Week 84 - Warsaw

Hey everyone!

     Hope life is going well for you all.  Life is going well for me over here in Warsaw.  I'm gonna change the format I do these because the old format was too boring for me.  So I hope it enthuses all of you.  (I may or may not have stolen this formal from a friend, hope he doesn't get too angry)

Monday: We had a pretty chill p-day.  Nothing too special.  In the evening, we visited some referrals, none of them were home, so we did some street contacting, which went well.

Tuesday: We had a meeting with K., a guy we met in the street a week or two ago.  He's a little agnostic at the moment, but committed to read and pray, so we'll see how it goes.  Had a meeting cancel with J., another investigator.  We went out to a city just north of Warsaw called Legionowo and visited a less-active, J.  She made it to church yesterday for the first time in a while, so we're pumped about that.

Wednesday: Coordination meeting and district meeting were both in the morning at the chapel, and they went well.  Elder Erickson's a bomb district leader.  In the evening we started exchanges with the APs.  We contacted a bit and had a meeting with P., a less-active.

Thursday: Did some more contacting with the APs, which was okay.  We had a meeting with one of their investigators with a baptismal date and taught the Law of Chastity.  We felt it went really well, but we hear they haven't had any contact with him since, which is disappointing, but that's okay.  

Friday: We did a lot of contacting today, and that went well.  I think we got four new numbers, which was solid.  Hopefully we can meet with them soon.  We had a lesson with M., another investigator.  That went really well.  He wants to get baptized, we have to take things slow with him though so he understands everything.  Excited to see how he continues to progress.

Saturday: Taught English at 12 and had the spiritual thought after, which went well.  We also had a lesson with R. afterward, an investigator.  That went really well.  We taught repentance, and next time we're planning on talking about baptism.  He's understanding everything really well.  We'll see how it goes.  Also met with a less-active, D.

Sunday: Church was good.  We also had a meeting before church with the branch presidency and the branch mission leader, and that was good.  I think we'll be able to make some good adjustments in our work moving forward.  Did a little contacting in the evening

But yea, that's how stuff is going. We're busy, enjoying life, and excited for this next week.  Hope y'all have a good one!

-Elder Hadfield

Week 83 - Warsaw

It was another great week here in Warsaw.  I'm counting right now in my planner, and we had 9 meetings either get canceled or flaked this week by less-actives, investigators, or potentials, but it was solid nonetheless. 

We did get meetings with P and D.  D is a less-active, our meeting was pretty brief because he was late, so we don't know too much about him.  P is doing well, he was at church again.  We're hoping to get a member on the lesson this week with him to help him transition and develop the relationship with members, so we'll see how it goes. 

We've got several meetings set up with some solid potentials over the course of the week, so we're hoping those will develop into something.  Excited to see how they go. 

MLC was pretty good last week.  We heard from President and the APs, and they focused a lot on planning and commitments.  It was really solid, we learned some good things.  We talked about training missionaries and the flow of information from top to bottom and how that works, so we'll be working on that during zone conferences, district meetings, exchanges, and studies.  So we'll see how it goes.  It was a good environment though, just being around the other missionaries and discussing some of the important stuff in our mission. 

Saturday evening was super cool too.  Warsaw has something every year called "Night of Museums" where a bunch of organizations and stuff do open houses and people can go around and learn about stuff like that.  Several churches participated in that, and ours was one.  From 5-9 on Saturday, we had members and missionaries gather at the chapel and kind of take people on tours and explain things and testify.  That was such a good time, I want to say one of the funnest times I've had finding on my mission.  It was funny, because people were coming up to us and asking questions, a far cry from where we're out on the streets and practically have to beg people to talk to us.  It was awesome just being able to testify to that many people who wanted to learn more.  We got some numbers from that, and we'll hit them up and see how it goes.  

Have an awesome week!

-Elder Hadfield

Week 82 - Warsaw

Elder Dossett, Elder Hadfield, Elder Erickson (MTC Buddies)

Happy Mother's Day 2018 !

