Week 18 - Krakow

A fellow missionary mom from Memphis (her son is serving in Mexico), was visiting Krakow, and ran into the Elders. She snapped this picture and sent it to each mom. They look SO good!

Hello everyone!

     Hope things are going well for everyone.  Things are still great in Poland.  This week was a busy, but exciting week.  We had K's baptism on Saturday, and that was a super cool experience.  She's is so happy to baptized, and it's really cool to see.  We also had our two recent converts there (M and T).  So that was a really cool experience.  K was confirmed on Sunday, and she's so happy to be a member.  It's going to be cool to see what happens from here.   We think she's going to be a strong member.  

A came to English for the first time in a while this week, and she told us she's going to be out of town for the next two weeks, but then we might be able to meet with her.  That was good news.  Still no contact with D though.  I think he's just dropped off the face of the earth.  We'll keep trying and see what happens though.   

On Saturday, we also got our transfer calls.  Elder Pettit and I will be staying together in Kraków for another transfer.  We are super pumped for that.  I love Kraków and could stay here for a while.  We are looking forward to this transfer and looking forward to see what we'll be able to accomplish.  It's also getting a lot warmer, which is fantastic.  It feels good outside.  It does rain pretty often, but it's not too bad. 

You poor things, having to deal with 11 degree weather.  I'm sickened.  Call me once you get into the negatives. Just kidding haha 

it's actually gotten a lot warmer here.  It was up to 15 degrees Celcius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) yesterday, so it feels nice outside.  It's a really nice change.  

I have a thought this week that comes from the book of Alma.  I read this week about the story of Zeezrom.  As we know, he was one of the lawyers contending with Alma and Amulek in the city of Ammonihah.  He was a wicked man; in fact, he was referred to as a "child of hell" Alma 11:23). 

Well, a lot of things happen after that, but eventually Zeezrom repents completely of his sins, is baptized, and even starts preaching the gospel as a missionary (Alma 15:12).  He is such a good missionary that his name is even mentioned with Alma and Amulek and the sons of Mosiah (Alma 31:6).  From this example, we learn that even if we have many sins that we commit and we feel guilt, through the atonement of Christ, we can become born again and literally turn our lives around.  We can turn from the vilest of sinners into disciples of Jesus Christ.  I know that through the atonement, we can be cleansed and come unto Christ. 

I love you all, have an amazing week!
-

Elder Hadfield

Week 17 - Krakow

Hello everyone!

     How is it going?  I'm doing pretty well.  Kraków is a good place. We have done a lot of tracting and contacting this week to find new people to teach.  We're hoping we can find some new people.  K gets baptized on Saturday, so we are super excited for that. We just have a couple more things to teach and she will be good to go. We are really excited for her. 

To answer a few questions from my family:

It's cool that there wasn't a baptism here in Kraków in 2 years until this transfer, and all of a sudden we have 3.  There were definitely some miracles involved.  It's cool to be able to witness this first-hand.  The branch president is President Kucia.  He's pretty good, but he's been out of town and sick, so I haven't seen him a ton.  So with the dinner at the Dalton's, that goes on every Sunday and everyone in the branch is invited.  So it's kind of like a FHE.  It's pretty nice.  The Dalton's go home in the middle of April.  So if I stay in Kraków this next transfer (which we are assuming will happen at this point) I'll see them go home.  They've been awesome, and it'll be a little sad to see them go.  

When we have our district meetings, we have a little language segment, we talk about our investigators, and we get homework to do from PMG before the next one.  Those are good.  Our district leader is Elder Liechty.  He's a really hard-working missionary, and he knows the scriptures pretty well.  Our district has a lot of fun together, and it's going to be a little sad when we get split up next week.  

We get our transfer calls this Saturday, and then we have transfers next Monday (that means I will be emailing on next Tuesday. Just a heads up).  I'm excited to see what happens.  I think I'll stay, but I guess we'll see. 

Things are going well in Kraków.  I'm excited to see what happens this week and what we accomplish.  Hope things are still awesome wherever you are.  That's about all I have for this week.  Love you all, and have a legendary week!
-

Elder Hadfield

Week 16 - Krakow

Hello everyone!

How are things going?  Hope it's all good.  This week has been a pretty good week.  

We have been working with K this week, and she finally got permission from her parents to be baptized.  So that's super cool.  We have that baptismal date on the 25th, so we are definitely excited for that.  

As for A and D, we haven't heard from them in a while.  They haven't answered any of our calls.  We're hoping they come around though.

