24 July 2017

HELLOLOOOOOO

You better make some DELICIOUS pizza for me then! Five Guys Burgers and Fries HAS to be where we go first, and as far as homemade meals, probably steak. It's been a looooong time since I've had that. Also if there could be a box of Cheezits waiting for me on the counter, that would just be amazing! My favorite hymn is either "I Believe in Christ" or "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief", or "How Firm a Foundation", or "Lead Kindly Light".

I've done a little bit of birthday shopping, and I guess you could say I'm having a pretty good time! It's nice, but it also just leaves my companion sitting there with a bunch of bags and standing around awkwardly in the middle of a store. BUT he's going to have to get used to it when his wife goes shopping, so I guess he gets to learn early. We havn't done many fun things for P-day lately, but I think everyone want to go to Auschwitz, so I might have to go there again. The fruit fly battle is going well, but we tried the fruit in the bowl thing, but we didn't have plastic wrap, so we used tinfoil, but that didn't work, so Elder Rasmussen just took the fruit and threw it onto this little balcony thing outside the kitchen window where it's not just sitting and getting grose, BUT it does draw all the fruit flies away from our house. So as long as we have the curtains drawn, it's a pretty good solution!  

There's an investigator we're working with, and he's about 19 but he's pretty small, and so I kind of feel like he's my younger brother. He also acts like he's a lot younger than he his. But we can all tell that he's secretly a good kid but doesn't know how to act like it, and we've been teaching him. He also hands out fliers where we do a lot of finding activites, so we see him a lot! We also helped him stop smoking, and he said that within that week that we worked with him on that, he started to believe in God! It was such a cool experience and we're definitly going to have to keep on helping him out. I really feel like he's my younger brother I never had!

From all the missionaries here, there's 5 investigators with baptismal dates, and two of them were in church yesterday. The missionaries were assigend all the lessons so the lessons were really good and solid. It was good! We've also got three new investigators from this last week, that we're going to meet with. Somehow we've set up a lot of lessons with people from a lot of sources and I'm really excited for this week! There's finally some success!

We also had Zone Conference (MY LAST ONE) and there I said goodbye to Elders Einfeldt and Alvarez because they leave a bit before I do. It was sad, BUT, we'll all see each other really soon anyway, so it wasn't that bad:)

I love you all so much! 

Elder Liechty

17 July 2017

Golly, thanks for the birthday wishes everyone!

Sister Turek and her kids actually sang to me, too, but what's funny is that Sister Turek's birthday is July 16th TOO. So we were able to wish each other a happy birthday and laugh about what a great day it is to be born.

I seriously can't believe that I'm twenty, though. I'm no longer a teenager! WOW. For those who know Spongebob, think of the episode where he lifts up his razor, and says "I... am a MAN". That's how I feel right now.

Also thanks for the tips on the fruit flies. They're EVERYWHERE.

I am definitely going to have to go and get some new clothes These chinos they sell here fade so fast! Also I'm debating if I should wear glasses or contacts when I get home, because I know that all of you remember me without glasses, and that picture of my face you have doesn't have glasses, but I'm also going to be on a plane for 15 hours or so and that's going to be quite the time if I have contacts in. These details matter.

I AM SO JEALOUS that all of you get to see Henry all the time! I hope that we'll be able to find time when I get back. I'm going to have a ton of work to do! All I really care about is Henry though, and I want to see if he's really as cute as you all are making him out to be!

As you know John got home a bit ago, and we've been emailing, and he's making being home sound like the worst thing in the world, and I'm getting a little scared for it now! I used to be all excited that I could go home, but he's making it sound like it's one of the hardest things in the world! He mentioned how he just doesn't really understand his purpose as much as he did now that he's not a missionary, and I hadn't really thought of that, but it's true! There's going to be so much to do that I won't know what to do at all! AHH. Also, the missionaries from my group call me every once in a while, and we all talk about going home all the time, and I still don't really believe that it's actually happening

We're starting to see more success here! In Warsaw there was a baptism, and as a side note, since the Elder Andersen meeting, there hasn't been a week without a baptism! Here in Kato, the other elders have two people they're teaching who are considering baptism, and we're still trying to find people to teach. But last week we focused a lot on our English class, and a lot more people are coming! Two of them actually came to church yesterday! We're also going to help a guy stop smoking, and it's really great, because I feel like he's my younger brother. Hes as old as me, though, but it's really fun to be around him, and he needs some good examples in his life, so that's what we'll be for him!

Next week we'll have my final Zone Conference, and I'll see missionaries from my group for the last time, and it will be so sad. Tears will be shed!~

Love you all!

Elder Liechty

(Birthday Pancake, and trying to keep ourselves sane while tracting

10 July 2017

There was a baptism in Warsaw (actually he was baptised in Idaho, but heck, he'll be confirmed here)! Someone that Elder Sommerfeldt taught!

