12 June 2017

Luuuuuuuuuukies. I want to go to Iceland. Do something dangerous for me.

Also, my companion and I are now officially hippies, and aren't sleeping in our beds anymore. Just straight on the ground because in our English class one of the students was saying how he just sleeps on the ground, and we were like "whaaaaaat? Nah, man, that aint cool" but then all the other students were saying how good it was for your back and that it's way cool, and so Elder Sommerfeldt and I decided to try it out because both of our backs are pretty destroyed from walking around all the time and also our beds are really springy and saggy so by this point I'm really willing to try anything to make not hurt as much. So far it's just been really uncomfortable, but my back has stopped popping as much, which is a bonus, and I don't want to sleep in anymore, and that's also nice! I'll tell you how it's going next week!

We saw the Kamps, and that's so sad the temple was closed! That's where they were headed after they visited us. And the Barneys came as well, but we just saw them passing through, and the Garrisons are here, but I'm not sure if they're going to make it down to Kato because Nathan (Elder Garrison) never served here and again- there's just nothing to do in Kato. (There is a ton of cool stuff outside of Kato, though, we found out). The DeMordaunts are coming and in three weeks a really old missionary from two years ago will be visiting Kato and having a family reunion with a bunch of Polish people! We have to be there to translate. (It's really weird pluralizing all these missionaries' last names because we call them that all the time that it's practically become their first name. It's like saying "The Beths are coming over tonight", or "The Sams want to talk to you". Weird.)

We haven't done any presentations, but we've set up two. One will be this wednesday, but we found out that we're going to be in Warsaw on Wednesday, so the other Elders will take that one over, and the other will be the 20th. Which is already so close. I can't believe that we're already 12 days into June. It feels like it literally just started, and I'm FREAKIN' OUT.

Our English class here is actually pretty weak... We don't really know what we need to do. We do the same things we've done in all my other cities and there's always people, but here it's just not working the same. We just teach the advanced course which only has one guy in it, and he's pretty cool. He's our polish tutor as well, (we meet with him twice a week to learn Polish from a Pole). He'll be baptized one day, just you wait.

There's two English speakers in our branch and they're from South Africa! I don't know what they're doing in Katowice. No senior missionaries... Sunday dinners are especially hard, because I'm used to buying food for every day except Sunday, so now I'm usually left with a few pieces of bread for dinner on Sundays. Maybe a carrot or two. :D I'm going to enjoy coming home for Sunday dinner again!

Most of us are leaving the 28th (including the sisters, whos missions are over the same times as ours), but three are leaving on the 14th, because they're going to different schools that start earlier. Two elders from our original squad are going home on the early date, so we'll probably not even be able to say goodbye 😢

Was it fun to be in shcool again, if just for a little bit? Is writing papers even that bad? I feel like I've gotten a lot better at doing things like that on my mission. Like, I'm a lot better at expressing myself than I used to be, and writing one of those 40 page theses that I'll probably have to do one day still seems like an incredibly daunting task, but not quite as daunting at it used to seem. There's a ray of light now, at least!

Well... While I may have lost some things in the past, we have learned a very valuable lesson, that no price could buy; I can't be entrusted with valuable things. I will lose them. Now we will know for ever and ever, that if someone thinks I need something that's worth more than $15, I don't, because it'll be gone within 30 days ;D

I found out why I freak out whenever I think about going home! And it's really cheasy and cliché! I mean- lets be real, getting blessed by priests and yelled at by crazy old people and just being ignored for days at a time certainly weighs on a person, and it'd be very reasonable to want that to stop. But while I've been on my mission I HAVE been able to help a soul or two, and the scripture where it says "how great is the joy when you bring one soul to Christ" is actually true! On the mission I'm just actually able to help more people, and the help is a lot more visible. Back home I don't think that I'll have that opportunity, or at the very least not as often, and I LIKE being able to help people! It's simple, and I'm sure every missionary feels the same way, but that's how it is, and being home's gonna be rough for a bit.

I've got just under three months to do what I can here. I'm not going to waste it!

Love you all!

Elder Liechty

(It's good that sister Kamp's mom took pictures, because I didn't take anything this week :|

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HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

I needed those pictures because we're going to try to do presentations at high schools about America for their English classes. Missionaries in other cities have been doing it, and they say it's the best way to find investigators and English class students in the world. So we thought we'd give it a shot, but we have to hurry because the school year is over in a month.

Wow, everyone is just visiting Poland right now! I'm definitely going to want to visit Poland again like a year after I get back. We should totally do a Euprope trip and go to Germany France and Poland and then Caity should go on a mission to Russia so we can have WWII covered!