Elder Pettit found T during his trainee transfer about 5 months ago.  They found her just doing regular contacting on the street, and after 5 months, she's baptized.  Pretty cool.  I think she's starting to develop relationships in the branch, so that's good.  She doesn't have a calling yet, so we'll have to hope the branch president gets on that. 

They actually have quite a few fast food places here.  I've seen a KFC, McDonald's, Subway, Pizza Hut, and a place called North Fish that I've never been to but I think is also in the states.  So yea pretty cool.  They have street vendors all over the place where you can buy a pretzel.  I haven't tried one yet, but they look pretty good.  I might try it sometime. 

So there you go.  This last week, we actually tried a new food place.  It's called Bobby Burger, and it's super amazing.  Their burgers are the best I've had since homemade ones.  We're going again today, and it's going to be good. I don't think anything can replace Taco Bell haha.

I'm glad to hear that my siblings enjoyed the Becoming a Missionary Conference. It was something I looked forward to every year.  It was very helpful in teaching what missionary life would be like and making you feel a little bit like a missionary for a day.  Being taught by recently returned missionaries is very helpful because you can see what their missions were like and they can help prepare you for your mission.  It gets you thinking about your mission and mentally preparing for the day when it will be you waking up at 6:30 in the morning and working all day to bring souls unto Christ.  The Becoming a Missionary Conference definitely took me out of my comfort zone.  It was uncomfortable at the time, but looking back to those times when we would teach members and investigators in their homes was probably the closest I got to being a missionary before my mission.  So take advantage of the conference, give it your best effort, and know that it is preparing you for missionary service.  Also, take advantage of the presence of the Spirit at the conference.  Let it teach you.  The testimony meeting on Saturday is one of the most powerful parts, and you can learn a lot if you follow the Spirit.

We had zone conference yesterday, which is why I'm emailing today because our P-day got moved to today.  So yea. It was good.  We had about an hour and a half bus ride to Katowice, and we had a meeting with President and his wife and they taught us.  We had lunch together and stuff, so that was all pretty cool.  It was good.  

This week, I finished the New Testament.  It's a really good book and full of many good teachings from the Savior and His apostles.  I particularly enjoyed reading in Revelation.  It's got a lot of good stuff in that book that is meant for our day.  I'm starting to read D&C now, and that's going well too.  

Mission life is good though.  We are working hard and having a lot of fun.  Hope you are all doing well as well.  Love you all and have a great week!

Elder Hadfield

Week 15 - Krakow

Hello y'all!

How's it going?  Hope everything is going well.  This week was good. 

We're still working with the investigators we have right now to get them ready.  K is still progressing, and we have yet to get her parent's permission, so we will continue working hard with her and hoping for the best.  We weren't able to have a lesson with A this week because she was busy most of the week, so we plan on teaching her this week and we'll see how that goes.  

Yesterday, T was confirmed.  That was super cool.  She said afterwards that she felt the spirit really strong and just felt at peace during and after the confirmation.  So that was really awesome. It's good to know my language skills didn't block any of that from happening.  I don't really remember a lot about what I said.  It was a super cool experience though.  I never would have imagined confirming someone my first transfer in the field.  So yea it was awesome.  She's taking everything about the church very seriously and she's going to be an awesome member.  It's been super cool to see her progress. Hopefully, I’ll be able to send a picture soon.

That's all of the investigators we have for right now.  It's tricky finding new investigators here in Poland, but we are working hard to look for those who are ready. 

I'll tell you a little about the events of the week.  

Sunday is obviously church, and we have Dalton dinner.  

Monday is P-day and we also have FHE with the branch at the chapel, and that's cool.  

Tuesday we have district meeting in the morning and in the evening we have English class which is usually good.  

Wednesday we have service, and we go to this old person home and move a bunch of boxes and appliances and stuff for them.  It's pretty good.  Afterward we along with the other elders, Elder White and Elder Liechty, go to KFC.  We go there a lot.  It's delicious.  In the evening we have a Polish class with someone named M.  She teaches well and it's nice.  She's a non-member, and hopefully she decides she's interested sometime.  

Thursday we have English class again, 

Friday we have weekly planning,

Saturday we clean the chapel. 

In between all of that, we are usually doing English finding activities because that's the way we are seeing the most success is in our English class.  We've been asked to do Family History finds, but those kind of suck because absolutely no one is interested.  We'll keep doing it and seeing what happens.  We also do a little tracting and that's fun.  

We are working hard here and having a lot of fun.  Hope you all are too.  Well that's about it for this week.  Have a legendary week!
-

Elder Hadfield