Week 102 - Poznan

Hey y'all!  How are things going?  Hope you all had a good week and that things are good for you.  Things are going well here in Poznań, we are doing a lot of finding, and it's going well so far.

On Monday, we had FHE in the evening, and we went out contacting with one of the members here in the evening, which was fun.

Tuesday, we had weekly planning in the morning, then did some more contacting in the afternoon.  We met a cool guy named Ra., who we ended up meeting with later in the week.  He's open minded and a cool guy in his twenties.  Unfortunately, he returns to where he lives in Gdańsk today, so we probably won't be able to meet with him again.  We'll give his info to the missionaries there and see what happens.  We also had branch missionary correlation meeting in the evening.

Wednesday, we had a lot of time for finding.  The contacting was pretty slow in the afternoon, then we had English class.  After English class, we had about 30 minutes to contact, and we had some pretty solid convos, so that was fun.

Thursday was a very busy day.  We had a service project at a hospice that we do every week, we did some weeding, which was fun.  Elder Long and I talked a lot about college football and BYU and stuff during that, it was fun.  Elder Long's a great guy, I'm glad I get to serve with him this transfer.  We also had district meeting later in the day, then in the evening we had English class again.

On Friday, we had a couple meetings, which was solid.  We met with Ro. through Skype, and that went alright.  He still has a lot of things to understand, we'll see how we can help him moving forward.  In the evening, we also met with Ra., who we had met on Tuesday, and that was good.  We also had some good finding.

Saturday, we had English class and we helped clean the chapel a bit. Also had some contacting, and in the afternoon we went to visit a member named B.  She is a really solid member who just had surgery on her broken arm this past week, so we were there to see how she was doing and read from the Book of Mormon.  She's way solid.

Sunday was way good as well.  Church was a good experience, fast and testimony meeting was solid.  We also had a 'break-the-fast' lunch afterwards as a branch, which was a good time.  We had 3 of our current potentials come to church, which was way cool.  We're hoping we can get them to start taking the lessons here soon.  Also did some more contacting in the evening, which ended up going well.  Pretty much everyone was really nice, even if they didn't have time to stop and talk.

And yea, that was basically our week.  It was another quick one, and we're looking forward to the one we have ahead of us.  One thing I'm especially excited for is conference this weekend!  Really pumped to be able to hear from the inspired leaders of the Church.  I also saw this cool video on lds.org to get y'all pumped for conference, I like the end of the video where it says 'Prepare to be inspired' haha.  Anyway, hope you are all doing well, have another great week!

-Elder Hadfield

Elder Hadfield and Elder Long

 

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