22 March 2017

the gang

Elder Fuhriman looking like a scientist in my glasses

Cool wall art

painting painting painting

HI

FREAK, I feel like it was just a month ago that you told me that there was going to be a new baby in the family! NOW THAT'S THIS WEEK. This is crazy. I'm going to be an old man wearing sweater vests every day in like, three weeks. How does this happen?

I still haven't got a picture of Zach's face, I really want to see it before it goes back to normal! 

I'm going to call President tonight to figure out if I can get one and that he remembers it, because he totally forgot about it last week when I saw him. For sure I will see him the 5th of April, so that's the day it should happen. When is the very last day that it can happen, so I don't let it pass and not be as stressed out as I need to be?

All I really want in a package is Pilot G2 Gel Pens .07 mm. Don't worry, if you need help Max or Caity will know exactly where to go. Also pictures of family and such would be really nice. I like those. Also, something for Elder Fuhriman,  he'd probably enjoy getting something. The Daltons are here, you'll be able to send it to them. 

So the Cuttings leave today... I'm really sad about it, but I called them last night to say goodbye, and they just made me so happy! That's one thing I love about them is that they're always able to make a situation that should be sad or would make someone disheartened into something really fun and excited for the future. I'm going to miss them, but they've done their job and it's time for me to finish up mine, and then we'll be able to see each other again! Good luck, Elder and Sister Cutting!

In this last week we also had Zone Training! It went well, I think, but there were definitely some parts where we could have improved. We planned on having way too many things, and the whole time I was really stressed trying to push it forward so we could get through everything we planned. It was also really interesting planning it with three other people, because we had to discuss different ideas and figure out something that we all agreed on before we went on, which was strange compared to district meetings that I got to make all by myself. In the end it took longer, but it was probably a lot better quality than it would have been if one of us planned alone. It was also a bit more difficult though, because we couldn't change many plans once it had begun, because we couldn't all group together in the middle of the meeting and decide where to go from where we were. Different challenges, but I liked it! It was also great to see some old friends at zone training that I hadn't seen in a while, but the longer I'm here, the less and less I know the missionaries! It's strange.

I forgot to say also, that two weeks ago there was a meeting of Zone Leaders and AP's, and while there, all the people from my MTC group were there! Last time we were all together was when we all trained someone at the same time, and I was pretty sure that the next time would be when we flew home, but NOPE! While at that meeting, we played a communist Poland version of Monopoly, and it was really sad and depressing, but we played it to better understand the lives of the Polish people and why they act the way they do. Like, no one does their home teaching here because a few years ago the only people who came into your home who weren't family were people who came to take away your furniture and children. Kind of reasonable.

The branch here is really nice, but some are stuck in old habits of not really helping the missionaries. One really nice thing, though, is that there's so many foreigners here, that the new members are able to look at their example, and be more energetic in the work and in church in general, so we're starting a new generation of Polish members, and it's going to be great! Elder Fuhriman is a great help in this because he knows how to work with members and push them on in missionary work, so the time for a revolution in the way of life here in Kraków has begun!

The more time goes on I kind of just want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Love,

Elder Liechty

13 March 2017

HI

Wait, what does this mean? Is Zach's face going to be something we can laugh at for a long time now, or does it go away after a little bit? Because you don't seem to concerned ;) (His older brother has developed Bell's Palsy)

Alright, you need to be honest with me- are you going to take me skiing all the time when I get home? Because all these trips you're taking is making me want to go skiing more and more. I think I might go to the mountains again for another P-day while I'm here, but I don't know yet.

Whoa... Church at 1 PM. That sounds amazing! But at the same time it wouldn't give the Dalton's a chance to make dinner, so maybe it's not worth it ;) I was talking with Elder Fuhriman about his time in Orem (he broke his hand in the MTC, so he spent about 2 months of his mission in Orem) and he told me that just he and his companion were over 11 wards! WHAT!? 4 to 6 of us have a hard enough time just managing one branch of 20 or less people! It's amazing that that happens! Missions are all so different, so I never try to compare, but it's really cool to see how things work in other missions

The english class with so many people is pretty fun, but everyone there is on such different levels, even though there's different courses, it's hard to meet the needs of everyone. I still like it more, though, becuase it's like we're teaching a real english class and not just sitting in the primary room with three adults and talking about super heroes (you'd be surprised how many times that has happened)!

I sent you another email about the release date, so hopfully we'll be able to figure something out quick. Other missionary moms would be (I only know last names) Einfeldt, McMaster, Haskett, Gheen, Haight, and Stahl. I'm pretty sure we're all planning on going to BYU.

