HELLO all my American friends! This week was a really good week!
First off, because I got to see my two favorite Janka's in the world!
Aren't they just adorable?
To start off our weird little half week, on Thursday we had our very last district meeting with Elder and Sister Simkins! We are so sad to see them go, but they are leaving the office and headed to Eger where they will finish the rest of their mission! It is going to be kind of strange not having them here, because they have been in the office since I got to Hungary, but they are going to love Eger, and Im just so glad I got the chance to know them and serve with them for a few weeks! After district meeting we had a little goodbye party for them! And of course the APs had to take a picture with Elder Simkins!
Later that day, we were able to meet with Emilia, a less active member, and we had a really good lesson with her talking about faith. Imreh Attila, our ward mission leader, came with us, and was a big help and the spirit was very strong there! She is progressing really well, and really has a desire to become active in the church again, we just need to help her give up smoking. Unfortunately we found out that she is living in the secretaries area, so we will be having a passover lesson this week, but I think it will be really good for Emilia, cause Elder González is hungarian and all so he will be able to really help her in her pursuit to quit smoking! And then of course we took a few pictures that night while waiting for our tram.
Funny story of that night:To start off our weird little half week, on Thursday we had our very last district meeting with Elder and Sister Simkins! We are so sad to see them go, but they are leaving the office and headed to Eger where they will finish the rest of their mission! It is going to be kind of strange not having them here, because they have been in the office since I got to Hungary, but they are going to love Eger, and Im just so glad I got the chance to know them and serve with them for a few weeks! After district meeting we had a little goodbye party for them! And of course the APs had to take a picture with Elder Simkins!
Later that day, we were able to meet with Emilia, a less active member, and we had a really good lesson with her talking about faith. Imreh Attila, our ward mission leader, came with us, and was a big help and the spirit was very strong there! She is progressing really well, and really has a desire to become active in the church again, we just need to help her give up smoking. Unfortunately we found out that she is living in the secretaries area, so we will be having a passover lesson this week, but I think it will be really good for Emilia, cause Elder González is hungarian and all so he will be able to really help her in her pursuit to quit smoking! And then of course we took a few pictures that night while waiting for our tram.
...So as usual, we were just chilling on the wall, swinging our legs and marveling at the Budapest beauty, and an older man approaches me. He asked me if he could say something, so I told him sure. He then informed me that "This is very dangerous!" and told us we should get off the wall. I figured he was referring to us sitting on the wall and just didnt want one of us to accidentally fall off (dont worry mom, its only like a 6 foot drop down to the side walk). However, he continued to tell me that he is a medical physician and that if I continue to sit on that cold wall for 30 more seconds that all my eggs will freeze and I will never have children! The man was very kind but as he spoke he was starting to get very anxious, so even though there wasn't much logic, we hurried a climbed down just to avoid giving him a heart attack! Hungarian Stereotypes never fail to make me laugh though! So heres a picture of the shoes before we got kicked off the wall!
Friday morning we met with Dörömbözy Erika, or investigator who has a baptismal date right now. After everything that was discussed in MLC and Zone Trainings last week, we decided to do an in-depth discussion of the baptismal interview questions and see exactly where she is with things. We went through all the questions and she has a very strong testimony about everything! We also were able to take Vadas Erika, a recent convert, to that lesson with us, and she bore a very strong testimony to Erika and they became really good friends! It was literally perfect having the other Erika there, because they both have little babies, so the kids just played together while we had the lesson, and Erika was just so flattered that we would invite her! So it was a double win! The only thing that is presently a dilemma with Erika's baptismal date is her family. All of her family is very catholic, but she finally decided to tell her parents and they told her that they supported her, but told her not to tell her grandmother. Erika knows that she needs to, but she is just trying to find the right time and build up the courage to do it. Any prayers on her behalf would be very much appreciated!
We were supposed to meet with Kovács Tibor later that day, but he didnt show up. He also didnt come to Stake Conference, and he isnt answering any of his phones, so we are a little concerned about that, but hopefully we will be able to get in contact with him this week!
