over a thousand years old! It's amazing! There are a ton of churches. They're everywhere! If you look out of the window at our chapel (keep in mind that it's on the fourth floor) You can see three church steeples! The people here will talk with us a lot more, but less of those that talk will accept lessons. There's a lot of faithful, practicing Catholics here, and it throws me off because I'm so used to people saying that they're "believing but not practicing" (that's a very common one here)

I went on exchanges with the Elders in Mielec this last week. There's no public transport there, so we had to walk everywhere, and if you don't plan it out well, even though the city is tiny, it takes even longer to get places than in Kraków. We started to do English tracting, where we go around and advertise for our english class instead of talk about religion, and it worked out pretty well! Lot's of people were ok with it! We might have to do that here in the Krak!

Alright, so here's a list of people that we're working with, or recently worked with and have stopped:

Mark- he's moved back to America, and will be back here in March... The end. We had a lesson with him with President Turek, and it went really well, but we couldn't stop him from going back...

Darek- he's fallen off the face of the earth. No one knows.

Teresa- She's actually the other Elder's investigator, but she's being baptized this Friday!!!!!!!!!! She's stopped smoking, reads the Book of Mormon and other scriptures every day, and even got the courage to ask her boss to get time off on sundays to go to church every week! So amazing!

Kamila- Also technically the other Elders', but she comes to the English class and the religious class afterwards which we take turns teaching, so it's basically like we both teach her. She's planning on being baptized but is too afraid to tell her dad because he's VERY Catholic, and thinks that she's wasting her time with all this Mormon garbage, and we don't know what to do. Thankfully, many of the members here have come from similar situations, so they're able to help her.

Magdalena- She's a referral we got who's actually interested! She's in the same boat as Kamila concerning her parents, but we just started teaching her, so it's not yet a serious problem.

Romek- He's a less active member because he was in a big car crash and is stuck in the hospital for the rest of his life and also can't talk and can't move the right side of his body. We come in a couple of times a week because he lives right next to our house, and share a spiritual thought with him. He's taking it as well as he can, but he's got a pretty rough life.

So I can't really tell if this email has a general dark undertone to it, but if it does it's because we went to Auschwitz today. What an experience... Overall I'm very glad I went there but I don't really want to go back. The spirit that's there is just entirely different than any other place I've been. We stood at the wall where they executed hundreds of war prisoners, and inside the gas chambers where hundreds of thousands were killed, and I just couldn't comprehend it. The absolute horror that happened there was just too much. The entire area is so quiet and solemn there's no words to describe it, and I will definietly not forget it. The trials that those people went through put my life right into perspective, and I realized that I have not nearly as much to complain about as others. Some would ask why God let the Holocaust happen, I would rather thank God that it ended. 

We must never forget, lest it happen again.

I love you all so much!

Elder Liechty

16 Jan 2017

Family,

hello.

It was a good week! And what's more, next week is going to be just as busy! Mark is doing really well, and he actually has a baptismal date for the 11 of February! His plans on where he's going to live in the next few months are really shaky, though, so we're not positive if he'll be in the country, but he just recently told us that he's going to try to make that date! 

Darek has been in Warsaw for the last week, and I think he had a meeting with one of the elders there who actually used to serve in Kraków, and was the one who found Darek in the first place. He said that he'd call me when he got back to Kraków, but we haven't heard from him yet, so we shall see.

Oh yeah, we're still getting along! We work hard and we're having a ton of meeting together! With us  and the other companionship here in Kraków, this place is having more success than it has in such a long time! The force is strong! :) Michał alone has probably more faith concerning missionary work than any of us. Elder White is really good at doing Family History contacting, and that's what we do about half the time, and I really like it! Hopfully that'll turn out some good results! 

Of course you're not going to go get stiches right away, though ;) I think that attitude has carried on to me. While doing service one day, we were sweeping snow off the sidewalk (that's right, sweeping, Poland still has a few areas of improvement), and one of the elders got a huge cut in his hand and it started bleeding pretty bad, and everyone was telling him to go to the doctor and get some stiches, but I was just like "what? he's fine, just go put a bandaid on!" Classic.

Yes, I want to do the reading challenge, keep sending me the schedule! 

I can't really think of much else that happened this week... It was filled with things that happened, but I can't think of any outstanding things. I did do a really intense study of James 1:5, though! I was reading it, and realized that we all know that verse, but no one knows the ones around it! So I studied James 1:2-8, and spend a week just finding out all I could. One thing that I realized that I really liked, is that he says "wisdom" and not "knowledge". Because wisdom is the application of our knowledge, and God is not only going to give us the knowledge, but the wisdom to go along with it. But that's under the condition that we're actually going to do the things he says to do. So Joseph Smith went to the grove not asking for knowledge, he could have done that and maybe nothing would happen or maybe he would have realized that none of the churches were true, but he would have no idea what to do with that. Instead, he went to the grove seeking wisdom, and what did he get? The wisdom. The how-to. He went in planning on acting on the answer he received, and was expecting to do whatever it was that he was told to do. And we can, and should do the same

Ok, love you all!

Elder Liecht

9 January 2017

Gotta bundle up!

The work is good! We have so many lessons planned this week, that there's only 5 hours of contacting time planned! That's definietly a mission record! We have two really solid investigators named Mark and Darek. Mark is from America, and is just living here, but his friend referred him to the church, and he wants to learn a lot, and is already reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it, and Darek is an old investigator who called us asking to meet again, and has a baptismal date set for the 4th/11th of February! (We find out tonight which one will work) Then Michał is doing really well, and we meet with him twice a week, and we're doing a lot of contacting with Family History, which has been working really well! Things are looking really up for the Kraków branch lately!

