Celebrating Hungarian Holiday "FARSANG"

Farsang buli!

I had to feed Jepp some pudding while blindfolded   ....it was great!

József!

Szilvia one of the members here in kecskemét that we meet with!

Dinner at the Mecseriék! I finally got Kolos to smile for a picture!!

 Talented Aser and his guitar!

The Mecseriék...AGAIN! We love them so much!

 

Celebrating mine and Fifi's 6 month mark with Pillows and star wars milk!

Fifi loves to wear my glasses for some reason

Well folks, I don't have a lot of time today, given that it is transfers this week, but this last week has been great!   

We had a lot of programs with some of the members here in Kecskemét and just met with our usual investigators! We were focusing on József this past week and he actually has committed to get baptized! We have to work on the work of wisdom with him a little bit, because he struggles with smoking and drinking, but he already decided that he wanted to quit before we met him, so now we are just trying to help him with that! He has progressed so much since we met him just 3 weeks ago though, it is truly amazing!

This week was FARSANG!!! It is a Hungarian holiday that is celebrated a little bit like Halloween, just without the trick-or.-treat part. We had a little carnival party at the Branch house though, and played a bunch of games with the members, and one of our investigators, Tamás, came! 

Transfer calls came in this morning: Sister Jeppson and I will be staying together here in Kecskemét and Sister Giullian will be going to Szeged to train! We are all super excited!

Hungarian gyms...random toy looking things in a park that are apparantly for grown ups!

Terézia és a Cukorbetegsége

​Turós Pita yumm!

Another week in Kecskemét come and gone, and I just continue to fall more in love with this place every-week!  We had a lot of teaching appointments as is the usual here in Kecskemét, we met with both of our Tamás' a few less active néni's, and some new investigators that we found tracting last week.

We had been cséngőing people for about an hour and were almost done, when we cséngőd a man named József! He didn't really say much, just buzzed us into the building so we thought that it must have been an accident. We decided we would just go up anyways and when we climbed the 5 flights of stairs we found József there waiting for us and he let us into his apartment. He's an older man, probably in his 60s and come to find out it was actually his mom, terézia's apartment, he just takes care of her during the days cause she is really old and sick. We ended up telling him about our church, giving him a Book of Mormon, and setting up a return appointment! Before we left, i turned around to say goodbye to Terézia and she had this pen looking thing in her hand and when she pulled of the cap it was actually a needle, and she started to twist it and counted to three. Me and sister Giullian made eye contact and both of us were a little bit scared, wondering how there she was in the head. Just then Terézia set the needle down and so we just left him to take care of his mom. 

This week when we went back to meet with József, sister Guillian and I both said that if Terézia did it again we were going to bust up laughing! So we got to József's house and started teaching him and half way through the teaching appointment Terézia wakes up and grabs her pen! Giull and I just looked at each other and couldn't believe it! This time she pulled of the cap and twisted the needle counting clear up to 10! and then she jabbed it into her leg with her shaking hands! József didn't react at all, so we figured it must be fine! Terézia was struggling to get the cap back on because her hands were shaking so bad, so Jeppson asked her if she could help. As Jepp put the cap on, the needle was curved and broke through the cap and went straight into Jepp's finger and she started bleeding! Terézia normally isn't too alert and doesn't talk too much, but when Jepp stabbed herself Terézia just goes ˇ"Okay" and then laid down and went to bed! It was hilarious! Luckily she doesn't have AIDS or Hepatitis though so Jepp is going to be fine! 

Yes, Even after sharing will have enough for left overs!!!

Pizza...Miért nem?

A néni at church gave us some postcards, maps, and some sort of medication...Thank you!

Ice Age anybody?

Terézia aside, our program with József actually was amazing! When we got in there we asked him if he had read the chapter from the Book of Mormon that we had assigned him last time. His response was "I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, called of God." Talk about golden! He not only read the chapter we gave him, but also looked up in the index any word that he didn't fully understand! He doesn't really know much right now, but he has so much faith and loves hearing what we have to teach! Gosh he is just so great! He really wants to come to church too, but has to find someone who can take of his mom while he comes, so he wasn't able to make it this week. Before we left, we asked if he would say the closing prayer. He had never been super religious growing up, and he told us that he didn't know how to. We told him briefly what to do, and he offered us a prayer! It was one of the simplest, but most heart-felt prayers I have ever heard! It is crazy, I honestly can say that I just love him! It is weird how serving people has a way of allowing you to love strangers that you don't even know yet! I seriously am just so grateful for the opportunity to be here in Hungary serving the Lord and sharing his gospel with the people here in Kecskemét! Next week is transfers, so who knows if I will stay or go, but either way, I'm grateful for the time I have had here, the people I have met, and the things that I have learned from all of them! I think it is so important to remember to be thankful for the people in our lives! I truly believe that each person we meet has something unique to offer to the world and something special that we can learn from them! Try to look at people the way that our Father in Heaven sees them, and I know that we will be able to better appreciate people and love them, and just be happier ourselves in general!

I seriously love all of you and hope that everything is going well at home! Have a great week!

Sok Szeretettel
     LeBaron Nővér

Tracting Adventures and a pretty sunset that you kind of can't see

Inci and I

Touring the Kecskeméti Városháza and the Greek Orthidox Templom

Kecskeméti Csárda- best gyümölcs leves ever!

 

Bocs everybody, its been a really long week and I don't have a lot of time to write today! We had the opportunity to go down to Szeged this week for Zone conference, that was really fun! I got to see Sister Layton, we really don't even know each other that well, but we somehow bonded over the fact that we both served with Sister Dohm and after a few late night calls we are like best friends now! She is super cute, I love her! It was nice to see my old district too!