For all the people who's baptisms I've seen or been a part of, about half are still active in the church. The less active ones all have their own reasons, but they're still remembered by the branch, and are still trying to be reactivated. I'm sorry I can't give many more details than that; people really like their privacy here. But the ones you asked about are as active as they can be considering their situation. I'll be able to tell you more in a few months!

Yeah, tell me how that class goes, and you can prep me on what it's like taking a semester's worth of classes in one week so I'll be ready for that math class!

Ok, get this- it's been a while, but we've added a couple new inspiring chapters to the volumes of priest battles (conversations). Just this last week, I was handing out flyers for our English class, and this lady walks up to me and is like "what's this" and I say "free English classes" and she walks away, but then walks right back to me and askes "who's it run by?" And by this point I know exactly what's coming, and I tell her that it's run by our church, and then she just goes off on our church for being a Satanic sect, and that it doesn't even belong being called a church and that we shouldn't be coming in with our American ideas and Masonic, Christianity-destroying ideas and tells me that I shouldn't be preaching a false Gospel on Catholic territory. This goes on for about ten minutes, and then a Priest walks up, and tries defending me a little bit, but then the lady goes off on him for not also calling me a sect and evil. After another ten minutes, she walks away, and the Priest walks up again. I thank him for his help, but then he's just like "actually, I think you're a sect, also." and then explains how apostate the idea of three seperate beings as the Godhead is. I read the scripture in the Book of Mormon where Abinadi is preaching what sounds exactly like the Catholic idea of God but also helps us understand what we believe, but the Priest literally does not listen and says that what I read isn't true because it's not from the Bible. After a short argument, he asks me if he can pray for me, and I'm like 'sure', thinking that he meant at home in his prayers for all the sinners and whatnot. But no. Right there, in the middle of the street, with tons of people looking around, he lays his hands on my head and then starts saying this blessing! I was so shocked that I couldn't move, and then he high-fives me afterward and walks away. That actually happened. Right after, the other missionaries walk up to me and are like, dude what the freak just happened, and I'm feeling really weird at this point and uneasy, so I ask for a priesthood blessing from the Elders and we go back to the chapel and do it, and honestly the difference between the blessings was so real and amazing that I'm just so much more convinced of the apostasy - I didn't know that could have been so much more strengthened.

THEN the very next day, we go to the Catholic Church itself, it's very heart- the Seminary. This one is actually a lot less eventful. We were invited to Seminary by a couple of Catholic Deacons, and we went, and there we were able to discuss with them some things about our church and we were able to figure out things about their church, and it was all really a pleasant experience. They gave us some Rosaries, and if we go back they'll teach us how to pray using it. I don't really know what to do with it... It was really nice, though, to talk with some really pleasant people from another faith and just be able to discuss our beliefs and not argue for once.

 Still no Priest converts, though :)

Things have been going good here otherwise, we keep slowly getting more investigators, and more opportunities to teach. But that guy that I talked about in my last email has disappeared from the face of the earth. He even had a baptismal date!  I think I'm not super confused by what happened because somewhere along the way I found out that if you count up all the little miracles and tender mercies then it always adds up to more than what seems at the time as some huge crazy impossible miracle that seems to be the thing that changes everything. Because those miracles don't really always change everything. We should still be grateful for them, of course, but we shouldn't count on them to be the means of our salvation.

We also had exchanges with Elders Einfeldt and Lange in this week and they went well. Nothing out of the ordinary to report, but it was fun because Elder Einfeldt and I rode on a train to a far off city to teach an investigator and we were able to chat a bit about how life's going and about the mission (he was in the MTC with me). I got a little trunky again talking with him, but then I whipped myself back into shape and things are going strong again!

Love you all!

Elder Liechty

29 May 2017

Probably the last MTC district picture on the mission! They're all awesome missionaries, and I hope to see them again

And us in Gliwice. It's a really pretty city!

Elder Anderson and the mission president, family, and missionaries

Dzień doberek

This last week was actually a lot more filled with stuff than any other week so far! HUZZAH

Oh yeah I need to buy some of those short sleeved ones. That shirt I was wearing on the exchange and in that picture was ginormous. You could literally have used those sleeves as a parachute! They did keep things nice and breezy, though, which was nice on a warm day.

Reese's peantut butter cups. That's also something that would be awesome to have here!

