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

19 Dec 2016

Dang.

68 weeks in a row of getting of emailing me, and the streak is broken. But it's ok, I'm pretty sure you still love me.

Anyway, since there's no questions that are being asked, I guess I'll just go ahead and talk about neat things that happened in the week! First off, I got the packages, and the letter with my card in it! So you don't have to worry about that anymore. 

Merry Christmas!!

If you want to say Merry Christmas/Happy Holildays in Polish, you say

 'Wesołych Swiąt!"

(Ves-oh-wi-h ("wi" as in wick) ("h" as in the ch sound that you do in German and stuff) Sh-vee-on-t)

It's that time of the year, isn't it?

I really like that book you sent me, one of the things it talks about is Pondering. And I think that Christmas time is a great time to do that! I like to think of the scene of Christ's Birth after everything has settled down, and there's just Mary and Joseph watching over the child. I like to the think of the peace and calm that must have been there, and what Mary and Joseph must have been thinking about as they were sitting there, and what a night that must have been.

Michał is doing good, and he's also reading my blog now, so I'll give him a quick shout-out. 

Hi, Michał!

That should be good:)

During the week there was a lot of confusion and date changing concerning his baptism, but now it is firm and set for the 31st of December, at 13:00. Zapraszam. Like you know, the transfer is going to be happening right before the baptism, so there's no way to know if I'll be here or if Elder Curtis will be here. President Turek visited Kraków yesterday, and he knows who will be here and who will not, and he told Michał, so he could choose who would baptize him, and so he and President Turek are the only people who know what's happenening. We do know, though, that one of us is leaving and I have a feeling that it's me. No real good reasons, but just a feeling.

The missionaries that would have gone home at the end of this transfer went home last Friday, so they could be there for Christmas, and as of that day, there are only 4 missionaries in this whole country who have been out longer than I and my group have! It's crazy! All the people I knew are home, and all the people I know that I have good friendships with are younger than me! (mission-wise, not age-wise) Speaking of that, though, I think I've finally reached the point where when I look in the mirror, I don't see a highschool kid. And then one day, when I had forgotten to shave, and there was a bit of scruff on my face, I looked like a straight 25 year old! Wow.

We had transfers last week again within the city, so I was with Elder McPherson, and Elder Pettit was with Elder Curtis, and it was good, nothing too crazy!

The picture I sent is of a guy named Grzegorz from Szczecin, and Sister Cutting sent it to me, and it just made me so happy to see his face again! He's not even an eternal investigator, but just a guy that shows up at church all the time - it made me really happy to see him!

The work is going good, we're all pretty happy here, and life moves on! I am constantly aware of the fact that the end of my mission is still pretty far away, but at the same time the last four months since my year mark feel like they happened in a couple of weeks or so. Things are ending and I hate endings, and I don't know what to do about it... I'm in the autumn of my mission but it doesn't feel like it should be at all. I have no way to describe these feelings. Ask any missionary, from what I've heard we all feel the same thing.

You see what happens when you don't email me? I just start going off on weird things!

Anyway,

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Elder Liechty

12 Dec 2016

Sam conducting a Gnome orchestra

The food they have in the Christmas markets is delicious, by the way!

For their cultural outing, onstead of an "old" culture event, they went to a "new" cultural event: Motorcross

Elder Pettit, too. He wants me to let you know that his mom says he has a cute face

Incense from the gift exchange - lovely

IT'S COLD.

Maybe not right now, but a few weeks ago it was as cold as the coldest day I experienced last year, and we're not even close to that time! I keep putting on more layers, but there's just nothing that stops the chill! Last year i came into the country with this weather, so I didn't know any better, but now that I know what it's like in the Summer, it's just tough! It's ok, though, we're surviving.

I hope so too (mailed a debit card, hoping it makes it)! So far I don't need cash, so lets just hope I don't get caught on the bus without my bus pass! That happened once, and then someone started playing country music, and it was just an all around bad day.

They do have a Christmas market here! I don't know what to buy, because it's all very expensive, and I didn't pull out enough money, and I don't know what to get... someone tell me what they want! One really neat thing they do here is make these nativity scenes out of colorful foil and make them really fancy and neat. If you look up "krakow tin foil nativity" on google you'll see what I'm talking about

I actually heard about that commercial! It sounded really funny because we all understand what that man was doing and the types of book he was reading! )A Poloish commercial I saw on FB but didn't send to him since it's got some swearing:)

Michał Is still doing great! It turns out that he won't be in town on the 24th, which I figured would happen, so he told us that he would like to be baptized earlier! But earlier that day we had actually planned out everything we needed to teach him and when we would be able to teach him, and if he can't be baptized on the 24th, it'd have to be pushed back to the 31st, which means that there's a chance that Elder Curtis or I will not be there because transfers are on the 27th, which would be a bummer but it's no problem because Michał is so great it was just awesome to be able to teach him! We're going laser tagging with him tonight! Jan is doing fine as well. He calls and talks to me a lot, and says that he might go down to Kraków for a visit, but I'm not sure if that's going to play out in the end. Either way, I've still got four chances to go back to Szczecin! 

Speaking of laser tag, we had culture night last week, too! Now, let's take a look through culture nights that have already happened, going by transfer- 1. Nothing 2. Georgian ballet 3. Trip to Toruń 4. Trip to the beach and German border 5. Opera concert 6. learning how to make Pierogi from scratch, and 7. (this transfer) Motor Cross World Championships. 