It was another good week.  Skyping was solid yesterday, it was good to see all y'all again.  Kinda weird that it was the last one.  We had meetings with just a couple of the people we're working with, and they were good.  We met with P on Thursday, and that went pretty well.  We were on exchanges during that with missionaries from Lublin, and Elder Dickson went and taught M and M with one of the elders from Lublin.  Don't really know who that is, I haven't met him yet, but I think the meeting went alright.  M says he would like to be baptized, so we're hoping we can keep working with him to that point.  We'll see how it goes.  I told you about L and K, how they were in church yesterday and are going to start working with the senior couple.  We were going to have a meeting with K this week, but he couldn't find time, and kind of the same situation with R.  So we'll see if we can get some stuff to happen with them this week. 

Today was pretty good.  We spent some time with Elder Dossett this morning before he left for his new area in Białystok, and that was pretty fun.  Then later today, Elder White came in to Warsaw because he's finishing his mission, so we got to chat with him for a bit.  It's pretty unbelievable that he's finishing his mission.  If you remember, we were in the same district in Kraków my first transfer, and I rememer it feeling like we both just had so long left, and all of a sudden here it is. 

We had our culture night on Wednesday, and we did that with the rest of the missionaries in Warsaw.  That was super fun.  We went to some kind of science museum, and it was pretty sick.  I enjoyed it.  It was good spending time with the other missionaries.

The funnest part of the week was probably balling it up with Elder Erickson on Saturday, that was just a blast.  I love that guy, pretty pumped that he's my district leader this transfer.  The most spiritual event I had this week was yesterday during the second hour of church.  The office senior couple was teaching a couple from Iran, and they are scheduled to get baptized this Saturday.  We got to do the baptismal interviews for them, and my interview with the guy was just awesome.  He's just so prepared and humble, you could just feel his testimony radiating from his face. Such a cool experience. 

This week should be another busy week.  We have a couple of meetings lined up for tomorrow, on Wednesday we have some meetings, and on Friday we have MLC.  So it should be another good week.  Hope it's a good week for you as well. 

-Elder Hadfield

Week 81 - Warsaw

Dennis made us some delicious Congan food.  It's called fufu (or foo foo), and it was pretty dang good.  It's pretty much this mashed potato-like thing with some beef, zucchini, mushrooms, and fried caterpillars.  

Elder Dickson, Dennis (member) and Elder Hadfield

Hey there all y'all! 

Things are going well over here in Warsaw.  It was another busy week for us, and busy is a good thing.  We had our first recent-convert lesson with P., and that went well.  He's turning into a solid member, it's been good to see.  We also had meetings with Kr., P., and R., some of our other investigators.  Those went pretty well.  R. and P. are liking what they are reading from the Book of Mormon so far, so we're excited to see the progress they'll be making.  Kr. is having a hard time finding time for keeping commitments, but we're hoping to keep working with him and work on that.  That's pretty much all the lessons we had this week.  We're hoping that this next week, we'll be able to meet with M., our investigator who was making some good progress there, as well as L. and Kl., the investigators we had in church a week ago.  Hopefully we'll be able to make something good happen with that. 

Something cool that's going down is that Elder Erickson, from my MTC group, is coming up to Warsaw from Kraków this week!  We had a great time in the MTC, but haven't really seen each other much since then.  It's exciting that we'll be in the same city now, he's a great guy.  That'll be sweet.  But yea, things are also going great with Elder Dickson and I.  He's such a great dude, just humble as heck and a happy guy.  We're having a blast serving together.  We have transfers coming up in a week, but we're confident we'll stay together because we've only been together two weeks so far.  We'll make it a good week to finish off the transfer though. 

One thing I've been studying a bit about this week is the role of the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the missionary lessons.  In PMG, it's got a whole lesson dedicated to that, but it's also just mentioned throughout the lessons about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation.  Just goes to show how important is that we follow Jesus Christ and increase our faith, repent, are baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end.  Even as members, I think that enduring to the end involves all of the first four steps in some capacity, so as we do that, we come closer to Christ and can rely on Him better.  So yea, it's been a good week.  We're looking forward to this next week, it should be great.  We've got zone conference here in Warsaw, and that will be good seeing some of the other missionaries.  Hope you all have a great week as well!

