Week 101 - Poznan

Elder Hadfield with President Turek - conducting Zone Conference

Matching duck ties for these friends who came to Poland together (Hadfield, Erickson, Dossett)

Elders Dossett, Hadfield, Maslowski, Malachowski (office)

Notes on the photos from Sister Murri (Bialystok):

The first photo— I didn’t know he had this hidden talent.  He practiced until other missionaries showed up.  He had come to Warsaw early, with us.  (They helped us set up.)  He was a much better player than the sister who played for Zone conference.  When I talked to him about that later, he said he asked her to play to let her share her talent and have the growth.  I was impressed.

The second photo is with President Turek.  Your son is conducting Zone conference.  He did a great job!

The third photo is during a teaching session.  He also did a great job at that!  This companion is Elder Maslowski.  That all changed after Zone conference, and our loss will be Poznan’s gain.

The fourth photo—Meeting up with his former companion and the AP’s.  Note the tie.  It is about to change to the duck ties.  I think it is the group that came out together wanted matching ties.  The store couldn’t match them, but they did have a variety of colors with the same duck on them.  These are supposed to be great ties that a former investigator sells.  They have been treated with a stain resistant chemical.  

The fifth photo is with his bros.  Notice they have all changed out for the duck ties.

The last photo is Elder Malachowski telling them of a tender mercy they had received. This senior missionary grew up in England, although his parents were Polish.  His father had to flee for his life, when Russia took over.  I think his father and uncle had worked for the secret service??  Elder Malachowski is here, but he can’t get his legal papers to stay, until he can document his nationality.  One piece of information he needed was his mother’s birth data.  On a preparation day, they went out to the town they thought she had been born in.  They went to the church (where that type of birth information is recorded) but the priest was away.  The clerk there said he would have the priest contact them.  They then walked around the church and took several photos.  They crossed the street and saw a large estate or castle structure behind a gate.  The groundskeeper asked them if they would like to come in and look around the grounds.  Of course they did.  After that, he asked if they would like to go inside?  Yes!  The housekeeper showed them around.  Again, they took several photos.  A bank owns this place now, and they run events and seminars in it.  The end of the story is that when the priest called them back, he had the mother’s information.  She had been baptized in that church and had been born in that castle.  The mother’s names they had been using was correct, but in the wrong order.  They got details they needed and photos for family history.  His mother’s father had been caretaker of the castle.

I think he has one more Zone conference before you get him back.  We are not in his Zone anymore, but he said he will be in Warsaw for his departure on a day our group will be visiting.  One last chance to take a photo for you, and one last chance to say goodbye.  

Our departure date is around June 4th.  I’m not sure how it works for us.  We may fly home to our daughters home in Denver for a visit, before we return to Eden, Utah.  We told him we would take him boating sometime, and we teased him that we would like to approve any girl he becomes serious with!

Sister Libby Murri

Week 100 - Goodbye Bialystok, Hello Poznan! Elder Uchtdorf in Gdansk

Monday, September 17, 2018 - Gdansk, Poland:

Branch Member, Elder Hadfield, Elder & Sister Murri

4 h 57 min (499.2 km)

Poznan Elders - Hadfield & Long

Hey everyone!

    This week was pretty hectic, but it was a good one.  We got to go back to Łódź (my second area) for a baptismal interview, which was way good.  We had zone conference on Friday, which went well, I enjoyed it a lot.  We also had a conference in Gdańsk with Elder Uchtdorf yesterday, which was honestly so baller!  I loved it, you could just feel the Spirit so strongly as he spoke, it was the coolest.  We slept over in Gdańsk, then made our way to our cities this morning.  Today is also transfer day, and I'm actually in a new city!  I'm currently in Poznań, and I'm interested to see how this transfer goes.  I'm slightly surprised by the transfer, but it should be good.  I'm with Elder Long, and we are whitewashing, so we'll see how this goes.  That's about all the time I have for this week, but I hope you are doing well and have a good week!

-Elder Hadfield

Elder Hadield and Elder Blau meet up in Gdansk

Elders Hadfield & Maslowski

Week 99 - Bialystok

P-day tennis with the Murri's

Elder Maslowski

Elders Hadfield and Maslowski and Elder Murri - service project at Libert's home

H wanted to fix us crepes filled with a cheese mixture.  They were made with love.

Fixing H's lawnmower

Hey y'all!  

I don't have too much time to shoot this email off before our library closes, but life is good here!  We had a good week, we had a lot of lessons this week and we had some good finding as well.  

We went to Warsaw for a conference on Wednesday, which was good, I love that city.  This week will be another good week, we get to go to Łódź on Thursday for a baptismal interview, then we are in Warsaw again on Friday for zone conference.  We're looking forward to those.  

It's also the last week of the transfer, so we'll work hard to the end and see what happens on Saturday.  Sorry this is short, but hope you are all doing well.  Have a good week!

-Elder Hadfield

Week 98 - Bialystok

Hello everyone!  This week was another good one.  We had a transfer last Monday, and so I'm with a new comp named Elder Masłowski.  We had a good week and have been working hard.  We got some solid potentials, so we'll see if we can make some things happen with them.

Monday: We slept over in Warsaw at the APs' apartment because we were there on Sunday for church anyway, and we had to be there on Monday as well.  We played basketball in the morning with the other missionaries and President Turek.  That was honestly way fun, even thought I didn't play well.  We hung out with some of the missionaries that went home the next day, and that was way fun.  I got to see Elder Dickson before he went to the mission home, which was way sick, we had an amazing transfer together a few months ago.  Elder Masłowski eventually got in to Warsaw, and I said goodbye to Elder Dossett so he can go be an AP, and we came back to Białystok.

Tuesday: Didn't have too much happening on Tuesday, we did weekly planning in the morning, and did a lot of contacting and tracting throughout the rest of the day. 

Wednesday: We had another day full of finiding, which was good.  Also met with the K. family with the Murri's, and that went ok.

Thursday: We had a good number of meetings on Thursday.  We met with M. and read from the Bible together, as well as asked him what he thinks about the Book of Mormon.  He said he believes it's true, and so this week we'll review the Restoration with him and help him understand what that means.  We met with J., and that went alright, he's making some slow progress.  We had a meeting with B. in the evening, and we talked about revelation.  That went well, she committed to pray, so we'll see what happens.

Friday: We did our studies in the morning, and we met with H., a member here.  We were going to help her and mow her lawn, but it rained a bit and we were unable to.  We had a spiritual discussion about temples and preparing to go to the temple, since there is a Poland temple trip coming up.  We also had district council in the evening.

Saturday: We met with the K. family again, and it actually went pretty well.  They made a commitment to read Enos and pray about it.  We did some tracting in the afternoon, then in the evening we met with a new guy, S. He's from Ukraine, and he's way open to hearing about the restored gospel.  Our meeting went well, and he committed to read and pray, and we'll meet with him again this Saturday.

Sunday: We had church, which went well.  We had a really good temple prep class with the members, which helped me remeber how important and how amazing going to the temple is.  It feels like it really has been a while since I got to do that.  We had lunch with the senior couple, which was great, and we did a little contacting.  We had a lesson flake in the evening unfortunately, and we did studies in the evening.

So yea, it was a really solid week.  Solid things are happening here in Białystok, and we'll see what this week has in store.  Have a great week y'all!

-Elder Hadfield