Today we went to a castle! Called Ogrodzieniec, look it up, because it's an awesome real life castle just like the ones we always imagine! It's also not a tourist trap, so it's amazing. Basically the thing I"ve wanted to to my entire mission, and life and we got to do it! I also got sunburnt again, but don't worry, it'll tan :D

We did quite a bit of travelling this last week! On Wednesday we had our meeting with Elder Andersen, and it was amazing! As soon as he walked in you could tell that he had the Spirit with him, and that he was a man who was led by God. My testimony was so much more strenghtened that day! He gave a lesson and the morale of the whole mission was just boosted so high! There's been so many miracles lately that we're all getting so excited! HIs lesson was on faith and on how to keep it on the mission, which is such a simple topic, and something that we've all studied so much out here because it's so hard, but he just gave one more lesson on it, and told us how we need to immerse ourselves in faith out here. He was so straightforward about everything and didn't even beat around the bush and I loved it!

       There was supposed to be two meetings, one for the missionaries and one for the members, but during the meeting with the missionaries, Elder Andersen said it would be a good idea for the missionaries to stay for the second meeting, and when an Apostle says that something's a good idea, you should probably do it. So ALL the missionaries missed their trains, and we had to figure out how to fit 60 missionaries into 4 apartments! The mission actually ran out of money for the month buying tickets and figuring this logistical nightmare out! It was awesome. The meeting with the members was also great, and he talked about reading the Book of Mormon every day. Another thing so simple, but it was something that I wasn't doing, because I was studying the D&C, but I've started to set aside 30 minutes every day to read the Book of Mormon, and I'm already seeing great blessings!

After that, we went home, and then traveled to a city called Gliwice, which is about 30 mintue train ride from Kato, where we had lessons with 2 less active members that went really well. Then the next day, while walking around a man stopped us and asked if we could tell him where a church is, and Elder Sommerfeldt said "we have a church!" and we brought him in, and taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel, and he accepted a baptismal date that day! His name is Witek, and he's from Ukraine, and he speaks Polish pretty well, so that's how we teach him. He was in Church yesterday, and will be at Family Home Evening tonight, so things are going very good!

Love you!

Elder Liechty

22 May 2017

Siemanko!

That's cool that you got to hang around Austrailians! Did you talk in a ridiculous Austrailian accent the whole time? If not you definitely need to do it next time. There's an Austrailian in our mission right now, and he's pretty cool. He hiked the mountain with us when I went last winter and he was only wearing shorts on. What a guy.

Also, I wish we had made a counter of how many times we've been to Arches. We might as well buy a cabin at the base of Delicate Arch we've been there so often!

Ok, just so I get the schedule, I get home, I unpack, I pack, I go to school. Not to hard. There's going to be a lot less videogames and laying on the floor doing nothing than I thought there would be, but that's ok. I've been exhausted for about the last two years, what's another couple of weeks going to do? Also, I realized- with the date being moved forward, I'll be able to hit a full two years! Also, speaking of things that are trying to make me as trunky as possible, and just another congratulations from Katowice itself, there's a big countdown timer right next to the main square that ends three days before my mission ends.

Also, we learned this the other day (and again, please don't think I hate it here! I really do like it a lot, but the coincidences are just incredible and funny ). Katowice is the name of our city, and 'Katować' is a verb which means "to torture"! Heheheh. What a city, I love it!

We had a big meeting about the meeting that's going to happen with Elder Andersen, and President Turek is just so stressed right now, and everything needs to be perfect. No one's brought up food yet, and I think it's just going to slide under and everyone's going to forget about it. But let me tell you, getting 60 missionaries from across the country to Warsaw and back in one day is quite the undertaking. The office Elders maxed out their credit card buying tickets for everyone! We thought those cards were infinite! We're all really excited and there's even going to be a musical number! We'll be singing Joseph Smith's First Prayer, and we had to get it memorized. I'm pretty excited about it all! also, if anyone wants to know what Polish songs sound like, here's the translation of one of the lines:

Somewhere in the mountains a lark was singing;  music filled the grove

beautiful.

This last week we also had exchanges with the APs! Elders Haskett and Kriser are the APs now, and it was really good. Unfortunately there was a lot of business and stuff that had to happen, and that interupted a few things, but for the most part it was good. We also got to play at their sports day, which has like, 30 people coming! It was amazing. I also got really sunburnt. Summer has finally come, and with it- sunburns and stinky feet. Rock on.

I think it's worth it to recommit ourselves to the Gospel every once in a while. And by that I mean really really often. If a fire only keeps burning if we add fuel to it, then we need to work on it every single day, so the fire of our conversion stays with us.

I love you all so much!

Elder Liechty

15 May 2017

HI THERE!

I guess this one's going to be short, too.

Woah, it feels like just a month ago or something when I wrote that at Christmas... Time is going by so fast.

Henry is the cutest thing that has ever existed on the planet. I didn't even know it was possible for a baby to be as adorable as he is, but there it is. I need to see him in person! And then be the cool uncle.

