Goodbye Bcsabs; Hello Veszprém (Aug 22, 2016 Post)

This week was definitely full of a lot of changes. It was bittersweet saying goodbye to all the wonderful people in Béékéscsaba! I swear that it just gets harder to say goodbye with every area! I will forever be thankful for the people in Békéscsaba who made a place for me in their lives and hearts. Those people have helped me more than they will ever know! Saying goodbye I just wanted to cry! Not to mention having to say goodbye to Sister Dorny! I gave her one last hug and as i pulled back there were tears in her eyes and it just broke me heart! Leaving your baby stinks! Luckily I am still in the country and we get to talk every once in a while on the phone! The first few days were a little rough, but she is doing alot better now thank heavens, and I am glad that she is still there to take care of all of my Békéscsba people for me!

 

On a positive note, I am so glad to be here in Veszprém.
This place is seriously the cutest thing ever! I love it! Also I love my new "new missionary" as the title greenie is no longer approved haha. Her name is Sister Evans, she is from Portland, OR, she played lacrosse in high school and rugby at USU! She is a really sweet girl! Our district is the bomb! We have Elder Lawrence and Thomas, as well as the elders serving in Székesfehérvár , Elder Winegar and Norris! It is literally the perfect combination of personalities, I love it! 

Unfortunately, there is currently no work here, so we are trying to change that real quick and get the work going like it was a couple years ago. We have spent the past few days just trying to figure out where to start and finally get our feet on the ground here so we can get the work going here. We did have the chance to meet our one investigator "M", she is a really sweet girl and when I asked her if she had prayed about a baptismal date she said that she is praying about it right now, so hopefully we will be able to help her to make those sacred covenants that she seems ready and eager to make. 

Besides that we are trying to get some work going from the area book. The previous sisters said that they didn't like doing phone calls and lookups so they did not use the area book as a resource for finding at all, but we have found a lot of records with no explanation as to why they are no longer meeting with us, so we are praying that we will be able to get a hold of those who are still willing to learn about the church and act accordingly. 

Last night as we were tracting, we were just finishing up our hour, and then headed home as a man pulled his car over on the street and said "excuse me".  I thought that he was going to want directions somewhere, but he asked if we are Mormons. I told him yes and he asked if we could meet later that evening. I called up a member, Márta, whom I had met at church that day and asked her if she could come and help us in our appointment with him, and she was more than willing to come help. We met her at the bus stop and walked over to the mans home. He invited us in and began to tell us about a man by the name of Varga Péter Pál. I was not familiar with the name, but he went on the explain that 15 years ago this man had performed a spinal surgery for him. 5 years later he found out that Péter is a Mormon and apparently had a large part in getting the church up and going here in Hungary. Ever since, he has been really curious about our church and Péter's involvement in the church. He has been trying to find him for the last 5 years but has not been able to find any contact information but is really curious about his beliefs. He told us that we were the first Mormons that he has ever seen in Veszprém so he had to stop and talk to us. We ended up being able to talk to him about the restoration of the church, introduced him to the Book of Mormon and the promise that we can know it is all true if we are willing to pray about it and ask God. He committed that he will read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, and that when he is in town (he works abroad) he will come to church here in Veszprém. How cool is that? We are really excited for them. In the meantime we are trying to find some contact information for this Varga Péter Pál, because I truly feel that it could be his link that gets him truly involved in the church. He was a great guy though.  He will be out of town for the next few weeks, but he said he will call us and come to church as soon as he gets back. 

Other than that, we are jsut trying to find those people here in Veszprém who are just waiting for the gospel, as well as building relationships with the members here so that they can help us in the work and we can be a team. We had the chance to go over to the branch presidents home the other day and meet him and I am excited to be able to work with him and the other members, the ones we have met have been really amazing and im sure that all the others whom we have yet to meet will be the same. 

In Church we had a missionary speak, Vasváry Máté, who returned from his mission in Scotland/ Ireland this week. He talked about missionary work not being easy, and that is about as true as it gets, but neither was the Atonement easy when Christ suffered for each and every one of us. I thought that was such an interesting way of putting it. Because in a way, our missionary service is a sign of gratitude for the sacrifice he made for us, and so we should never assume that as such it would be easy. But the great part is that, if we do have sufferings and hard times throughout our missions, we dont have to be alone as Christ was during his sacrifice if we are willing to always repent and turn to him for help and comfort! How great is that promise? We truly do have a reason to be happy!

Perhaps there will be some hard times here, frustrating moments as we try to get the work going, but that's okay, because the Atonement of Jesus Christ makes it so that we can smile through those hard times, so that we can truly be happy regardless of the situations around us. I am so grateful for this knowledge and that i can say this because i have experienced it, the blessings of His atonement are truly endless!

Sok Szeretettel,

LeBaron Nővér