Mommy!

Well I love you, too! And I'd like to say that I think about you and the fam all the time, but that actually makes me really trunky, so I kind of avoid that.

Nuts, everyone's still getting married. It never ends!

I KNOW. JOHN IS JUST STRAIGHT HOME RIGHT NOW. I can't believe it. I remember thinking about how before I left, I went to visit John's parents, and I was like "dang, the time between now and when John left is so small. When he goes I'm practically there!"... And here we are... There's just going to be a constant stream of missionaries coming home for like, three months, and it's going to be awesome! Also, I saw the class schedule and I'm so excited! I've made plans on how I'm going to get all my work done and stay on top of everything, so basically this whole college thing is going to be a piece of cake!

Alright, I've been saving up and not buying too many clothes because I figured that they'd all get ruined before I get back (and they have) but now is the time. I was talking with Michał from Kraków and I asked if I should get a suit before I go home, and he just looked at me like that was the dumbest question I could have asked and said "have you seen those american suits? Why would you even think of not getting one here!?" Hahaha... fashon. And no, I've kept myself back from opening that card, and I put it inside of a version of a bible that we have that's translated into modern Polish, and sounds a little bit like a child wrote it so I'm not even tempted to get near it!

The new apartment is really good! It's more like quantity over quality, but I'm fine with that! The beds are good, the appliances work, and all those good things. We have a ton of fruit flies, though, so we're declaring war on them and we're going to figure out how to get them away. We've also got a lot of june bugs that fly in, but they're really slow and easy to karate kick out of the air.

Elder Rasmussen is awesome! We're having a great time together! We're both working super hard, and willing to give our all for the work! He's from Sandy (I think) and we already get along so well. It's like another Elder Rowley transfer! We're both painfully aware that I only have 7 weeks left (AHH!) and so we're just going to sprint together to the finish! And I actually really like not being Zone Leader anymore! Sometimes it's hard because I don't always know what's going on, or I don't have that much more of an influence on people, but I think it's a good step down so when I get home I'm not going to by trying to take control of literally everything that's going on ;)

We don't really have any progressing investigators yet. We have had a few lessons in the past week, but nothing huge yet. Do you remember the guy from Ukraine that I talked about a month and a half ago who just suddenly disappeared? He's back! Elders Sommerfeldt and Huffman are going to start teaching him again! Hopfully he doesn't disappear this time! We spent a lot of time visiting with less active members this week, and had a couple of lessons with them! One seems really willing to come back to church, but seems a little ashamed that they've been gone for so long. And we WERE going to have a lesson with a member but there was a bit of a mix up in planning. This member is known for hating the missionaries. We set up with them, and whatever day we actually set up on, they thought Wednesday, and I thought Thursday, so basically this member came all the way to the chapel and no one was there and when we found out on Thursday that that had happened, my heart just dropped! I was preparing for the next few days to face the wrath of this member and preparing myself to just be the most apologetic I could be. When I saw them on Sunday, they looked at me with a glare that could pierce souls, but I just started out by saying how sorry I was and how dumb I was for getting the day wrong, and what do ya know!? They accepted my apology! Look at that! It turns out that actually doing the things the Prophets and scriptures say to do help you out in life and make your situations less terrible! Who woulda thunk!?

I'm just gonna keep going, and keep pushing, and we'll see what miracles come our way!

Love

Elder Liechty

 Celebrating the 4th of july with handdrawn fireworks - looks fun:)

3 July 2017

Mooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmm

I said last week that I'd be writing on Monday this time! I thought he was writing tonight:( But at least I had sent a quick I love you note:)

Oh well...

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK!?!?!!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?! ??!?!?!?

yep. Final transfer calls! Now it's my turn to get the other missionaries who might be reading this trunky! HA. I'm talkin' to you, Elder Hadfield!

So I'm staying in Katowice this time around. Elder Sommerfeldt is also staying in Katowice, BUT we're not companions! I'm moving apartements and I'm going to serve with Elder Rasmussen! He's AWESOME. He was in our district this last transfer, but he was serving with Elder Zamora, but Elder Zamora's gone off to Poznań to serve with Elder Pettit! This is going to be an awesome last transfer! I also learned, that the most efficient way to pack is just to throw everything hapazardly in and not even bother about organizing. That's what I did all my mission, but this time I needed to pack in about 40 minutes, and it went much better than other times! I can iron my clothes later. I also don't have any leadership positions this time! I'm like a trainee again!

