2 May 2017 Katowice

HELLO!

I have been transferred indeed. This is probably the last place I'll be on my mission, so here we go! I'm in Katowice, which is about 1.5 hours to the west of Kraków, and it's the place where when you tell people that that's where you're going to serve, they give you the kind of condensending "oh, wow". The kind that you get when you tell people that you got your mission call to Evanston, Wyoming. Most of the Polish members just laughed and said "Współczuję ci" Which means, I feel for ya.

But I love it here! I don't really know why so many people don't like it here, because the city is just like every other Polish city, and some parts of it are certainly more pretty and nice than other places I've been. Kato (that's how we call it) is really a conglomeration of a bunch of littler cities instead of a big city like Kraków or Warsaw. It's kind of like the Utah Valley, but with apartment buildings instead of houses. My companion is Elder Sommerfeldt. He's from Canada, and the battles we've already had over which country is better have been intense.  I think I'm going to start waking up to the Star Spangled Banner every morning from now on. Haha, but we really get along all ready, so things are going good. We're both new to the city, so we have no idea what we're doing, and it's awesome! That's called a 'whitewash' and it's pretty exciting, I've always wanted to do it. I haven't met the branch yet, but they say it's pretty much like every other branch in Poland, so I know what to expect. In my district there's me, Elder Sommerfeldt, Elder Zamora (from Costa Rica), Elder Rasmussen (who just came here from Szczecin!), Sister Anderson and Sister Van Woerkom. They're all really cool, and I'm excited to work with them! I'm Zone leader again with Elder Sommerfeldt, and I'm excited I liked being it last transfer and being able to meet so many missionaries.

I have made no decisions on my return date, and I still have no idea, but I need to decide today. I'll see what my district thinks I should do ;)

Leaving Kraków was really hard. I didn't think I liked it as much as I did, but on sunday we had dinner with a bunch of the mebmers, and saying goodbye to them was so hard (Side note: during dinner, we had frog legs! Honestly, they taste just like chicken, it was so wierd. It also looked just like a frog, though, and that was a little nasty. Why did anyone think it was a good idea to eat them?)! I really came to love all of them so much, especially the new converts Michał, Kamila, and Teresa, but the time for me to leave has come. All of them gave gifts, which was more than anyone else had ever done, and they were also really sad to see me and Elder Pettit leave as well (Elder Pettit's gone up to Poznań). Dropping Elder Pettit off at the train station was also really hard and sad, because we spent 6 months together in Kraków, and he's become one of my really good friends. 

I am now in the place where so many other missionaries were when I figured their mission was practically over, and they had so little time left. But here I am in Kato, and I've got some work to do here, and I'm not going to stop until I figure out what it is and do it. This is going to be great!

I hope everything is going great back home, and that you're having a bunch of parties for graduation! 

Love, 

Elder Liechty