Elder Fuhriman and I are meeting with a lot of people right now, which is really interesting, because I've never had this on my mission before. He really doesn't like finding activities, and he knows how missions are like in the states concerning teaching lessons and working with members, so he does all he can to fill our days with meetings. Sometimes it's really good, and sometimes it just means that we're meeting with people who aren't making any progress at all. For the most part, though, it's way better than trying to do finding activities all the time, and we're helping the members out a lot! We're doing a lot with family history, and now I really want to get into that when I get home. We need to figure out what your side of the family looks like, mom!

Mini-miracle time! Yesterday, as I was standing up at the podium translating for church because the batteries in the microphone ran out, the speaker was saying something about how we should be led by Christ and not dragged. When he said "drag", though, I had no idea what he said, so I just guessed a word, but the second time he said it, I heard it and I knew exactly what it meant, and I didn't even doubt! It meant drag! It was so cool! A word I had never heard before and in a situation where I couldn't try to think about what it meant, I was able to just pull it out of nowhere. Maybe not preaching in a new language, but it was definitley the gift of tongues.

I've also been wondering about some scriptures lately. At the end of his book, Nephi says something along the lines of "I pray that many of my bretheren will be saved, if not all in the last day". Peter says the same thing, and so does Ezekiel in the Old Testament. I've been wondering, because these people for sure knew about the last days, and must have known that Jesus was coming a second time to destroy the wicked, but they still prayed about it! But they knew it wouldn't happen! I wonder if they just had such child-like faith that they prayed for it. They just had so much hope, and I want to know how I can get that much hope as well.

Love you all!

Elder Liechty

6 March 2017

No witam, witam

Elder Fuhriman is great! (I was spelling his name wrong last week) It's been about 8 months since I was with a missionary who had been out longer than 6 months, so it's great to have some of the load lifted off. And since he's from Ukraine, he's got a little bit of the Slavic attitude, and it's already helped me understand how to work with the people here much better. Basically, when we would be trying to figure out some special way to do something to make sure that there's no problems or no one even gets the slightest bit offended, he would just do it and not really care what happens as an effect. And it turns out that the Polish people really like that way of thinking, much more than trying to beat around the bush or make really complicated and detailed plans. He's from West Jordan

Being Zone leader so far isn't really different. Every Sunday we talk to all the district leaders in our zone, and figure out how all the work is going for them, and then report to the mission president, we also go to meetings called MLC, where all the zone leaders and sister training leaders get together and figure out what the mission needs to move along. We do also lead two Zone trainings a transfer. That's basically the jist of it.

That may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but just the missionaries that I would be serving around in Wrocław, no one was sad that I had to stay around them in Kraków for another two months ;)

I still have not gotten the pictures from Elder Dalton... And unfortunately, I won't be seeing the Cuttings before they leave, I'm pretty sad about that, but we're definitely going to meet up after I get home! 

(how did Elder Wynne know about me? I didn't know who he was until he was long gone back home...)

In all my memory, I think I've heard Dad give a talk in church, and I don't think I've ever heard you, mom! Tell me how it goes! Relief society is kind of strange here, because the RS president lives over 2 hours away from anyone else in the branch, and there's so few women in the branch anyway! But all of our investigators except one are girls right now, so that will hopefully help out ;)

Speaking of everyone being girls, we had our english class this week, and 30 people came! That's more than ever before, at the beginning of that transfer, there were two people coming. But of those 30 people, about 26 or 27 of them were girls. We talk to everyone about it, but this happened... We're working on a solution, it's not a very good situation for the elders.

That's all for this week!

Love,

Elder Liechty

28 Feb 2017

(we ate at hard rock cafe last week. I couldn't let it pass by)

Drum roll, please...

I'm staying in Kraków! SUPRISE! My new companion is Elder Furhiman, (pronounced Fur-men), who went to middle school with me, and I am no longer District leader! Elder Pettit has stepped up and taken that role. However, Elder Furhiman and I are the Zone Leaders! pretty cray, huh? At first I heard President Turek tell me that I was going to Wrocław, and I told a lot of people, and then I found out that I was actually just staying in Kraków, there was a lot of dissapointment. I'm pretty sure that if we lived 2000 years ago, some people would have rent their clothing. But I'm happy to stay here! It will be the longest time that I've been in one city in a row, so we'll see if I still love it by the end! So far I've just fallen more and more in love with it.