OH! The priest stories JUST KEEP COMING! This last week, right after P-day ended, we went tracting, and we knocked on one house that turned out to be a monestary! (There was nothing on the front, we were Innocent), and a Catholic priest opens the door, and he sees us, and he just starts laughing! He thinks it's the most hilarious thing that two mormon missionaries just walked up to his door! We laugh a little bit with him, but it's just awkward for us, and he's just still laughing after we've stopped. After a couple of minutes, things have settled down, and our new priest friend says "Hey! we're having a grill, you want to come?" and confused out of our minds, we say "Sure!" And it's this group of youth, probably 15-20 of them are all getting ready for a grill that they're about to have to end these group meetings they've been having, kind of like mutual. We stay there for an hour or so, and the whole time they're all asking us about our church and we're able to teach them all about the Restoration of the Gospel! We don't invite them all to learn more about our church (because imagine if a Catholic Priest or anyone else walks into a young mens or womens activity and is like "Hey, guys, you're all wrong and I'm right, so why don't you come learn more about the true church of God!" Like, no, that just wouldn't be very polite. So we just invited them all to our English class BUT THEN one of the youth comes late, and get this- He's already one of our English class students! Last week I translated an interview between some guy and a Christian Reggae band for him (don't ask) and he walked up and when he saw us, he was like "oh yeah, these are the guys that translated that video!". One of the people came to our English class in the end, and she's getting interested in the Gospel now. Just a whole big ball of miracles happened that night!

On Saturday, a returned missionary named Drake Allen came to Poland with a few people who hired him to help out with a big ol' family history event that was going to take place in our chapel. There were about 30 people there, and it was a really good opportunity to meet a lot of people and talk with them! Family History really does open people up, and I've said it a ton of times already, but I really need to get working on it! They also bought a ton of pizza, and gave the leftovers to the Elders, so I think we all know what my diet is going to consist of for the next couple of days!

We had culture night, but we did not plan anything, so we just walked around the city and looked at the chaples and such. We also took of picture of us trying to do the abbey road picture from the beatles, but it didn't turn out very well, so we'll have to try that again. We also ate a nice thai restaurant, but it was actually not that good, and I don't know why I still try to eat asian food in this country because it never tastes good!

Now that we're in July, and I've gotten my transfer call, the end of my mission is a lot more real. When the missionaries left to other cities yesterday we played "God be with you till we meet again" In sacrament meeting, and I realized that in a little bit I'll be hearing that song and they'll be playing it for me... And I really won't be able to do full-time missionary work for a long time. Dad always said that this time is a very special time, and now I'm really starting to understand that. I'm getting a little worried! I'm not going to be able to see or talk with a lot of people I've met and I'm just not going to be a part of the miracle that is missionary work! I'm starting to freak out!

I think that is all for this week! I love you all, pray for you, and tell my companions funny stories about all of you!

Love,

Elder Liechty

26 June 2017

Welcome home!!!!!!

Ha. I got to welcome you guys home before you got to welcome me home. Take that!

Those pictures at the Blue Lagoon are cool. What was that all over your faces? Was that ice or something?

I'm going to start saying whenever there's a baptism in the mission so everyone back home realizes that it happens here and that it's not all hopeless like I'm sure a few people think. In the last two weeks there's been four baptisms, and one of them was in Kraków! Do you remember that person I talked about and said how I couldn't say much about them for privacy, but during the lesson they said that they felt the Spirit really strongly? Two weeks ago Elder Sommerfeldt and I were able to go to Kraków to conduct their baptismal interview! They're now a member of the church, and fully active. Also, another girl that I taught with Elders White and Fuhriman in Kraków wants to be baptised, but is waiting for permission from her parents, but she's been going to church and has already read all the Book of Mormon and D&C and a ton of the teachings of the presidents of the church books! One day...

Things stay pretty light here for a while, it usually gets dark around 10:00 here. And I always wake up a little early because the curtain in our room isn't long enough to cover up all the sunlight! But I like waking up and knowing that I can sleep another hour before I'm supposed to get up! I'm pretty glad that I get to finisz off in the summer. Everyone's a lot happier during the Summer, so that's the image I'll leave with. Also I'll have a rockin' missionary white shirt coller tan line to show off!

We did get to go to a school last week! Luckily we got to go, because it was the very last day of the shcool, and we were able to give two presentations. The kids thought we were hilarious, and a couople of them came up to us after class and talked with us, and that was pretty cool! Hopefully some of them start to come to our English class. Also, we've been doing sports every saturday for a while now, but this last week was really fun! We played vollyball with a bunch of strangers and some of our englihs class students, and the Americans destroyed. Basically all the volleyball training I got in the MTC payed off! Also, I can still jump pretty high because of frisbee, and as the shortest person on our team I was still able to spike it down on the others. And Elder Sommerfeldt played volleyball in high school, so he was just way better than everyone else in the first place, and the people we played against didn't stand a Chance.