You got those pictures from Michał because every Sunday we have dinner at the Daltons', and everyone who can come comes, and that includes Michał! He's doing really good, and our job now is to re-teach all the missionary lessons so he remembers all the basic doctrines of the church. We started up his family history as well, and it's awesome! The other day we had a lesson where we prepared him for bearing his testimony in Sacrament meeting, and basically I'd ask a simple question, and he'd say yes or no, and then we'd get him to expound on it, and just build his testimony that way. It was really cool! 

Elder White is from Lehi, Utah. I probably made the pizzas he bought from Little Caesars!

We just watched from our balcony. There were other elders from a nearby city who go to Kraków for church who were there on Saturday for the baptism who stayed the night with us there so they wouldn't have to travel a lot, so we were able to have a party! Also, everyone from my MTC group was on a group call so we could end the Blackout year together! We had to be in the apartement at 8:00, and weren't allowed to light fireworks... 

It's so cold. They say that there's some siberian winds coming in these next few weeks, and we're going to hit -25 Celcius, so that's going to be absolutley miserable. I've got enough clothes to keep me warm, though, I just need to handle the fact that my hair gets messed up when I put a hat on! There was snow, but it's gone now, or has turned into sheets of ice on the sidewalk, but we did shovel snow last week! We finally found some snow to shovel! Well done, team.

Also, earlier in the week, I led a baptismal interview for someone in the neighboring city! It was a really strange experience, being the one to make the final decision if someone's actually repented of their sins and are ready for that step of baptism. Certainly not something you would really expect 19 year-olds to be doing! But honestly, the fact that anyone makes it to that point means that the missionaries who are teaching them are doing a fine job, and there's really nothing to worry about. I kind of enjoy the feeling of responsibiliy these days! It makes me feel like the things i'm doing finally have a purpose, and I'm not just playing videogames for the empty satisfaction of it. 

Granted, I'm still going to play videogames, but my prioreites are a lot better set in line. :D

There's nothing I want more than to go skiing. That's going to bethe first thing I do when I get home. I don't even care that I get home in August, I'm going to wait and do nothing until the Winter.

Are there any names chosen for the little blob we're going to have as a new family member yet? I'm still sticking with Samuel Frederick Liechty II. I don't see any problems with that one.

Also, this last week I had a talk with another missionary about the rules. For some reason, every time I've heard about rule breaking missionaries, I thought that they were the stuff of legends, that they existed for the sole purpose of story telling and moral building. That is not true. It wasn't a loud or a firey argument, but the tension was very much there. This missionary is also really smart, and is able to work his way out of or into a lot of different situations, but knowing this, I came in with the firm confidence that I was not going to lose any argument, and I had the confidence to do that because I knew for a fact that I had all the Scriptures and Prophets behind my back on this one. There's just really no other way around it! In the end, he agreed to keep the rules, and not try to fight them, so that was good. 

Anyway, to end on a good note, today is Michał's birthday! Guess what we're going to do to celebrate!? TRAMPOLINE PAAAARRRRRKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!! This is now the fourth time we've gone. I have no regrets! WOO!!!

Love,

Elder Samuel Frederick Liechty I

2 Jan 2017 - Happy New Year

Here are some of those Kraków tin foil nativities I was talking about!

Well fam, it happened. MICHAŁ WAS BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man, I actually never thought that I was ever going to be a part of someone's conversion from beginning to Baptism. (I was going to say end, but we all know that that's not how conversion works). I would just like to now give a shoutout to the missionary who first met Michał now over a year ago. He probably had no idea that what he did so long ago would bring about so many blessings to so many people! Hopfully he finds out one day. Also, the pool we did the baptism in was kind of deep, and the water went up nearly to my collarbone. It's not like we've spent the last couple of days joking about how short I am (I'll explain that later). The service was great, and everything went together a smoothly as this little multicultural branch of Poland could have done it! The first baptism in Kraków in two years... I feel so blessed to be a part of it and I really wish that Elder Curtis could have been here for it, but there's something he needs to do in Gdańsk waiting for him.

Now, why have we been making fun of how short I am for the last few days, you ask? Well, we recently found out that I'm the shortest Elder in the Poland, but on top of that, my new companion is Elder White- weighing in at a good solid 6 Feet and 7 inches. The tallest Elder in Poland. Dream team. 

He's awseome! He's been on a mission for just about 6 months, so he's in the same group as Elder Hill, and Elder Curtis, and we get along very well! We like a lot of the same things, and just have fun together. This transfer is definitely going to be very fun! 

The homesickness was gone after just a couple of days, you don't need to worry about that. I do still miss you, though. Seeing your faces in person is going to be just CRAY. 

I don't know if other missions call it this, but the year that a missionary is a missionary for the whole time is called the Blackout year. So, since I started in 2015, and end in 2017, 2016 was my blackout year. And now it's over. It's a very strange feeling to know that at the end of this year, I won't be a missionary. My 3/4 mark is at the end of this transfer, and that feels like it's come much too fast. But I've still got work to do, and I'm not going to stop until I've done it! The new year's begun and 2017 is going to be AWESOME. (Plus we got to stay up til midnight and watch the fireworks. Man. It was like a war zone! The screams, explosions, and sirens. Ahh, Poland, how I love thee.)

Love, Elder Liechty