The day starts out and we work out for 30 minutes at 6:30, we don't really go outside because the air quality is REALLY bad here, and then we just get ready for the day. And remember how I always hated oatmeal and healthy food? Now I eat so much oatmeal, and apples and such, that people in at least three different cities call me a horse. Because I eat horse food I guess. I'm not really sure if that's an accomplishment or not, but at least my cholesterol is doing great!

Kamila did get baptized! The Dalton's took a lot of pictures, so when I get them from them, I'll send them. But the service went great, except that we almost weren't allowed to use the pool because there was some complication in the payment process. Oh gosh. Just imagining what would have happened if we messed that one up. The amount of awkwardness and disappointment through the next week would just be reaching extrodinary levels! But it worked out in the end and Kamila has just been so happy since last Saturday. She bore her testimony in Sunday the next day, and she was just so happy and wanted to share that happiness with everyone around her! She'll be a great member missionary! 

Speaking of which, we're pushing this transfer for member missionary work harder than ever before, and Elder Furhiman came from Wrocław, where the work missionaries do with the members is phenomenal, so we're really excited for this transfer!

Well, you won't be missing me from the dinner table for much longer! The final sprint has begun, and I am so excited! I feel so much more motivated, and I feel like all the really difficult trials are past me now, so I can just push forward with all the knowlege I have gained over the last year and a half! 

Love you all!

Elder Liechty

20 Feb 2017

Exchanges w/ Pettit

POOOOOOOOP

HEEELLLLLLLOOOOOOOOO

We were also wondering who the "they" are, too. I heard about that from other people who are going home at the same time as me, and they had already talked to the senior couple who's working in the mission office, but that will be an issue for another time. I'm trying to schedule a time with President right now. I think that it will happen in about 2-3 weeks if it doesn't need to be faster. If it does, though, then I'm sure that it can be quicker.

YUP this is probably the last email you'll be getting from me from Kraków! I'm pretty sure I'm going to a city called Mielec which is only 2 hours away from Kraków, and it's tiny, and there's not even a branch there, there's just a group, and if I go there then it'd be really awesome! It'd definitely be a challenge, because there's so little there, but I've been feeling lately that nothing has been happening that's pushing me lately, so I guess it's time for the next test. 

There's going to be one more baptism this transfer! The very last Saturday, and the second to last day of the transfer Kamila is going to be baptized! It's so amazing that she was so ready to accept the gospel, and that her parents even changed their mind to allow it! There was a lot of fasting and prayer that went into that one, and God answered our prayers! Miracles do happen!

I know Sister Anderson! I'll send a mystery text with absolutely no context to let her know that we both know Brother Terry

I was thinking about prayer the other day, and I know that God answers them, and even the little things, and most often he'll answer the questions that we have, but if you think about it, the amount of prayers that go up to him at a single moment on any given day is so high! The fact that he'll answer our prayers even on the small matters that we don't even think are entirely important is a miracle in and of itself! The fact that he loves us so much that he'll take the effort to do something that isn't even an absolute necessity is beautiful! So I'm sure that when we give ourselves up to fasting and prayer He takes notice of it. 

Last week we bought a card came that's unbelievably complicated, and really fun, like the games that Uncle Joe plays, and we've been playing that a lot recently. We also had exchanges this last week, and I was with Elder Pettit, and his Comp went with Elder White. There wasn't anything to crazy that happened EXCEPT I got pooped on by a pigeon TWO TIMES IN THREE DAYS. I was furious. The second time was a shotgun fire, too, and Elders Pettit and Hadfield got pooped on, too. Just an absolute catastrophe! We survived though. Barely.

Everything else is going along just fine, though! Hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Liechty​​

14 Feb 2017

Ok, school- We've discovered a new issue in the plan: The official end date of my final transfer here in Poland is September 5. Nearly everyone in my group who is going home is going to have problems with school and all that, so the people in charge (we don't know who) are 'working on it' (we don't know what that means, or how that will all work in relation to transfer schedule, and school schedule). But we assume that we'll get back in time for some breathing room. John  says that it'll be by this month that he finds out, and if you need to choose before finding out, getting a room in Heritage halls will be just fine. And yeah, Elder Haskett and I talked about rooming, and it'll be totally fun with him being near me ;) When it comes to math class, I did take, and pass BC calc, but the things that max mentioned I do not remember, so I'll need to take the refresher course. Probably the one that carries on throughout the semester, considering we don't know when I'm getting back. I think that answers all the questions... 