We also had the Veszprém sisters come here for exchanges on Friday. Sister Swenson and Sister evans both seem to be doing really well! I had the opportuntiy to go with Sister Swenson and she truly is an amazing missionary! On Saturday we had a lesson with an inactive member, Berényi Zsuzsa, and it went REALLY well! In the past it seems like missionaries have just gone over there to fill up their schedule and get one more number, and so they had planned for us to teach Gospel of Jesus Christ next, but when we got there and introduced ourselves and got to know her and her background with the church, we knew that was not what needed to be taught. We were very bold with her, and asked her why she isnt coming to church. We continued to ask questions until it finally came down to her admitting that she believes our church is true, but doesnt believe in the Book of Mormon and never has. We had a really good discussion about the Book of Mormon, why it is important, how we should study it, what it means to ask in faith and how we can receive and recognize our personal answer from God that it is true, and then Sister Swenson and I were both able to bear powerful testimonies of how the Book of Mormon has changed our lives! The spirit was very strong in her home, and her countance seemed to change throughout the lesson. At the end we asked her if she wanted to know for herself if the Book of Mormon is true, and she said yes. And then we had her set a reading goal to read at least one chapter every single day! She was really excited and we committed her to pray before and after she reads to be able to invite the spirit when she reads! I really do think that she has a lot of potential, and that if we continue to teach her and her needs, rather than just lessons, then she will be able to feel the spirit and know that the Book of Mormon is true, and will have that desire to put her life in harmony with the Gospel and come back to church! i am really excited to see where things will go with that!
Saturday and Sunday we had Stake conference. On our way to stake conference Saturday night, we caught the metro over to pest and there was a huge group of missionaries there, and they all decided to walk to the stake center. Sister Swenson and I decided we wanted to beat everybody there, so we were going to take the bus, only problem is that the bus driver said he wasnt going that way. So we hurried and started running to catch up with the crowd! All of sudden, a taxi pulls over next to us and 3 people pile it out leaving it empty! So Sister Swenson and I thought "We are in Budapest right now, why not take a taxi just for fun?" So we hopped in and told the taxi driver where we were going. We were speaking hungarian, but unfortunately the good Óle American accent is still somewhat there, so the driver told us that we speak very well, but asked us whether we were hungarian or not. We told him not, and explained what we are doing here half way across the world! We shared a little message with him as he drove about eternal families, and then he told us that the 3 people we saw get out of the car were actually his wife and 2 kids. We talked alot about religion and unfortunately he wasnt really interested, but as we pulled up to the church and asked him how much we owed, he said that we didnt owe him anything, that he purposefully didnt start the clock. We told him that we insisted on at least giving him some change, but he told us "Isn't this just what you call a good deed? I know that I'm not a big believer, but I believe this is what Christ would do!" Most of the people we meet as missionaries may never accept the gospel, but it truly is the small little influences we make in peoples lives that make it all worth it! It was so neat that even though he didnt want to hear more, that just a simple taxi ride made him want to do go a good deed for 2 foreigners when he could have very much used that money for his own family!
Stake Conference was amazing as always! I really loved all of the talks and was able to learn so much from them! We had a member of the 70, Elder Adler come and speak to us. I loved the emphasis that he put on temples! The temple truly is the house of the Lord and there is no place on earth that we can be closer to him than in the temple, so we should be making the sacrifices and efforts necessary to be able to go to the house of the Lord whenever possible! I also love that he said, even if we are unable to attend because of financial or other circumstances, we should always have our recommends on us everyday as a reminder of the covenants we have made in the temple, and also so when we are tempted or even just put in a situation where we must choose between good or better, that we can think of our temple recommend and ask ourselves if we will still be worthy and comfortable to enter the house of the Lord if we do it. I also loved his talk during the Sudnay general session when he talked about true love being forgiveness! It is sometimes so easy to find the faults in others and so much harder to see our own. But the key is to try and see everyone as Christ sees them and then we will be able to see the good and forgive them more easily! At the end of his talk he said that if we refuse to forgive someone who has properly repented, we are denying the power of the Savior's Atonement. What a great perspective that is, to remind us to look for the good, forgive, and judge no more!
Another perk to Stake Conference is seeing all the people from all my different cities that I just love!
This is Ellinor and she is seriously the greatest thing ever! She
is from germany speaks no hungarian (just english and german), but she
got married in August to Bence from Kecskemét! And the best part is that
I just found out they are living here in Buda now, so hopefully I will
be able to see her more often!
OLIVÉRRRRRR!
AND OF COURSE THE MECSERIÉK!!!!!!
Bocs, that this one turned out kind of orange, but its whatevs, had to still send it because its got them all in it!
Other than all that, while tracting we got a few numbers from people this week, so we are really looking forward to being able to meet with them! And we are increasing our faith in finding, that we may not limit god's ability to use us as his instruments in this work! I hope you all have a great week, and never forget how much I love you!
Sok Szeretettel,
LeBaron Nővér
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