Now, you may be asking "Elder Liechty, where is the culture in that?" Well this time, instead of hundred year old culture, we decided to do some modern culture. And yes, we did ask permission from our mission president. Having been there, though, I would not reccomend that missionaries go to the Motor Cross World Championships. It was probably one of the craziest things I have ever done! 

Also this week, I was in Katowice for two days! Elder Curtis had to go up to Warsaw to do some legal work, and so did one of the missionaries in Kato, so I stayed with that missionary (Elder Baldwin) and spent the day here. They do a lot of less active finding, so that's what we did almost the entire day. No one was home, or they all moved away. Basically, if there's leaders of a ward or branch out there, they must know that there are better ways to find less active members than to have the missionaries knock on their doors. Please use us as a last resort! Then the next day, we had zone conference, we're going to be doing a lot more work having to do with Family History! And we also had a gift exchange! It was supposed to be random stuff that you could throw together in a few seconds, so of course the first thing that came to my mind was to give someone a rock pet. I got some incense. Our apartment smells very nice now.

We'll be at the Dalton's when skyping, but havn't figured out the times yet. It's going to be in two weeks, though! THATS SO SOON!!!!!!!

I love you all so much!

Elder Liechty

6 Dec 2016

Hi Family,

This is ok if it's too late, it can wait til the next thing that's sent, but if it's not too late, could you send some of those gel pens that are just so nice? The PIlot G-2 series or whatever? Max or Caity will definitely know what I'm talking about.

Last week we went to a trampoline park like Jump-On-It in Utah! It was so fun! We were all really sore afterwards because we had not done any sort of movement like that in so long, but it was just great to go and jump around. What's even better is that we got the whole place to ourselves somehow, and we could do whwatever we wanted! WOO!

When we come back and visit Poland we definietly need to spend a lot of time in the south. No one else in my district wants to go to Auschwitz or the Salt Mines, so i'm not sure if i'll be able to to that...

Ah! The home looks so nice! I MISS CHRISTMAS AT HOME SO MUCH! I mean, I love serving, and we've actually been able to find a real place to help people this transfer, but somedays I just want to go home and lay down on my face and do nothing and not feel guilty for it. Nine months, though, that's close enough. (doesn't it just feel like a little bit ago that I hit my year mark!?!? It's going too fast.)

No, sacrament and Sunday School are are in Polish, with one of the missionaries translating for the english speakers through a microphone in the back corner of the room. However, with last Sunday being Fast Sunday, and the branch already being made up of 60% english speakers, and with there being 4 english speaking visitors, almost all the testimonies were in Polish. And do you know who was the lucky one who had to translate them all into Polish on the spot? That's right. Me. I wanted to take a long nap afterwards. BUT what did happen afterwards, was that one of the members came up to me and said that I did the best translation since Elder Allen (he's long gone, but he was basically a Polish genious, and made lessons that people still listen to to learn Polish.) So that made me feel pretty good.

We get invited to dinners at least twice a week! One with the Daltons and the Strobles every Sunday (the Strobles are a family from the states, but the husband Spencer served a mission here a while ago, and he studies medicine here) and usually a meal with Lucas and Helen from Argentina and Brazil. They're here for work, and they're both amazing cooks. Very blessed here.

It's really about the same as all the other areas I've been in. The branch is larger, for sure, but the problems are the same and the way we spend our time is pretty much the same as well. It's just prettier and smoggier here. 

The American's are pretty helpful, and they like to be on lessons with us a lot, but the fact that building friendships with Polish people has that extra layer of difficulty just makes it difficult for finding people for them. But they have given more referrals than other members have.

Ok, you guys ready for a miracle? We begin over a year ago, with the missionary who had my phone before he left. We don't know his name, for it has been forgotten in the anals of time. But what he has done, is while serving in Kraków he gave a Book of Mormon with his phone number in it to a man named Michał. Let time pass by, and let Elder Liechty take up the mantle of this phone, and let him serve his mission for over a year in the north of Poland. In fact, the way the patterns of the mission have been going, is that if you're serving in the North you're probably going to be there for your whole mission. BUT what happens is I get a transfer call from President Turek to go where? To Kraków. The exact opposite side of Poland, breaking all norms and customs of missionary life. And what happens just a few weeks after I get here? Michał calls. What happens after 2 meetings with him? He's preparing to be baptized for the 24 of December. Merry Christmas.

But really, this man is so ready (he's 18 years old). He called asking for time and place of church, and then he actually comes! He's just wearing street clothes and a t-shirt that says "sorry ladies I'm on the night watch" and it's something to laugh about, but guess what!? Two things- first, he came the next week, and he was wearing a collard shirt, a tie, and slacks! And Second- he overheard that the next week (yesterday) was going to be fast sunday, so he asked what that was, and then he ACTUALLY FASTED. WHO IS THIS GUY!? He read 20 chapters of the book of mormon within a week, which is a record for any of my investigators, and he accepts pretty much everything we teach! We don't feel like we're doing anything, and he's just going to end up baptizing himself! 

This work is God's work, and he's definetly the one moving it along. I know that even if we're not seeing the effects of our work, seeds are being planted, and someday, someone will come along to sow just as we were blessed enough to do with Michał.

Love,

Elder Liechty

(I just got my camera charger back yesterday, so pictures will come)