Wait til the transfer is over before you send the package. There's a very very large chance that I already know where I'll be, considering one of the AP's told the Elder who's going to be my companion who then told me, but we'll still wait, because the AP loves trolling people:)

The week was good, there isn't much to report from this week, except that K.'s father gave her permission to be baptized! She's going to be baptized the 25th, or, the second to last day of the transfer, and that's going to be amazing! three baptisms, one at the very beggining, one in the middle, and one right at the end! THATS SO COOL! I don't know what finally changed the people's minds here, but the work is moving forward way faster that it has been over the last couple of years!

The only contact we had with the one ex-member was a telephone call where he said that he didn't want to meet with us... Sorry for getting you all excited about that. He says that he just can't pay tithing. I remember a story that Elder Platter used so long ago when someone we were teaching had doubts about tithing. He asked him if he made sure that if the person paid tithing, he would meet all his financial needs and give him enough to survive, and the person said 'yes'. Then Elder Platter asked "so why do you trust me more than you trust God?" It was really powerful, and in the end he actually did pay his tithing. But when I related the story to the excommunicated member, he just laughed and said that it still wasn't possible. In the end he just said that he'd think about it, and would call me if he wants to meet.

Highest point this week was definitely when K. told us that she was allowed to be baptized! She was so happy, and told us that she wants to share this happiness with other people, so basically she's going to be a fire member missionary!

Best food is probably what we ate at the Dalton's on Sunday! They made curry, and compared to the fact that I'm trying to live really cheap and am only eating plain things that aren't really well put together meals, any dish like that is gourmet to us!

President Turek is amazing! We get to see him about three times a transfers, and he makes sure that he has personal interviews with every missionary once a transfer. He does a really good job at inspiring us, and really knows what he's doing! It's probably very stressful, especially considering that he's still got his own family to take care of, which normally is a full time job, but he manages, and he only every helps us! I'm so glad I got to serve with him

We were already allowed to be pretty flexible with our schedule, so the changes made haven't made such a huge difference. But it is nice to know that they're trusting us to use our time more wisely, and it is good training for real life. I might just have to be one of those guys who uses a daily planner in their every day life...

Love you all!

Elder Liechty

6 February 2017

You all wanted to see the height difference, and here it finally is! I feel so small!!

Escape room fun

The people here are so caught up in the little things that show how the moon landing might not be true, and they turn their backs on the overwhelming eveidence that it actually happened! I've actually compared it in my mind to the Restoration, and how people get caught up in all the little things like how there's not the plates anymore, and forget the whole idea that God always had Prophets, even after Jesus, and that he hasn't forgotten us and still does. And even the young people who don't think we landed on the moon! They laugh, and then show me those websites with all the theories, and I'm just like 'lol, you're just jealous'. 

Pilot G2 Gel pens .05mm. Those guys are like gold in this mission!

I just really like hearing your story! Thanks for sharing it. Like, I really want to know how Michał felt during the whole process, because from our side, it was really the most uneventful process. Even to this day nothing has gone wrong! I've spent a year and a half of things going wrong, but he is still just trucking along without a problem! He even told us that he wanted to be baptized since the first time we met. I want to know how he'll tell that story to his kids so many years later. I'm definitely going to keep in contact with him!

 Our week was good, nothing too eventful, though. We've been advertiseing for our english class a lot lately, and we're seeing the results! Also, pretty much all of the current investigators between us and the other elders are from english class. I think we're on to something! One really cool story from that is a guy named Paweł. We we're tracting in an area up north, we call it the oculus rift (not after the samsung thing, but after an awesome dream I had), and I was just putting english fliers into mailboxes if the people didn't answer, and someone actually came! I've tried that before, but only as a token thing to make me feel like I wasn't wasting all my time when no one was answering the door. But this time it actually worked! So I guess those little things do count

Otherwise, we went on exchanges here in Kraków, and I spent the day with Elder Hadfield (he's Elder Pettit's trainee), and that was really it. We get along really well! This district is pretty good, I'm going to miss it next transfer. Transfers are on the 27th of February, and they normally last 9 weeks. At least, that's what they say, but my mission has followed the following course of weeks in transfers: 9, 7, 10, 8, 8, 10, 9, 9. So we really don't always know how long transfers will be.

K. is doing well, she told her father that she wanted to be baptized, and he wasn't as angry as she thought he'd be, but he was still not really happy. He said he'd think about it for the next week or so, and so she and all the missionaries here fasted for her dad to have a softened heart yesterday, and she really appreciated it. ALSO, soon we're going to start teaching an excommunicated member. I'm a little nervous about that but very excited for him.

Wish us luck!

Love you all!

Elder Liechty