Homeless Hamster Huggers (H^3)‏

"Our New Bikes"

This is the Homeless Hamster Huggers coming to you live. Sister Jeppson and I have officially joined a bike club, or rather started one ourselves! So yeah... WE BOUGHT BIKES!!! I just couldnt do it anymore, I was having some major biking withdrawls, so we gave President Szabadkai a call last week and asked if we could buy ourselves some bikes. His response was "Sure, just watch out for your skirts!" It was the greatest news I have heard in a while! We absolutely love our bikes, its like we have our own cars... but just in bike form! We are like little elementary school girls with their first bike, AKA yes we take pictures with our bikes haha!

P-day bike rides!!

Enough about the bikes though, things are going great here in Kecskemét! It is truly mind blowing to me how different missions are than I ever expected, but in the greatest way possible! I honestly am having the greatest time of my life, I love it so much here! First off, lets talk about the members! We are over here chilling on a whole different continent, yet these people are so amazing and somehow still make us feel like we are at home! They are just so loving and accepting of us! Sani Bácsi brings Jepp and I chocolate everyweek  to church, Kovács Irma loves inviting us over for her famous soups, Tardi Anna just loves us to death, the Bognarék & Misi are like our older siblings, Donna is like my little American grandma whose chilling in Hungary, and then the Mecseriék are just one of the cutest families that I have ever met and always let us play with their kids and have a little fun! I honestly never knew that I would be able to love people this much, and this quickly, they are all like my little Kecskeméti family!

Next up is investigators! I have still been sick so Sister Szabadkai didn't want us meeting with alot of people this week, but we did have a few teaching programs. We had the chance to meet with our investigator József who is currently on bap date. He is having a little bit of a hard time giving up alcohol, as he has drunk his whole life, but we have been working on it with him and he is improving! He absolutely loves the Plan of Salvation and has read the pamphlet we gave him like 15 times! We decided to give him a new one to read haha! He is doing good though! 

KRISZTI!!!

Zone Training

On Thursday we had Zone Conference down in Szeged! I love getting to go back to my greenie city, it will always feel like home! We had the opportunity to meet up with Kriszti, a recent convert there in Szeged, before the training! It was so good to be able to see her! I seriously love that girl so much! Our training was really good, it was focused on trying to help our investigators to progress! After the conference I got to talk to Elder Bagley, our zone leader who I handed all my work over to when we got transferred out of Szeged. He said that András Bácsi has been doing super well and is actually progressing! He even went to church the week after I left, which was super cool, cause he had promised me he would before I left! Turns out he actually loved church and wants to come again! I am so happy for him! 

I also got a call on Saturday from Elder Wilcox, the old Zone leader in Szeged, to tell me that Pék Kitti is GETTING BAPTIZED!!! Kitti is a young college girl that I streeted one day while Sister Csolity and I were tabling in Szeged. She had a little bit of a religious background and seemed pretty interested in what we had to say. We had given her a Book of Mormon that day and she gave us her phone number so that we could meet! That was around Christmas time and then her sister got sick and had to have an operation so she was taking care of her and the hospital and was never able to meet with us before I left Szeged. I handed her over to the Zone leaders as a referral, and turns out they were able to meet with her after her sister was healed from surgery, and on Saturday she asked Elder Bagley if she could get baptized! That was super cool to hear. In our mission the work is generally pretty slow and we rarely actually get to see the seeds we plant sprout into anything. It can sometimes be really hard and a little bit discouraging, but we have to press forward in the work and just have the faith that the little things we do and the long hours spent finding will actually result in something one day. So it was really neat to hear from Elder Wilcox that a seed we had planted is actually growing, that all those long hours spent freezing our butts off in the cold were for a reason. And now because we were obedient and diligent in what we were supposed to be doing, Kitti's life will forever be changed! Its the little things we do that make the biggest difference, even if we cannot always see it in the moment. I'm very thankful that I was able to hear that story and just be re motivated in the work, to have my faith sparked once more! I seriously am so thankful for this opportunity I have to be serving here in Hungary and to share the restored gospel with these people!

Happy late valentines day from the two of us (Thanks for the chocolates mom)