I think I'm either going to go to Poznań again, or stay in Kato. Only because I leave a bit early, and so does the rest of my group, and if I go to Poznań, then I'll be with someone that's from my group. But then again that same person could come down here and we could die silently together. I'm probably going to stay here. We also know that President Turek doesn't want people in their last transfer to hold any leadershipo positions if possible, so I'm probably not going to be Zone leader anymore!

Also, another thing that's going on, is that we're doing a TON of less active finding, where we just go to the addresses of people who haven't been to church in a really long time and find out if they still live there and what they're opinion on the church is. Basically just updating the branch list. In the last few days, we've been having a lot of success and gathering a lot of information that others hadn't and two less actives even let us in!

I studied humility a lot one time, and a lot of the quotes I found and a lot of the questions they told you to ask yourself to see if you were humble lead me to think that if someone is truly humble, then the people who are around that person want to be better. A humble person just naturally brings others to Christ, though his or her nature. Meaning that that person is an example, and others will want to be like that person. And so yeah, if you're alway beating up on yourself for not being perfect, then that's not really an exemplary attribute, but if you recognize your weaknesses, and turn them into strengths, as humility should do, then it would be something that lots of people would emulate, because turning weaknesses into strenghts sounds like the best thing any of us could do! And that would link back to the having a vision part that you talked about, because if we see our goal, then we'll clearly see that thinking negatively of ourselves is not the sort of thing heavenly beings do. Also Jesus Christ never said "I'm just the absolute worst". He did, however say in a single sentence that he was the greatest and least in the kingdom of heaven, knowing his own divine calling but at the same time knowing what others thought of him (Matt 11:11). He knew exactly where he was and where he was going.

I love you all so much!

I promise we're going to make some good things happen in Kato this week!

Love

Elder Liechty

There's also these statues in Kato that symbolize three uprisings that happened here in the early 1900's. They're supposed to be wings

19 June 2017

Nuts. I thought of something really clever this morning that I could say at the beginning of this email, but I forgot.

Darn.

Anyway, your trip sounds SO FUN. Those pictures are beautiful! We need to go back. We just need to tour the entire world. Take a year out or so, and go to all the places that are really cool and pretty... Wait. I just realized- while I was writing that sentence, I considered making two different weird and not really funny references to church and scriputre... I AM GOING TO BE A WEIRD RM! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! 

That's also SWEET that you got to see the homes of dad's ancestors! Is that part of the reason you went to Iceland? I totally forgot that we had ancestory there!

Yeah, it was so cool to be able to see Sister DeMordaunt and her family! Her mom is hilarious, and is probably reading this right now. Hello Sister DeMordaunt's mom!... or... I guess she's also Sister DeMordaunt... huh... But yeah, I wasn't able to see Nathan Garrison, but we were able to talk on the phone for a few minutes and that was really great! I probably wouldn't have been able to survive if I saw another RM, because every day is just harder and harder to not get trunky, and I can't have a single conversation with another person without the fact that I've only got a little over one transfer left coming up, and like, John goes home in about 12 days, and all my other friends are sending emails about their missions ending and it's getting really tough. I had no idea that I'd have such a hard time with this... The countdown timer in the center of town still doesn't help...

We haven't gone to any schools yet, we will on Tuesday and I'll tell you how it goes!

We have no investigators...

P-day today is kind of boring, because we all had to go and do normal things like get haircuts and deep clean our apartments, but I think there's this car show going on in one of the malls that Elder Sommerfeldt wants to see, so we'll go to that. We're also probably going to eat a Kebab. Classic.

We've been going out and knocking on doors lately to see how it works, because nothing else has worked so far. But do you guys remember that video you made Zach, when he turned twenty, and it was like "when you were 18, you could do (anything and 18 year old does) but now that you're twenty..."  Then it switches to a video of me and Max knocking on a door and saying that they were missionaries from the church, and then someone just yells "NEIN!" and slams the door? Hahahahahahahahah.... it's true... Don't worry about us, though! We just laugh about it, and then go on our merry way, waiting for someone to say yes. It happens! I've had it happen before, so I know it's possible! We just have to figure out what it is that works in Katowice before this transfer is over! (the 3rd of July, for those wondering)

I also finished reading Isaiah with the help of a study guide last week, and I'd reccomend it to all of you! Like, he testifies of Christ and of the Restoration and of the millenium so much, it makes one wonder  how anyone could think that our church ISN'T true! Just take the time, find a book that will explain what wimples and crisping pins are, and get to work. Like Jesus Christ said- 'Great are the words of Isaiah' (3 Nephi 23:1).

Love you all!

Elder Liechty

OH! Last week we had a scavenger hunt in Ikea, and it was really fun! It was also really fun dodging around all the workers, but sometimes getting caught, and they'd just look at us like we were children. Super fun!

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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