Saturday we got stopped by some bible bashers, so that was an adventure! The guy started out somewhat respectful, but by the end he was totally just attacking us and our church. He started going off on how we just walk around with our shiny name badges, telling people that we are perfect and everybody needs to be more like us, while shoving our beliefs down their throats. We tried to explain ourselves and share a little bit with him about what we actually believe, but he was too set on just trash talking our church and Joseph Smith. I finally asked him if he had ever prayed and received revelation that Joseph Smith was not a true prophet and that he just made up the Book of Mormon and the man replied by saying that he studied in America so he didn't need to pray about it cause he knew enough. We started bearing our testimonies about it to him and he just put his hands up in the arm, told us that we better make sure we repent of all our sins, and walked away, obviously realizing that he had been in the wrong. Honestly it was a really frustrating experience, but it made me grateful for the things that we do believe within our church. I am grateful that as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we don't try and shove doctrine down peoples throats and make them just take our word for things. In fact, there is nothing we want less. We are there to help people learn about what we believe and invite them to find out for themselves! Missionary work is not between the missionary and the investigator, it is between the missionary & God and the investigator & God. We are all just out here working on our own relationship with God and inviting others to strengthen their relationship with God also! We aren't trying to tear down the previous beliefs of people, we are trying to build upon them and inviting them to act to discover the truth for themselves! To me that is what missionary work is, and am grateful for the opportunity I have to be able to do just that! ​Kecskeméti Csárda- best gyümölcs leves ever!

P-day fun in the malls arcade

Our GIANT pizza​

Wow~Talk about a HUGE slice!

Gwheely's great photography of me and my beautiful bed and sleeping bag blanket

Sister Layton and I Meet

Zone conference in Szeged!

 

Bishop's daughter Janka did our hair!

 Janka & I ~ She is a doll!

Gwheely

Welcome to Kecskemét {week 24}‏

                                                           The view from our balcony of the Fő Tér churches

This letter comes to you from the beautiful city of Kecskemét! My first week here has been super great! It is weird that it has only been a week, we all feel like I have been here for forever, and me and my companions are getting along great!  Jepp is an opera singer from Idaho with a BEAUTIFUL voice and Guilli is an avid fan of Star Wars from Montana who used to be a drummer in a band! They are great! It has been a week full of a lot of "teachings" (as we now call them), zero tracting (bocs pres.), and just a few crazy adventures to bond us as companions (aka Donna and Pig Jello)!

Our first comp picture

Donna is a member here in Kecskemét, but here's the twist to the story... Donna is actually from

St. George, Utah! CRAZY, RIGHT?! Her son served here in Hungary like 20 years ago, ended up coming back and marrying a Hungarian, and Donna's husband had passed away so she decided to come here with son! She has some back problems, so she is confined to her home, so we get to go visit her every Monday! She was the first person I met here in Kecskemét and I absolutely love her! She is super sassy, has a lot of random information jammed in her brain, and is convinced that the whole American government is just full of insider conspiracies, so needless to say our teachings with her are about as interesting as they come! We are also teaching one of her friends, Tamás, right now, so we are over at her house quite a bit! She is great though, I love it!

Fifi helping us move

After 3 months of sleeping on a couch in Szeged wrapped inside 2 fitted sheets because we had no blankets, I finally got to Kecskemét to find a nice queen sized bed! Turns out it was too good to be true though, it was just a box spring, not an actual mattress, and after the first night of sleeping on it, we sat down and the whole bed frame shattered, so we have now made a bed for me in the corner of the front room on the ground with the box spring mattress! Oh the adventures of serving in Hungary!

My old bed :( 

Through out the week we had about 15 programs, a big step up from the usual 3- 5 we got in Szeged! It was really neat to be able to participate in all the teachings and just be able to bear my testimony of the things we taught! We also got fed. Like alot...I think the whole week we only cooked like 3 times! On Sunday I had the chance to get up and introduce myself in church and bear my testimony. It is always difficult trying to get across what i want to say in a foreign language, but it was a neat experience!

Pig Jello

Last night on our way home for Choir Practice we got a call from a néni in the word saying that she had some food for us called Kocsonya. We didn't know what it was, but she told us that she saw on TV that everybody in Utah loves it so she had made it for us! Luckily she allowed us to take it home to try it, cause when we showed up and saw it we were absolutely delighted to see that it was Pig Jello, which literally consists of pig bones, some meat, and the fat chilled into a jello, with paprika sprinkled on the top!

Something that has been on my mind lately though is just how amazing the Atonement is! It is something that no matter how long we live or how much we study it, we will never be able to fully comprehend all that it truly encompasses. But what we can comprehend is that Jesus suffered for us! Each one of us individually! It doesn't matter what it may be that is going on in our lives right now, whether it be good times or times of trail, the Atonement is applicable to our circumstances and it can help! We can receive comfort and peace in our lives through it! I have a testimony of that, and I am oh so grateful for it in my personal life! I would just challenge all of you, no matter what state of life you may be in,
to turn to him and let him be the light in your life! 

I love you all, and hope you have a great week!

Sok Szeretettel, 

LeBaron Nővér

Sorry for the somewhat gross, graphic pictures, they were just too priceless...

 

In all honesty I feel really bad... That was very sweet & kind of her to go out of her way to make us something Really, Really SPECIAL!

 Misi (a member) eating Jepp's face!

Choir practice for Jepp and Henrik

Last Monday: Saying goodbye to Sister Csolity on the train!