-Elder Hadfield

Week 80 - Hello Warsaw!

Elder Hadfield, P, Elder Dickson

Hello everyone!  Hope you are all doing well, wherever you are.  I'm gonna start off this email with a scripture,

D&C 124:88 -"88 Let my servant [Elder Hadfield] go and proclaim my everlasting gospel with a loud voice, and with great joy, as he shall be moved upon by my Spirit, unto the inhabitants of Warsaw[...]"

Yep, that's right, I got transferred to Warsaw a week ago!  It was a little bit of a surpise because there are a few weeks left in the transfer, but President Turek believed it was needed, so here I am.  I was a little sad to leave Szczecin, I loved serving there and good things are starting to happen there, but I'm super excited to be in Warsaw. 

My new companion is Elder Dickson, and he's so much fun to serve with.  It's going to be a great time serving with him.  We had a lot of stuff going on this past week.  We went on exchanges with the APs on Monday and Tuesday, and it was good to work with them. 

We also had quite a few meetings this past week.  We met with P. a couple of times last week, and he actually ended up getting baptized on Saturday.  So that was way cool, I'm excited for him.  We met with an investigator, M., and that went pretty well.  He seems open to baptism, and we're getting excited to work with him toward that.  We also got two new investigators from a member referral, L. from Turkey and his girlfriend K. from Poland.  They came to church yesterday and we met with them afterwards and taught the restoration.  They honestly seem so prepared, we're so excited to work with them.  They committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and we're excited to see how that goes for them. 

The work here in Warsaw is going really well, there are so many good things happening, and I'm grateful I get to join in and work hard to see if we can keep that going.  Warsaw is an awesome city.  There are I think 1.7 million people living here, and I think that's twice as many as the next biggest city I've served in. It feels like there's always something to do.  The work is going well though. I'm super excited to be here and to be with Elder Dickson. We're having a great time together, and we're excited to see what we'll be able to accomplish. 

Hope you are all having a good time though.  Have a legendary week!-

Elder Hadfield

Week 79 - Goodbye Szczecin!

The email for the day was sent by a sister in Elder Hadfield's district, and we might not be able to hear from him personally today...

Hey! This is Siostra Poff. (I don't know how much your son talks about his districts, but if you don't know who I am, we've been serving together for 8 months haha)

I've been assigned as the newsbearer that Elder Hadfield is getting transferred! President Turek called him on Saturday, and it came as a shock, since it's still the middle of the transfer. Right now he is on a train, so he probably won't have any P-day time to email. He wants the city to be a surprise for next week, so unfortunately that's about all the news I can give you.. I can attach a picture, though!

I hope you are doing well! We sure are grateful for all you missionary moms and your love and support :)

Siostra Poff

Elder Lange, Elder Hadfield, Sister Gornichec, and Sister Poff

Week 78 - Szczecin

Hello everyone!

This week was a really good week.  We did a lot of contacting this week, and that was pretty good.  We didn't get any potentials from that this week, but we're going to spend more time on that this upcoming week and we feel good about it, we'll see what happens.  We also had exchanges this week in Gdańsk, and those went well.  We did a lot of contacting there as well, and we saw some good things happens with that, we found some potentials for them.  I got a chance to work for a few hours with Elder Wójcik, who was my companion in the MTC, and that was pretty fun.  It was cool looking back at the MTC and realizing how much progress we've made since then.  So this week, I've been working on my goal of listening to at least one talk from this past general conference a day, and it's going pretty well.  So far, one of my favorite talks is the one by Elder Godoy of the Seventy.  His talk is titled "One More Day", and it's really good.  He talks about being grateful each day to have one more day and always remember Christ's sacrifice for us.  He talks about how sacrifice brings blessings and sanctifies what we sacrifice for.  It's a really good talk, I recommend it.  I know that as we are thankful for each and every day and strive to follow our Savior, Jesus Christ, through personal sacrifice, we are strengthened and come to know more about Him.  As we come to know Him and strive to understand His atoning sacrifice, we are blessed with that peace and joy that only Christ can provide.  Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Hadfield