That is so strange that Caity is just working now! WHAT? So she's like, totally done with school for all time unless she wants to go back? That's so wierd. Where is she working?

For P-day today we're not really doing much, everyone needed to get haircuts and just do some regular things, so we don't have much time. We did start doing a 1500 piece puzzle in the chapel, so I'll be telling you how that goes over the coming weeks!

Also! Elder Andersen is coming to Poland in a couple of weeks to speak to us and all the members!!!! We're all really excited, and I can't wait! He comes in 9 days!

I hope I didn't sound too cynical about Kato yesterday, because I feel like I did. But I mean, it's true, things are a little tougher down here, but all the while the toughness of it is actually making it the easiest to stay motivated and keep going out and actually working harder than I have before. I don't really know why, but I like it! Because on my mission I do feel really close to God, and my testimony of everything has just gotten so much stronger out here. The growth and expereince I have gotten is more valuable than anything else I could have gotten. I've come to love people, and I've come to love the Savior. Nothing else is more valuable than that.

Love you all!

Elder Liecht

8 May 2017

HELLLOOOOOOOOOOO

Guess where we went today?! KRAKÓW! I guess that's what happens when you live right next to that city, and everyone wants to visit it for P-day. I got to see Michał, though!

Anyway, I actually really love it here! There might not be much to talk about this week, because we have NO current investigators, and all week we did finding activities! Which was actually really fun, and when I decided that I was going to enjoy it, and work hard for the whole time I was here, it became WAY easier to go through two 3 hour finding activities a day! That only happened once. But really, if you want to hear about the nitty gritty, then Katowice is the place to hear it. Mostly because it's really dirty here. There's also a higher concentration of drunk people that we meet on a daily basis.

I actually really like it here! My district is still awesome, and we've all been given the assignment to bring life back into this branch. Like Kraków, there ahsn't been a baptism here for about two years, and all the members are kind of feeling a little down about it, and that this branch is going to be like it is until the end of time. We had a meeting with President Turek, and he told us that he brought us all together so that we could figure out how to bring this branch back to life. Everyone in this city is are really hard workers, and know what they're doing, so President is really not messing around this time. We've been working super hard, and now have like five or six meetings set up for the next week! This is truly going to be a transfer of miracles!

The branch is also small, and there's mostly Polish people, and two people from South Africa. The most foreign person though is probably Elder Sommerfeldt, Canada is just such a wacky place. He's just got all his crazy cultural ways and things he does that are so different from Americans that it's really hard to connect with him sometimes. We try to learn Canadian to communicate, but it's just such a difficult language that we've all but given up, eh.

lololololololololololololololololololololololol (OH Sam, trying to be hilarious:)

Elder Sommerfeldt is awsome, we get along really well, and have already cooked one meal together! That's better than at least half of my companions so far! Sorry if I offended any Canadians reading this, but it had to happen. I'm sure you understand. He's really willing to work, and we get a lot done here! We're also speaking a ton of Polish together, and it's really helping me speak!

Nick asked you about skyping times because he was the only member we knew who would be willing to help and do it really quick. I'm going to Skype you at 8AM your time, so get your tv's ready for the LAST SKYPE of the mission!!

Oh yeah, I still play the piano. I played almost every day in Kraków as well, except for a few when Sister Dalton would play. If we add up the total Times I ddin't play, it's probably about 10. Elder Rowley is in Warsaw now! He's a zone leader as well, and doing great. He just texted me about the first pug he saw in Warsaw. We keep a pug sighting count between the two of us because pugs are the best.

Kato is different from Kraków mostly in just the looks. For the most part it's the same place just with a differnt shape. The one difference is that we travel a lot more to other cities surrounding Kato to do finding activities or looking for less active members. They also say it's the city of Hip-hop. I have yet to hear any hip-hop music, though.

Also I saw a bunch of ads for that movie (The Zookeepers Wife)! In polish it's just Azyl, which means assylum, but I guess it's pretty much the same thing. That's sounds really cool! I want to see it. Also, I only know that word because I"ve started working my way through a little pocket dictionary and finding all the words I don't know. Azyl was one of them. But I'm not sure if it's helpful or not, because now I just see a bunch of wordes all over the place, and It's like 'wow, i've seen this before, but I have no idea what it means!'. I've made it to 'E'.

We do have some investigators! Meaning we just set up meetings with them, but they're going to start coming more and more! Also, the other elders are getting investigators, too, so things are picking up here really fast!

Ok, I"m running out of time now but I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Liechty

I just got robbed!

Don't worry, no cards or identification was stolen, but just 100 zlots in cash! 

Pretty poopy, but it's a good thing that I like oatmeal now, because that stuff is crazy cheap

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