Boldog Függetlenség Napja

 







Happy 4th of July to all my fellow Americans. Not going to lie, it has been weird walking around today and people just pretended like today is any other day. Clearly it is one of the greatest days of the year, and they just don't even know it! It has been a fun experience celebrating it over here in Hungary though!

Visiting With Sis Klára

This week was a crazy busy one! We were up in Buda on Wednesday and Thursday for greenie training and then we had the opportunity to go on splits with the Buda sisters, which meant that I was reunited with G-Wheely! It was by far the best splits I have ever been on, I missed that girl! Also get this, we got to go visit a member named Klára. Klára was baptized right before my trainer served in Buda and from the very beginning of my mission I have been hearing of Klára's world famous fruit soup! Well, Klára made us fruit soup on Wednesday and I am glad to say that the world on the street is true! I literally thought I had died and gone to heaven eating that soup! Plus she is just the most adorable little lady I have ever met!

Something that has been on my mind this week is the concept of Agency. When we were on splits we started discussing the concept of agency and how it is the one thing that God promises to never take away from us, yet the one thing that Satan is always trying to rob us of.  Therefore, the only truly successful surrender in life is handing our agency over to God and he will make way more out of us than we ever could alone. This seemed pretty cut and dry to me in terms of my own agency, but when you start considering that ever single person has that same agency it becomes a little more complex.

As missionaries, it can sometimes be a little difficult to accept this. We come here to work and help people grow closer to Christ, and we do our best, but sometimes it feels like in the end you didnt really do anything. Thats where the role of agency comes into missionary work. You can work your hardest and put everything you have into your mission and still come home with no baptisms. However, that doesn't determine what kind of missionary you were, because you used your agency wisely and chose to be the best kind of missionary you could be, but that doesn't mean that because of your efforts God is going to take away the agency of those you are teaching and force them to build their relationship with him. Every single person we will run into in this life has agency for themselves, and sometimes we have to accept that things are out of our hands.

This is something that has personally been a little bit of a struggle for me. We are meeting with an investigator right now, and one day she will keep her commitments and be progressing so much, and the next day she just regresses. It seems like it is always 1 step forward, 2 steps back. Who knows maybe I am exaggerating it a little bit, but regardless, I cant help but always ask myself what we are doing wrong? Why cant we seem to help her? On Saturday she promised us that she would come to church with us, so Sunday morning we got on our bikes and rode the 2 miles to her house only to find out that she wasn't home... She had picked up earlier that morning and moved back into her abusive boyfriends home. After talking to her mother we found out that she had also been smoking and drinking and never had even stopped like she told us. As we rode our bikes back the 2 miles to church, I just couldn't help thinking that clearly we must be doing something wrong, that there must be something we can do to help her. But then I realized that we are already doing our part. We were called to preach the gospel and help people come closer to Christ, but if they don't want to, we can't force them to, its their decision. As missionaries, we want everybody we meet to accept the message we have to share and the joy that comes along with it, but we also have to respect their agency and allow them to chose for themselves to either accept or deny the blessings that come from living according to the gospel. It isn't always easy, and sometimes it still frustrates me, but accepting this allows us to be responsible for our own actions and not get ourselves down when the door in the face happens, cause it does. But that's alright!

Last night while walking home it started pouring and today we took a ride out to some sunflower fields (which you can find on any back road of Hungary this time of year) and found a little lake! Enjoy the pics and have a great week!

Sok Szeretettel,

LeBaron Nővér

Sunflowers, and jumping for joy because we love the Book of Mormon! Also i just really stink at jumping pictures!

Szilvi from Kecskemét was in town for church! Also she is finally engaged!!!

My New Bilke

The Holy Ghost Square tram stop

Fruit Soup at Klára's

Tiger juice with G-Wheely

Rainy days!

~6/27/16~ "The Power of Love"

As Celine Dion once put it "Sometimes I am frightened, but I am ready to learn of the power of love." This week we had our Zone Conferences up in Buda, and the focus was Christ-like Attributes. While there are many different attributes that we should all be trying to emulate better, the most important one is Charity. Sometimes we too often think that charity simply just means serving others, which it does, but the service itself is not charity, but rather blossoms from the Christ-like love we are striving to feel for all of those around us. 

When I started my mission, I would say that I was a pretty reserved person. I liked to do my own thing, and be my own person, and that meant not feeling the need to open up to other people. I had my family and my friends and I didn't need to love anybody else, I didn't need to open up to anybody else and let them love me. I don't like to feel vulnerable, I don't think anybody really does, but that is exactly what love does to us; it makes us vulnerable. And that is something that scared me. Being here in Hungary and representing the Lord has changed that though. I have come to realize that there is no such thing as missionary work, if there is no love. All of us here on missions can all tie our motivation back to one thing: love. We love our Savior and because of that, we chose to come half way across the world, leaving others that we love behind, to share the message with others that He lives! That the man he perfectly loves each and every single one of us is resurrected and lives on, and that we, through Him, can also! My time here in Hungary has taught me that you cant serve somebody if you don't first love them. You might be able to go through the motions, but the intent and the blessings will not be there! We met with an investigator, and had a lesson with him in which we informed him why we are here and asked him whether we can help him or if we are just wasting his time, as he refuses to keep any commitments or take any steps of faith. I realized that the whole time he has not been progressing because he was too scared of being vulnerable and finding out if there really is a God that loves him. I in the same way, have been missing out on all the progression and blessings because I have been scared of loving people and truly letting others love me back. When I was able to accept this, my mission changed! I wasn't trying to make our numbers look good so that the Mission President would recognize our efforts,I was no longer working hard to try and get leadership positions, I was no longer having to motivate myself to go and tract for hours on end. Why? Because I found my motivation! Choosing to love all of our investigators, the members, and even just the people on the streets has changed me. It has reminded me why I am here, and it has allowed me to do things that I didn't know I was capable of doing and reach the hearts of people that seemed completely gone. I'm still not perfect at loving everybody, but as I have done my best, I have seen the change it has made in my life these past few weeks! Even though it may be "frightening" at times, I'm ready to learn of the power it has and see the furthered blessings it will bring in this work! 

In addition to Zone conference, we were able to meet with a family this week. They parents were baptized over 10 years ago while living in California for a few years, but have been inactive ever since returning to Hungary! We were able to get a hold of them and set up to meet with the whole family! They have three kids, and the oldest son is a swimmer! We spent the evening just getting to know them and at the end shared a short Mormon message about the Family. It went really well and they said they might be able to come to church sometime! It was really neat! He even called us later to tell us that he had emailed his Mormon friend in California and told him all about our visit! We are really excited to be working with their family, they are such great people!

Working with Sister Dorny has been a blast! I am so lucky to have her as my greenie, she is such a great person! For Pday we had a fun little adventure at Postelek, which involved climbing in the castle ruins, me slipping down a muddy hill into a pile of nettle and getting my bum muddy, and me falling off the teeter totter! Clearly I am a skilled person! At least it provides entertainment for the rest of the district haha! There will be a lot of photos to follow! Hope you all have a great week! Love you!

Sok Szeretettel,

 LeBaron Nővér

Doing "THE BUNKER ELDER"

Doing some exploring!

      

Nettle is not my friend :(